Archive for Mai, 2010
Sonntag, Mai 30th, 2010
chengdu mao xian (bus) chengdu (bike)
170km 638 alti meter
a long day on the road! it started a little difficult, as there was no direct bus to mao xian, so we had to change to a mini-van-taxi in wenchan. we picked up our bikes and alex took the bus back to chengdu while i cycled. at first 42km more of the construction dusty road, then against the wind on paved road. the earthquake 2 years ago must have been disastrous. it seems that the mountain collapsed and covered / washed away the old road / villages
. over several km. at some points they left pieces of evidence as memorial / ruins while building a new highway on the other side of the river. a couple of new tunnels lead the road downstream and turns somehow into a freeway with long dark tunnels. after a 3,7km and a couple of 2km long tunnels i got a ride with a police car to the next freeway exit, where i could continue riding.

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Sonntag, Mai 30th, 2010
chengdu rest day
the checking for route alternatives took so much time, that we were to late for the bus back to mao xian, so we had a relaxing evening.

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Sonntag, Mai 30th, 2010
mao xian chengdu
on the 3,5h bus ride we could learn again something about chinese mentality. people seem to be only focused on the 5m ahead of them. they don´t care what is left or right of them, or what might be 20m ahead. so if the traffic slows down or stops because of a construction or something else, they start honking the horn and passing until everything stands still with 4 rows of vehicles blocking every direction.


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Sonntag, Mai 30th, 2010
songpan mao xian
33km on bike / 110km in a pick up
what a day off unexpected changes!? we thought about taking the bus to chengdu, but the only bus there this day didn´t have any seats available (and he wouldn´t have taken the bikes). so we started cycling on the bumpy/dusty road. it started to rain, which had the advantage that it got a little less dusty. the next thing which turned out to have a major impact on the route happened when we were just about to have a snack. a dog bit alex in the hand. not really bad, but enough to need treatment and not being able to continue cycling that day. so we got a pick up / mini van which brought us to mao xian, from which we thought the road will be paved and we can continue as planed.

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Montag, Mai 24th, 2010
songpan rest day
time again to renew our visa and update the blog
same country different procedures
instead of 3-5 days the visa extension took only 1h here!?

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Montag, Mai 24th, 2010
nianduoba songpan
70km 229 alti meter
what a change from the highland to the alpine like river valley with amazing smells of flowers and pine forests. the icy cold northern wind, which gave us some morning frost is gone and we face the warm breeze from the southern valley. the last stretch to songpan from chuanzhusi is still a rough / dusty construction road. the people in town tell us that it is like this since the earthquake 2 years ago.

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Montag, Mai 24th, 2010
daohe river naihai
80km 767 alti meter
some thunder & lightning in the night and a cold day on the road. the people are very friendly and curious up here. the traditional coats they wear are huge with very long sleeves. so they wrap them almost twice around themselves and somehow try to keep the long sleeves from the ground.

some rough parts on concrete road
a dog caught one of the thousands marmots
6 chinese cyclists going the other way

indoor camping, not much shelter from the cold but at least dry

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Montag, Mai 24th, 2010
xiahe ci ge ga ama
56km 668 alti meter
as the weather is still cold but sunnier then yesterday we take one more look at the labrang monastery and the village before continuing our route south, up to the very quiet grasslands.


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Sonntag, Mai 23rd, 2010
15km< xiahe xiahe
16km 151 alti meter
again a cold rainy night in the tent. we ride into the village and check out the chinese, the muslim and the tibetan district with the labrang monastry.


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Sonntag, Mai 23rd, 2010
15km> linxia horzang xinggo
55km 429 alti meter
my speedometer doesn´t work proper anymore, so i couldn´t take a picture of the 30.000 km of this trip. the day started with some maintenances (new brake pads and some wheel tuning) before the downhill to town.



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Sonntag, Mai 23rd, 2010
lanzhou yongjing
82,35km 886 alti meter
in the morning the bikes arrived at the train station. we left the not very friendly city following the river and then we headed into the mountains.

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Sonntag, Mai 23rd, 2010
jiayuguan lanzhou
before taking the train to the capital of the gansu province, we check out where the great wall takes its way east
we arrived late in lanzhou and on top of that were the bikes not on the same train!?


the staff from the train sells all kinds of gadgets and games
which keeps everyone busy for a while
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Sonntag, Mai 23rd, 2010
chengdu jiayuguan
to survive 33h on a train we booked the so called soft sleeper (4 beds in one small room) and it turned out to be quiet a smooth and enjoyable ride.
our home for almost 2 days.

big snow capped mountains in the background
sunrise
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Sonntag, Mai 23rd, 2010
chengdu rest day
we checked out a couple of the outdoor stores in the area of the hostel and bought train tickets to jiayuguan. chengdu seems to be a big stoppover for tibet tourists. in our hostel stayed a couple chinese chengdu-lhasa-cyclists (we would have liked to take that route, but that seems for individual travelling not chinese people at the moment not possible!?)

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Sonntag, Mai 23rd, 2010
baoguo meishan
87,25km 342 alti meter
tourist sights are not always easy to find! it took us about 1h to finally find the cliffs of the thousand buddhas. (which is a nice walk along the river and ends at the paper / printing museum.




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Donnerstag, Mai 6th, 2010
emei mountain (golden summit) – baoguo
1,5 hour hike down from 3060m to 2420m
the clouds were as thick as yesterday although we thought it might be clear after the rainstorm all night. back at the village baoguo with tourist restaurants, street lights and decorated side walk trees.



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Donnerstag, Mai 6th, 2010
emei mountain (wannian monestry) – emei mountain (golden summit)
8h hike about 2200 alti meter
thousands of steps into the thick rain clouds. we hoped for clear weather and a nice sunrise and camped at the mountain top @ 3060 meters.

analog laptop

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Donnerstag, Mai 6th, 2010
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

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Donnerstag, Mai 6th, 2010
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
.




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Donnerstag, Mai 6th, 2010
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.

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Samstag, Mai 1st, 2010
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

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Samstag, Mai 1st, 2010
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).




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