Archive for April, 2010

day 028 – km 29291

Mittwoch, April 28th, 2010

liupanshui – weining / lake caohai

89,08km 1359 alti meter

just received the call that we can pick up our passports with the extended visas!

… back on the road again …

a 600 meter  climb started right after liupanshui and brought us up to 2500 meter. from there on the road went up and down between 2300 and 2500 before dropping down to weining at 2200 meter. sometimes there are signs for the sights but they often change names and/or don´t appear further along the route, so navigation is quiet difficult. leaving the village we found a nice campspot at the lake.

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day 027 – rest day

Mittwoch, April 28th, 2010

liupanshui – rest day

…. waiting for the visa extension and thinking about the further route…. time for a walk around town and looking at the sights…

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the route so far

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day 026 – rest day

Montag, April 26th, 2010

liupanshui – rest day

life in slow motion…. we try to extend our visa …. every little task seems to take hours!? making copies of the passports, getting a printout from the internet, finding a place to make new visa pictures… (as they need to have a blue background!?!? they top the “new” picture requirements for a usa visa!) the city is filled with shops and supermarkets who seem to sell all the same limited assortment. 50 shops for mobile phones in one building….

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checking out a different vehicle while waiting for the pictures

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the crew from the photo studio

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safty first!? the inside of a taxi

day 025 – km 29202

Montag, April 26th, 2010

lao hei shan – liupanshu

57,16km 581 alti meter

once again a “improvisation” on my front rack, as it suffered on the gravel roads the last 2 days…. at every stop we are quickly surrounded by a big crowed looking at us. some more hills passing coal mines until we reach the “coal capital” of the area.

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looks like “working in a coal mine”!?

day 024 – km 29144

Montag, April 26th, 2010

huanguashu falls – lao hei shan

79,59km 1503 alti meter

the side road through this karst hills is steep and windy. we stopped the 2nd time on our trip to help someone getting their vehicles back on track. the drivers don´t seem upset at all!? they just stand there with their mobile phones in the hand and  smoke one, two or three cigarettes… things move slowly… they don´t stop other people for help and the people that stop seem only to see whats going on (or down) smoke a cigarette and leave again.

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the tent sound system 😉

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tuk-tuk going wild!?

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day 023 – km 29065

Montag, April 26th, 2010

longgong – huanguashu falls

48,19km 722 alti meter

after a noodle soup breakfast we left to see the huanguashu water falls. the expected and unexpected expenses of the last days damped our moods a little, so getting the overpriced tickets to see the water falls for the student price brought back some sunshine. after some steep gravel roads we found a great camp spot with amazing view.

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with this words you win every scrabble game!

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day 022 – km 29017

Montag, April 26th, 2010

anshun – longgong

47,42km 318 alti meter

we checked the local police station to see if we can extend our visa here or if we can do that in the next city. the traffic gets more crazy around here. (less bikes but more reckless taxi drivers / bus drivers and a constant horn honking “concert”). we found a helpful police man who spoke pretty good english and decided to extend the visa in liupanshui in a couple of days. before riding out of the city we visited the buddhist temple. the short ride to the longgong caves was hilly at the end, but the caves are really nice. the night we spent at the house of mrs. yuan. she works as a guide at the caves and is very interested in improving her english. this gave her a short english lesson and us a little insight in the way people life and think.

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day 021 – km 28969

Montag, April 26th, 2010

kaili – anshun (300km on the train)

nice train ride from kaili to anshun although they took my fuel bottle and fuel pump off the trailer at the train station in kaili without telling me!? to find replacement or gas canisters will be difficult around here, but for now we still have the stove from alex.

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day 020 – rest day

Dienstag, April 20th, 2010

kaili – rest day

maintenance day. bike and gear needed a good wash….

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day 019 – km 28953

Dienstag, April 20th, 2010

xiajiang – kaili

36,8km 307 alti meter

we rode to rongjiang where we decided to take a bus to kaili. which worked out better then i thought.

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some nice festivals along the road, with people in their traditional clothings

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some passengers got a little seasick on the windy mountain road, while our race-bus-driver was in multi-mode (driving, smoking, spitting and honking the horn!?)

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checking out the local food specialties (all in the name of science of course!) 😉

day 018 – km 28916

Dienstag, April 20th, 2010

dulio jiang river – xiajiang

60,1km 451 alti meter

my speedometer gave up, as it might had enough of the rain, rain, rain…

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day 017 – km 28856

Dienstag, April 20th, 2010

sanjiang – dulio jiang river

87,24km 427 alti meter

more rain in the morning, but it cleared off a little in the afternoon. we left the guangxi province and entered the much poorer guinzhou province. (the roads turned rougher and sometimes muddy) after following the xin jiang river we now ride along the dulio jiang river upstreams and found a nice campspot at the river bank.

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day 016 – km 28770

Dienstag, April 20th, 2010

longsheng – sangjiang

78,90km 429 alti meter

another interesting day on the road. so far not one day like the other! different landscape, different people, different customs…

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day 015 – km 28691

Dienstag, April 20th, 2010

guilin – longsheng

98,13km 894 alti meter

after a grey morning the sky cleared off a little and it turned into a nice riding day.

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the “harp man” playing the blues…

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dragon´s backbone rice terraces

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chinese pizza

day 014 – rest day

Dienstag, April 20th, 2010

guilin – rest day

more rain, low temperatures and different shades of grey…. so, a good day to do some “modifications” to my bike, which shows signs of age and heavy usage.

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mission control center. alex with our 3 chinese cycling friends.

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finaly found someone who speaks a couple words english and a welder….

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… modified front rack ….

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the idea was that a solid bolt should keep my bottom bracket in place. i will see if the improvised material does the job…. 

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chinese tuk-tuk-taxi

day 013 – rest day

Dienstag, April 13th, 2010

guilin – rest day

heavy rain all morning so instead of some sightseeing around town, we stayed inside to update blog and journals. perfect conditions to do some research about the further route options…

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day 012 – km 28591

Dienstag, April 13th, 2010

yangshuo – guilin

95,76km 648 alti meter

instead of the shorter main road to guilin we took a nice gravel side road with stunning views of the karst hills and orange trees. i thought i could tighten the bottom bracket on my bike but it turned out that the thread is more or less gone. the guys at the bike shop told me that can not be fixed and i would need a new frame!? (after 85.000km it is not a very easy decision  to replace it!?)

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day 011 – km 28495

Dienstag, April 13th, 2010

mengshan – yangshuo

92,16km 392 alti meter

a overcast morning turned into a sunny and humid day. lots of impressive karst hills along the road. we met up with our chinese cycling friends and camped for the first time in china.

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day 010 – km 28403

Dienstag, April 13th, 2010

taiping – mengshan

86,12km 783 alti meter

we left the grey city of taiping into another interesting day on the road with lots of divers sights. at lunch break we meet 3 chinese cyclists on their way to lhasa. we cycled together for a while and had lunch together. the rain picked up and a car slid off the road. we stopped to help him bring his car back on the road. (they had a interesting way to do that and made some more damage to the car doing so!?!?)

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day 009 – km 28317

Dienstag, April 13th, 2010

wuzhou – taiping

93,73km 1302 alti meter

first climbing day on some windy hilly roads passing rice and fruit fields.

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day 008 – rest day

Dienstag, April 13th, 2010

wuzhou – rest day

it rained hard in the early morning hours, so we decided to take a day off to update the blog and do some maintenance …. we trained our eyes already to find hotels (which look not that obvious around here!?) but finding a internet cafe is still a mission!?

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day 007 – km 28223

Donnerstag, April 8th, 2010

deqing – wuzhou

80,13km 209 alti meter

most of the sights are not set up for non chinese tourists, so we are left with guessing what the buildings were built for. some people are starring at us and others smile and say the probably only english word they know “hello”. a woman at a restaurant tells us that tourists don´t come to that area usually.

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day 006 – km 28147

Donnerstag, April 8th, 2010

zhaoqing – geqing

101,94km 240 alti meter

we couldn´t find a internet cafe, but a nice guy from a computer store let us check emails on his computer, before we checked out the confucius temple. (and yes….. more rain…..)

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in the eye of the beholder…..

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day 005 – km 28046

Donnerstag, April 8th, 2010

yaogu – zhaoqing

37,87km 92 alti meter

the day started again with a flat tire and some more light rain. the views on the 7 star crags and the city wall must be amazing in different weather conditions.

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day 004 – km 28008

Donnerstag, April 8th, 2010

kaiping – yaogu

101,09km 231 alti meter

first signs of the past which seems for some still very present!?

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day 003 – km 27907

Donnerstag, April 8th, 2010

gujing – kaiping

69,21km 82 alti meter

the weather is very foggy with light rain all day, but the landscape and the life at zili cun is still very impressive.

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that helps a lot, but is not very common.

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day 002 – km 27837

Donnerstag, April 8th, 2010

macao – gujing

89,46km 298 alti meter

first day in china main land…… the future will tell if the language difficulties will stay a barrier or if we can cope with it….

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day 001 – km 27748

Donnerstag, April 1st, 2010

hong kong – macao

15,62km 27 alti meter

we just picked up the visa for china. next step is a ferry to macao as i thought that might be a good way out of hong kong and then hopefully cycling to mainland china……

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