Notes from your sunburned but happy cyclists :) Don't worry, we are wearing sunscreen...it's just a bit brutal at 4000 meters!

We did ride yesterday...not to Yamdrok Tso though, as I must have had some sort of mental aberration and got it wrong on the map in my head - I had the first night stop, 60kms, on the Friendship Highway being after Yamdrok Tso, but it's really before the big climb and it would have been 100kms out and 100kms back with 1000meters of climbing...yikes! Not really what we were looking for in our first big climb/ride at altitude :) So we decided to ride to Drak Yerpa, a Buddhist cave retreat about 30kms from Lhasa with a small pass to navigate on the way.

Wow, what a ride!!!! The first pass was fairly easy - Lhasa is at 3680 meters and the top of the pass is 3980. The ride out of town was flat, so we had a good warm up and then we had a lovely flat section that reminded me of the TT course I used to ride near Madison, WI and then after passing some brick factories and gravel washing sites, followed by some villages and then some quarrying we were on our way up hill. The sun was out and it was a beautiful day! The top of the pass was adorned with tons of prayer flags blowing in the wind. Then it was an easy downhill - some very flat hairpin turns where at the last one we passed the truck we had been following and bombed down at 60kph :)

We hooked a left at Yerpa village and it was up up up to the monastery at the end of the canyon (at about 4350 meters). We practically had the road to ourselves but we saw lots of locals as we rode, always calling out a friendly "Tashi Delay" and getting either a "Tashi Delay" back...or a chorus of hellos :) We stopped occasionally to rest our lungs (the legs are not working at maximum capacity at this altitude :) and have a snack or to take some photos...or to survey a dirt track at the side of the road for some off road adventuring :):):)

We ventured off road at every opportunity that we could find on the way up and on the way back down. We crossed the dam and rode up the far side and then crossed over the river bed - A executing a perfect stream crossing - and then felt like we were dying after climbing a small hillside to get up to the road (we were gasping after a 3 meter climb!!! It was steep, though :). We also crossed a half demolished bridge at one point, taking the old road/track down to hook back up with the main road. Another time I sent A down one steep off road section cutting across a hairpin and I don't think her grin disappeared until we reached the bottom :) All our offroading was on really rocky terrain and she is "Queen of Rock" so she was in her element.

It was hilarious at times...maybe the lack of oxygen was getting to our brains -
at one point A said "this is what it's going to feel like when I'm 90" to which I immediately replied "when you are riding on the flat at sea level" :):):) Do you know that it's amazingly hard to laugh at high altitude??? I nearly fell off my bike at one point I was laughing so hard and struggling for breath to pedal up hill :). It was a great day and we climbed just under 900 meters over 60kms and we had a max speed of 65kph - it was hard work, but it was great fun. We arrived back in desperate need of a shower and food, so we sought out a decent place for a yak burger (for me) and some veggie momos (for A) and cold beer (for both of us) before we headed back for a hot shower and some rest and relaxation. Amazing photos are coming!

And now on to stuff I have wanted to write, but haven't had the chance :)

We say a great advertisement on TV done by the Beijing Olympics. It was a long ad, about a 60 second spot and it was along the lines of the "random acts of kindness"/"pay it forward" theme. Something would be happening, whether to someone or to something - someone sat in their chair and it tipped over backwards or someone was backing their car into a spot and didn't see the bike parked there an was going to hit it - and another person would come along and save the situation. Then the person that had been saved or someone that had seen someone else saving a situation would be inspired to go and save some other situation or just do something really nice for someone, it was a long chain of events. The spot was really well done and we enjoyed watching it.

My notes from the train journey to Lhasa....

We saw a ton of wildlife - herds of antelope, wild asses, and a white Yak (which are rare in Tibet, they are more in Qinghai) and we also saw a marmot (and we saw another one yesterday on our ride). I saw a flight of 2 ducks flying as if they were the Blue Angels :) I also saw lots of eagles and some massive vultures - as big as a turkey and when it took off the wingspan was huge. We saw another vulture yesterday, one with brown wings with one white spot in the center of each wing (on the underside).

We saw ice floes in the rivers - it was COLD water! I saw several small wind farms (it was amazingly windy out there) and many banks of solar panels. There was a yak herder walking up a hill and there was one yak below him and all the other yaks were moving up the hill - the herder called and waved to the last yak and it started running up the hill to catch up :) I saw a herd of antelope out on the range and then one and then another started to run and then I spotted the dog chasing them (coyote? I don't know if they have coyotes here :). From Golmud onwards the whole route was lined with small towns, beautiful geologic formations, prayer flags and chortens. We saw herders dressed in traditional dress - a long black tunic over thick trousers, with a band of red and white stripes at the bottom of the tunic. The women herders were all wearing ankle length heavy coats with warm hoods pulled up over their heads, I even saw one woman herder tending her flock and spinning her hand held prayer wheel.

I have a Nike altimeter watch and it beeps at me occasionally...on the train I got beeped at when we reached the elevation of My Whitney, Mt Fuji, Mt Cook, Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn. Yesterday on our ride I got beeped at for Mt Fuji and Mt Cook :)

Lastly....

When we were riding the other day and stopped at the nunnery - they were busily repairing their roof - we got chatting to a nun that came out to say hello. We got the Tibet LP out to look at the Tibetan language section to aid our communication and she was immediately taken with the photo of the monks on the cover...so we showed her all of the Tibet photos in the book :) There is not a lot of Tibetan language in our book, so we were a bit at a loss, but A got through with some of her Mandarin. As we were leaving I wanted to get a photo and she said yes...and then she asked for some money and pointed to her feet. I had already noticed the pretty sorry state of her cheap sneakers so I handed over a 5 Yuan note (A had already give her a 1 Yuan note) and then we headed off - I hope she got some nice new sneaks :)

Later!