Chengdu

Chengdu, Sichuan 19.-23.6.2017, 4760 km
Spent 4 days in Chengdu, initiating the extension of my visa and watching Pandas and temples.

In eastern Tibet

Golog/Maqin, Qinghai province, China, 2017-06-13, 3966 km

In the meantime I progressed from Golmud into the highland of eastern Tibet (former Amdo province of Tibet) which nowadays belongs to Qinghai province. 

On a map I found in one of the containers I slept in I found a road in construction which considerably would reduce my riding distance to Chengdu. As the Chinese are very quick in building new infrastructure I found out that this new road is a full blown motorway which in most parts is already finished or very close to finished. It leads from Golmud eastbound and then southeast till the border to Sichuan province. 

From Golmud I still used the old State highway which has 2 lanes (1 per direction)  and is heavily used by big 40 tons trucks whereas the parallel new motorway with 2 lanes per direction is almost empty, maybe 20 vehicles per hour. 

In Xianride where the new motorway branches off into the mountains I could not convince the guards at the toll station to let me through but in contrast their proposal of a 3-500 km detour via Xining was not was I intended to do. 

At least I got the 'hint' to quietly enter the new motorway a bit apart by climbing the fence. Usually Chinese motorways are rigorously fenced off about 1.80 m high with ten rows of barbed wire to keep animals and local people away and it is not possible to surpass it with a loaded bicycle. But I knew that at places where the fence cuts long lasting walking trails of men and animals it is often partly torn down. I found such a spot and with the help of two locals, a father and his ca 12 year old son, I could get the bicycle and the luggage through the fence without puncture and up the steep dam.

The first 80 km the motorway went parallel to a province road into the mountains, now with even less traffic of maybe 10 cars per hour. Later it was the only way of travel without a parallel road and crossed a 4450 m high pass. I felt the altitude and was quite slow. A bit before the pass I was stopped by the traffic police but not to send me off the motorway but instead to make some selfies with this crazy long-nosed foreigner.

The next day the motorway was partly under construction, 95 % finished, with lane labels and some parts of the guard rails missing. Only in one case the summit tunnel of a pass was not yet completed and i had to use the old gravel road to climb additional 200 m to a very impressive mountain pass (4600 m) next to a glacier. 

At the second pass the summit tunnel was in similar state but a engineer gave me a sign and waved me to the left pipe. Ceiling, walls and floor was finished but sidewalks, cables and cross connections to the other pipe where heavily under construction and in some places big machines or a scaffold had to be circumnavigated. Most of the 5 km was dimly or not at all lit hence I was glad to have a light at the bicycle.

After 3 days in the mountains I am now in the county capital Golog or Maqin on 3700 m. The milage the last days was low, only around 120 km, but I felt the average altitude of 4000 m considerably.

Probably 7 more days on in the mountains to come, before I will be down in Chengdu.

To Golmud

Golmud, Qinghai, 7.6.2017, 3346km

Considering the strong headwinds for the coming two days and sitting at the breakfast in the hotel in Ruoqian, fully prepared for leaving, I made a spontaneous decision and extended my stay for two more days. I used this time for filling up my energy storage, reading emails, writing diary and this blog, relaxing and watching CGTN, the English-speaking Chinese news channel in TV. Furthermore I needed to sort out some technical issues like installing a VPN on my iPad to reach Google powered services like the search engine, maps, translator and this blog, which are all blocked by the great Chinese fire-wall.

When seeing the poplar trees in the hotel yard heavily bending in the wind I was sure that it was the right decision to hide away from the wind in the hotel.

On June 1st I met the two Norwegian cyclist Truls and Jostein and Swiss cyclist Hans at the breakfast table. All three I already knew from the hostel in Kashgar. They had left 2 days later and arrived the afternoon before at the same hotel in Ruoqian. We decided to travel together for the next few days

as we were all heading in the same direction.

The two young Norwegians started in Oslo and are aiming for Beijing, Hans started on the Crimea peninsula and is heading for Bangkok.

Right when we wanted to depart Truls realised that one of the spokes of his rear wheel was broken and the sprocket needed to be removed for replacing it. Broken spokes are a known problem if heavy load, bumpy roads and a normal rear wheel come together. The countermeasures on travel bike are thicker spokes, special sturdy rims, 36 instead of 32 spokes per wheel and 26' instead of 28' wheel size. When trying to remove the sprocket with a special tool in addition the rear gear hanger broke and we looked for a bicycle shop to assist. But the only one we found was so poorly equipped that it couldn't help. Finally Truls managed to squeeze the new spoke through the spaces between the sprocket, something I never thought would be possible, and fixed it. But I am not sure if this emergency repair method would work with my thicker spokes. Let's hope that they don't break, as it is the case currently and also on my previous two tours with this bike.

One of the disadvantages of travelling in a group is that technical problems slow down the whole group, but of course there are several advantages:

Riding against the wind becomes easier if the leading person changes frequently.

Most important thing was that I could talk to someone in German and English. People here speak only Chinese or their local language (e.g. Uighur) but it is almost impossible to find someone who can speak a little English. Even at the reception of international hotels intended for foreigners nobody speaks English. Normally they use a translation app on their smartphones. 

With my 5 words in Chinese I don't get far. Usually all communications is with fingers, gestures or pointing. When ordering something to eat I either point to a meal that someone is just eating and that looks appealing or I go to the kitchen and point to some ingredients.

But these 3 guys had another big advantage, because Jostein has been studying Chinese for 4-5 years and is quite fluent in understanding and speaking Chinese. He could talk to the people here and get valuable information. Also his ability to read the menu in a restaurant opened up new worlds of tastes.

The first day after Ruoqian we had some rain and finally slept in our tents under one of the many bridges that cross dry river beds. Unfortunately the wind was concentrated under the bridge like in a funnel. The big 2-3 person tent of the Norwegians stood firmly whereas Hans' and my little one person tents were shaking like hell and had to be fixed with big stones. We stayed dry but it was very unquiet due to the wind. The next day we left the Tarim basin and the road was climbing from 1200 m up to a pass with 3600 m in order to reach the Tibetan plateau. For the next 10 days I was at an altitude between 2800 m and 3400 m.

From the 3600m pass we descended in a stony plateau, just empty desert without shelter. Fortunately after rolling down for about 20 km to 3100 m we saw the pillars of a big bridge and a nearby camp of the construction workers consisting of a couple of containers and tents. Jostein went asking if we could stay there for the night and came quickly back with the good news, that we get spots in the container and tent and also a dinner.

Containers and tents contain little (coal driven) ovens which was a really cosy place after several hours of cycling in the cold wind above 3000 m.

During the next morning we crossed the province border into Qinghai province. There most of the security measures mentioned in the previous article are abandoned.