leshan baoguo emei mountain (wannian monestry)
40km 212 alti meter biking, 2h hike 550 alti meter
we leave the bikes at the teddy bear hotel in baoguo after a short ride from leshan. it turned out to be a good idea to use the late afternoon to start the hike up the emei mountain, as it was less crowded. after a couple hundred steps we camped and we get to set up my new tent for the first time (so far we used alex´s huge mobile home)
emeishan´s artifical elephant city
sanjiang leshan
33,66km 177 alti meter
after a short ride visiting the giant buddha and the park around it. we meet some other tourists, take lots of pictures and get asked for pictures .
zigong sanjiang
105km 500 alti meter
we left the mixture of hot, humid and polluted air of the city and passed rice fields again. after a climb we saw some family run businesses how made use of every bit of the bamboo trees.
zhaotong zigong
about 400km / 6 hours train ride
it took 2 hours to get tickets for us and the bikes and they checked all our bags twice (i stopped them when they tried it the third time!?) interesting spicy fondue dinner and then a taste of bejing opera in the hotel, as a group of friends of the bejing opera gave us a probe of the traditional singing, dancing and music.
alex and her la marseillaise adaption
10km > xiushui zhaotong
80,79km 950 alti meter
we changed from the guizhou province to the yunnan province which has a large muslim hui community. the train station of zhatong is about 10km out of town (the airport seems nearer)!? so we ended up on the night train to zigong with the help of our new friend. some students around here are very ambitious to improve their english, so they come up to us to offer help (or just to ask for a picture with us).
weining / lake caohai 10km > xiushui
53,35km 711 alti meter
after a cold day yesterday the sun came through!?! we didn´t have sunshine for a while, so we enjoyed the views and the quietness at the lake and left around noon.
some farmers showed alex the local technique for a campfire
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.
the team of the hotel. always friendly & helpful
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
the route so far
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 .
checking out a different vehicle while waiting for the pictures
the crew from the photo studio
safty first!? the inside of a taxi
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.
looks like working in a coal mine!?
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.
the tent sound system 😉
tuk-tuk going wild!?
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.
with this words you win every scrabble game!
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.
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.
kaili rest day
maintenance day. bike and gear needed a good wash .
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.
some nice festivals along the road, with people in their traditional clothings
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!?)
checking out the local food specialties (all in the name of science of course!) 😉
dulio jiang river xiajiang
60,1km 451 alti meter
my speedometer gave up, as it might had enough of the rain, rain, rain
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.
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
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.
the harp man playing the blues
dragon´s backbone rice terraces
chinese pizza
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.
mission control center. alex with our 3 chinese cycling friends.
finaly found someone who speaks a couple words english and a welder .
modified front rack .
the idea was that a solid bolt should keep my bottom bracket in place. i will see if the improvised material does the job .
chinese tuk-tuk-taxi
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
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!?)
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.
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!?!?)
wuzhou taiping
93,73km 1302 alti meter
first climbing day on some windy hilly roads passing rice and fruit fields.
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!?
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.
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 ..)
in the eye of the beholder ..
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.
