April 8 – 9, 2013

Distance:  50.4 miles           Climbing: 5344.5 ft

We woke up feeling great after a wonderful night’s sleep and had another dry meal. Good thing we carry lots of dry goods and quick snacks with us, otherwise it would have been a rough morning. When Chandler returned the key to our room to the owner of the store, he tried to slip in ¥20, but our friend refused to accept our money. We figured we would buy a few extra bottles of water from them as it didn’t seem like they got much business.

Packing up

We said good bye and immediately started climbing again. The weather was cool as we made our way up the mountain. We passed by a number of abandoned roadhouses, no longer needed after the construction of the new highway. I got a bit discouraged when we would approach what appeared to be the top, only to find the road snaking further up the mountain. I swear we were climbing forever. While it was tiring, we were traveling through some of the most beautiful scenery of the trip so far.

Big hills

Kung fu master or tea farmer?

We had a victory feast of triangle cheese, crackers, dry ramen and bananas with chocolate and peanut butter when we reached the top. We had just completed our biggest pass to date and were ready for a relaxing downhill. Downhill we went, but it was anything but relaxing. The road was in awful condition, covered in potholes, cracks and poorly repaired potholes. It was more comfortable to stand up than sit down through the jarring ride. I was just as tired when we finally reached smooth pavement after standing up for 20km as I was when we finally finished the climb.

We then pedaled through a valley where the traffic and wind picked up and our moods started going downhill. The lack of consistent meals has made China a challenge for us to maintain positive attitudes. We stop for snacks, but that can only go so far before we find ourselves in the same predicament again.

We had one more much smaller pass to complete before reaching town. The road rolled up and down several times, confusing us as to where the actual top was. We stopped for an Oreo snack, thinking we were finally done climbing for the day, but ended climbing up two more small hills. Finally, we reached an area overlooking a huge valley with a city nestled against the mountains.

We pedaled through town until we found what looked like a new hotel. Chandler went inside to check out the room and prices, while I was entertained by the locals. Several children got up the courage to chat with me and eventually showing me their English school books. We finished the night with the usual plain ramen noodles for me and street food for Chandler.

Chan’s double dinner

The next morning we listened to a baseball game and were treated with the Red Sox beating the Orioles. After that, it was time to fix the stove. We figured that if we could just find a bit of leather, Chandler could make a new gasket, replacing the flimsy silicone one that came with the stove and was now in pieces. We ended up walking all through town, passing the commercial area into the industrial area with people welding outside and huge semi truck mechanic shops. It was only when we had given up and were returning to the hotel that Chandler spied a cobbler mending shoes on the street. He looked through the old lady’s pile of cut up old shoe scraps and selected two different thickness of leather. Back at the hotel, he made a copy of the broken gasket and our stove was working again within minutes.

Industrial area

After our luck with the stove, he decided to tackle another problem. His front wheel had been making some noise so Chan took apart the front hub and found some grit had made it through the seals and trashed to bearings inside. Armed with the words “ball bearings” written in Chinese thanks to Google, he made the rounds through the industrial area stopping at all the motorcycle repair shacks. Motorcycle bearings don’t use ball bearings, so he struck out there. Finally, he found a few bicycle shops but the owners were absolutely clueless about ball bearings despite Chandler’s intricately drawn section views of a bicycle hub. All the bikes in the shops were absolute crap and the owners didn’t seem to know anything about them except maybe how to bolt the wheels on. Frustrated, he was finally able to find of all places at a fishing rod store (fishing reels use ball bearings) that also appeared to repair bikes. He was able to get a handful of used ball bearings a size too big, but they were better than the shattered ones rattling around in his hub and would hopefully limp his bike to Dali without causing too much harm.

Not looking good

April 6, 2013

Distance: 51.7 miles            Climbing: 2782.2 ft

As we set out, Chan tried to adjust his seatpost and snapped the cobbled seat clamp that had been installed back in Vietnam. That will teach him to not mess with his bike. When we pulled up to the shop, Chandler explained the situation to a young girl with a series of gestures. Together, they found a quick-release thing on another bike that would fix the problem. She then tried to get everything to fit back together, not realizing that a shim was needed, brushing Chan off as he tried to put it in. This has happened to us a number of times. Someone “helps” us, but clearly has no idea what they are doing. Eventually, Chandler was able to wrestle the part away from her and get things sorted out.

We had one more delicious Mexican meal before hitting the road. We were delighted to find a bike lane heading out of town. However, a bunch of people had decided to park their cars in the middle of it, so we ended up just riding in the road anyways. We had a pleasant time riding side by side, chatting as we passed through another construction ghost town. We had a change in routine today as we went down a big hill before starting uphill.

More Sim City

Bike path

As we hit the edge of town and we found ourselves fighting for room on the road with the Saturday traffic. The road had a very small shoulder with raised lane reflectors positioned exactly where we wanted to cycle. Chandler decided to use this moment to do a little video interview. As he scanned the road with cars honking and passing too closely, I must have used every foul word I knew and I have quite the vocabulary. People drive very recklessly in China. The new wide, smooth roads encourage speed, the inexperienced drivers buzz around with a crazed selfish impatience, wildly taking over other vehicles on blind curves going uphill, passing three abreast, etc. We’ve seen some wild driving in the rest of southeast Asia, but usually congestion and crappy roads tend to moderate the insanity. It seems like there is an army of testosterone fueled 17 year old drivers set loose on the brand new expressways of China.

Sugarcane truck

Preparing to go through a tunnel

When we started climbing the hill, our focus shifted from frustration to concentration. We passed through a short tunnel which was lit, making it less scary. At the top of the hill, we were welcomed with a huge carved mural depicting what we assumed was the construction of the Burma road. I was especially happy to see the Chinese honoring the land surveyors!

Mural

Surveyor

After stopping for a few pictures, we were flying down the other side into a large city. The city appeared to be brand new like most that we have biked through, but this one sported an old bridge. We didn’t have any info on this town so we biked around blindly looking for a hotel. While going up a road that took us to a residential area, I noticed a man on a motorbike take an interest in us. After turning around near some apartment buildings and searching down another road, the same man appeared again. We were becoming a little weary of him and certain he was following us, when the third time we saw him, he made an eating motion. We shook our heads no and returned with a sleeping motion. He then pointed us in the direction of a hotel and rode away, never to be seen again. Well, not by us anyways.

Maybe something was lost in translation

The hotel turned out to be affordable and nice. We had an enclosed shower, which is a rarity in Asia. Usually the whole bathroom is the shower, so it was nice to not have to make sure the TP was high and dry. There was also a basket of “Sensual senior underpants” for sale next to the TV. We decided to leave those alone and finish the night with ramen noodles and a Kung Fu movie. Hai-yah!

April 4 – 5, 2013

Distance: 50.5 miles     Climbing: 4553.8 ft

I feel like a broken record lately, because the highlight of the day was climbing a huge hill, like every other day we’ve been riding in China. Yunnan is a tangle of intersecting ridge lines, so all the roads climb and dive, or just blast through the mountains with long scary tunnels.

Mountain of tea

The pavement was really good as usual and there wasn’t much traffic, so we had no complaints as we worked away at yet another long continuous climb. After a while we got to an area where the road was being totally realigned, so our GPS was way off. This was mildly frustrating because we didn’t know how much further we had to go. We had read someone else’s travel journal of this route and were expecting a teahouse at the top for a snack, but the road made a massive detour more than ten miles in the opposite direction of the old road. We were getting a little worried that we somehow ended up on the wrong road and headed who knows where. The road stopped climbing for a while as we went up and down little bumps while traversing below the ridge instead. We were quite hungry and annoyed that the road kept flirting with the summit of the pass to only have us descend again. The wind was picking up and we felt drops of rain hit us. We took out of raincoats and resolved to just power through the last section to get to the summit.

Two minutes later we rounded a bend into a deep road cut, the skies cleared and we saw a sign indicating that drivers should go slowly down the pass. We immediately pulled over for an Oreo victory snack. We kept our jackets on for the chilly descent and bombed down the hill. We were pleasantly surprised to find the new route was linking us back up with the old road and cut out several miles between us and the next city, Lincang.

Finally at the top

We managed to get on the old highway for a while which was nice, cruising on a two lane road along a gentle stream tamed by a series of small dams with crops grown on the banks. Soon enough we were dumped back onto the major highway and descended the rest of the way to the city in the midst of the usual traffic chaos.

Beautiful views on the way into town

Lincang was like most of the major cities we have encountered in China. Not unpleasant, but not exciting either. There were lots of shops selling industrial things like pumps and tractor engines, hardware stores and the usual slew of western fashion stores. We ended up in the first hotel we stopped at, which had a nice lobby but very cold communist feeling room, narrow with white walls, spare furniture, huge ceilings and tall wrought metal window frames.

Chan went out for his daily noodle soup dinner and reported the town was creepy at night. Lots of people out, but no street lights in our neighborhood, a lit street in a busy city is one of those things that we take for granted. Milling around with lots of strangers in the dark is unsettling. He found a street stall lit by bare CFLs and had a ten minute pseudo conversation with a middle aged man that primarily consisted of different organizations of the words “nice”, “America”, “noodle soup” and “good”. The guy was friendly though and insisted on paying for Chan’s dinner.

Mexican Food!!!!!!!!!

For the past couple of days, we had been fantasizing about the food we would be eating in India and Europe. Chandler has been living on noodle soup and I have been eating mostly oatmeal and plain ramen. Mostly, our talk has been about Mexican food, especially the stuff we ate in the American southwest on our road-trip last fall. Chandler did a shot in the dark web search found a restaurant in town that actually served just that. Salvador’s is apparently a popular spot in Kunming which has a large ex-pat population, and for some reason they decided to open a branch in this town which seemed sort of odd as it doesn’t seem to be on the map for westerns (the whole city isn’t even mentioned in the Lonely Planet). The food was incredible though. Huge burritos with lots of cheese! We saw the first Caucasian person in the past week or so here, a girl from Chicago who is an English teacher in a rural village visiting Lincang while she had a few days off for the Tomb Sweeping Day holiday.

April 3, 2013

Distance: 70.3 miles Climbing: 4491.5 ft

There is something so wonderful about waking up in our tent. Regardless of what happened the day before or what looms ahead of us, we wake up in great moods. We had a quick breakfast of oatmeal and coffee before breaking down camp. There was little traffic on the road this early, so we were eager to get started.

Getting into a groove was a little more difficult and at the same point, Chandler and I mentioned MP3 players. We rarely use music while biking, but something about a 17km hill made us need a little extra help. Chandler then decided to take to opportunity to transfer come podcasts from the laptop to his MP3, so out comes our new stools and we are officially taking a break right away. Good start to the morning.

A little computer work on the side of the road

Eventually, we packed up everything again and remounted our bikes. Chan suggested that I lead and away we went. I must have had my Wheaties, because I was soon far ahead of Chandler. I stopped for a water break and actually had to wait for him to catch up to me. This NEVER happens. Naturally, I was ecstatic and jazzed which helped fuel me even more. I only gloated a tiny bit. Before I knew it I was at the top of the hill, buying water to have available when Chandler finally got to the top.

Tea bushes vs. road construction

Contours

At the top of the hill was an unavoidable tunnel. We pulled over to turn on our front and rear lights and to don headlamps to make sure everybody could see us. When there was a lull in the traffic, we headed in. The tunnel was no big deal at first, but then the light faded to complete darkness and I couldn’t see anything. I was going slower and slower because I was afraid of running into the curb on the side and falling. At that moment, a few motorbikes came up behind us and lit the tunnel up as a semi approached from the other direction. Once they passed us, we could see light from the other end of the tunnel and peddled as fast as possible. Long, unlighted tunnels are scary and must be avoided at all costs.

Scary, but short, tunnel

Once safely on the other side, we had a small snack before enjoying a massive 22km downhill. It was a perfect downhill too- very little traffic, nice grade and pavement and above all, no headwind to slow us down.  At the bottom of the hill was a town, so we stopped for a snack. I had pineapple, Chandler had a spicy papaya salad. He really wanted soup, but instead of the normal noodle soup, this one had big spoonfuls of clear gelatinous substance added to it instead of broth, which looked really revolting. The papaya salad was over the top spicy and not that filling anyways. We figured he would find something else along the way to finding a campsite.

Mahjong

We were so wrong. Instead we ended up in a river valley which channeled the wind directly into our faces. As we labored to maintain speed and positive attitudes, Chan was becoming more and more hungry. We were looking at the GPS and the map seemed to show that we were following a river down to the next town, instead it turned out that we followed the river until it met another river coming straight back along the same path. The two rivers butted into each other at 180 degrees and the confluence discharged through a notch in the mountains into what looked like a tributary on the map.

River valley of PAIN

So we started climbing in addition to battling the headwind.  Now Chan was starting to get really snappy and I suggested we stop to have a snack. We were running low on food, so we just ate some fruit. I wanted to get out the stove and make ramen. Chandler did not want to spend the time making food, with only a couple of hours of daylight left and a ways to go before we got to the next town that would definitely have food. Soon, we were in the middle of a pretty big fight which ended with us on our bikes not talking to each other.

The silent treatment lasted a few more miles before one of us complained about how much the wind sucked and the other agreed. We had both been keeping an eye out for suitable campsites, but there was the river one side and a cliff on the other. As each mile rolled by, it became obvious we were going to have to just keep going until we got to the next town. We reached the end of the narrow river valley and abruptly turned north, and suddenly the heavy headwind turned into a huge tailwind. We were racing along at 17 mph without much effort, it felt amazing.

Rice paddies have a calming effect

We made it to town just as the sun was setting.  After the usual post bike routine, I watched English news and made ramen while Chan went out in search of food. He found a noodle stand near the hotel and had two gigantic bowls of noodle soup, a beer, a bottle of water and a sprite as his recovery meal. He also came back with a present, a bottle of wine because we ended up cycling 70.3 miles today, crushing our old record.

I am not interested in a repeat anytime some.