More Chinese

Korla to Vineyard Camp
September 30th
121km (551m vertical)

There was a long ascent out of Korla and along the Tien Shan mountains today, which was the first climbing we've done since entering China. It was nice to push up the incline and then fly down the other side before returning to a mostly flat afternoon. We met a dozen local cyclists at the top of the climb, who were very interested in us, our bikes and our trip. We took some photos of them and they took some photos of us.

Leaving Korla, there were a few buildings and statues that looked typically Chinese to me. Until now, things in this heavily Muslim province have seemed much more Arabic than Asian.

Several riders missed a flagged turn (that came 5km early) and got themselves lost this morning. The most lost were Max and Trene, who rode 230km today! They were pretty upset that the tour wouldn't take a van to go and pick them up once they realized how far out of the way they had ridden. Thankfully, I had seen the flagging tape and made the turn.

Camp tonight is beside a vineyard, which reminds me a lot of southern Ontario. This region is famous for is raisins.

River in Korla:

Starting to look Chinese:

Fields and fields of hot chilli peppers drying in the sun, with ladies sorting them:

Temp Swings

Slaughterhouse Camp to Korla
September 29th
134km (291m vertical)

The temperature here on the outskirts of the desert changes dramatically throughout the day. Last night I needed all of my thermals (in addition to my pathetic sleeping bag) to stay warm, and today the temperature rose to 93F in the afternoon.

Another dull day scenery-wise. There was a white haze over everything – probably another sandstorm. Korla is a large city, and the terrain got noticeably more green as we approached. (Again, thanks to water from the mountains.)

Staying in a hotel tonight. It only cost the tour company US$10 per person, and it is pretty nice. For the next few weeks, we should get one hotel stay during each riding stretch, in addition to the hotel stays on rest days. In November, we will only stay in hotels.

We tried to buy some more tubes from the local bike shop, but they did not have the sizes we needed. Some people have had dozens of flats in a row lately, and are using heavily patched tubes that they've repaired at camp. I brought a lot of spare tubes, so I still have about 6...and have already lent one to Manon and one to Knut, who each ran out.

Big family-style dinner tonight at the restaurant across the street. We also found “real” chocolate (M&Ms) at a grocery store. This is exciting, since the Chinese chocolate is terrible.

Its a dull day when you resort to posing for photos with police manikins. (There were several of this on the road today...not sure why.)

This gas station had 26 pumps...and no customers while we were there:

All or Nothing

Kuqa to Slaughterhouse Camp
September 28th
154km (250m vertical)

Unremarkable day today. Flat road through the desert with nothing much to see. We did get a tailwind after lunch, which made the kilometers tick past more quickly.

We passed through a few little one-street towns, which are full of life in start contrast to the still of the desert. There were Sunday markets on, and big trucks, small trucks, scooters and donkey carts all darted in every direction. Traffic here really is crazy, and its only going to get worse.

Camp tonight is in a cattle farm. I set up my tent in an empty concrete hay storage bunker.

Not an exciting photo, I realise, but this is pretty much the view we had all day:

Modern camels of the desert, these trucks are piled well above their intended truck beds...and we've seen several turned over on the road:

A Sunday market in a small town:

Signs that we are still in a Muslim area:

Graeme camped out in his concrete bunker:

Hotel Rest

Rest Day in Kuqa
September 27th
0km

Spent the day relaxing in our hotel. We have internet in our room, although it cuts in and out frequently to my great annoyance. The lights in the room also seem to turn themselves on and off randomly. I think they have motion detectors, because they go off if you sit still too long and turn on again if you flail around ridiculously.

Did half of my laundry myself, since the hotel was charging US$1.50 for each pair of socks. Just gave them the cycling shorts and tops, which need to get really clean. Ben changed the grip on my handlebars which had ripped and been unraveling since my fall back in Turkey. I washed my bike again, since it got covered in mud when it rained. Spent a bunch of time looking at Toronto condos online. Going to see if my mom can rent me something that will be available when I get back in December.

Friday Market

Desert Camp to Kuqa
September 26th
94km (172m vertical)

Last night was chilly under perfectly clear skies. The constellations were bright and mesmerizing as I stared up from the desert. I even saw a shooting star.

After four long rides, we enjoyed a short, easy ride into our rest day. The desert scenery was nice, but similar to the past few days. Temperature was still ideal on the road.

Kuqa's outskirts are extremely impoverished neighborhoods, where dilapidated mud shacks line the busy main road. I would have taken more photos, but there were cars, donkey carts, and scooters all flying past us in every direction, so I didn't want to stop. In general, the Chinese seem to view traffic lanes and suggestions, and frequently drive on the wrong side of the road into oncoming traffic.

Arrived in Kuqa in time to visit the Friday market, which was the most crowded and frantic market we've seen yet. I bought myself a pair of ridiculous looking jogging pants to wear over my thermals on cold nights. (My thin sleeping bag is not up to the task...even with the extra-thick liner I bought.)

Had dinner next to the hotel. Mimed to the waitress that she could pick the dishes, and she served up a feast: big bowl of soup that they used to cook chicken, meat, noodles and veggies at our table. Tasty, but we stopped looking in the soup once we found a chicken foot.

View from my tent in the morning:

Kuqa market's smoky restaurant stalls:

The market was packed:

Locals inspecting the spices:

Local kebob vendor:

Dry and Happy

Aksu to Desert Camp
September 25th
163km (345m vertical)

We were very lucky that yesterday's rain came on a hotel night. Everything was clean and dry this morning, and today's weather was great. I really enjoyed the ride.

We had sunshine and perfect temperatures around 70F with little wind. There were snow-capped mountains on the horizon as we rode down the tree-lined streets and through the farmers markets of this oasis-city. In the afternoon, we returned to the vast open desert...which was only somewhat less impressive after riding through it for four hours.

Tonight's camp is on a dried mud-flat, which is the perfect place to pitch a tent: flat, soft, no dust, no bugs. The only drawback is the lack of privacy on the huge, flat stretch of land... which makes for a long hike to find a suitable toilet spot.

Stewart rode in the van today, since his arm was still sore from yesterday's fall. Jimmy was also feeling stiff, but managed to cycle the entire day. We've covered almost 400 miles in the past 4 days, and my butt is getting a bit sore. Only one more day until a rest.

Busy market on the outskirts of Aksu:

Small house with crops and a view of snow-capped mountains in the distance:

Hot chillis drying in the sand. The locals seem to put these spicy peppers in many of their dishes.

Vast desert with mountains in the background:

Camp on a mud flat:

Rain

Desert Camp to Aksu
September 24th
172km (338m vertical)

Long, cold, wet ride today. Although the desert-proper only gets rain once every 10 years, we rode through a steady shower along its outskirts. Its the first rain we've seen in months, and everyone got completely soaked and covered in street grit. The temperature dropped to 51F...so my hands and feet were numb with cold. Thankfully, we are staying in a hotel tonight, so I got a warm shower and had a chance to rinse and dry my clothes.

Four riders fell today, but none were seriously hurt. Stewart and Jost got tanged up riding together and both fell. Stewart hurt his arm and Jost hurt his hip. Jimmy bumped into Fred and fell, cracking his helmet. Graeme fell on some bad pavement, but didn't get hurt. I imagine that they will all be a bit still tomorrow. My sore shoulder is only now back to normal after my little fall.

We spent most of the day on lovely smooth toll roads, before entering the town on public roads and seeing the surface quickly deteriorate. Is this really Communism?

Lunch in the middle of no-where:

Riding in the rain. (This was at the beginning...when I was still warm and smiling.)

My legs were covered in street grit. Those are yellow socks.

Foreign Devils

Xigeer to Desert Camp
September 23rd
147km (200m vertical)

This morning, Miles told us that “If you like rocks, then today is very scenic.” This was his sarcastic way of saying that the scenery was pretty dull and very repetitive. It was a long day of flat, straight roads, with the Tien Shan Mountains on the left and the Taklamakan Desert on the right. I did manage to make one of my tires explode by over inflating it en route, and this was the only real excitement of the day. Otherwise, we fought a headwind for much of the morning and boredom for much of the afternoon.

Reading about this region in Peter Hopkirk's “Foreign Devils on the Silk Road” gives a lot of color to a seemingly boring area. The name Taklamakan is Turkish for “go in and you won't come out”, and the desert is one of the world's most dangerous and storied. Real-life adventurers like Sir Aurel Stein inspired characters like Indiana Jones and Laura Croft as they combed through the desert in search of ancient treasures buried in the shifting sands. In addition to hostile local tribes, they faced the danger of terrible sandstorms. In fact, the yellowish “smog” that we encountered yesterday was not pollution at all – it was the impact of a sandstorm out in the desert. (Today we had much better visibility...although all we saw was more desert.) There are many local workers sweeping the edges of the road in the desert, which seems strange until you realize that the roads could quickly become covered by debris in a sandstorm.

Kashgar, where we had our last rest day, lies on the westernmost point of the Taklamakan. From here, the Silk Road branches both North and South around the desert. We are on the Northern route. Most explorers skirted the desert on this route due to its many oasis towns. These were created by flows of glacial water from the mountains to our left. Even today, we ride past continuous levies and dikes, designed to catch water from the mountains and funnel it through tunnels under the road we are on and the railroad next to it. Without them, these roads would likely get washed away each spring.

Mountains left. Desert right.

I think they guy collects and sells "junk" that he finds on the road.

Lunch in the desert:

Camp in the desert:

Tents in the desert:

Smog

Kashgar to Xigeer
September 22nd
152km (546m vertical)

There was a strange yellow smog in the air as we left Kashgar. It didn't make me cough, but it blanketed everything like a thick fog. We could stare directly into the sun, which looked like a full-moon in the sky.

Long ride with pretty boring scenery. There were sandy mountains to our left and flat desert to our right...and we couldn't even see that very well because of the smog. Temperature was great, between 61F and 84F all day.

The lunch truck set up in a tiny town at 85km, and dozens of local men gathered around to watch us eat. It was a bit awkward, but I suppose understandable. If a group of people on camels started roasting kebabs on my front lawn, then I would probably come out and watch as well.

We're staying in a tiny motel tonight. It doesn't have washrooms, other than the mud-walled pit toilets across the parking lot, but we do get beds and can buy cold drinks. The original plan was to camp in the dirt parking lot, but the motel owner didn't go for that. (Why would he when he could rent all of his rooms to us?)

Convoy leaving Kashgar had to navigate the local scooters. (We were faster than they were!)

Knut and Max eating lunch with an audience:

Graeme riding past highway sweepers in the desert:

Sign with both Chinese and Arabic characters:

Multi-layered mountains that we rode along all day:

Online Again

Rest day in Kashgar
September 21st
0km

Went out for dinner last night for the first time in China. Found a place that had clearly never served an English speaker before. As soon as I started miming “I'll have what he's having” and “What is good on your menu?” the waitress looked panicked. She called over 3 other waitresses for backup, and eventually found an English-speaking customer to help translate. (The place was packed with locals.) Ended up with a very spicy sizzling lamb dish and a huge bowl of soup with mushrooms and meatballs. Tasty, but a bit to spicy for me. I was sweating profusely.

Our hotel has a good internet cafe, so I spent a few hours this morning updating my blog. Its going to be hard to keep the map updated, since Google Maps does not have any detail of Chinese cities, roads, etc. Apparently the government is pretty strict on their mapping information. They searched our bags at the border, and looked through all the maps and books that people brought. On the plus side, I am still able to access my blogger account here – so I have not been censored yet.

The hotel also did all my laundry for $20 (pretty expensive, but very convenient). I washed my bike in the afternoon, re-packed my bags, and relaxed. Five long days of riding until our next rest day. I would have liked to tour around Kashgar a bit, but felt like taking it easy. Its hard to be an active tourist for 6 months straight.

This is the main street in town, with lots of shops and resteraunts. Notice the kids cycling and skateboarding on the busy road, and the Olympics poster.

China is the first country since Europe that has recycling:

"DONOTDRIVETIREDLY"

Very specific butcher section in the supermarket:

Flying

Camp after Kizilej to Kashgar
September 20th
72km (155m vertical)

In today's 72km ride, we descended more than 1,000m into Kashgar. Fastest average speed of the trip - 34.4km/h! We were strongly motivated by the prospect of a hotel room and a shower after 6 nights of bush camping.

After the empty desert roads, the streets of Kashgar seem completely frantic. We came in on a 6-lane road with a 100km/h speed limit, where the outermost lanes were full of other cyclists, people on scooters, donkey carts, pedestrians, and people sitting in the road. There were several uncontrolled intersections, where cars, trucks, cyclists, and pedestrians all randomly flowed past each other, flirting with disaster. Not a place for the faint of heart.

For a communist country, capitalism is thriving here. There are shops, restaurants, malls and advertisements everywhere, including hundreds of banners and billboards for the Olympic games. (Obviously a source of much national pride, even in a city that is closer to Beirut than Beijing.)

Some camels, next to our campsite:

One last look back at the mountains before dropping into the city:

Coming Down

Ulugqat to Camp after Kizilej
September 19th
116km (1,315m vertical)


Leaving the mountain heights has been great. Although there were several long climbs today, we got more down than up as we continue to drop elevation on our way down to Kashgar. Its great to fly effortlessly along at 70km/h for long stretches, just watching the rugged mountains roll past.

The temperatures are rising as well, which is nice. This morning was only 41F when we started out, and we finished in the high 80s. I read in my tent for most of the afternoon to avoid the sun. We are camped in a shadeless desert beside the main road, with nothing moving but the tiny lizards running around my tent.

This area of China must have a lot of Muslims, because there is Farsi writing on most of the street signs above the Chinese characters. (There's no English so far.) We've also seen Islamic looking cemeteries in the middle of the desert, and local men wearing the same traditional headgear as they did in the “stan” countries. All in all, the people here don't look very different from the Kyrgs and Uzbeks we saw. In each country, people have had somewhat Chinese-looking features, but their skin is dark a their eyes are more round. (Lots of variation of course, but this is my general impression.)

Rugged mountain views from the one, lonely road:



Muslim cemetery...in the middle of nowhere:

The view from my tent as I hid from the sun:

CHINA

Camp near Erkec-Tam (Kyrgyzstan) to Ulugqat (China)
September 18th
67km (799m vertical)

Six months ago, my first application for a Chinese visa was rejected. Today, I successfully entered the country.

The ride was my favorite of the trip so far. Flying around the sharp corners on the steep descents was pure joy. Boy did I miss smooth pavement! Days like this are why I come on trips like this. The scenery was just breathtaking and there were wild horses and two-humped camels wandering beside our quiet road. I took tons of photos but I doubt that they will do it justice. The scale of the landscape has to be experienced to be appreciated.

Another very cold night last night, which stopped me from sleeping well. I put on everything warm I had with me and it still couldn't keep me quite warm enough – and I usually sleep really well in the cold. It was 35F when we started cycling, and I imagne that it got a bit cooler than that during the night. Probably right around freezing.

The border was a hassle, but that was expected. It took us 2.5 hours just to leave Kyrgyzstan, including a delay due to a power failure that shut down their computer system. We arrived at the first Chinese checkpoint at 11:30am...just in time for their 2.5 hour lunch break! So we sat and waited. It was another hour and a half of processing before we were free. One of the young border officers had a camera, and kept randomly taking photos of us while we waited. Very rude.

With our late start, it was almost dark when we arrived in “camp”. Instead of camping in a field and having Miles cook, we are camping in a small town and ate at a local “restauraunt". It had no electricity, but lots of personality as we dined by candight. The tiny cooking area gave plenty of heat as we enjoyed home made dumplings and noodles.

Our tents are literally right in front of the tiny restaurant, on a small patch of dirt. There were local kids everywhere when we arrived, and they seem to have been replaced by wandering cows and barking dogs now that it is dark.

Last of the Kyrgy climbs, heading towards the Chinese border:

I had never seen wild, two-humped camels before:

The rugged landscape at dust was amazing:

More great views of Chinese mountains:

Tonight's camp site:

Bumpy Ride

Sary-Tash to Camp near Erkec-Tam
September 17th
57km (825m vertical)

I only got a few hours of sleep in the Yurt last night –a far cry from the 9 hours that I've been averaging lately. I was cold, I felt cramped, there were barking dogs outside and I had a headache from the bumpy roads.

I had on all of my cold weather gear as we hit the road this morning - it was only 35F! I could see my breath and there was frost on my bike's seat cover. The temperature did rise to 73F by the afternoon, so everyone was stripping off layers on the road.

The road surface today was terrible! By far the worst of the trip. We didn't get an inch of pavement until the last km before camp. Conditions ranged from hard-packed dirt to large rocks to light moon-dust. Truckers had carved their own dirt trails beside the main road, trying to find ways around the worst sections. There were huge potholes all over the place that made downhills just as tough as uphills. Several riders fell off their bikes, and I had a few close calls on steep grades with loose sand. My average speed for the day was 10.2km/h...another record low. However, I did manage to hit 80.2km/h - a personal best - on the one piece of paved road before camp. If the entire road had been paved, today's ride would have been perfect because the scenery was wonderful.

The hills and dust took their tole on our big blue tour van, which died just before lunch today. We cycled passed it on a hill as Miles unloaded all of our stuff into an empty truck that he had flagged down. (This is hitchhiking taken to the extreme!) The timing isn't too bad though, since we get a new van starting in China tomorrow anyways.

The snow-capped mountains were a lovely backdrop to a tough day:

A lone yurt in the middle of the plains:

What a rugged road:

Me riding the hampster trail:

Nicole struggling up a rocky path. Look at that road surface!: