China Part 1

Charlie's blog: - A land of deserts and mountains
After one of the more interesting boarder crossing involving multiple bag scans and a taxi across 140km of no man's land we sped down the road towards Kashgar in the wonderful company of Cyril & Vera (Team Oufti), Tim & Jess (Bicycle Diaries) and Josh (who doesn't have a cool instagram name). With the combined effort of A Wheel Oufti Diary we reached Kashgar and after locating our hotel headed straight out to find food at the Night Market. I'd been looking forward to Chinese cuisine for a while, it being my favourite type of food (that has now changed to a Sunday Roast, when I was cycling through the Taklamakan one of my podcasts said the word roast which led to 2 weeks of constant fantasising about a big Sunday roast with lots of gravy and mashed potatoes and beef and mushy vegetables and roast potatoes and apple sauce... mmmmmm). The night market was fun and we filled our bellies for the first time since being in central Asia where we could have eaten three portions of every meal! One of the perks of being a cyclist is defiantly the appetite it gives you!

It was great spending some time with the Ouftis and Diaries and other cyclists we met in Kashgar. We had a good wander around and had tea in the 100 Year old tea house where we apparently stumbled upon the best table in the house judging how it was pounced upon by two old men before we had even begun standing up to leave haha

Cycling with Aram in Kyrgyzstan, meeting up with the big group of cyclists in Sary Tash and entering China as A Wheel Oufti Diary has been one of the best parts of the while trip, it was so much fun, thank you to everyone for making the past few weeks so awesome:) To anyone planning a cycle tour I would highly recommend getting on instagram, the cycling community is wonderful and so supportive and it has been the best way to meet other cyclists.

We packed our bags (including a new set of panniers for me thanks to a wonderful man from Boskey!) And headed off into the Taklamakan Desert.
Our first night didn't go quite as planned but ended up being awesome. It got dark and we hadn't found anywhere to camp as it was farmland for miles and miles out of the city. We had stopped by the road when we saw a man come out of the darkness carrying a whole load of wheat (or something along those lines), he stopped, said something in chinese and did the international sign for sleeping. We nodded vigorously thinking he would let us sleep on his farm land which turned out to be just round the corner. This lovely man, Tomasin and Annagou,
and his wife not only let us sleep in their one roomed farm house but also gave us soup and bread. The hilarious catch was that after tea Annagou emptied the biggest sack of cotton plants into the floor in front of us, we spent the rest of the evening with the couple pulling out the cotton from hundreds of buds! It was actually really lovely and we like to be able to help out when people offer us a place to sleep but oh my gosh we ended up going to sleep at 1am!! We were exhausted! We camped along the edge of the desert for the next two weeks, some times it was easy to find a spot but more often that not it involved navigating some kind of barbed wire fence to get away from the road, it's almost like they were discouraging this kind of thing!
Now you may be picturing rolling sand dunes, beautiful landscapes and scorching sun... so were we! In reality the road goes along the edge of the desert where it is mostly rubbish rock and pebbles, not a sand dune in sight. And as it was the end of October at that point we were wearing multiple coats most days and began to realise that our gloves were no where near warm enough to get us through the winter.

To top it off I got my worst illness of the trip so far, culminating in me throwing up three times as I got a taxi to the next city where I could rest and recover. It was not pleasant (thank you to my medic friends for your antibiotic advice!).

We made it to Turpan, the half way point through the desert and had had enough of it! We booked ourselves and our bikes on a train to Jiayuguan and rested peacefully knowing that the desert was done with.

Now I know my overall impression of cycling the north Road of the Taklamakan has not been positive (and actually everyone we met who has done it also agrees that it was shit) but there were nice bits. The mountains out of Kashgar were colourful and beautiful (way better than the so called Flaming Mountain in Turpan!) and... no that was about it. I was glad to get out of the desert!

We stayed in a cute hostel in Turpan and hung out with some other travelers who were braving Xinjiang province in the winter. I also bought some velour lined leggings to help combat the cold... best purchase ever! It's like a hug for my legs :)

We hopped on a sleeper train to Jiayuguan which is where the Great Wall of China ends. We visited a fortress city, the last beacon tower and got to walk along a section of the wall, bucket list tick!

From there we were officially out of the desert and heading into the mountains of Qinghai province. Qinghai used to be part of Tibet and you can see the influences everywhere from the architecture, the people and especially on the mountain passes which were absolutely covered with prayer flags and these little bits of paper that people throw into the air as they cross the pass.

We were straight back up to over 3000 meters altitude and it was super cold now. We made the executive decision not to camp at this altitude but instead hop from town to town. It was a good plan until we got to Qingshizui where we were greeted by the police and told the whole town was closed to foreigners. They tried to tell us we had to take a bus to the next biggest city 2 days cycle away. But after some advice from the Biking to China WhatsApp group we stuck to our guns and said we didn't want to take public transport and they let us stay the night (it also helped that as we were negotiating we missed the last bus!).
We also had one night sleeping on the floor of a restaurant when Lou got a puncture and we ended up stuck in this little town. The lovely owner let us sleep in the restaurant by the stove for warmth and gave us a free meal and breakfast:)

Cycling through the mountains was beautiful, all snow covered peaks and switchbacks. Then when we got up onto the plateau at 3800 it was gorgeous views for miles and miles around.
We stopped in Xining to see Kumbum Monetary, a Tibetan enclave with beautiful temples and a lot of monks living there. It was really exciting to see! We also visited Langmusi which was on the boarder of Qinghai and Sichuan provinces and had a temple on either side. There were a lot of monks there top including two groups of teenagers who I spotted hiding behind pillars having a fire cracker fight in the streets! It is streets beautiful part of the world and I am so glad we got to cycle it:)

From the plateau it was three days of gorgeous down hill all the way to Chengdu. Boy was I glad to get here, it seemed like we have been heading here for ages! Coming through western China it hadnt really felt like we were in China. Xinjiang province felt very central Asian, with people looking and speaking a mixture of Turkish and Russian. Qinghai was very Tibetan and people there also spoke Tibetan rather than Chinese. Entering Sichuan province it immediately started to look like the China I expected. There were pagodas and dragons in the architecture and beautiful forests and hills.

We arrived in Chengdu and were immediately invited to join a group of cyclists, ready for some more cool instagram names? Rae (boatsandbikes), Scott and Sarah (longrodehome), Ida and Robin (KineticNomads), as well as Katya, Martin and Peter. We ate some of the famous Sichuan hotpot and had an awesome evening taking bikes and touring and life in China. It was the perfect welcome to the city:)
So that's where we are now, we've had a couple of days here, visited the Giant Panda Research Base, seen a Sichuan Opera with the famous face changing mask routine -seriously amazing, i have no idea how they do it! And are on our way to Xian to see the Terracotta Warriors.

We are about to start the last leg of our tour which will take us through Guilin and on to Hong Kong. It's been an incredible month and a half in China so far and we even crossed the 10,000 kilometer mark! 10,0000 kilometers, that's absolutely crazy. Well done legs, you've earnt a massage when all this is done.

Lou's blog : cycletouring is like a box of chocolates

Life on a bike is utterly unpredictable, action-packed and thrilling whilst at the samej time being monotonous, tedious and sometimes downright boring. Luckily the type 1 days are more frequent than the type 2 days which keeps the delight of living on a bike alive.
To demonstrate I’ve made a list:

Type 1 day: , Toktogul, Kyrgyzstan

* A casual early morning 3200m mountain pass.
* Being invited into our first real-life, genuine yurt.
* Giving our legs a break but our brakes a beating in a glorious downhill section from snowy mountain top to rocky gorges.
* Spotting other cycletourers for the first time in months.
* Even more speedy downhill fun
* To cap the day off arriving at the guesthouse to find an adorable, over-excitable puppy.

We awoke to the sunrise on a grassy hill at just over 3000m. It was 6.30am and freezing cold as the wind buffeted our tents. I went to filter water from a nearby stream and Aram set up the kettle to boil water for tea (ahem, sorry coffee). We three huddled round trying to warm our fingers on the hot mugs but soon gave up and started to pack up camp. From this moment on the day could have gone either way, but today, today turned out to be a Type 1 kinda day.

We set off immediately hitting a hill, but this was no ordinary hill, this was our second over-3000m mountain pass. At the summit we spotted three yurts at the foot of a magnificent snowy mountain and after lingering outside a friendly lorry driver shouted and waved us in. This was our first yurt experience! The inside was soft, cosy and decorated in blankets of rich reds, pinks, maroons and ochre. We had second breakfast of eggs, bread and chai and then waved goodbye to the lorry driver as we took off for the long awaited downhill.

We whizzed ecstatically through the mountains for 50km of downhill. The mountains turned from grassy, snowy, bare peaks to rocky pinaccles to a lush gorge and was just so beautiful that we were stopping every 5 minutes to take another photo.

Stopping for lunch at a café I had one eye on the road and noticed 2 cyclers with panniers coming up the hill. Leaping up Charlie and I waved frantically and gestured to them to join us in the café. Aram sat back and laughed. We hadn’t see any other cyclers for a long time, since the Caspian Sea ferry over a month ago and the prospect of cycle chat with other cycletourers was very exciting.
We arrived in Toktogul as night fell. The guesthouse was in a quaint white painted courtyard and the family were lovely and cooked me a vegetarian meal. And to cap the day off, they had a puppy! The most overactive, excitable puppy I’ve ever seen which to us was utterly adorable.


Type 2 day: North road through the Taklamakan Desert, China


* Waking up the day turned into a blur of peddal strokes, grey tarmac and grey skies.
* Landscape? What landscape. A dust cloud bought visibility down to 20 meters.
* And thats all I can remember.

Rolling over in my sleeping bag I groaned at the alarm which was bleeping next to my ear. I reluctantly pulled an arm out into the crisp, cold air to hit snooze and quickly pulled it back in to warm up. The biting morning air was not inviting. My warm sleeping bag was. Far too long later, Charlie and I pulled ourselves up and began to put down our camp. This day was to be a Type 2 kind of day.

It was the worst kind of cold, not the crisp-fresh-blue-skies-bright-sun cold but grey-damp-seep-into-your-bones kind of cold.
The Taklamakan north route is not a feast for the eyes, grey gravel lined either side of the grey road which slowly faded into a dull white sky. We were cycling through a huge dust cloud which shrouded anything from view that was more than 20 meters away so the only entertainment for our eyes came from the tarmac directly in front of us. I couldn't even tell you what podcasts i listened to, it all seemed to fade away into one pedal stroke after the next. Progress was slow. Tarmac is monotonous.

Type 1 day: Qilian mountains, China

* Rising an hour earlier than normal I watched the sunrise over the mountains topped with a buddhist shrine.
* Setting off onto the mountain plateau with fresh air, blue skies and the freedom of the open road.
* By 11am I had reached the highest mountain pass yet at 3767m
* Chilling with a holy chicken decorated in tibetan prayer flags at the top of the pass.
* A freezing downhill section made my fingers and toes go numb
* Arriving at the next town to be informed the whole area is closed to foreigners and we would have to leave immediately by bus!
*Negotiating with th

I had gotten up an hour early because I expected to need the extra time to do the 81km to the next town. Normally 81km would be a breeze but we were cycling above 3000m, the temperature was hovering around -6 and at least least 3/4 of the ride was going to be uphill. Not to mention the days were getting shorter which meant we had lost 2 hours of good cycling daylight. I set off out of town leaving Charlie in the hotel, she was ill and planned to take it easy and get a bus to the next town.
Some days the scenery is all you need, no music, no podcasts, no mental lists of what needs to be fixed on the bike etc. I was at around 3000m and the road traversed a plateau, flanked on either side by snow speckled mountain peaks and my vision was completely filled with the beauty and remoteness of the open road.

By 9.30am it was still -6 degrees but the sky was clear and the sun warmed the small part of my cheeks that was visible.
A long uphill finally ended in a whirl of snow and brightly coloured Tibetan prayer flags. The huge jumble of fluttering flags stood out brightly against the white snow, and the road fell away leaving the peaks of the mountain range at below eye level. This was my highest mountain pass so far at 3767meters. I watched as a family stopped to throw confetti like paper in the air and to pray to the shrine at the top.
The mountains seemed to peel away in front of me as I flew down the road and descended from the peaks into the twisting, turning valleys below. The speed was intoxicating after a morning of snails pace uphill. The exhilaration was only hampered by the fact I was like the michelin man wrapped in every single one of my layers and the tips of my fingers, ears and toes were numb from the cold.
I made great time and rocked up in Qibgshuizhenn 81km away by 3.30pm. As I sat chilling with a noodle soup in a café Charlie came in and explained the hotel had called the police! This area was apparently closed to foreigners and they were trying to make us take a bus or train to leave immediately! Luckily (for us) by the time I’d finished my soup the last bus and train had left and we refused to hire a car to take us 200km to the next town, Xining. They begrudgingly agreed to let us stay the night and we had a lovely warm nights sleep.


Type 2 day: Jiayuguan to Zhangye, Edge of the Gobi Desert, China

*Something probably happened in these two days, couldn't say what though.

The town of Zhangye sits on the southern edge of the Gobi desert and the northern edge of the Qilian mountain range. The roads into and out of it have all the makings of a spectacular days ride so it’s surprising really that it is so mind numbingly dull! Luckilt this was all building up to the spectacular Qilian Mountains which Brough back the fun and the challenge.

Life on a bike is quite special, knowing that you're self sufficient, with whole countries stretched out before you in seemingly impossible distances which quickly become filled with memories and experience's. ..except of course on those type 2 days which, for me, still remain blanks on the map surrounded by full, busy, colourful and hectic type 1 days.