2010 May 29 « Pedaleast's Blog

16/05/10 Litang to a hole under the road – 68km
Tardy start to the day as we trailed around town looking for anyone to blow up Kate’s marshmallowy back tire. No joy. We lost the presta valve adapter ages ago. Does not add to K’s mood as the whole day is spent climbing manageable but cumulatively evil passes and it feels like she is cycling through mud (quite likely a psychological issue too)

Our hide out for the night

Met loads of Chinese tourers coming the other way who said there is no place to stay until 85km or something unrealistic for us today. After trudging up and down about 4 passes all over 4000m we come down off a double pass a little desperate for water with light fading. The sides of the valleys are steep with no possibility for camping comfortably or out of sight of the road. Eagle-eyed Nic spies a massive tunnel under the road, much bigger than the usual gaps for streams or rock falls. Kate is sceptical but on inspection it appears to be a stable bridge with minimal danger of being washed away in a flash flood/landslide in the night. Others seem to have shared our idea in the past and we set up our flimsy tent here at 4100m but wind proofed and waterproofed by our concrete room for the night. Still shivery cold more than ever during the night. Stodgy noodles, green peppers and half a garlic bulb for dinner – proved useless for fending off the high altitude cold but good for scaring off potential intruders.

17/05/10 Hole under the road to Yajiang – 75km

Frazzled on the top

After battling through a bowl of porridge we head out to find more water. A few kilometres down the road there is a pipe spewing water sticking out of the ditch by the road. When we try filling our bottles a bunch of snotty urchins emerge from a shed over the road and demand money, we give them a couple of rancid lychee flavoured sweeties we bought earlier for the sole purpose of placating snotty urchins and putting them off ever asking for sweeties again. This was going according to plan until their dishevelled father also emerged from the shed. Turns out its his business to demand payment from people taking water from this pipe. Filling 500gallon trucker’s brake cooling tanks costs 5yuan so we thought it a little unfair he is charging 2yuan for 5litres. We agree to 1yuan and he only agrees when we threaten to pour the water out of our bottles onto the road – sounds super harsh I know but we were strongly principled that morning (and we’d just fed his kids for the day).

Chain of army trucks

It’s a beautiful day so after cleaning the water, eating a packet of oreos and waving at 100 Chinese army truck drivers we’re in a good mood, time to tackle the next passes.

No problems except flagging a little on the final ascent to 4400m. The top is a wind tunnel and we cheer on a couple of Chinese tourers just reaching the top (coming the other way is a mean mean ascent). At last…30km pure downhill. The road is patchy and uneven but this adds to the fun of going down. Rhodedendrons are white on this side of the mountain!?

On top of wereld!

Yajiang is in a deep gorge, 2000m lower at 2300m. Plenty of places to stay in town and we meet Fangsa, a Chinese tourer trying to make it from Chengdu to Lhasa in 25days. We have never heard of such a crazy plan but wish him all the luck in the world!

18/05/10 Yajiang to the Tagong Grasslands junction – 68km
Blues skies again but this time we have 50km uphill climbing to complete. The first 20km is a gradual ascent as you follow the tributary river up the valley. Near the end of the valley it gets steeper and steeper and Kate cried a little, it was only 13:30 so despite the black moods even she couldn’t justify setting up camp yet.

These moods change like the weather in the mountains and half an hour later Kate is taking on the mountain as personal, life and death challenge to beat the brute. At 6pm we reach the top, the sky is threatening and there seems to be campsite on the peak full of Tibetan motorbike riding “medicine” seekers. This is a sort of a double peak but it’s mostly downhill immediately on the other side, there’s just a 1 kilometre climb to pass over to the Eastern descent. It’s not cold and feeling remains in all limbs on the downhill. We are excited to arrive in the Tagong Grasslands but confused that while the area appears totally flat on the map, as a high plain, it is filled with hills of a few hundred metres. It’s a relief that the roads go around them! We pass the turn off to Tagong and find a lovely Tibetan family to stay with. Instant noodles for dinner.

19/5/10 Near junction to Tagong to Kanding – 67km
Excellent night’s sleep and Kate even tries a sip of yak butter tea in the morning, BIG mistake. Luckily we have our porridge pot and lid to hand for sneaky disposal.

Yak butter tea dilemma

Where did it go?

Road becomes perfect after the next town and climbs very gradually towards the final 4000+ pass. This is the easiest pass, it looks like a grand prix circuit from the top of the mountain. At the top we find groups of Chinese tourers celebrating together with mass photo taking and posing with banners. Others celebrate quietly, with a cigarette, half dead on the steps up to the stupa thing. These guys have climbed pretty consistently for the last few days, coming up from Chengdu at 600m to this pass at 4300m. It’s an immense and long climb. We are very excited, and a little smug to be doing it the other way.

The road to Kanding is perfect, we read blogs of it being a nightmare construction site last year, now they are putting the finishing touches to the concrete barriers and stuff but the road surface is a dream. Nic has a cracked rear wheel rim so he can’t go mega fast but we cruise down at a nice speed and get to practice our switchback cornering. Another element of entertainment is the regular appearance of Chinese tourers persevering on granny gears, chilling by the road or pushing their bikes. We always get a wave and thumbs up except from the coldest and most miserable guys (1 or 2 on the highest parts of the Litang to Yajiang section).

Celebrations reaching the top

In Kanding we get a tip to go towards the bus station for cheap accommodation. We are found by a couple of Tibetan girls hanging out by an apartment block. We get a nice clean room in this apartment for 30yuan per night and it’s the first time our bikes stay with us.

20/5/10 Rest day in Kanding
Chilling, washing and eating.

21/5/10 Kanding to hotel beyond the tunnel – 85km
Have a bit of a time trying to get this crazy woman at the post office to send a big parcel to Shanghai. Even the lovely, helpful bike tourers trying to help us are flummoxed by her bizarre and psychotic resistance to our package. Luckily one is from Shanghai and he translates our address into Chinese characters for her computer to process. We draw quite a crowd with her screeching.

Get out of town late and more downhill cruising to Luding, oh well. Lunch in Luding then we resolve to get through the dreaded 4km long tunnel before the end of this day. The climb is long but gradual but they haven’t changed the distances on the map so we are pleasantly surprised to find the tunnel earlier than expected. Stories of no lights, rough surfaces and an uphill in the tunnel have us nervous, we even looked at the possibility of taking another road to avoid it. CRAZINESS! This tunnel is AMAZING. On the entry side we spot a no cycling sign so we seek out a police guy to confirm whether we can go through. He seems surprised we even ask and waves us on. The road surface is smooth and fast concrete, the lights are good, the tunnel is wide, any gradient is indiscernible and the traffic is fairly light.

The weather is miserable, cold and rainy on the other side and the landscape has completely transformed. The concrete road surface is cracked and muddy rocks take over sometimes. This is an extremely beautiful road when we get below the clouds and visibility improves. The cliffs, rushing rivers, waterfalls, lush forest and low lying clouds gives it the air of King Kong’s island. The upper part of the road is lined with honey sellers and their hives.

Ten kilometres or so from the tunnel we find a roadside hotel. Very basic but a million times better than camping in the rain and we get a yummy hot dinner too.

King Kong Island?

22/5/10 Hotel below tunnel to Ya’an – 80 km

Tomato and egg soup for breakfast and we are off, down the hill J to Ya’an. Pretty scenery, we are definitely back in Han China now. We have lunch in Tianquan. The road follows the river and does go up and down, it’s not all downhill and the weather gets warmer, we are coming back to summertime.

Get a decent room in Ya’an, it’s a nice, chilled town.

23/5/10 Ya’an to Xinjie – 108kms

Get a bit confused trying to get out of Yá’an. There’s a road that rises up to the expressway with no cycling signs on it so we dither around asking a million people where we go. They all point up this road. Eventually we capitulate and venture up there on the hard shoulder. We come to a tunnel and dither more but a man points us through so we go…. The 318 is on the other side of the tunnel and goes right off this road by the toll booths for the expressway, at the moment it is a construction site but we spy a couple of Chinese tourers coming the other way which reassures us we are on the right track. A couple of kilometres later it becomes a perfect road and we rack up the kilometres quickly which is a nice change. There are quite a few towns along the road to eat and we buy some mysterious orange plum like fruit from one of the millions of sellers lining the road under their parasols. Delicious.

In Xinjie we turn off the main road to find a place to sleep, there are a lot of KTV bars here… one hotel just rejects us immediately, the next, around the corner is run by a lovely couple and they seem willing to give us a room. We are trying to work out a price when 5 policemen appear. The hotel owners are unsure whether we can stay there and the poicemen haven’t a clue either. Luckily there’s an English speaker back at base, he gets a call and investigates the situation. Half and hour later he appears, asks us some questions, looks at the bicycles and informs us to stay in our hotel after dark, it seems we have lucked on the red light district of Xinjie and there are drug dealers around who might rob us. The police are extremely polite and friendly and thank us a lot for our cooperation.

24/5/10 Xinjie to Chengdu – 45km

No drama during the night by the infamous drug dealers trying to steal our strategically locked bikes, so we ride of for breakfast. The road is towards Chengdu is very straight and smooth and we cruise to the city in the morning hours. It’s ginormous, but safe to cycle as there are cycle lanes. Ok, sort of safe, you have to play the game. Staying at the bustling Mix Hostel – great place.

25/5/10-29/5/10 Rest in Chengdu

Celebrating Nic’s Birthday, watching Giant Panda’s, fixing bikes, catching up with Michael the Suisse and meeting lots of nice people and other cyclists. Good times! Generally repairing our broken souls and bodies (and Nic’s bike of course).