Where have I been for 5 days? Battling this.
I was pushing whopping 6 km/hour. Awesome! No wonder those English boys were getting +160km a day.
Nothing like chasing your tent over dunes in the freezing desert mornings either.
Wind
I’m Sorry, I May Have Lied…to myself.
Upon the turnback in Tibet and reaching my mileage goal (Which is a funny story. I thought I had told everyone it was 15,000 miles, so there was no celebration but more feelings of defeat) I was pretty set on resting the bike and getting a backpack for Xinjiang and the K’stans…because, well, winter is upon us.
If you don’t know anything about Xinjiang, it has 2 seasons…summer and winter. It’s famous for it’s wind and sand storms, i.e. blowing a train car of the tracks and I heard a story of a British cyclist being killed in a wind storm taking the Southern Route of the Silk Road (NW Qinghai) in no mans land.
Well, I have 2 weeks until I set off. In the meantime I’m getting a TB and Hep test…as I’m still physically not up to par. They recommend people that hangout with homeless people get tested. I WAS living on dirt floors with nomads. Also, TB kills a lot of people in Asia and Africa. I had a lot of Tibetans coughing near me, on me, snotty nosed kids sneezing and their mucous getting on me, or mixing my tsampa with their bare hands. (They also don’t use toilet paper)
Also, I’m having new wheels built, my repaired Brooks saddle is on it’s way from England, and…I bought replacement handlebars. The Soma Sparrow 560mm.
The idea of hitchhiking around Xinjiang is exciting because it’s different and the idea of walking around without worries of my bike getting stolen OR broken…is great. BUT, the idea of being in an automobile passing by nomads and locals…tears my heart apart. Also, I don’t have my get-away ride anymore and it’s a little more difficult to go meandering through open’ness or getting up mountains. The photos people love, and I love, are taken from when I was solo and invited in with people. Being in a car, bus…that’s not going to happen…or maybe it will?
I’ll be monitoring the weather conditions every day and there is a storm coming in, maybe I just stay put. Whether on bike or foot. My Work Visa doesn’t expire until Jan 28th, so in all reality…I could spend winter in Xinjiang, head into Kyrgyzstan (Jan 27th) and be in Kazakhstan in early March (that’s close enough to Spring to not freeze, right?).
I’m hoping someone out there, in cyber world, can offer some advice or wisdom…or an answer will come to me from the heavens.
In the meantime, I hope you take a look at the photographs for sale…I really really need some winter gear. Or you could mail me your old stuff.
Godspeed.
All Signs Pointed to “No Go”…and more…
The last time I visited here, we were going to ride around Mongolia.
Well, it was frigid and there would be intermittent rain – BESIDES the hell of a wind. I can deal with wind when I know there is a town ahead, because you can’t camp in this type of wind. We moved about 30km in about 3-4 hours.
We passed an Italian that had crossed over from Russia and he had a mountain bike. The road would disappear and the terrain would be trying.
After sitting on the side of the road debating, feeling defeated, we turned around.
I woke up with a cold, and lied in bed, stuck in Ulaanbatar for a week. We decided to take a train back to Hohot/Huhehaote (bad idea).
What I learned about cycling Mongolia – I was very ill prepared. My advice:
1-travel North to South, the wind is hell.
2-extreme weather, pack accordingly and drop the panniers and add a cart (food, lots of water, winter gear, 4 season tent, etc.)
3-mountain bike necessary
4-a gps device to give you coordinates OR a satellite phone OR be fluent in Mongolian/Russian
5-a high tolerance for drunks and boiled lamb…lots and lots of boiled lamb
I lost a considerable amount of weight because of my sickness and the awful food.
Would I like to attempt Hell-golia again. Sure. Better prepared. You bet.
It’s been awhile since this so my feelings aren’t so hurt, but I did feel like a failure. I have to remind myself that being an explorer sometimes means having to turn back. Jason was even less prepared and the last thing I wanted to do was drag him out to the middle of nowhere – just to send him back with hypothermia and a broken bike.
Oh, don’t let anyone tell you that Mongolians know English – bull.
We were lucky to find a man at the train station, that reminded of my dad. (There is a possibility that American Indians came from the Mongolian region). He spoke enough English to speak to some random dude because we had to fill out paperwork for customs.
I was afraid of this but didn’t want to admit to it.
It took 4 hours and a lot of paperwork, footwork, and money.
Well….when we finally arrived in HuHeHaote, you could of found me crying in the train station. Turned out that we had to get off at the border to take care of paperwork for our bikes. When was my luck going to turn…really? God, can you hear me???
We have to go back to the border.
No train tickets, only 2 trains a week. Go get bus tickets and we are approached by a private driver – we can leave that day! 125rmb a person,he even helped us find a bingguan for 70mb.
So, if you have ever lived in China – you know the drill. Guess how long it took to take care of the paperwork?!?!
Literally, 3 minutes and 4rmb!
We go back to HuHeHaote the next day.
With all this extra time there, we pass the time at a video arcade.
The bikes arrived – safely. Found a shop to repair my derrailleur – only one cog ring doesn’t work now – rather than 3.
Nothing too noteworthy since leaving HuHehaote – oh, Jason replaced my point and shoot camera with a Canon S90 – it’s pretty friggen awesome!
We did stay in a prostitution hotel, and was awoken twice by our neighbor being serviced. Prostitution here is strange, to say the least.
Route 110 from HuHeHaote sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The first day to BaoTou, we looked like coal miners. The coal mining and the trucks loaded with this was flying everywhere. We have had only 1 day out of 6 (left HuHehaote last Thursday am) where we weren’t rinsing grey water off our bodies.
3 days ago, the side wind was so bad it was blowing Jason and I all over the road. It was a dangerous wind. It always happens after 5pm and of course was coming from the North….
Except today!!!! We are traveling South and have a hell of a headwind.
I finally exited Inner Mongolia today and landed in NingXia.
Yesterday, as we are riding along the Yellow River, you see a strip of sand (that we are riding through), then a stip of green, the river, another strip of green, then MASSIVE SAND DUNES!!!
Hey China! You are turning into a giant sand box. There are hundreds of dried river beds that once branched off from the river. I’m riding through imagining what this part of the country looked like 200 years ago. I bet it was the land of milk and honey…seriously.
Hey China! Quit strip mining, at least have some beautiful mountains in your sandbox.
The pollution has been outrageous since leaving HuHeHaote and traveling West. Grey skies and the sides of the road are grey/black from the coal particles. I really can’t imagine what my pink lungs NOW look like.
I’m now 50km North of YinChuan. I got yelled out today because I took pictures of some men striking outside a power plant. Jason translated the signs saying “Goverment workers are people too”. I got surrounded by a bunch of men and just deleted it just to get them off my a$*. The last thing I need is the cops arriving.
Well China…now that you are #2 in GDP, you are going to have to face up to a lot of stuff. And this announcement is very loud and EVERYONE knows about it. Even the poor government workers barely making a living wage.
Good luck with that.
Don’t think I’m hating…I’m really glad to be back in China. The food, the language – THE PEOPLE. I LOVE THE PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Even the prostitutes…they haven’t really been given another option to make a