120. Into the wild - from Kazakhstan to Kyrgyzstan

We enjoyed our three day jaunt across Kazakhstan. The wide open spaces of the remote southeastern corner, the small towns with friendly folk. Less so the million mosquitos that gathered around us each evening and the three seasons in 24 hours - from hot sunshine on the steppe to cold rain on the climb up to Kegen and the Karkara valley and then the sleet that fell as we passed through the recently reopened Karkara valley border crossing between Kazakhstan and its mountainous southern neighbour - Kyrgyzstan. Our parting from Kazakhstan was a warm one from the friendly Kazakh customs officers who spiked our hot cups of coffee with shots of vodka. Kazakhstan is larger than western Europe and we'd only seen a snippet of the vast country that stretches all the way to the oil rich Caspian Sea. Like the other 'stans in the region - the name of the country tries to evoke a mono-ethnic idyll that belies the truth of its multiethnic population. While Kazakh and Russian groups dominate, smaller minorities also have a significant presence including Uighur, Kyrgyz, and Uzbek. Other groups such as the Poles, Germans, Tatars and Ukrainians who were often forcibly settled in the region during the early years of the Soviet Union have also made significant contributions to the country, although many of these groups have migrated west again since 1991 and the end of the USSR.

Our second country in central Asia and another one of the former fifteen Soviet Republics was Kyrgyzstan. Shortly before leaving China we were able to confirm that the Karkara valley border crossing was reopen again for business having been closed after the political turmoil in Kyrgyzstan in 2010. Renowned as one of the most picturesque border crossings in central Asia, Karkara valley is home to a summer population of cowboys and yurts bringing their livestock up to graze on the knee-deep grass alongside black cranes breaking their journey from Siberia to South Africa and back. As the rain turned to sleet and a vain attempt to find some dry ground in a soggy landscape, we turned towards a ramshackle village to pitch our tent up. The village was mostly young men who were here to herd for the summer months. A couple were drunk but most stood at a discreet distance and watched inquisitively as the tent went up. A man came up and insisted on making us tea and storing our bikes in his shed. We'd perish with the cold he said. We would have to sleep inside. The dogs will bark all night at us he told us. Although very cold, we knew our gear was up to the task however and we splashed back across the wet grass to our cold abode. Eventually the enormous dogs also relaxed and their barking ceased. We woke up to snow covered hillsides and spent the day riding our way down to Tup and Issy Kul lake on a road that improved from gravel to hard dirt to tarmac.

In Tup we found lodgings in the dining room of a lady running a cafe. Evening tea was served in fine china under chandeliers and a long table. A bookcase full of dusty Russian works loomed over us. Outside in the garden, apple and apricot tree branches were getting heavier with their fruit by the day. For the next two days we rode west along the northern shore of lake Issy Kul. The second largest high-altitude lake after Lake Titicaca. Formerly a testing ground for Soviet naval weapons, the 700 metre deep lake now tries to prosper from gentler means, especially tourism. Speedo-clad Kazaks and Russians flock to the lake during the summer months. Rising up from the southern shore, the snow-topped Tian Shan stretches along the Chinese-Kyrgyz border. High in the mountains is also the site of Kumtor gold mine, a large Canadian-managed operation that was recently in the press due to protests calling for its nationalisation.

Descending from the lake to the lowlands at Kemin we rolled towards Bishkek and shortly before Tokmok a bullet sized metal pin did some damage to my rear tyre as darkness rolled in. Unable to find a quiet spot to camp we asked at a roadside shop if we could camp in the garden. It was no problem of course. In a land where the semi-nomadic traditions of its highland population are still alive and well, asking for a place to camp is rarely met with any source of concern, even amongst the settled inhabitants. More perplexing for our hosts is our lack of interest in drinking vodka after a long day in the saddle.

Village shops are awash in familiar goods - dairy products and bread - in a diet that although very heavily meat based, is still much more familiar to us than that of east Asia. The other half of the shop is dedicated to the several dozen varieties of vodka that creak the shelves. The macho culture is also a new phenonomen. Fast, reckless driving and prolific drinking along with a swagger that one would almost never see in eastern Asia is disconcerting.

With its relaxed visa regulations, Kyrgyzstan and its capital, Bishkek, was going to be a stopover on our route west. Stocking up on visas for the countries ahead, we picked up our Tajik, Uzbek and Iranian visas last week. Ellie battled the flu for a few days and my mother made the trip out from Ireland for ten days and we spent a few days exploring the city and then up to the mountains at Kochkor and Song Kol lake where yurts were erected on the summer pastures. A successful community-based tourism association offers homestays in the region and we spent a memorable night with a family by the 3070 metre high lake.

We're back on the road in the next day or two, back to the mountains, bound for southern Kyrgyzstan and the Ferghana valley before crossing into Tajikistan to ride the Pamir highway around to Dushanbe.

Into Kazakhstan

Real men drink beer for breakfast 

Baby camel and its mother by the roadside

At last we get to use our headnets...

Quiet reading time in the drainage tunnel

Approaching the Kazakhstan-Kyrgyzstan border post in the Karkara valley

First night in Kyrgyzstan - snow, dogs and village camping

Kyrgyz cowboys

Village shop

Approaching Issy Kul lake, near Tup

Issy kul 

Issy Kul

Graveyards

Descending to the lowlands and Bishkek

Camping in this family's garden

On the train

Driving up to Song Kol

More Lada promotional footage...

Kids at Song Kol

Yurts

Song Kol

Home for the night

Song Kol

Dinner time

Vodka time

View The Slow Way Home - Map 2 in a larger map

Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

Pedalled: 72,985 km

Please note that as part of this trip I am fundraising for the Dublin-based Peter McVerry Trust who work primarily with supporting homeless youth and this year they mark their 30th anniversary. If you would like to make a donation, you can do so via my fundraising page on the mycharity.ie website (click here). Thank you.

119. A few photos from Xinjiang

Someone turned the internet in China off the other day before I could post these photos of the ride from Urumqi to the border...

Yesterday we crossed into Kazakhstan.

We were met by a smiling immigration officer, "Give me prezent!". Failing to get any more financial reward he demanded our Kazakh medical card. "You don't have Kazakh medical card?!?" Finally we were stamped in.

Since then it has been great. Small roads, small towns and a ride across the steppe to the hills where we will climb up to the recently reopened border crossing in the Karkara valley. Learning some Russian and declining mid-morning vodka offers.

A drainage tunnel near Shonzhy, Kazakhstan
Pedalled: 72,395 km

118. To the end of China

On the evening of my birthday, the Fed Ex tracking information changed from a forbidding red to a more pleasing blue and informed me that my replacement gear unit that Rohloff was shipping out from Germany had cleared customs and would be in Urumqi shortly. Three days later, with a newly installed gear unit running smoothly, we rode out of town at the ridiculous hour of 4 p.m. Here in western China, when you have sunlight until 10:30 pm now, you can do that sort of thing. The day prior to leaving I was down in one of the bike shops near the hostel getting some bits and pieces when I ran into Paul. We chatted for a bit, always eager to share tales from the road and in particular as we were going the same direction. Paul is riding from Korea back to the Gloucestershire. Before we headed back to the hostel to pick up Ellie and go for dinner we realised that we had a mutual friend - Troy, our Yankee cycling partner in southern Thailand and Malaysia last year who abandoned us for a boat. Troy had mentioned a couple of months back in an email that he knew someone who was also heading east this year and then in the middle of all this vastness we meet in a bike shop in Urumqi. But the small world got smaller when we also realised later that Paul's sister and Ellie's brother are old friends and Paul's sister works in Hanoi, Vietnam - where we met her for a pig brain feast when we passed through the city. Unfortunately Paul was waiting another few days for both his Kazakh visa and a package of bike bits, so it will probably be Bishkek before we catch up again.

So we left Paul and rode out of Urumqi and straight into the airport where we sheltered from some rain. We got lost a bit here trying to find the way onto the G312 and our route west but eventually got on track and dodged more showers as we passed through Changji. The few hundred kilometres along the northern foothills of the Tian Shan are completely different from the desert section we rode through in eastern Xinjiang. Here leafy towns are fed by tunnels that flow with meltwater and runoff from the mountains nearby, trees and green fields line the road for much of the way. It's also a lot more populated - migrant Chinese workers along with ethnic minorities such as Uigher, Kazakh and Mongol - living what seem like quite separate lives. Finding a quiet place to pitch up was slightly more challenging on this section and we often had to wait until dusk (10 p.m.) before diving in for cover off the roadside. After some forays past the ever-present roadworks, we got back onto the G30 motorway and headed west. Often one side of the motorway was still closed to traffic but we could get on and ride for kilometres with three lanes of perfect asphalt to ourselves while the motorists battled it out on the other side of the divide. Wonderful.

As we ate at a Muslim restaurant by the roadside near Jinghe the women motioned to the skies to indicate that a big storm was coming. Sure enough, a few minutes later a dust storm blew through and coated everything in the fine dust for a couple of hours. In the evening we continued on our way with a tailwind blowing us closer to where we'd start our climb over the Tian Shan and down to the border. That evening, however, we ended up arriving at night into a small town off the highway. The town was a mixture of Han and Muslim and we contemplated our options for the night. Since we already had 140 km on the clock, riding out in the dark to find a camping spot seemed like hard work, especially as there were no obvious places in the wide, open fields on the way in. Checking in at the one small hotel we could see would no doubt arose the authorities to our presence and we'd have to go through the usual form filling and registration. So instead we opted to ask at the police station if we could stay somewhere and we were quickly led by a team of eager young officers who were in the midst of a basketball game towards the hotel we'd seen. Halfway there however and we did a u-turn back to the station as it dawned on the sergeant that we should really go through all the registering and form filling and form stamping and questions before we settled into a room. They were an eager and pretty friendly bunch of officers and we sat in a room upstairs and asked all sorts of questions while our passports where thumbed through by everyone. Finally at midnight we got to go to bed.

Back out on the road the next day we continued towards our goal of the high altitude lake of Sayram Hu. Something hadn't agreed with Ellie, however, and she felt quite sick whilst we got her rear puncture fixed. A few kilometres on a rest stop appeared with a restaurant and petrol station and we parked up out of the coming thunderstorm and Ellie fell asleep on a worn couch in the restaurant while I ate tofu and beef noodles. By the late afternoon Ellie felt well enough to ride on and we climbed 16 km before pitching up under a bridge. The next day we reached Sayram lake which has a spectacular setting amid the snow-capped peaks of the Tian Shan. Like many tourist sites in the country, however, it is undergoing an environmental apocalypse with trucks and diggers carving up the countryside for hotels and plastic yurts. They wanted 10 dollars each for us to enter, so we declined and rode on and found a gap in the fence along the highway and pitched up by the shoreline. Dinner was a bag full of vegetables that the cooks at the hotel beside the tourist centre insisted on giving us along with some bread.

The following morning we rode along the edge of the lake, passing a small yurt village, where the summer inhabitants fatten their animals on the grass whilst playing cowboys for the passing tourists and giving horserides. Transhumance continues today and as we descended back to the lowlands on the incredible new G30 that winds its way in a serpentine manner through tunnels and along elevated sections of highway, herders on horseback urged their flocks of sheep and goats up the other side of the highway to their summer pastures. We dropped down from 2100 metres to 800 metres and after a final double whammy with two punctures in my rear tube (all from the metal shards of blown out truck tyres) and a strong headwind we reached Khorgas and the border to Kazakhstan. Signs now appear in Russian and most people assume we're Russian, the lady of our hotel showing me the room yesterday and proudly stating that they had a Russian language news channel. We're having a rest day today here in Khorgas before crossing the border and into Kazakhstan tomorrow. We've covered 5,857 km in China this time around, averaging 85 km per day over 69 riding days. Together with the first leg I rode in 2011 through eastern China (when Ellie was back home recovering from a fractured elbow), it means I'll have ridden over 10,000 km in China alone, or about 12-14 per cent of the journey's total. Cycling-wise, western China has been a lot more pleasurable with its wide open spaces, less hectic roads and return to camping. Its still incredible to comprehend the scale and pace of development that is happening in this part of the world and its often hard not to be critical about the impact that future generations will bear, particularly in terms of damage and stress on the environment. While interactions with many of the people we meet on a daily basis are often greatly inhibited by the lack of our linguistic skills, we've almost always been met with smiles and wonderful encouragement from a country and people that have come through a lot.

Khorgas, Xinjiang, China

Pedalled: 72,223 km

Please note that as part of this trip I am fundraising for the Dublin-based Peter McVerry Trust who work primarily with supporting homeless youth and this year they mark their 30th anniversary. If you would like to make a donation, you can do so via my fundraising page on the mycharity.ie website (click here). Thank you.

117. Once were cyclists - an update from Urumqi

Two weeks ago we rolled down into Urumqi with the snow capped Bogda Shan overlooking our descent into the city. Six hundred kilometres had brought us from Hami through the Turpan depression and finally over the mountains to the capital of the Xinjiang autonomous region. Fairly standard desert riding with plenty of sand and wind thrown into the mix. Towns tend towards the extremes here and either you find yourself in a Chinese looking town or else feel like we're already further on central Asia with Uighur dominated settlements. Turpan itself was a mixture of both worlds and on our last night rather than having an early night like good little cyclists we were taken out by a couple of off-duty (but still camoflaged) police guys and we ended up attending a fascinating Uighur wedding before the night was out.

Having read the experience that my friend's Daren and Tati had with the wind after Turpan a couple of years back, I figured we had lucked out as a gentle tailwind followed us out of Urumqi. However, a few hours later we were also pushing our bikes along the shoulder as a dangerous crosswind kept blowing us into the traffic. We found a dip in the ground amid the wind turbines to pitch the tent and wait for the morning calm which never came. Our tent got battered mercilessly throughout the night and tore our flysheet slightly. After another hour in the wind the following morning we reached the hills again and began the climb up to Dabangcheng and down to Urumqi.

We knew we'd be a few days, probably a week, waiting on our Kazakhstan visa in Urumqi and while that was in the works we set about getting the Gobi out of all our gear and some TLC for our bikes. However, I discovered that two out of five bolts that hold an axle plate in place on my Rohloff gear hub had sheared off and another went as I took the plate off to have a closer look. This wasn't good. Some emails to the very helpful people at Rohloff and they offered to send me out a new unit under their 'moon and back' warranty. Wonderful. However, the three day service that Fed Ex promises from Germany to Urumqi didn't reckon on the intervention of Chinese customs, so now we're waiting for it to clear customs where it has been sitting for the past week in Beijing. Hopefully it'll make it in the next day or two before we continue west towards Kazakhstan - just under 700 km east.

Meanwhile we're settled into a hostel in Urumqi, which is the main transport hub for the region and we've made a few friends including a great group of other cyclists who have all been and gone. Urumqi, with its ethic mix, is an interesting city to explore although much of the time has been spent researching the route ahead across central Asia and applying for letter of invitation that we'll use with our visa applications once we reach Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, in a couple of weeks time.

Today, thanks to Ellie, we had cake for breakfast. You're allowed do that when you're an old man.

Urumqi, Xinjiang, P.R.C.

Pedaled: 71,486 km

116. On a dark desert highway - the new road to Xinjiang

Almost 700 km of desert lay ahead of us after we passed through the Great Wall leaving Jiayuguan. The old 312 and the new G30 motorway diverge from the railway line and after straying west to Anxi and Guazhou, they bear north-west across the Bei Shan mountains before descending again to the ancient oasis of Hami. Lying on the edge of two great deserts - the Gobi to the east and the Taklamakan to the west, the new motorway connects distant Beijing and China's heartland with its western regions and the northwest capital of Urumqi. Previously the Uighur population predominated until the recent migration of Han Chinese to the region diluted the ethnic pool. More on that later perhaps.

Back on the highway in western Gansu we spent two days struggling along the old 312, battling headwinds and a road that had often ceased to exist in all but name as the construction of the western high-speed train line has involved the removal of much of the old road. Trucks threw up tremendous amounts of sand that combined with the headwind made for choking conditions at times and pretty miserable cycling. By the third day we decided to follow the advice of Sam, a cyclist we met a week back, and get on the G30 to Anxi. With a tailwind we were eating our morning noodles by midday with a 100 km on the clock. We had found our spirit of the desert again. After Anxi, the 312 disappeared into sand piles and one look at it and we were scrambling back over the barbed wire fences onto the highway.  The advantage of having to ride the motorway is that you have a wonderful surface and a lane (the shoulder) to ourselves. Colossal trucks rumble past and provide a bulwark against headwinds and its easy to find a camping spot in an underpass or drainage tunnel, as the highway is sealed off from the desert by a fence. On the other hand, supplies are much farther apart than the old road and distances of over 100 km between supply points were commom. Also all the livestock hauliers heading west dump their dead carcasses by the roadside, leaving a foul stench and the sight of bloated, rotting pigs and sheep. PETA could have a field day here. Despite the signs, there's no restrictions to using the highway now that the old 312 road has been carved up, although the police pulled up once as we snacked on our extensive biscuit supply and told us to pull off further up the road where it was wider. We also got papparazzi'ed by an unsmiling police photographer at one toll booth.

We couldn't reach Liuyuan service centre on the first evening as we climbed into the Bei Shan (Black Mountains) and after removing all the dessicated turds that previous occupants had left in our evenings abode - an underpass - we had to save our water for drinking and skip breakfast before we made the service area by 10 a.m. the following morning. Lesson learnt about supplies. We are camels once more. We were delighted to find a buffet at the service area, where truckers dove into plates piled high with calorie goodness, unsure of whether to eat their breakfast or look at us eating ours. In between high-decibel conversations, those who had disappeared to the bathroom could be heard hocking up and spitting through their morning abultions. Our neighours were on the baijou (Chinese spirit) and beer already. Hopefully their truck has an autopilot. We left in a headwind, our bikes wobbling under the weight of water. We wouldn't make the provincial border post of Xingxingxia that evening and camped up under an amazing night sky. Finally some darkness and peace in a land where solitude is often hard to find. This is a different China out here. And its back to the basics (and the best parts) of cycling as we pitched up each evening. Anyone for another pack of noodles?

The northern Silk route was a later addition to the more deadly southern one that runs across the southern section of the Taklamakan to Kashgar. By the sixth century, the northern route was preferred despite being longer. From Jiayuguan to Hami would have involved almost a month of trekking through the "howling wilderness" that early 20th century explorers found. Hami today is famous throughout China for its production of over 30 varieties of melon. It's also famous for wine and grape vines struggled against the wind as we rode into town yesterday. We crossed the border into Xinjiang autonomous region two days ago at the remote outpost of Xingxingxia with just a nod from a friendly policeman who surveyed the lines of migrant workers queuing up to get their documents checked.

Two nights ago at over 1900 metres we had all our warm gear on as a very cold northern wind blew down on the Bei Shan, while yesterday I sat sweating in the high noon heat with my second puncture of the morning. Turpan, our next goal, has temperatures in the high 30s as it sits in a synonymous depression over 50 metres below sea level - China's lowest and hottest place. It's a few days barren ride to the capital, Urumqi, from here and it's where we'll pick up our Kazakh visa and begin playing the Central Asia Great Visa Game.

Hami, Xinjiang, PRC

Pedalled: 70,864 km

115. Gansu to Xinjiang in pictures

From one working camera when we entered China to three cameras (including Ellie's new ipod touch), our photos are scattered on different devices but here's a few from the past few weeks from my camera. Most of the food and people ones are on Ellie's new camera and mine are on the road...

114. Into the Gobi

Leaving Yongchang, the Hexi corridor's famous wind finally caught up with us and kept progress in the single digits as we gradually climbed up to a pass. Settlements were sparsely scattered and after filling the panniers with supplies in Shuiquanzi from a couple of village shops we pushed on. Ellie was still dealing with the sinusitis and we crouched down in a dry irrigation trench while sipping tea from the flask. The pass itself was a wide open plain that gradually tipped forward. We camped up in a drainage tunnel under the busy G30 that gave good shelter. Ellie was asleep before our dinner of vegetables and noodles was ready. 

The wind forecast on weather underground was right again as a gentle flutter from the east soon became a ferocious tailwind. We soon got exasperated at the broken state of the old G312 as we descended towards Shandan and after 10 km we took advantage of a gap that locals had made in the fence protecting the G30 and we were soon whizzing down the motorway shoulder at 40 kph. Remnants of the Great Wall lay just to our right. The earthen wall crumbling back into the ground in many spots but still impressive as it ran to the horizon across the featureless plain.

After Shandan we met Sam, a Japanese-German transcontinental cyclist pedalling east and we chatted by the roadside for awhile before he pushed on slowly into the fierce headwind. We covered the 130 km to Zhangye by early afternoon and made our way over to Hexi university campus where Justin, an American teacher and couchsurfing host, very kindly put us up for three days while Ellie recovered. Zhangye is another important Silk Road stopover, birthplace of Khublai Khan and home to Marco Polo for a year. Little remains from that era but the city is friendly and fun to explore. We hung out with Justin and his sister  Dorothy in the evenings and caught up on some films.

Two more favourable days brought us the 250 km to Jiayuguan. The fort that guards the nearby Jiayu pass was the last stronghold during imperial China and was responsible for keeping the barbarians beyond in the desert. It was also the primary route between the Middle Kingdom and the west and linked Rome with Xian and the lands between in an exchange of goods, philosophy and ideas. Exiled poets, criminals and soldiers passed through Jiayuguan gate into oblivion, most never to return. As we walked the walls of the fort yesterday a thick pall of black smoke drifted over the site from vegetation that was being cleared giving the impression that the fort was under attack. Most of the buildings were covered in scaffolding as reconstruction takes place. Camel rides, quads and tennis ball firing cannons now stood out on the western plain where previously the barbarian armies of central Asia and demons of the Gobi would have been anxiously watched for.

Our highway, the 312, follows the northern Silk Road and over the next ten days we are desert bound for Xinjiang autonomous region and the old oasis cities of Hami and Turpan.

Jiayuguan, Gansu, PRC

Pedalled: 70,234 km

113. Rockin' and rollin' in Gansu: Over the Wushaoling Pass and up the Hexi Corridor

Four wonderful days of doing little except hanging out in the company
of good people with our host Kevin and his friends in Lanzhou and we
were back on the bikes riding west along the Yellow River and chasing
a tourer who had a billowing skull and cross bones mounted on the back
of his laden bike. With no mutual words to share except place names on
maps, we established that he was from Shaanxi province and bound for
Lhasa - a popular pilgrimmage route for young Chinese tourers these
days who can travel without permit problems onto the roof of the
world. At a railway crossing our silent smiling companion hit the road
when his wheels caught in the lines and he picked himself up and
dusted down his torn trousers signalling he was ok. Shortly after we
waved goodbye and stopped for a late and extortionate lunch of beef
and vegetables.

We crossed north over the Yellow River and headed up the G312 - the
highway that will take us the remaining 2700 odd kilometres across
western China. Originating in Shanghai on the east coast, the G312
crosses China along some of the ancient trading routes that were known
as the Silk Road. The new G30 motorway and the busy western railway
line also accompanied the venerable and aged original G312 up a wide
valley towards the Daban Shan mountains. Our first night out saw us
pitch up in a sheltered sliver of ploughed but not yet planted field
on the edge of a village. In the morning we cooked our porridge under
the silent gaze of an old farmer who had first judged us from afar and
then curiousity got the better of him and stood above us for a few
minutes before wandering back towards the village. Other villagers
return smiles and wave at us as we push our bikes back to the road and
ride north.

With a more sluggish pace we continued up the gentle incline into an
unfavourable wind as men and women took to their fields. We passed
Yongdeng and then through the Tianzhu Tibetan autonomous county while
a black sky gathered on the Daban Shan and we arrived into Dachaigou
in our rain gear with cold, wet faces. Only about 23 km short of the
summit of our almost 3000 metre Wushaoling pass, winter was still here
as we tried to unsuccessfully arrange a bed for the night, the local
police insisting we'd have to backtrack the 20 km we'd just toiled up
from Tianzhu rather than stay at the local guesthouse. The rain was
easing but flakes of snow began to fall as we cursed the ridiculous
rules and bade farewell to the warmth of the stove-heated police
station and headed out into the freezing headwind with supplies for
the night. Fortunately we struck lucky a few kilometres out of town
and found an excavated site off the road where we could pitch up out
of the worst excesses of the wind. Using all our cold weather gear and
winter sleeping bags the night was pretty comfortable except for the
dashes outside when nature called. We woke up to blue sky and
snow-covered mountains surrounding us. We pushed on up towards the
pass and after collecting some hot water for the flask and supplies at
a village shop we reached Wushaoling's windy summit (2990 metres) at
about 10 a.m. before descending below the snow-line into Anyuan where
we had steamed buns and eggs for a late breakfast around a luke warm
stove.

We were aiming for Wuwei, an important outpost of the Middle Kingdom
on the lower edge of the Gobi and the eastern end of the Hexi
Corridor, and stripped off layers as we dropped over 1500 meters into
the bustling little city. After no success with the cheaper lodging
options we resorted to the guidebook's recommendation, a fancy hotel
beside the reconstructed and impressive south gate, where for the
second time in a couple of weeks I was carting our Gobi sand-covered
paraphernalia around a fancy hotel with a luggage trolley.

We decided to take a day off to check out the sights including the
ancient bell tower that stands in the midde of a derelict site and the
Confucious temple and stele that are a Chinese version of the Rosetta
stone making translations possible from a double-sided stele featuring
the ancient Xin characters on one side and the more modern Chinese
characters on the other. Unlike other tourist sights in China, in this
part of the country you feel like you have discovered them yourself as
you wander alone.

With weather reports showing a generous tailwind we were back on our
bikes the next day with plans to reach Zhangye in three days time and
stay with another Peace Corps volunteer. Ellie was struggling though
with a cold and sinusitis and so we pulled over in Yongchang after a
local young rocker pulled up on his flashy motorbike and invited us
for lunch. Vinny as his friends call him is not exactly what one
expects to find in the Gansu desert - an accomplanished rock guitarist
speaking excellent English with his own bar and a passion for fast
motorbikes, the 26 year old brought us out for dinner in the evening
with his friends after finding us a hotel room across the street from
his pool/rock bar. He also fetched Ellie some tradtional chinese
medicine for her sinus.

Another stopover today in Yongchang to let Ellie recover before we
move on up the Hexi Corridor to Zhangye over the next couple of days.

Yongchang, Gansu, PRC
Pedalled: 69,784 km

112. Over the mountains to Lanzhou

We rode out of Chengdu in a convoy of three, with our companion Mark setting the pace for the first day that ensured we blew off the cobwebs from our month long layover. We almost reached Mianyang before taking a room on the roadside. Like some of the newer hotels we have lodged in before, our shared bedroom came with a clear glass screened shower and squat toilet, so those wishing to spectate can do so if they please.  Mark was bound for Songpan and we said goodbye the next morning before we rode through a soggy Mianyang. One of Sichuan's main cities and with a population equivalent to Ireland, the city was close to the epicentre of the 2008 earthquake that had caused particularly severe damage to schools and left an estimated 7000 pupils dead in the city alone. 

The G108 became quieter on the third day after Zitong as it wound up into the cypress covered hillside around Qiqushan temple. We have met a lot of local cyclists out touring over the past couple of weeks which is great to see. One fellow from Guangzhou had already clocked up 12000 km on a tour around China. One day we passed a trio on roller blades.

We ended up in Sichuan's northern city of Guangyuan after five days and almost chose a longer route via Xian as there was still some concern that there was no diagnosis over my guts and it might be better to stay closer to bigger towns than the more remote route over the mountains. That evening though I got the good news that the tests done in Hong Kong had finally proven amoebic colitis caused by an infection I had picked up along the road and which I had been treated for. So with this news we doubled back 20 km on the G108 and joined the 212 that would take us almost 800 km over the mountains to Gansu's provincial capital in Lanzhou. We had been evicted from our standard cheap hotel in Guangyuan as the city is the site of a nuclear facility and the authorities are more jittery than normal about the presence of hairy big-noses so we found ourselves confined to the posh international hotel where we had to fork out 25 euros for a fancy room - about five times are normal rate in China. For the first and hopefully last time on the trip a bemused bell boy loaded our mud spattered panniers onto the trolley and up to our quarters on the umpteenth floor. 

Across the provincial border in Gansu we entered one of China's poorest provinces although the construction continued even in these isolated mountains as the pillar foundations and tunnels for an elevated highway and a high speed train were being put in. Few foreigners make it this way and curiosity increased among the locals and the authorities. Most evenings the police would have heard about the cycling laowais in town and turn up with and bilingual registration forms for the legal aliens. I don't know where a this paper work ends up or if there's a central system charting our progress. 

The further north we went the landscape shrivelled up and desiccated hillsides through dust clouds in the air when gusts of wind blew. The harsh landscape was also etched into the faces of those who survive here. Those old enough may have experienced the horrors of the famine as a result of Mao's misguided policies in the late 1950s. Gansu and Sichuan were two of the worst affected areas in the country. This land is the cultural crossroads of China. The red-cheeked highlanders mix with Han and the Muslim Hui. The latter appearing to have cornered much of the market with their fresh noodles that closely resemble pasta. Mosques are another feature that lets Islamic Central Asia presence feel much closer now.

For the past few days we've been staying with Kevin, a Peace Corps volunteer who works at a university here in Lanzhou. We've spent time with several of the volunteers and Kevin asked us to give a talk to his students about the trip which was attended by about forty enthusiastic faces who were very engaged and curious. Life for most of the students here is quite strict and for the duration of their degree they share eight bed dormitories and have evening curfews. For many it's their first step of independence and can be quite a challenge for them to learn how to fend for themselves. Real freedom doesn't really commence until they graduate and begin working but social expectations that marriage should follow quite quickly puts pressure on young people to settle down before too long.

Lanzhou is also the point at which we join the historical trading routes that established the Silk Road. Lying on the upper reaches of the Yellow River, Lanzhou has long been an important outpost of the Middle Kingdom. The farthest reaches of the Great Wall lay just to the north of here, between the southern fringe of the Gobi desert and the Qilian Shan range where we will push north through Gansu's narrow waist, known as the Hexi corridor, in the coming fortnight.

Lanzhou, Gansu, PRC

Pedalled: 69,419 km