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.