From Shangri-La to the end of Tiger leaping gorge

Hi you all

This time it's me, Kyra, writing. In the end we really took the plane, a nighttrain and a bus to cross China from east to west and arrived in Shangri-La, at 3400 meters altitude. They said, that this is the most Tibetan city you easily can get in without permit. And it was. 34% of the inhabitants are Tibetan, most women wearing the traditional clothing and also the old town looks very different to what we saw so far. The houses are similar to the Swiss chalets, exept of not having doors but carpets instead.

The initial reason for going to Shangri-La was the easy visa extension there, as we read on the internet. Well, the third time (and also third day) we went to the visa extension office, we then definitely were informed that an extension is only possible a week before the old visa expires. No luck for us with that, but Shangri-La never the less was worth a sight. We could easily spend this three days with skating a little bit, walking round the old city, visiting the temple with the biggest prayer wheel on earth (and with no entry fee; unbelievable for China) and eating a lot Tibetan dishes. We found a very cosy Tibetan restaurant (which are always just kind of their living room) that served yak meet, momo and buttertea during rainy afternoons..

On the 9th we then finally started our Chinese leg (which is now said to be more of a pinky toe..). Out of Shangri-La city we skated direction national park. Soon the road started to bend up and down and we felt the thin air at 3500 meters altitude. Super tired (at least me) we put up our tarp, went to sleep after a big pot  of polenta and woke up the next morning in a frozen wonderland with the rising sun making everything glittering. Robert had a mouse trying to climb his feet and haunting him his sleep. But exept of this the night was quiet and warm!

The following days were dominated by walking up passes and breaking them down again. As they were quite steep (we went up to 3700m altitude), we also hitchhiked some parts. While Robert enjoyed the slope as a perfect freeriding occasion, for me it was still a little too steep and I had to tie a stone on my board to help me slowing down. The road was most of the time perfectly paved and with only a few cars. These were honking here too, the first 'tuuuu' for warning that they're passing you, the second for greeting. Once as we were looking for a place to sleep, an old man brought us to a hut. The communication was tricky, first we understood that we're invited to his house including dinner, for what we had to help cutting trees. In the end it was a tree feller hut with a 10kg pack of rice that we could use. He left afterwards and we too, we prefered our tarp to that  sooty hut with a lot of empty beer bottles.

In the end it was tough but the scenery and the weather were breathtaking (but one would never guess this is in China). 

Yesterday we reached the end of Tiger leaping gorge. It took us a long time for this 170 kilometers as the terrain really was not perfect for skating and my bellys troubles slowed us down too. But we surely have now a higher hematocrit and a big love for our fleece trousers that kept us warm during freezing nights.

bye for now,

kyra