April 12 – 16, 2013

We spent our first day in the old city of Dali wandering around, looking at all the tourist shops. It is a community of artists. There are people carving, making jewelry and pottery around every corner. It was amazing to see that the stores didn’t all sell the exact same thing as we found all over Southeast Asia. We found a Buddhist center that served an incredible vegetarian buffet every lunch and dinner for ¥5, less than $1, per person. We took our meals on low benches along a narrow cobblestone alley, accompanied by a droning Buddhist chant while looking up at the tall mountain range that hemmed in Dali to the west. We ended up eating all meals but breakfast there.

Making a bracelet

Buddhist vegetarian food

Chan and friend

The remainder of our time was spent cleaning, disassembling and packing the bikes and panniers. It took us a while to find cardboard boxes to fit our purposes. We went around and asked stores selling refrigerators and other large appliances, before we found a bike shop willing to sell us some boxes. Our Surly bicycles have couplers that allow the frame to break down into two parts, so we can pack them into airline approved sized boxes. Traveling with bikes or oversize bags can be expensive, so we had to spend time constructing the boxes to fit the airline dimensions.

All in all, it took us three days to get everything done. We could have gotten the work down quicker but we enjoyed sleeping in and taking breaks to wander around town. We spent one afternoon in a puzzle shop attempting to figure out how to put all the pieces back together.

The pieces just won’t fit

Wuhua Tower

The day of our flight, we work up early to put away the last of our things and tape up the boxes. We walked through most of town before finding a restaurant that was open. We then took a cab to the airport a few hours early in case there was a problem with the boxes we needed time to work out. When it was finally time to check in, the attendant didn’t even bother to measure the boxes to make sure they fit the specifications.

We had a short but very turbulent flight to Guangzhou where we had to recheck in the boxes to fly out of the country. This was actually a massively stressful moment, as Chan had estimated, based on China Southern’s absolutely ludicrous excess baggage tariff schedule, they could have charged us as much as $3,000 to send our bikes, as we were only technically allowed one bag each for flights between China and the South Asian Subcontinent. The check-in agent was confused about our ticket since it originated in Los Angeles over four months ago and she actually asked Chan how many bags we were allowed to take for free. Chan immediately said “two each”, she accepted his answer and we walked away without paying a dime. Finally, it was time for our flight to Delhi!

April 11, 2013

Distance: 44.7 miles        Climbing: 3139.8 ft

It was raining when we woke up. We thought it really funny that the only day it really rains is our very last day of biking in Asia. We put on raincoats and covered our bike seats with plastic bags before heading out for some coffee, real coffee, not Nescafe. We found a trendy looking café and pointed to the only item on the menu in English, “espresso”. That was perfect with us as we both enjoy our coffee black. What was delivered with not even close to espresso. We were handed two 20oz cups filled with warm milk and maybe a dash of coffee to give it some color. Chandler and I were flabbergasted. Don’t know how that happened.

Chandler finished his milk drink and I donated mine to the trashcan, we headed out of town. Chan was heard to be saying “milk was a bad choice.” The road was empty for several miles. We passed through farm lands growing wheat and eventually found ourselves climbing again. Right as the hill was starting, we saw a huge puff of dust and then the traffic started piling up ahead of us. As we rolled up we saw a huge truck filled with rocks that had flipped over on our side of the road. The trail of fluid leading up the road implied that the brakes had gone out and the driver drove himself off the road and luckily hit a big pile of soft gravel on the shoulder which slowed things down pretty quick. The driver was already out of cab wandering around, and a nearby excavator was already on the way over to clear it off the road, just another day on the road in China. Thank goodness we weren’t in there a few minutes earlier.

Wheat and mausoleums

Oops

The road climbed and climbed up through trees and little towns. We were on a route filled with people learning to drive. We have seen scores of these little cars, usually VW Santanas with exclamation point decals on the back packed with 5 or 6 students and a grumpy looking old man. Every so often, the car would pull over and a teenager would hop out of the driver’s seat to trade places with another teenager, who then drove off, honking the whole time. Chandler got a huge kick out of telling me that it was referred to as a “regular fire drill” here. The hill kept going up forever when we finally noticed wind turbines dotting the summit and knew we were done. We had one last downhill all the way into town.

Turbines at the top of the hill

We rolled into town and went to the first place any American would go: the Walmart! We considered camping out, but weren’t sure if the Chinese knew about Walmart’s parking lot camping policy. We got a quick snack and headed back out of town. We had not realized that old Dali City is 10km outside of new Dali City, but we thrilled that were was actually a bike path the entire way.

The Walmart in China

Old Dali City turned out to be a dream. It was SUPER touristy, and pretty much as stereotypical as it could get, but for some reason we loved it. The main city was surrounded by stone walls studded with towers with ornate ancient looking roofs. We found the MCA guesthouse close to the center of town but off the main road, so it was quiet and very peaceful. They had a huge storage area for the bikes and Chandler was able to haggle the price down to fit our budget. Then we found a restaurant which served pizza, burgers and homebrewed beer. We celebrated our last day of riding with shots of belly warming scotch and completely blowing the budget on dinner.

Waiting for our victory feast

April 10, 2013

Distance: 26.7 miles        Climbing: 1781.5 ft

We started the morning with a lovely ride along some old local roads heading out of town. We were able to spend a few miles pedaling through farms and a residential area before merging up with the old highway. Since the main highway went north through a different valley, this old route wasn’t too bad with smooth pavement and little traffic. We were in a valley following a river, which meant we were struggling against a monster headwind. It didn’t really seem to bother us. We had an overcast sky which meant cool riding and were both in wonderful moods.

Heading out of town

Farmed river valley

We didn’t have too far to travel to get to Weishan, an ancient city situated in a long valley which managed to be left unscathed by the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. We were looking forward to reaching a more touristy town, dreaming about cheese, real coffee etc, but took our time on the road. We stopped to buy some strawberries and tomatoes on the side of the road. The wind was really blowing and swept the hat off the woman selling the fruit. Luckily, it landed right in my arms, which she appreciated. I noticed we paid the same rate for our strawberries as the Chinese trucker who had also stopped to make a purchase.

Strawberry lady

As we approached town, Chandler and I became more and more excited. We passed buildings with old styled roofs, the kind I had envisioned all buildings in China to have, and murals. It appeared that we were finally going to a town with some culture!

Mural

The center of town was easy to locate because it is built up around the Gongchang Tower. Shooting off from the tower were cobblestone roads lined with tourist shops and antique sellers. We hurried to find a hotel before setting off to explore the town. We walked up and down every street in the old town admiring the architecture before deciding it was time for dinner. Weishan is mostly visited by Chinese tourists, so there were no restaurants catering to Westerners, meaning no vegetarian food. Chandler was excited though. He found a place serving steamed dumplings with a delicious spicy dipping sauce. We also stopped in a bakery across from our hotel for desert, which as usual, turned out to be a disappointing exercise. Our “butter bread” baguette looking things turned out to be covered in a cloyingly sweet salty mess. Chan managed to power through them, waste not, want not… right?

Street view

Gongchang Tower

We went to bed excited for the next day, our final bike ride in China from here to Dali City.

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