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Tomorrow, I’m leaving Urumqi. Finally.

Hopefully, I can drop a blog post on here every other day, or so. I’ll keep this site busy, if it’s only a photo or two.

I’ve been eating jiaozi (dumplings) every day because I see a lot of banmian in my near future. Trying not to o.d. even though I do enjoy my noodles.

Carrefour (grocery) no longer has peanut butter. What?! I guess I’m going to have to splurge on the mini-Snickers. They do carry tubes of condensed milk, but I’d have to a be a rich woman to drop more than 10rmb per tube.

Okay, lets get back to bicycles, China, and touring…enough with the boys. But, I’m warning you, you may be seeing some revisits from Ryan, my new touring partner. Perhaps even a guest post.

I wake to a lot of snow, and it’s near silent outside. Procrastinating, I stare at the walls a little more and drink my instant coffee, along with plugging into my “mp san”.

I’ve noticed with some of my self portraits I get this look in my eyes. Kind of wonky, kind of dazed, kind of empty…I’ve seen it other solo traveler’s eyes too. I probably didn’t have a lot going on in my head that morning except my task list. Bathroom, Brush teeth, Load, Ride, Find home, Eat, Sleep.

OR…it could be the “Photographer Lazy Eye” catching up with me. I try not to squint the left eye so much, rather keep both open. Super bad habit.

The day looked like this while going through many towns and farm villages. Have you ever done a 180 turn on your fully loaded bike? I have…and didn’t eat shit…all 6 or so times.

I was hoping to continue South towards the base of the Tianshan mountain but the road was unavailable to ride with a bike.

After the missed turn off, I went downhill all the way to QiTai Zhen.

Found zhusu.

Okay. So, ladies, please take note. I have always paid more for zhusu than my male counterparts. There is a reason. The dorm rooms, the men get put with local men. Laobanniang confirmed, again with many others, that it’s not safe for me to stay in the cheaper rooms. This is one downfall of being a woman, or traveling alone. When Brandon and I were touring, I saved a lot of money by splitting the cost of a 2 bed room. I have to pay for the entire 2 bed room…unless it’s pretty slow (no customers)…but I’ll still pay around 30 for a 6 bed room to myself. They refuse to put men in the room with me.

I do not stay next to bus stations unless I have a buddy. (Another rule for you ladies – stay away from the bus/train stations…it is ALWAYS trouble.) Besides, there was no laoban there even after screaming “ni hao, laoban?” a few times. I paid over 50 but under a 100…oh well, the night before was 15. My days are usually under my budget of 60rmb/day…easily.

Ryan…really, oatmeal again…seriously? I’ve been eating it every morning, and sometimes evening, for over 8 months now. Please, can we do something different for breakfast? I’m kind of, like, so OVER the rocks I find in my oatmeal because of the clumps of Xinjiang raisins I add. I mean, I’m not whining, I’m just wondering if WE could find a healthy and fulfilling alternative. The added unsweetened yogurt is a nice touch though.

I found out today with my declaration of love to Ryan, that even dudes were Google’ing photos of him. I mean, seriously, how can you NOT?

Ryan…really, oatmeal again…seriously? I’ve been eating it every morning, and sometimes evening, for over 8 months now. Please, can we do something different for breakfast? I’m kind of, like, so OVER the rocks I find in my oatmeal because of the clumps of Xinjiang raisins I add. I mean, I’m not whining, I’m just wondering if WE could find a healthy and fulfilling alternative. The added unsweetened yogurt is a nice touch though.

I found out today with my declaration of love to Ryan, that even dudes were Google’ing photos of him. I mean, seriously, how can you NOT?

Thought it would only be proper to post after that adorable photo of me with my school girl crush.

I’ve always had some small dog problems until I met…hahaha…now that I think about…until I met Brandon. HAHAHA! Then the dogs got big and nasty! Or it was the location, Amdo/Kham/U-Tsang Tibet.

Anyhow. This is “Hot Dog” himself, letting me know how much man he is. (Side note: Men, please do not parade your chest tattoos around Tibetan villages. Jesus, there must of been a dozen grown men rubbing him down. I guess he didn’t mind, he kind of just stood there…at least the first dozen times. Although, in Ganzi, the Tibetans we were getting drunk with on the street corner started wanting to man up with him. I had to tell them in Chinese, “Oh, he’s not a gangster he is actually a really nice person, he has a big heart, like a little sister. Let’s not fight” Always babysitting……..)

Back to the dogs. They bust out from nowhere…or sometimes you can see them running towards you…or you’re lucky to hear that bark get louder and louder and louder behind you.

With this productive time on my hands I’ll share some stories. They are good, promise.

First, Brandon always rode ahead. I don’t think that guy knew anything about drafting or he’s just more selfish than I. (Don’t worry readers, he doesn’t visit this blog so I can trash talk as much as I want.)

Anyhow, it was almost like he alerted the dogs we were coming and then they would always be awaiting MY arrival. These dogs. I’m a smidgen’ over 182cm tall and their ears would tickle my tummy if I were to go in for a standing hug. No joke.

The first close encounter was when Brandon and I were riding at night along the Tibet/U-Tsang border in “Western Sichuan”. We arrived at the pass and looked around for camp. There was a police checkpoint about 1/4km down the mountain. Dude decides we should continue on, while it’s night. We are approaching Ganzi at this point and we know we could very easily get turned back, stopped, or who knows.

The road, if you can call it a road, is absolute shit! Broken stones, gravel, and the two ditches created by the trucks. Well, there are two main ditches in the road and then plenty of minor ditches.

My headlamp is nearly dead and Brandon has his on backwards so I follow the red light. My night vision is usually shit and being an eyeglasses wearer, any light refracts in the lenses. (I don’t think I’ve shared with you yet how I went 13 days without eyeglasses.)

He’s making good time down the mountain and we are all over the “road”, not being quiet at all with our gear and bags banging around. We pass the checkpoint and we also have to compete with the half dozen trucks going up, but they seem to have taken some fork in the road.

Either way it’s a massive cluster f**k.

When we make it down towards the bottom, me cursing under my breath because of the road and because of “boss” deciding to keep going.

I’ve heard a faint dog or two in the background. Without decent vision, my other senses are working in overtime.

I eat shit, the triple crank scraping up my leg. (I have a nice scar from the triple crank from my next story.)

As I get up, examine my bike, make sure everything is okay. Brandon stopped about 3 meters up. When I turn to my left I see a pair of glowing red dots about a meter away. I freeze…I’m not sure how long I stood there frozen by the glowing eyes nearly at my eye level.

I’m not sure what I said, or really even did. But I got out of there as fast as I could. The barking behind me lasted for quite awhile.

Second time.

We enter a city, it was near Yushu because it was still in rubble because of the earthquake. I don’t have those maps with me right now, but I could give you the info at a later date.

A girl had offered us to stay with her but ol’cranky doesn’t like that and we are unsuccessful at finding a place to stay.

Surprisingly enough, there are tents set up for “zhusu”. Actually, everything in this town is nearly under tents. Brandon had tried his muscle at negotiating down a hole to stay in but they wouldn’t budge under 130. And some mean man came out and started getting an attitude with me.

Brandon says, “I guess we try to see if that girl is still there.”

Okay, now I’m pissed. It’s near 11pm and there is no way she is going to be up. If you want to stay with locals you have to find your new home before sunset. I’ve told this to Brandon a hundred and million one times but he seems to think I know nothing about China.

We had also been offered by a nice restaurant man to set up camp in his parking lot, next to the other tents. I would of been okay with that but…

Anyhow, we go back so I can entertain “little sister”/aka Brandon but of course the girl is gone and everything is dark.

So……we have to go back up the mountain we came down at sunset. My blood is beginning to boil at this point. Brandon is well ahead and I can see the faint red light.

After about 8km BACK UP…he turns off into a field. Again, my shitty night vision makes me get off the bike and shine my headlamp around looking for him or tracks. He blinks the red on and off and I know what direction to generally take.

Why I’m walking my bike on her right side, who knows…but I fall into a ditch and my triple crank takes a few good chunks out of my calve. I say some choice words loudly, hoping that my partner hears them and can anticipate this bad attitude coming up the hill.

There are dogs barking and a generator running in the distance when I find camp.

I don’t say a word and plop down on the ground about 3 meters from Brandon. Pulling up my pants I try to clean my leg and check out the damage. Yes, I cry a little, silently. Not because of the pain but because I’m tired and pissed at someone.

We’ve had a few camps like this when we don’t say a peep to one another until we start riding in the morning. I don’t like to fight or argue anyhow and he’s got a short fuse with a very mean vocabulary.

After I make myself cozy in my tent far away from Brandon, in attempt for some privacy, there must be a dozen dogs right outside our tent. Barking up a storm. This goes on for about an hour. We don’t say anything, they eventually leave. In my imagination, I was going to be eaten alive.

Okay, so my bravery with dogs is getting greater and greater as the days pass.

Brandon rides with rocks in his shirt pocket.

One day we were going up a pass and this dog started chasing him and he was ahead of me. The owner is just sitting in front of his yard while the dog is going after him. Brandon is throwing rocks as I catch up and I start screaming at the owner in Chinese about how this is his problem and he needs to do something about his dog. I then direct Brandon to throw a rock at the man. He does.

This is around the time when I would grin and give myself a mental high five when spotting dead dogs on the side of the road. Yeah yeah yeah, I know, I’m evil.

Okay, so now I’m back on the Tibetan plateau, U-Tsang, solo.

I had just finished riding along Namucuo and was still trying to make up time to catch up with Brandon. Probably at this point, it had been 3 days, maybe?

The roads were an awful washboard. AWFUL. I wasn’t making good time at all and I would check the road for bike tire tracks. I couldn’t make out anything.

About 2 hours before camp, I saw lights ahead and heard some noises. I was disillusioned about how far it actually was.

Besides the town, I can see speckled lights to my left along the base of the mountains and glaciers. At one point I do see a red light and hear dogs barking…wondering if that is Brandon causing a ruckus out there.

I’m beat all to hell and push my bike for the remaining hour and half in the pitch dark. The stars reflecting in the glacier melt.

There is an obvious village or something but I don’t know the situation with the police down there so I can’t enter now. I’m watching a couple of motorcycles ride around and there seems to be a lot of noise. Two men pass me while I’m watching the town from the road.

I’ve gotten pretty ballsy picking areas to camp so I push my bike through the ditch and up the hill about 10-12 meteres. Who cares who sees me…it’s near midnight and I don’t care.

In the morning I hear dogs. In about 5 minutes…I kid you not…I have a dozen of dogs surrounding me. I play “turtle” and stick my head in my sleeping bag and pretend to be dead.

They leave me alone and are about 2 meters away now and I stick my head out of my frozen bag. I have ice and frost all over it. They have me surrounded. Seriously…I’m certain they are going to remove my face. I sink back into my bag and wait it out.

How lazy/tired/mad people camp:

I had another run in with a dog further into the middle of Tibet where he followed me for about 2 km. They were getting braver and braver the further I got into the center.