Day 101-104 (Kashgar – Aksu)

Day 101 Kashgar – Artux 46 km
Day 102 Artux – Xikekurelzhen
Day 103 Xikekurelzhen – Sanchakouzhen 112 km
Day 104 Sanchakouzhen – Aksu 205 km

Kashgar is not a big city be Chinese measures, but definately by Swedish. We loved being in a proper city again. It was wonderful to walk on busy pavements, drop into shops and just look at the city life. Our shopping tour got us two out of three things we needed.

Hard drive
We take a lot of photos and make many videoclips. The hard drive on our computer is soon full and we needed to do something about that. The solution was to go to a shop and buy a new external hard drive which has now enabled us to make some free space in the computer’s hard drive. The shop in the department store where we bought the new hard drive looked very much like one of those in good old Panthip Plaza in Bangkok.

SIM-card
The day before leaving Kashgar we also bought a chinese SIM-card to use in our iphone. It ”only” took two hours to explain what we wanted but still we haven’t got any answer to the very important question of how to re-load it with more money… We hope our new SIM-card will enable us to communicate more frequently with e-mail and blog updates even from our cosy tent.

Pump
Our pump shows signs of wearing out so I cycled to the only good bike shop in Kashgar only to find that they had no pumps for tubes with car valves… Maybe I should have tried at the local bazar instead – at least the bazar in Osh had the kind of pumps I was looking for.

Time to go
We liked our cosy hotel room in Kashgar and didn’t really want to leave. However, the visa clock has started to tick and China is a big country so there was only one thing to do and that was to get up on our bikes and start cycling.

Our strategy for China is to push a little bit harder than usual in the beginning in order to crack the backbone of the distance through China within a month. The first part doesn’t have so many sights and we think it is the landscape that is the attraction and this we can enjoy from our saddles.

Day 101
We had spoiled ourselves at the hotel in Kashgar and when we looked out of the window the morning we were leaving we saw a cloudy sky and it looked like it was cold. Once outside it turned out to be not only cool but also windy.

Our last minute shopping adventures resulted in a very late start from Kashgar. It looked more like a bush landscape and we only managed to get the 45 km to city of Artux.

When looking at the map we thought that Artux would be a smaller community, like a small town on the countryside that would perhaps not even have a hotel. Maybe it is small when measured by chinese standards, but when measured by Swedish it was a big city. It was already late and rather than riding past the city we decided to go in and try to find a hotel. The one we found was very nice – it was even better than the one in Kashgar 

Day 102
This was another cloudy morning and the temperature was cool (20-24 degrees) and if it hadn’t been for the headwind it would have been a perfect day for cycling.

The eastern bound road north of the Taklamakn desert was more boring than we had hoped. The mountains on our left side was nothing special and on our right side the desert didn’t look like a proper desert. There were also almost no gas stations and restaurants along the way where we could buy supplies or eat. When we finally arrived to a village after about 100 km we stopped to have dinner and buy lots of water before continuing to find a place to pitch our tent, which turned out to be 15 km outside the town.

Eventhough the wind got less strong in the late afternoon we wanted to anchor the tent thoroughly. This turned out to be a difficult task since the ground was a loose mix of sand and soil and we had to move the tent a few times to find a spot where the tent pegs would get some grip.

When we went to bed the wind was completely gone – a very ironic situation after having struggled in the headwind and then worked hard to anchor the tent…..

Day 103
We woke up to the sound of rain and a strong wind on the wrong side of the tent. It wasn’t difficult to decide to stay in the warm sleeping bag for another hour. When we finally crawled out of the tent we discovered it was cold and windy from the wrong direction and still a bit rainy.

This kind of weather is completely different from what we had expected. We are riding along the Taklamakan dessert and it is supposed to be hot and dry, not cold and rainy….   We do wonder if it is the end of summer that we are experiencing or if it is just temporary bad weather.

The road had an intense traffic but it also had a wide shoulder to ride on. The problem was that there were so many sharp small stones on it and in the late afternoon the inevitable happened – I hit a sharp stone and my front tyre got flat.

We didn’t see much of the scenery during the day. The cloud base was low and the clouds obscured the mountains. Looking at the mountains is our only form of entertainment and now they were hidden behind the clouds.

The road leading to Kashgar on the northern side of the Taklamakan dessert is being rebuilt. It is actually more correct to say that they are building a completely new motorway beside the old road. The new motorway is sometimes very close to the old road and sometimes up to a kilometer apart. When we saw a local motorcyclist turning onto that un-finished motorway we decided to follow and found an almost ready motorway that was completely emtpy. Pity that we found out about this road too late in the day.

Just like yesterday we didn’t pass any gas stations or villages at all until the end of the day when we arrived to a village which seemed to live on being a food stop for truckers and long haul buses. After having ”lagman” (noodles and meat) for the second day in a row we left the town with our water bottles filled.

After having gone through the evening routines the wind ceased. We started to seriously ask ourselves if we should start to ride on the half finished motorway during night time instead.

When we sat and had a cup of tea before going to bed the truck traffic increased quickly over just half an hour. There are always a lot of trucks on the road, but now there was an endless caravan. It would be a nightmare to drive a car and try to overtake those trucks. Maybe there is some kind of regulation banning them from using the road during daytime. 

Day 104
This morning was very different to the two previous mornings. Sunshine and best of all – no wind. The bad mood and low motivation of yesterday was gone and replaced of enthusiasm and happiness.

This day we decided to ride on the un-finished motorway from start. There was no traffic apart from some vehicles being used by the road workers so we had to road all to ourselves. We could ride at high speed (around 27 km/h) and after our lunch break we decided to try to push a little harder in order to reach Aksu which would make a total distance of about 200 km.

Knowing it is important to eat and rest before getting hungry and exhausted we stopped and had a break every 25-30 km. We still had the motorway to ourselves but late in the afternoon we understood that it would be a race to get to town before sunset and we almost made it. At least we managed to get past the industrial suburbs and into the city center before it got dark.

We wanted to stay at a hotel and had made notes of the addresses to a couple of hotels. When we checked in at Pudong Holiday Inn, we found the best hotel room so far during the entire trip and the price was only 30 € for both of us including a huge chinese buffet breakfast. Our plan is to camp 2-4 nights and then stay at a hotel and the hotels we have stayed at in China have been better and better so let’s hope that this trend continues.

—————————

Sore throat

Wej woke up with a common cold and a sore throat yesterday morning. Instead of continuing cycling we decided to stay two days to let her get better. This means we are slightly behind the schedule which doesn’t really matter at all. The only thing we need to worry about timewise is the validity of our chinese visas and where and when to extend them.

It feels very much like end of summer here in Aksu. The sky is grey, it is windy (tailwind…) and not more than maybe 20-22 degrees which feels rather cold in the strong wind.

Our next stop will be in the city of Kuqa which is 250 km from here. We hope to be able to ride there in two days.

Meanwhile, enjoy these pictures from the very nice hotel we have been staying at.

Day 105-108 (Aksu – Korla)

Day 105 Aksu – Wutan 67 km
Day 106 Wutan – Service station Xinhe 168 km
Day 107 Service station Xinhe – Yangxia Service station 178 km
Day 108 Yangxia Service station – Korla 139 km

It seems that it is impossible for us to make an early start every time we stay at a nice hotel. The breakfast buffet is something we don’t want to miss and then it takes time to pack and carry down our luggage, get our bikes and then find our way out of the city. 

The last part takes more time than one would imagine. When we camp, we can just load our bikes and continue in the same direction without having to navigate out of a large city with many roads leading in different directions. 

There are two main roads that go in an east-west direction along the northern end of the Taklamakan desert. One of them is the old road and the other is a big and very nice motorway (we cycled on un-finished parts of it from Kashgar).

We have heard stories from other cyclists that it is OK to cycle on Chinese motorways, at least in the western part of the country where there are not any really good alternatives. Outside Aksu there is a large intersection where the old road and the motorway cross each other. Clear signs showed that pedestrians, motorcycles, horse carriages and bicycles are not allowed on the motorway. What to do, follow the law and go on the smaller and longer old road or break the law and go on the smooth, shorter and bigger motorway?

China is a big country and it accounts for about 1/3 of our entire trip. Our visa is valid for 60 days and can only be extended once with 30 more days so we will need to move on quickly. The landscape in this part of China is not very exiting so we have decided to try to put in as many kilometers as possible in this region so we chose going on the motorway.

This motorway is a tollway and after 3 kilometers we came to a toll station. We were afraid that they might tell us to turn back and go on the old road but instead the lady in the ticket booth waved us through and indicated by pointing that we should ride on the shoulder.

We have passed many tollstations since we first got on the motorway. They have all waved us through but one day there was a police checkpoint immediately after the toll station. The police officer pointed in our direction but we thought he pointed at the truck behind us. When we continued cycling he made it clear that he wanted us to stop by pointing directly at us and where we should stop. Having been to many police checkpoints before we gave the officer our passport even before he asked for them. He then flipped among the pages and carefully inspected us, the photos and our expired visa for Uzbekistan before he allowed us to go. It is good that the police keep a high level of security. How would it look if foreigners were running around in China with the wrong type of Uzbekistan visas in their passports….. 

The motorway is very modern. It has two lanes and a very wide shoulder – actually that shoulder is just as wide as each lane, and nobody travels on that shoulder. Nobody but two cyclists on their way from Göteborg to Bangkok. 

There are advantages and disadvantages by cycling on a motorway. The main advantage is that we can travel at high speed and do many kilometers per day. The disadvantages is that it is far between gas stations or shops (up to 100 km) and that the motorway is fenced off by a barbed wire fence along its route.

Although the road was very good to ride on our late start meant that we didn’t get very far and since we hadn’t learnt how to deal with the motorway yet, we decided to leave it and ride to a small town on the old road. In the middle of that town Wej spotted something she thought was a hotel. She stopped, went in and came out and told me that there was a room for 80 Yuan (10 €). The room had definately seen better days but we didn’t mind.

Having eaten mainly central asian food even since we entered China we were happy to find a chinese restaurant in front of our ”hotel”. 

The following morning was cool and I decided to wear my long pants and jacket. I have sometimes considered to send them home, but I needed them in Kyrgyzstan and now I needed them in the chinese desert too.

After 30 km on the old road we once again entered the new motorway that goes along the mountain ridge. The landscape is rather boring and it wouldn’t have been better if we had cycled on the old road which sometimes is next to where we cycle or sometimes very far away. The traffic on the motorway was not intense at all and we could do many kilometers without putting in too much effort.

So why do we cycle along a road that isn’t very beautiful, has few cities and tourist attractions? Why simply not take the train?

The answer to this takes us back to the topic about bikers vs. travelers that is often dicussed among cycling enthusiasts. 

A biker is someone who wants to cycle from A to B just to have done it and who is mainly not interested in exploring what is in between A and B. The biker may want to prove that it is possible or want to do it under a certain time etc. 

A traveler is the opposite. For the traveler it is not the cycling that is important. The traveler have for one reason or another found out that a bicycle is a very suitable means of transportation when exploring the world. A traveler wouldn’t mind taking a train to skip some uninteresting parts.

During our journey we have met many cycling tourists, some can easily be labeled as bikers, some as pure cycle travelers and some have been something in between. 

I have written about this before but I think it is now time to come back to the question of what we are, bikers or travelers?

We think that we are a bit of both. While we hadn’t yet crossed the Caspian Sean we saw ourselves as mainly travelers. We enjoyed meeting people, doing sidetrips, having nice food in restaurants and going to museums and so on. 

The endeavors in the Kazak and Uzbek deserts put us more into the biker category. We could have gone by train this part, but we wanted to try to cycle in a dessert and having come all the way here on our own wheels we wanted to continue to go by our own muscle power. I think it is fair to say that we have now moved into the biker category – if we move back to the traveler category, we will soon be on a train through this region….

Riding on the motorway along the Taklamakan desert is nothing exiting at all. When it can’t be an exiting journey through a interesting landscape it may still be a journey into the landscapes of one’s own mind. Cycling kilometer after kilometer and the views stay the same, the same kind of trucks pass every few minutes and sometimes the road does a little bend – that’s what happens during our days now. Sometimes we play games such as guessing who can make the best guess of the distance to a bridge that we can see far ahead of us.

It would be great to listen to music or audio books but we don’t dare to not be able to hear the oncoming traffic. If there is no traffic we ride beside each other and talk. 

So what else to do to kill the time?

I personally have allowed myself to start thinking of the end of this journey. Before, when we were still in Turkey or Caucasus, I would immediately force myself to think about something else everytime my brain painted the picture of me arriving to Banglen or riding across the Chao Phraya river in Bangkok. Now I have started to allow myself to think about how it will be to get there, what kind of reactions I think I will have, what I would like to do when I arrive and so on. 

We arrived China on August 12 so we have to leave the country no later than November 10 and then to Laos which is a neighbour to Thailand, so it is as fair to start thinking about getting there as it was to think about riding into Istanbul when we boarded the ferry that took us to Poland. 

If entertaining oneself by fantasies about the end of the trip isn’t enough, one could always resort to some practical jobs such as fixing flat tyres…..

The service areas with gas stations and shops are far apart but there are a few signs indicating the distance to the next one. Towards the end of the second day after leaving Aksu we spotted the service area from far away. 500 meter before arriving there I got a flat tyre on my rear wheel. First I thought about walking the bike to the service area, but then I re-considered and decided to change the innertube beside the road.

20 minutes later we rolled into the service area. It was late in the afternoon and time to find a place to camp. Our intention was to cook our own food so we only needed to buy some water and wash ourselves at the restrooms. Unfortunately the water was turned off so we couldn’t wash away the dust on our faces. When we left the service area I got a second flat tyre when I was still on the entry ramp to the motorway. 

Two flat tyres within a kilometer is one too much. We walked back to the service station and I changed to yet another innertube and repaired the two ones that had got a puncture.
Being delayed by the flat tyre we had to quickly find a camp site and only 2 km from the service station we found a hole in the barbed wire fence where we could get off the motorway. 

When I moved our bikes away after having had our dinner beside the tent I discovered that my rear tyre was flat again. Three punctures in one day….. 

Wej urged me to throw away my old tyre and use the spare one we bought in Baku. I am not so convinced that it is as strong as the old one I have so I decided to only swap places. Front tyre was moved to the rear wheel and vice versa. 

Although we started a bit late due to our work with changing tyres and patching holes in our innertubes we managed to make almost 180 km the third day after leaving Aksu. 

Google maps had indicated that there was a service station far away and these places usually has shops that sell food and water so we pressed hard to get there only to discover that this place was under construction. There was only a small food stall there and no restrooms. We bought two dozens of 0.5 liter water and used these to shower before going to bed in front of one of the buildings that were under construction. 

The next morning all hell broke loose….

After 471 meter I got my first flat tyre… Of course on the rear wheel (more difficult to change). I hadn’t even left the service area yet and I was disappointed to say the least.

Wej usually gets 1 flat tyre when I get 10, but after 21 km Wej got her 5th flat tyre on this trip (rear wheel). We changed it and continued and after 54 kilometers we arrived at a service area and decided to have lunch. We parked our bikes beside the table and when it was time to leave I saw that there was no air in my rear tyre….. 

There was nothing to do but to change the innertube while all the kids around and the ladies working at the restaurant were watching. 

36 kilometers later (at 90 km that day) Wej shouts the all too familiar words ”My tyre is flat”.

I got completely mad….. The sunshine was strong and we brought her bike and all tools to a culvert under the road and repaired it there. Once again it was a very thin and sharp little steel wire that had penetrated the wheel – this time at three different positions.

We were now starting to run out of patches to repair the punctures and our pump show signs of wearing out so the situation was not good. 

Those steel wires were the culprits behind all our punctures the last few days but where do they come from? They are so small that is impossible to see them when cycling and we felt we didn’t have a fair chance to avoid them. 

Later when we were back on the road I stopped and took a look at a black string that lay on the roadside. It was a piece of a burst car or truck tyre that contained a metal cord. Now we knew where the little steel wires penetrating our tyres came from and we started to point at them to warn each other. 

This is really disturbing and when we talked to our polish friend who rides 4 days ahead of us he confirmed that he had also got a couple of flat tyres when cycling on the highway.

When we made it to the top of a little hill we suddenly saw the city of Korla. We thought it would be a small town, but instead we saw a city with a skyline. It has 700.000 inhabitants and is a small provincial town by chinese measures….

When we cycled into the city we spotted a proper bicycle shop. We stopped and wanted to patches and a new pump. I also needed to true my rear wheel and what happened was that we stopped for a day to settle all our bike matters. Both bikes now have new cassettes, chains and we have bought extra thick innertubes, 3 tubes of glue and 50 patches. We hope that will be enough to take us to our next target – Turpan which is almost 400 km from here.

———————

Day 109-112 (Korla – Turpan)

Day 109 Korla – Yanqi 59 km
Day 110 Yanqi – Service station 155 km
Day 111 Service station – Toksun 119 km
Day 112 Toksun – Turpan 68 km

We got lost when we left Korla and didn’t find the way back to the motorway. Instead of riding on the smooth tarmac we ended up leaving the town on a small dirtroad that took us through the industrial areas at the outskirts of town. There was an intense traffic of trucks and we felt much more unsafe on this little side road than on the big motorway and our intention was to get back to it as quickly as possible.

Although Korla is a oasis city with lots of greenery, parks and tree lined avenues, the desert is not far away. Right after having left the industrial areas of the town we got this view which clearly shows how close the desert and the city are to each other.

Leaving town on a backroad took us through some very beuatiful mountain areas. The road was steep and the surface was just gravel but there was very little traffic and we could enjoy the scenery undisturbed by cars and trucks.

We followed this little backroad as it twisted itself through a valley, but all of a sudden it was going to pass under the motorway. There was a staircase down from the motorway and we wouldn’t allow ourselves to miss an opportunity like this and quickly carried our bikes and luggage up to the big and nice road where we could continue at a much higher speed. 

The desert is dry – that is actually the definition of a desert – but there are exceptions. When we approached the city of Yanqi we went across a bridge over a river leading from the Tian Shan mountains to Lake Bosten. This lake is half the size of lake Vättern in Sweden and we saw a number of signs for seaside (lakeside?) resorts with pictures of kids playing on banana boats…..

When we passed this stream we could see herons and other waterfowl in or around the water. Seeing a heron in a desert is something I never would have expected.

When we got closer to the city of Yanqi it turned out that even this city would have been a big city by Swedish standards. It has a lot of high rise buildings in the centre and in the surrounding areas we could see numerous construction sites where large apartment blocks were being built.

Korla and Yanqi are not far apart, only some 60 km. Our intention was to have a half day of rest and start late which meant we couldn’t expect to get any further than Yanqi. We didn’t want to camp and went into the city to find a hotel to stay at. For the first time we ran into the trouble all foreigners traveling to cities off the beaten track in China sooner or later have to face – finding a hotel. Hotels in China needs a special license to be able to host foreigners.

The first hotel we asked wouldn’t host us but told us try at another further down the street. On the way there we found another one that labelled itself as a business hotel. Wej went in to ask but was denied and told to go to another hotel. The front desk staff helped her by drawing a map how to get there.

We find it very interesting how a hotel in an country so reliant on export as China is, can call itself ”business hotel” while not being able to host a foreigner. 

When we later arrived at the only hotel being able to host us Wej went inside to check in while I waited outside. A young boy at the age of around 5 walked past me holding his parents hands. He was so surprised to see me and stared so intensly that his eyes almost popped out. When he had passed he almost walked backwards staring at me while his poor parents seemed to be embarrased for his behaviour. 

As we made eye contact the parents lost their embarrasment. I told the boy to come and shake my hand and his parents encouraged him. He walked slowly as if he was approaching a kid eating monster…. 

All the way we have got used to be the odd ones, but here in China it is only me. Wej blends in and everyone seems to think that she is chinese, which is not completely wrong. Nobody expects me to be able to speak chinese so every time Wej is approached by curious people I can take a step back and pretend to be a kid eating monster. 

The ride from Yanqi towards the town of Hoxhud was not very interesting. It was the same old motorway and the same old mountains. After a stop at a gas station just after a tollstation we continued towards the next service area some 110 km away where we intended to camp.

Before reaching that service area the road crosses the mountain ridge that we having been cycling along for almost two weeks and that we have got bored starting at. When going across those mountains we got some very nice views. The landscape changed from rather boring to very fascinating within only a few kilometers.

On the way down we got some very nice downhill sections where we overtook many trucks that descended from the mountains at very low speed using their lowest gears. At one of the turns we saw something we didn’t know what it was. It looked like a ramp beside one of the sharp bends of the road. When we got closer we saw that the ramp was signposted many times and covered by a thick layer of gravel which made us believe that this was a ramp where runaway trucks that have lost their capactiy to brake can get their vehicles to a stop.

I have never seen such ramps before but I have now learnt that they are common in mountainous regions throughout the world. 

On the day we cycled to Toksun we started at around 1000 meters altitude and climbed up to 1750 meters. It was a smooth climb on the shoulder of the motorway. We stopped many times to take photos of the very beautiful landscape. When it then was time to descend we would loose very much altitude. Toksun is located in the Turpan depression which is the lowest lying area in China. The deepest part of the depression is around 150 meters below the sea level.

When we descended we felt it got warmer and warmer and when we reached the outskirts of Toksun the heat was almost unbearable. Just as we rolled into the first eatery at the entry to the town I got today’s first flat tyre. I only had to walk the bicycle 5 meters and could fix it in the shade at the restaurant. It wouldn’t have been fun to change innertubes in the heat outside that restaurant so I didn’t complain. If to get a puncture in extreme heat it is good to get it 5 meters from where you would have stopped anyway…. 

We stayed quite a long time at the restaurant to both eat and wait for the cooler evening hours. We planned to cycled through the city and camp outside, but in an intersection I got today’s second flat tyre. Since the sun was just about to set we changed to a new innertube in less than 10 minutes – we are improving our team work when it comes to fixing flat tyres….

After some 5-6 km I felt that the wheel we jsut repaired got softer and softer and I suspected we had been too quick when repairing it. Too tired to fix it we turned into the first camp spot we could find which turned out to be next to an onion field. 

The ride from Toksun to Turpan took us over a vast plain of stony desert. On the way down a hill I saw wind turbines. Not one, not 10, not 1000 but thousands. They were placed in the desert and they all seemed to face the direction where we were going. 

We arrived to Turpan early in the afternoon. Our plan was to take a rest in the afternoon and start early tomorrow.

—————————-

Day 113-114 (Turpan-Hami)

Finding a hotel where we are allowed to stay can be difficult in China since most hotels don’t have a license to host foreign citizens. We can’t understand this annoying and somewhat xenophobic rule that makes life complicated.

Turpan has a fair share of foreign tourists though and the hotels recommended in our guide book all have a license to host foreigners so finding a place to stay there wasn’t difficult.

The hotel’s exterior was very different from its enterior. On the outside was covered with simple white tiles and didn’t look very attractive. In the lobby the impression was totally different with an Arabian Night-style design. This hotel is mainly a hotel for backpackers and is the cheapest in town and the good look of the lobby didn’t last all the way into the rooms which could do with a renovation.

The distance from Turpan to Hami is slightly less than 400 km and could be done in three long days or four shorter days. We are trying a new strategy now and instead of cycling very long distances with a restday every 4-5 days we will now ride shorter each day but with longer time between the restdays. This meant that our plan was to cycle to Hami in four days, or three normal days and one half day.

The city of Turpan is in the Turpan depression which is China’s lowest area with the deepest point around 150 meters below the sea level. It is also China’s hottest area which we could feel clearly when we descended from the surrounding mountains into the depression. The day when we left Turpan we were a bit lucky since the sky was cloudy and the temperatures not too hot.

The region around Turpan is famous for its fruit orchards and the grapes are supposed to be the best in China. Being the hottest place also means that they are producing a lot of dried fruits and we had to stop and buy some dried figs which we have proven to be an energy booster just as good as any expensive power bar.

All the way out of Turpan and even further on we found large brick buildings with plenty of holes in the walls. We suspect these structures are used for drying something, maybe fruit, but if so why would they then dry the grapes on big pieces of plastic outside these buildings. We don’t understand and we hope we will be able to uncover the usage of this type of building.

Our target for the first day after leaving Turpan was to reach Shanshan which is a city some 90 km further east. The ride there was smooth and there wasn’t much of wind from any direction. The initial plan was to camp every night between Turpan and Hami but halfways to Shanshan we discussed the type of accomodation for the night and both of us didn’t want to camp. We simply wanted to stay indoor and when we entered town we saw a small hotel. 

Wej went in and it turned out that also this hotel weren’t allowed to host foreigners but they kindly told us how to get to the one that has the correct license, which turned out to be a big and very fancy hotel. It was quite a bit more expensive than we would have wanted but since it was late in the afternoon and we didn’t want to run around looking for another hotel we decided to stay at this expensive hotel.

The rule ”what you pay is what you get” could certainly be applied on this hotel. The room was like a small apartment and even had a bathtub. Many hotels do have bathtubs, but they are usually not very clean. This one was spotless and I couldn’t resist to fill it up with hot water and soak there for an hour while enjoying a cold beer. I don’t remember when I was this clean last time….

We stayed at the 11th floor and when we woke up the following morning and looked out from our panorama windows we could hardly see anything. A dense mist covered the view of the city. The breakfast buffet was the best so far in China and we robbed the hotel of some boiled eggs and pancakes to bring along for lunch.

After checking out and loading our bikes we discovered two things. The first thing was that it was very windy and the mist wasn’t mist but dust from the surrounding desert. The other thing was that Wej’s rear tyre had got flat during the night. Dusty headwind and a flat tyre made us want to go back into the hotel, buy some more beer, fill the bathtub and stay an extra day…..  But we repaired the tyre and started to cycle out of town.

After about two hours it got a bit chilly and started to rain lightly. It is amazing – yesterday we felt like we were in a cooking oven and today we had to stop at a gas station to buy some hot noodle soup and put on our jackets.

We are tired of getting flat tyres and today we tried a new strategy which was to avoid the motorway and go on the small old road. It is slightly longer and it’s not possible to ride as fast as on the highway, but we get to see villages as we pass and interact with the locals.

The strategy to avoid punctures worked and we got none during this day. When the old road and the new motorway merged we were afraid we would start getting flat tyres again. The dusty headwind in the morning had briefly turned to a light tailwind, but after our stop to put on jackets and eat some hot soup it shifted once again to a light headwind. Our aim was to get to a service area on the motorway some 85 km from Shanshan. However, Mother Nature and Father Mechanics had different plans for us….

Some 15 km after leaving the gas station the pedal on my right hand side got jammed and wouldn’t turn around its own axis. It was stuck and I couldn’t pedal so I stopped and rocked it a bit and then it worked again, but it now it made some really strange noices. I remember my thoughts were to get this checked once we got to Hami.

In the late afternoon the light headwind suddenly grew a lot stronger. When looking to our left side we could see a clear vertical line in the sky. To the left it was misty or dusty and to the right it was clear blue sky. As long as we stayed in the dusty part the wind was OK, but when we got over that line and into the clear area the wind got so strong that we had problems staying on our bikes. Then my pedal got completely stuck and wouldn’t turn even after I rocked it. With a jammed pedal and a wind that kept blowing us off the road we decided to seek a temporary shelter. The logic behind this was that if the strong wind started so quickly then it would end just as fast if we only waited for some time.

While waiting I managed to get my pedal to turn around albeit not smoothly – it still made strange sounds. After half an hour it felt like the wind had ceased and we tried to start cycling again, but only got about 1.5 kilometers before both the pedal and the wind forced us to stop. This time we decided we had had enough and started to look for somewhere to pitch our tent. 

We found no place that could protect our tent from the strong winds and the ground was rock hard so we decided to stay in a culvert under the road where we used our panniers to build a wall to protect us from the wind. It was a windy night to say the least and during the night the wind changed direction slightly and started to blow straight into the culvert we were staying, but the wall we had built took most of the wind.

The following morning Wej discovered that her rear wheel was flat…. She fixed it while I attended to my pedal. As it wasn’t enough with a jammed pedal and a flat tyre Wej also discovered a dangerously big play in the bearings in her rear hub. The wheel could sway around far too much and this was something that needed to be attended to very soon.

My pedal was still stuck and I took it apart to grease the bearings but couldn’t get to them due to a lack of proper tools.  The pedal should have been serviced long time ago, but now it turns out that the bearings are wasted and the pedal very hard to use.

We had a situation with a useless pedal, a hub with a too big play to make us comfortable, more flat tyres and a strong headwind added to all this. The 300 km part between Shanshan and Hami is a distance which has very few facilities along the road and we were reluctant to go further into this isolated area with the problems we had so what to do?

Going back is never an option and our decision was to try to ride to the next service station which was 20 km away and hitchhike from there into Hami where we could get our bikes serviced. It took a long time and when we finally got to the service station it turned out to be under construction and not in operation. That was really bad news to us and our spirits where at a bottom low. 

At the side of the road was a van with two guys sleeping inside. We started to hitchhike without luck but we kept an eye on the van and decided that we would try to go with it. When the guys woke up we walked over to them and asked if they could drive us the 230 km to Hami if we paid them well. They were willing to do it, but they had work to do and no time for such a long detour. However, they offered us to go with them for 80 km which turned out to be only 30 km. We stopped at an exit from the highway and for an hour they tried to stop passig cars, trucks and pickup cars but all their efforts were in vain.

We were now far into the section of the road where there is nothing and we didn’t feel comfortable at all being there with bikes that were hard to ride and a very long distance to the next service area where we could count on getting food and water. 

All of our conversation with these guys went through the google translate app we have in our iphone. This way we knew that the guys were going to meet some collegues which was the reason for them not being able to drive us all the way, but all of a sudden they started to load our bikes and luggage into their van and told us to get in. Then they started to drive and we didn’t know where or how far they would take us. 

After having driven for another 60 km we arrived at a combined tollstation and service area. A new conversation started where they told us that they couldn’t go further because they lacked the type of driving license needed to drive on the tollway. I think they spent 45 minutes walking around trying to find someone who could take us before asking a police officer if he could tell someone to bring us the remaining 140 km into Hami. 

The police officer then told us to wait for the bus that would come in 15 minutes….. 

We wanted to pay these young men for at least the petrol and preferably even for their time, but they wouldn’t accept anything. Wej even tried to force some money into one of the guy’s pocket but he just forced them back into her pocket. It looked like they were fighting. In the end we left our saviours from the desert whose name we don’t even know, but we are very very grateful for their help.

It was dark when we arrived to Hami and we rode slowly (my pedal was still bad) from the busterminal into the center. We saw a hotel and Wej went into ask and was told that they could host foreign guests. When we had parked the bikes in a store room and carried the bags to the lobby we were informed that they couldn’t host us after all. They told us to go to another hotel but we couldn’t figure out which it was. 

When we cycled towards the train station where we know there were guesthouses with license to host foreigners, a cyclist approached us from behind and started to talk to Wej. He was on a brand new MTB and looked like a recreational cyclist. He showed us to a nearby hotel and told us he wanted to have dinner with us. We left bikes and bags in the hotel and walked to his house and took his car to a local restaurant not very far away. It was the second time in the same day that people stepped out of their way to help us and we are really starting to like the chinese people. 

Next day we took our bikes to the bike shop our dinner host had showed us. I bought a set of brand new pedals and when the mechanic had looked at Wejs rear hub he said the bearings and the cone needed to be changed. We quickly decided that we would let him do a full service and now the bearings of all four wheels are serviced, I have new pedals and my shifter cable and its housing is replaced and Wej has a new mirror.

While we were waiting at the shop for the mechanic we got a SMS message from our dinner host last night. He asked if we wanted to have lunch. We replied “yeas please, but when and where” and he wrote back “now”. 10 minutes later three young women and a slightly older man came and picked us up and took us to a dumpling restaurant. Our dinner host didn’t come, but we had a great time with his friends instead. 

It is amazing how quickly things can turn around. From a terrible situation in the desert in the morning to a nice dinner in the evening in town and all technical things solved the morning after – all in 24 hours.

————————–

Time to cheat

It took us a day to get our bikes properly serviced and now they are fit for fight for the remaining distance to Bangkok. We don’t carry the tools needed to service the hubs and bearings ourselves so we’ll let someone take a look at them in about 3000 kilometers.

Whilst staying in Hami we started to discuss and investigate routes for the remaining distance through China and came to a couple of conclusions.

First conclusion was that we need to get rid of some of our baggage. We emptied our panniers and put everything in three piles – needed – maybe needed – absolutely not needed items. Then we packed most of the not needed and maybe needed things and sent to Bangkok. Wew also threw away some stuff. The box that went to Thailand weighs 3.5 kg and the bag we throw away maybe 2 kg so now we have plenty of room in our panniers.

So what did items did we get rid of?

We have two sets of off bike clothes and only kept one. Gloves, rain gear and warm fleece sweaters were all sent to Bangkok. 

We knew it would be hard to find good quality spare parts in Georgia, Azerbaijan and the central asian republics so we carried a lot of extra wires, housing, nuts and bolts, chains and even a bottom bracket. In China there are good bike shops everywhere so we left all that at the hotel and hopefully someone will take care of it because the things are good and in working condition.

Are we brave or stupid to get rid of our rain gear and sweaters when we plan to ride some high altitude roads? 

We don’t know – future will prove it was a good decision, but we reason that if it gets cold we can buy a new sweater. They actually produce such things here in this country…  And we have kept the jackets that Klättermusen kindly sponsored us with. They are made of tightly wowen cotton and can take a lot of rain before we get will wet and they are much more ventilating than the goretex jackets sent home. 

With bikes serviced and panniers a lot lighter we feel we are ready for the journey through China.

Next conclusion was that we also have run into a problem regarding our visas. They are valid until October 10 and we expect to be around Chengdu by then. It is usually possible to extend visas with 30 days and that is what we have counted on. One problem is that when it is time to apply for extension we will be in the middle of the ”Golden week” (october 1-7) when China closes down and every one goes away on holiday. We suspect that this applies to the guys at the visa extension office too.

Another problem is that China introduced a new legislation on September 1st and the rumours say that it will be more difficult to get extensions after this change. Beside this our passports (we have two each) with the chinese visas will have a too short remaining validity (lacks two weeks) when it is time to renew the visa which may, or may not, cause us a problem.

We have been resting safely in the thought that we would have no visa related problems left, but when we discovered this we decided to stay yet another day in Hami to investigate everything and make back up plans. The backup plan is to combine a few rest days with a visa run to Hong Kong, which is a city we have planned to visit some time anyway. 

Everything takes very long time in China since most communication needs to be done through translation apps in smartphones (these apps are good, but still need to be worked on…  ) and it took us one day to get the bikes serviced, one day to go through what to send home, locate the post office and once there get the staff to understand what we wanted. Then we spent half of the third day in Hami googleing the internet for visa related information and info about our coming route. 

Our visa situation and the knowledge that we still have around 1000 km of desert to ride we had to make a decision. If we want to ride all the way it has to be on the shortest and maybe not most interesting roads. We prefer mountains to deserts 10 days in a week and there are lots of desert and mountains ahead. Since we have seen a lot of desert already we decided to press FF (fast forward on a tape recorder if you remember those relics from the 80:s) and take a bus to cover the distance we couldn’t cycle when we stayed in Hami.

Buying a ticket wasn’t simple at all. First we spent two hours in the hotel’s reception trying to ask the front desk staff about how train tickets are bought in China. Then one of the staff got in a car and followed us to the train ticket office only to find out that tickets that day were sold out. We then continued to the bus station and bought tickets to Guazhou 450 km away. 

We wouldn’t have been able to sort this out ourselves and we are very grateful to the lady at the hotel who helped us securing tickets.

Somebody knocked on the door to the hotel room yesterday night. It turned out to be the man on the MTB who took us out for dinner the first night in Hami. He came to say good bye and had his son Wang Yudo with him. The boy is only 11 and wanted to practise his English, which is already good for his age. We spent a few hours looking at photos from places we have visited before they left.

When we arrived at the bus station in the morning our MTB friend was there to help us find the right bus and talk to the driver to accept carrying our bikes. It was very kind of him to turn up to do this and we are very grateful since it saved us a lot of headache.

I am writing this post on the bus. Our bikes and panniers are stored in the cargo hold below us and are hopefully enjoying the company of a live sheep in a sack and a box of mice that was loaded at the first stop after leaving Hami. 

I have not been too happy about having to cheat and go by bus, but when I see the boring sandy landscape outside the window that we have seen so much of already, I am happy that we skip this part and now I look forward to riding in green surroundings and climbing steep hills in central China……