Hello Friends
We have completed our Chinese leg with our arrival in Dali! Whew. Fortunately we left the high mountains behind us after Tiger Leaping Gorge, which meant that we could breathe again due to have dropped to around 2000m altitude. It also meant less passes to climb over (or walk up, to be precise), although there still were two, into the Shaxi valley and out again.
But let's start chronologically:
We left our hostel at the end of the gorge when it was raining, it took quite some effort from Kyras part to bring my lazy ass to the street in such conditions. Under the ever curious glances of the locals we bought some duck eggs and steamed dumplings to have for lunch. Then we hit the road. At the end of the gorge the main road coming down from Shangri-La joins with the little mountain road that we took. This meant a bigger road, but also more traffic, mostly busses and lorries. Still OK though. The smooth concrete pavement combined with a slight downhill made skating finally easy again, at least for today. The landscape though was ugly as hell, some worn down partially industrialized Chinese towns. Initially we planned to camp at the bank of the Yangtze river, but that proved impossible, way to steep. And every inch covered by either agriculture or industry. So we set out to find some place to sleep, which was rather difficult, as the few motels and guesthouses we saw did not accommodate foreigners. Pretty much at our aim for the day we found a Chinese guy that was able to speak some English and helped us to get a room in the motel that was attached to the restaurant where we found him. More expensive than we would have preferred, but soaking wet, cold and a little disappointed as we were, we accepted. A further try of them to get our money was done in the restaurant we had dinner,where they tried to overcharge us big time. This not being the first time in China, we were prepared, knew what was reasonable to pay, and won by sheer stubbornness. After a healthy night of sleep, we emerged on the road in still wet clothes, starting our day with a uphill. I made this easier by grabbing a passing agricultural vehicle and letting myself being pulled uphill at decent speed. On top, we had nooooooooodles for breakfast. And rice. Rice and noodles, that's what champions eat for breakfast, remember that kids.
Some downhill, some uphill again, some downhill, uphill and so on was the rest of the day. In much nicer landscape though. We left the Yangtze and entered a rather basic agricultural backdrop, with rice paddies, cornfields and lots and lots of an inglorious plant from the order rosales (which we saw growing wild throughout Yunnan province, but here they cultivated it). While I was enjoying the ride, Kyra had to fight with sore legs, still she stubbornly pushed on. Again camping was planed, and again there was just to much crop growing. We let us lead by gut feeling and asked in one of the farmhouses whether we could spend the night there. It happened that this was the house of the village medicine man, who also kept three monkeys as pets. Fun guy, beautiful house, no english whatsoever. Several villager where called to have a look at us, among them the english teacher. This was lucky for us, as she took us to her equally beautiful place, where we had delicious dinner together, completely made with their self grown ingredients, including the rice. It was a wonderful evening, we got to taste some funky sour fruit with chili, drink rice booze with her father and watch Chinese TV. In the morning there was bread, self made over the open fire in the kitchen. We took our goodbyes and hit the road again. After about one hour, during which we wondered where the heck all those villagers on various means of transportation were going, we arrived at the regional weekend market. This was without doubt the most awesome market that we have ever been. First of all, not a single tourist (well, besides us of course), second you could get everything. Even some dentists were treating some poor victims, next to stalls that sold life farm animals or blowtorch grilled pig. Panties, medicine, cosmetics, vegetables, various gardening tools, smart phones, seeds, very fresh fish, DVDs, candy, you name it, they had it, including some unidentifiable objects. And of course it was crammed full with people, with lots of the women wearing the traditional clothes of the local Naxi minority. Well, we had to continue, but not without buying some candy for lunch. We push on, powered by the good experiences. In the afternoon we reach the foot of the pass that leads to the Shaxi valley. It looks high. It looks very high, especially on a map with contour lines, so we two lazy bastards decided on hitchhiking it, also having our soonishly expiring Chinese visa in mind. On the other side of the pass is Shaxi, apparently one of the last remaining market towns of the ancient tea horse route to Tibet. It sure looked good, with its old buildings and pretty cobblestone streets. And small. Surrounding the old town was some standard Chinese village. We spent a day lingering around the old town before continuing southwards, following the valley. Including... uphill! Fortunately we could buy some deep frozen yogurt from a street vendor to lift the spirits halfway up. But the day didn't feel right somehow, so we didn't overdo it and started to look for a campsite rather early. After skating our daily dose, we managed to find a decent spot to camp, close to a small river. OK, admittedly the spot was the only camping option we saw all day, but it was still good, it finally allowed me to do some (unsuccesfull) fishing. In the morning a curious farmer came looking when we were cooking our breakfast noodle soup (champions, remember...) but left again after some minutes. Packing, hitting the road. During the day it started to rain from time to time, while we were passing small villages and overtaking water buffaloes. Nice. I felt really at home on my board, thanks again to Fibretec for building it for me. All the downhills (which usually follow after an uphill, höhö) were a breeze, carving/ drifting them down nicely, although one always had to have an eye/ ear out for the lorries. And while I am at it, thanks again to Rollladen for providing bearings and other parts, would be difficult to skate without them... And at the end of the day there was only one huge mountain between us and Eryuan, our aim of the day. You imagine what we did. The night we spent in the shabbiest motel so far on this trip, waking up covered in bedbug bites. The heck, we were thinking, and tackled the last stretch between us and Dali. Not before eating some spicy noodle soup from a street stall though. The day started with a fast and long downhill, which was super slippery due to rain combined with massive amounts of street dust. And full of cars, just to make it interesting. At the bottom we were at the same time stoked, very dirty (drop through boards, equals dirt spraying up to your face) and glad to be still alive. One mild uphill through an ugly town followed, then it was just flat. Somehow we were the attraction of the day and had to stop several times to get pictures taken with smiling Chinese guys. On the other hand, some of them invited us for lunch, ultra fatty Chinese kind of pizza. We skipped on to the highway for a while, where we had an entire lane just for us, due to it having four lanes but almost no traffic. The surface was wicked though, so we changed back to the normal road. While changing, we drove through this small village, where I saw the biggest tree I ever came close to, directly opposite a small monastery from which you could hear the singing of monks. A almost spiritual moment. The last kilometers were the hardest, where we could already see Dali, but it just didn't seem to get closer. Our rumbling stomachs due to the fatty lunch weren't helping either. But you know, no one said it was going to be easy, so we toughed it out and bäm, we reached the end of our Chinese leg at Dalis east gate.
We have completed our Chinese leg with our arrival in Dali! Whew. Fortunately we left the high mountains behind us after Tiger Leaping Gorge, which meant that we could breathe again due to have dropped to around 2000m altitude. It also meant less passes to climb over (or walk up, to be precise), although there still were two, into the Shaxi valley and out again.
But let's start chronologically:
We left our hostel at the end of the gorge when it was raining, it took quite some effort from Kyras part to bring my lazy ass to the street in such conditions. Under the ever curious glances of the locals we bought some duck eggs and steamed dumplings to have for lunch. Then we hit the road. At the end of the gorge the main road coming down from Shangri-La joins with the little mountain road that we took. This meant a bigger road, but also more traffic, mostly busses and lorries. Still OK though. The smooth concrete pavement combined with a slight downhill made skating finally easy again, at least for today. The landscape though was ugly as hell, some worn down partially industrialized Chinese towns. Initially we planned to camp at the bank of the Yangtze river, but that proved impossible, way to steep. And every inch covered by either agriculture or industry. So we set out to find some place to sleep, which was rather difficult, as the few motels and guesthouses we saw did not accommodate foreigners. Pretty much at our aim for the day we found a Chinese guy that was able to speak some English and helped us to get a room in the motel that was attached to the restaurant where we found him. More expensive than we would have preferred, but soaking wet, cold and a little disappointed as we were, we accepted. A further try of them to get our money was done in the restaurant we had dinner,where they tried to overcharge us big time. This not being the first time in China, we were prepared, knew what was reasonable to pay, and won by sheer stubbornness. After a healthy night of sleep, we emerged on the road in still wet clothes, starting our day with a uphill. I made this easier by grabbing a passing agricultural vehicle and letting myself being pulled uphill at decent speed. On top, we had nooooooooodles for breakfast. And rice. Rice and noodles, that's what champions eat for breakfast, remember that kids.
Some downhill, some uphill again, some downhill, uphill and so on was the rest of the day. In much nicer landscape though. We left the Yangtze and entered a rather basic agricultural backdrop, with rice paddies, cornfields and lots and lots of an inglorious plant from the order rosales (which we saw growing wild throughout Yunnan province, but here they cultivated it). While I was enjoying the ride, Kyra had to fight with sore legs, still she stubbornly pushed on. Again camping was planed, and again there was just to much crop growing. We let us lead by gut feeling and asked in one of the farmhouses whether we could spend the night there. It happened that this was the house of the village medicine man, who also kept three monkeys as pets. Fun guy, beautiful house, no english whatsoever. Several villager where called to have a look at us, among them the english teacher. This was lucky for us, as she took us to her equally beautiful place, where we had delicious dinner together, completely made with their self grown ingredients, including the rice. It was a wonderful evening, we got to taste some funky sour fruit with chili, drink rice booze with her father and watch Chinese TV. In the morning there was bread, self made over the open fire in the kitchen. We took our goodbyes and hit the road again. After about one hour, during which we wondered where the heck all those villagers on various means of transportation were going, we arrived at the regional weekend market. This was without doubt the most awesome market that we have ever been. First of all, not a single tourist (well, besides us of course), second you could get everything. Even some dentists were treating some poor victims, next to stalls that sold life farm animals or blowtorch grilled pig. Panties, medicine, cosmetics, vegetables, various gardening tools, smart phones, seeds, very fresh fish, DVDs, candy, you name it, they had it, including some unidentifiable objects. And of course it was crammed full with people, with lots of the women wearing the traditional clothes of the local Naxi minority. Well, we had to continue, but not without buying some candy for lunch. We push on, powered by the good experiences. In the afternoon we reach the foot of the pass that leads to the Shaxi valley. It looks high. It looks very high, especially on a map with contour lines, so we two lazy bastards decided on hitchhiking it, also having our soonishly expiring Chinese visa in mind. On the other side of the pass is Shaxi, apparently one of the last remaining market towns of the ancient tea horse route to Tibet. It sure looked good, with its old buildings and pretty cobblestone streets. And small. Surrounding the old town was some standard Chinese village. We spent a day lingering around the old town before continuing southwards, following the valley. Including... uphill! Fortunately we could buy some deep frozen yogurt from a street vendor to lift the spirits halfway up. But the day didn't feel right somehow, so we didn't overdo it and started to look for a campsite rather early. After skating our daily dose, we managed to find a decent spot to camp, close to a small river. OK, admittedly the spot was the only camping option we saw all day, but it was still good, it finally allowed me to do some (unsuccesfull) fishing. In the morning a curious farmer came looking when we were cooking our breakfast noodle soup (champions, remember...) but left again after some minutes. Packing, hitting the road. During the day it started to rain from time to time, while we were passing small villages and overtaking water buffaloes. Nice. I felt really at home on my board, thanks again to Fibretec for building it for me. All the downhills (which usually follow after an uphill, höhö) were a breeze, carving/ drifting them down nicely, although one always had to have an eye/ ear out for the lorries. And while I am at it, thanks again to Rollladen for providing bearings and other parts, would be difficult to skate without them... And at the end of the day there was only one huge mountain between us and Eryuan, our aim of the day. You imagine what we did. The night we spent in the shabbiest motel so far on this trip, waking up covered in bedbug bites. The heck, we were thinking, and tackled the last stretch between us and Dali. Not before eating some spicy noodle soup from a street stall though. The day started with a fast and long downhill, which was super slippery due to rain combined with massive amounts of street dust. And full of cars, just to make it interesting. At the bottom we were at the same time stoked, very dirty (drop through boards, equals dirt spraying up to your face) and glad to be still alive. One mild uphill through an ugly town followed, then it was just flat. Somehow we were the attraction of the day and had to stop several times to get pictures taken with smiling Chinese guys. On the other hand, some of them invited us for lunch, ultra fatty Chinese kind of pizza. We skipped on to the highway for a while, where we had an entire lane just for us, due to it having four lanes but almost no traffic. The surface was wicked though, so we changed back to the normal road. While changing, we drove through this small village, where I saw the biggest tree I ever came close to, directly opposite a small monastery from which you could hear the singing of monks. A almost spiritual moment. The last kilometers were the hardest, where we could already see Dali, but it just didn't seem to get closer. Our rumbling stomachs due to the fatty lunch weren't helping either. But you know, no one said it was going to be easy, so we toughed it out and bäm, we reached the end of our Chinese leg at Dalis east gate.
Phew. Although we didn't manage to skate as many kilometers as I did in the Baltic states, it didn't feel less exhaustive. The super high altitude, combined with constant steep uphill or downhill, and not always favourable weather made this thing quite gnarly. Although the road quality was really good, no single bad road surface (when existing). Maybe you notice the lack of bad pavement pictures. And of pictures in general, I'm sorry about that, they will be delivered as soon as possible.
Ah yeah, the kilometer count. Should be around three hundred kilometers, give or take, already taking into account the hitchhiking.
Ah yeah, the kilometer count. Should be around three hundred kilometers, give or take, already taking into account the hitchhiking.
Cheers
Robert
Robert
Update: I traced our route on google maps, it was exactly 335 km after subtraction of the lifts that we had.
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