Four Bags and a Bicycle: June 2011

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Photo Blog

Lovely day, probably should have taken the ride offered moments before

Mission Accomplished

4708 meters, it's as beautiful as it looks!

Prayer flags bring out my eyes.

After the hurricane comes a rainbow

Leaving the plateau as the sleet begins to fall.

4696 meters, no rain here!

Tibetan village at the bottom

The most recent leg of my trip was ridden with a heavy heart as my
grandfather left us on June 4th (June 5th if you are on my side of the
globe). I was staying in a typical Chinese halfway house, I mean
guesthouse, when I found out and it was the first time I actually felt
alone on this trip. I did the only thing I could do which was pack my
bags and ride on looking fragile to people around me I am sure. At
least I felt they did as everyone seemed to be extra friendly and
could understand my Chinese haha! This was a good thing because if
there had been any confusion over a basic task I might of lost it and
the lady or the man in the shop would become confused thinking to
themselves "man I only asked if she wanted the red or blue label
water, these white people are nuts!" Luckily nothing of the such
happened and everything went smoothly throughout the course of the day
and I arrived at the luxurious Blue River Hotel only to wake up ill
the next morning where the logical approach would have been to rest,
but this hotel was not ideal for resting. When I departed I thought
there was another town 20km along ha, I was so wrong. I ended up
climbing a 4000 meter mountain on no food and terrible roads. I slept
extremely well that night in my tent amongst the spruces.
The journey continued the next morning down the mountain on not so
lovely roads for the majority of the decent, but I eventually did find
tarmac, civilization, and food. I spent a day resting in Xiang Cheng
preparing for yet another 4700 meter moutain pass. However, I did not
prepare for the Chinese papazzi I would encounter along the way. As
soon as the group saw me coming they lined up along the road with
their high powered lenses and began snapping away even gesturing to
try and get me to look at their camera and not their friends. Needless
to say I did not stop I just kept pedaling and gave them all my best
smile while remarking " you guys are insane." Not sure if they
understood that comment or not but they all seemed to laugh.
I did not make the summit that day, I decided it would be way more fun
to ride over the top when it was windy and rainy. About 200 meters
from the top a nice person (see mom people are nice here) stopped and
offered me a ride, I being determined declined. Apparently I would
rather cycle in the cold, wind, and rain, sometimes I even question my
decisions, but not this one. I reached the top and it was glorious
for a few moments then the cold set in rather quickly after my brief
photo shoot on top. As I began to ride down I noticed a construction
workers' compound and immediately decided that I was stopping by to say
hello and get warm. Sure enough they let me in and gave me a stool
right next to the wood stove, milk, bolied eggs, and tea. I was
grateful for all of them to say the least, but the wood stove was my
favorite. I sat with the 5 guys for at least two hours not wanting to
go back in the dreadful weather, but I eventually managed to motivate
myslef to get down the mountain. I was fairly confident a town with
hot showers resided at the bottom and I was correct on this
assumption. As soon as I entered the town I hear a "Hello" from a
lady who is doing a remarkable shower gesture. I was immediately sold
to say the least and it was one of the top 5 best showers ever!!
The next day I conquered the final 120km to Litang which took me
across the Tibetan Plateau and on top of another high mountain
(4696m). It was all splendid especially coming down where I reached
63km/hr and my bike did not fall apart nor did I need to use my
emergerncy parachute brakes. The only rough part was the final 10km
when I was facing a massive head wind and had packs of dogs chasing me
needless to say it was not fun. I managed it though and rewarded
myself with some yak and potato curry when I arrived in the wild west
town of Litang complete with men in trench coats and cowboy hats.
They look like train robbers luckily for me they are not bicycle
robbers :)