taking the long way home

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!?

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.

zoige – nianduoba

90km 611 alti meter

more highland / marshland on which some nomad people live with their yaks.

the chinese “viagra”

naihai – zoige

130km 728 alti meter

more nice grass / highlands and the lahmo monastery in langmusi.

water driven praying drum

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

ci ge ga ama – daohe river

53km 203 alti meter

again a very nice riding day on this highlands with lots of yaks, marmots, sheep, goats, horses, birds… the place was so nice that we camped very early on a nice spot at the river.

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.