Our last day in Lhasa...

we picked a good one :) The weather is lovely and the place is crowded with Tibetan pilgrims for the Saga Dawa celebrations....we both have noted how different town feels between the Chinese holidays (first week of May) and the Tibetan holiday today. Night and day. Anyway, we have done most of our last minute errands and we are heading back to pack the luggage and bikes up for our morning departure.

We woke up early and walked the Jhokang kora with throngs of pilgrims and we also made it over to the Jhokang this afternoon to observe the festivities. They had put a cloth cover over the courtyard and the monks were all seated on cushions laid in lines on the courtyard pavement. There was a very special monk/lama/abbot that had his place on a raised platform across the back of the courtyard and he seemed to be leading the chanting that the monks were doing. People, and other monks, walked through the lines of seated monks handing out money an there were veritable piles of offerings lining one edge of the courtyard - biscuits, fruit, boxes of food all mounded up. There were many thangkas hanging around the perimeter of the courtyard and the biggest ones were across the back. It was thronged with people as well. What an experience!

For lunch A had her last taste of Dunya's steamed vegetable momos with special chili sauce and I had my last tuna sandwich and salad until I arrive back in the UK (these things are very very rare in India :) We are looking forward to riding at least some of the Friendship Highway as we make our way from Everest Base Camp to Kathmandu...we can hardly wait!!!!!

We don't know what the internet situation will be like over the next week (which is about how long it will take us to get to Kathmandu) so bear with us and don't worry - we will be fine :) If we do get some access we will update you as we go along.

Later!

Videos!

Hey, I sorted the rotation thing :) I have to convert to Avi and then use a shareware tool to rotate it...but don't worry, it's worth it :)

I have fixed the Walk Sign...
click here to see the walk sign

and the Ganden prayer flags...
click here to see the prayer flags

A new one (I know, you didn't know I forgot not to turn the camera :) - a bird diving in the water at Namtso...
click here to see the bird diving

and some old ones that I have cut/converted to be much smaller now that I have a tool :)

Crocs in the water...
click here to see the crocs in the water

Crocs fighting over food...
click here to see the crocs fight

and the Kathakali dancers...
click here to see some dancing

Let me know if there are problems :)

Tashi delay :-)

As promised...photos from our "6 months on the road" dinner :) This is the starter....


...and this is K attacking the starter before I can even get the camera out :-)


Needless to say...we never got photos of the mains because we finished them so quickly!

On to Namtso photos!

We had a great trip to Namtso lake despite having to get a bus there - we would have loved to have ridden (it would have been very hard work) but the Tibetan Mastiffs were perceived to be too much of a leg chewing threat. Hearing the dogs howling and barking all night when we actually arrived at Namtso it was a very good thing that we did not ride - more on that later :-)

We had hooked up with a couple from the UK - Zach had been away from home for four years and Imo for one. Although much younger they were well travelled and knowlegeable and great to be around. The bus that we had taken was a Chinese tour bus and we were the only non-Chinese speaking people (although Zach and Imo had a decent amount of Chinese under their belts having spent six months teaching English in China). Most of the people on the bus were on a day trip and we were on a two day trip - we were to stay overnight and catch the bus back to Lhasa the next day. The bus journey took four hours to reach Namtso and those that were going back the same day would only get one hour there before they had to return - we were glad that we had decided on the two day trip as the weather was lovely and the scenery beautiful.

The route took us along the Qinghai - Lhasa Highway and also followed the railway line that we had travelled in on. The road travelled up and up into valleys, gaining height the whole time. We were surrounded by mountains that had been blasted to make way for the road, the lose rock left behind had potential for landslides, occasionally metal mesh kept it captured as a preventative measure. We looked up at large vertical rocks that were precariously balanced above us, threatening and casting shadows down the slopes. Mountain peaks accompanied us, occasionally capped with snow. Rivers snaking their way down valleys varied from torrents and rapids to dried up washes, the water (or chu as it is known in Tibetan) transparent and clear or a mirky brown in colour from the mud that was being swept downriver. I would watch it flow over the grey and mauve rocks and pebbles as we passed by in the bus. Eventually I pulled out my MP3 player and K and I listened to music, I with my eyes shut as I tried to catch up on some much needed shut eye, sleep did not come but euphoria entailed from the music.

Our first stop was at some prayer flags in the shape of a pyramid that were placed in honour or offering to the heighest mountain in the area - Mount Nyenchen Tanglha (7111 metres). The view was spectacular and it was no surprise that this area had been chosen to celebrate the mountain. The range also seperated the road we were taking from the valley where Namtso was located. Everybody jumped out of the bus and took the necessary collection of photos in commemoration. Local Tibetans who had gotten wise to the timing of the arrival of the tourist buses tried to get yuan by posing for photographs. They hassled tourists who would have once oblinginly fed this habit whom now found it more troublesome and shooed the pushy people away or tried to take photos without getting the Tibetans in their shot.



Eventually we turned off the highway and headed up towards Namtso, the bus moved slowly, we could also see other buses ahead that were also challenged in their ability to make it up the twisting steep road. We came to a pass at 5190 metres, at the top the bus parked up to allow us to take in the view. More Tibetans greeted the tourists, this time they held baby goats and dogs in their arms in hope of gaining a better opportunity in having their photo taken and thus earning yuan. Nobody wished to take up the opportunity, the posers became pushier as a result but still had no luck. Snotty nosed children in dirty clothes put their hands out and asked for money, I refused as everybody else did. The people here were obviously poor, perhaps they were nomads, judging by their dress some were tribal too, still their desperation for money was not catered for as people kept their money close. One girl patted my trouser pockets and begged me for a photo or some cash. I had no camera on me and my money was secretly stashed away. I could see that she had a need for my yuan but I do not want to support this trade. After my saying "mei you" (not have) many times she eventually stopped her persistance. Now her attention turned to curiosity as she checked out my earrings and the ring on my finger. I pulled a few faces and a boy nearby mimicked them. Seeing that her nose needed a clean I gave her a pocket tissue that was scented with rose, I demonstrated to her to smell the scent, she did so and happily placed the tissue safely into a pocket, smiling at her reward but not blowing her nose. She took my hand. A boy arrived holding a kid goat, seeing that I was not going to take a photo he also became curious of me. I petted the goats head and said "ahh", he copied my speech over and over again. Very soon it was time to get back to the bus...



Going over the pass Namtso came into view. A beautiful blue lake, it is the highest salt water lake in the world, the sea water having been pushed up high into the sky when the Himalayas were created millions of years ago. It is also surrounded by mountain peaks over 7000 metres high which create a beautiful backdrop. The road took us past wide expanses of land that were dotted with nomadic tents and grazing livestock, the dreaded dogs lay resting in the sun...

We arrived at Tashi Dor Monastery, and the small "village" set up for tourists right next to it, right on the edge of the lake. We easily found a tent to stay in for the night and went about walking the two nearby hills - some rocky outcrops near the lake.

We breathlessly made our way up the slope - at just under 4800 metres the lake is positioned 1100 metres above the height of Lhasa and any climb up was incredibly strenuous. These chaps had the right idea, lying around was far easier! We quite liked their out turned straight horns :-)


Looking down at the campsite from atop the hill, yikes, it takes my breath away looking at it again :-)


We spent some time talking to Zach and Imo at the top of the hill whilst we had some much needed rest. We shared travel stories in particular and enjoyed the beautiful view.


Zach looking lively before the climb up the hill :-)


Prayerflags overlooking the lake.


The lake views were amazing from this high up.



We eventually skidded and slid our way down a steeper hillside in order to get to the lake edge. At the side of the lake there was a mound of snow, K took great pleasure in hurling snowballs at our companions who had not yet seen the snow pile and were taken by surprise as a result :-)


Crazily the others took off their shoes and socks and stood in the freezing water - not for long though :-)


We could not resist skimming some stones across the waters surface, the pebbles underfoot were the ideal shape and just beckoned to be bounced.


We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Tashi Dor and taking in more views of the lake, occasionally seating ourselves and talking further about our exploits.

The Couple Stones as they are named which are seated across from the chapel.


The chapel: We did not go in, it was busy with faithful pilgrims who had travelled from afar. In fact many of the pilgrims were interesting to see, their dress vaired greatly. Many were decorated with coloured braids in their hair, some had gone a step further and had placed circular silver discs (like large, old Chinese coins with the square in the centre) into their plaits. Many wore dark coats with sleeves which were twice as long as their arms, the fabric would hang down almost to the ground and would swing as they walked. This extra length of cloth is essential in keeping ones hands warm and is quite customary. Many of the pilgrims were walking the kora, others were tirelessly prostrating and lying flat on the floor, in this manner they would circumnambulate the nearby hillside that shadowed the chapel. Some of the older pilgrims had bent backs from many years of labour, still they chanted mantras and span their prayer wheels, their disability did not deter them from gaining more merit. I did not get any photos of the pilgrims, my lense would require that I took photos close to them and out of respect I did not want to stick a camera in their faces. Instead I preferred to say my hellos and move on.


We sat near the area for ritual bathing and watched a gull dive for food (there are no boats on the lake, we assume that it is because of its holy status).


Further views of the beautiful lake.



Mount Nyenchen Tanglha from the opposite side of the lake.


The inside of our tent. You can see the stack of duvets that each person had in addition to a sleeping bag - it was THAT cold at night...but the cover worked and we spent a very toasty night in the tent :-)


A view of the campsite. In the background you can see tents similar to that which we stayed in. The tent on the foreground is in the typical style of the nomadic tents.



Sunset at the camp. Here you can see a Tibetan with the long sleeves.



Overnight we heard the howling and barking dogs - in the morning K and I both admitted to one another that in the night we had both needed to go the toilet however neither of us would brave the three minute walk to the facilities due to the ferocity of the dogs that sounded like they had been let off their leashes to guard the nomadic tents.

The next morning K took a short walk and watched the sunrise.



Soon I joined her and we took a walk around the kora of the nearby chapel and hillside... Maybe we need the extra merit too :-)

The Namaste rocks, so named because their shape resemble the hand positioning for greeting in India.


Other views from the kora.





After the walk we were starving so we went and took breakfast at the Tibetan tent restaurant where we had our dinner the previous night. The people there were really friendly and were happy to see us again. We watched a man make Tibetan yak butter tea in a long and narrow wooden butter churn. The stove was fuelled by yak dung, luckily the skinny metal chimney stack sucked the smoke out of the tent. All the time water was boiled in a large kettle which was constantly refilled, the hot water was placed into nearby thermoses for later use, this was continued until the stove burnt out and was certianly an efficent method in making the most out of the heat.

My ankle had swollen from again from walking on slopes the previous day, we had the idea of putting my foot in the cold water in order to reduce the swelling. The early morning water which had not yet been warmed by the sun was almost too cold, I could only manage to put my foot into it for ten seconds before it became unbearable.


We saw a Chinese tourist (who we later invited us to drink tea with her when we waited for the bus) from our tour bus who motioned to us that we should look at the following rock paintings, although we are not sure of their originality...


We had an amazing time at the lake, it was very peaceful and it was great to get away from the city :-)



When it was time we went out to find the bus from our travel agency. We were under the impresion that we would stop at the hot springs on the way back and we knew that part of the package was a free lunch. The bus quickly filled with the Chinese tourists that were on their day trip out and soon we were on our way. The bus ride out was beautiful - it was nice to see the scenery going in the reverse direction and we spotted a group of cyclists that were riding to Namtso (supported by a jeep, they were not riding loaded bikes). We soon stopped for lunch at a CHinese restaurant and we all piled out, filled 5 big tables and consumed the many plates of food that were delivered (only one dish was without meat!). Not long after we noticed that the Chinese tourists had departed and were getting on the bus! We didn't have more than 15 minutes at the restaurant. We kept wondering where the hot springs might be as our crazy bus driver seemingly raced back towards Lhasa, driving in th emiddle of the road, honking his horn at all traffic and only occasionally slowing for the bumpier sections of the road (our backpacks fell out of the overhead bins TWICE due to the erratic driving!). Soon we were quite close to being back in Lhasa and the bus pulled in at Hope-Long Industries...a place for animal husbandry. Hmmm...not exactly what we were thinking the hot springs would be called :-) It turned out to be a Chinese medicine/pharmaceuticals type place with all manner of dessicated things that were being ground up and made into pills - frogs, caterpillar fungus, long centipede type bugs and even ewe embryonic material was being made into capsules! Scary! There were several Chinese tourists that were very interested in this sort of thing and several of them came back on board with small bags containing their purchases. We stopped at two more of these establishments (we were not invited to participate, even if we wanted to, as it was all presented in Chinese) before we became a bit fed up and abandonded our tour bus for a public bus for the last few kms ride into town. It is very strange that the Chinese tourists would spend an entire day on the tour bus for an hour at a very beautiful lake, a quick lunch and a couple of hours at the pharmaceutical companies....why did they bother going all the way to the lake?

Anyway...we had a fabulous trip that not even a twisted end to our bus journey could dim. It was well worth it!

Goodnight and thanks for reading :-)

We are back from Namtso and it was beautiful!

We ended up on a Chinese tour bus, which was fine for the ride up but the ride back today was a bit of a challenge...more later :)

We have some great photos, we had some great conversations and we have also spent our first night at abut 4800m - it was very very cold - my watch thermometer said it was 4C (39F) this morning and that was INSIDE the tent! The place provided some super warm blankets and we spent a toasty night inside our sleeping bags. We saw some beautiful stars last night, but woke to clouds.

We have just had some dinner and we are knackered! Altitude really takes it out of you and we did a lot of walking while we were up there. We are off this very minute! to the youth hostel for a hot shower and we will probably read our books until we fall asleep :)

Tomorrow we go to the Nepal Consulate and we will get our visas...

Later!!!!

Woohoo!!! We are going to Nepal :)

It's not that we don't like Lhasa...we really like it here, but it's time to move on. We have been frustrated with permits and guides and finding people to travel with and we have finally got it all sorted! We met a very nice French fellow while we were perusing the boards and the four of us (me, A, the Frenchman and his German girlfriend) hooked up later this afternoon, talked about what we wanted to see on the way to the border and then approached several agencies. We selected the best offer and booked it - we depart on the first of June on a 4 day trip to the border, taking in Everest Base Camp.

While we were finishing up our booking another couple, from the UK, came into the agency looking to go to Namtso on a two day trip...this is also something we have been wanting to do. We hooked up with them and chased down a trip and we are off to the lake tomorrow morning, heinously early. We will be offline for a couple of days but we will be back with more photos :)

Now we must go get a shower!!!! (the hot water is only on from 7pm to 6am) and get our stuff packed to meet our fellow travellers tomorrow morning at 6:15!!!!!

P.S. to celebrate 6 months yesterday we had ice cream and cake in the afternoon and then we treated ourselves to a really fabulous (but not expensive) dinner at a French restaurant. We shared the 8 Treasures salad (which was like a mezza) and then A had a vegetable au gratin and I had a ground pork stuffed tomato and we washed it all down with Great Wall red wine. It was delicious and reminded me of home....

Goodnight!

I was determined to walk the kora around Ganden before our departure from the area having read that the views were spectacular. With much gusto and enthusiasm I stomped back up the hill to the monastery in order to walk before the arrival of pilgrims and tourists. From our campsite we had already seen a row of monks walk the kora at sunrise and had heard singing carried in the breeze from the direction of the monastery.

Just before I started the kora I looked back to view the campsite below - I could not see K or the bikes at all, we had dismantled the tent already and as a result there was no sign of our presence at all from such a distance.


I walked along winding paths, sometimes rocky, sometimes hardpack, either way they were well trodden and worn. Sometimes the paths would fork, one would trail off to a small shrine or juniper burner and then would join back up again, at other times the path that split would dissapear down or up the mountainside, no doubt to another important shrine or rock.


The views from the kora of the surrounding valleys were amazing. Jutting peaks in the distance stretched out as far as the eye could see, few were snow topped now that the weather was warmer. I had the place to myself and all that I could hear was the sound of the early morning chirping birds and the occasional breeze through nearby shrubs.



Sometimes I lost the path, this was worse when I reached a dead end at a cliff edge. There were so many prayer flags in the area that I could not see a path onward and decide to head down the mountainside a little. As I headed down I realised that I was leaving the high kora and starting to head down towards the valley, doing a U turn a climbed back up to the clif and eventually managed to find a steep stone staircase hidden by a web of prayer flags which I had to brush my way through.


I surprised a large hare as I walking, it was the largest hare that I had ever seen and I watched it run down the mountainside and dissapear from view.


Looking at the road which we had climbed the previous day from part of the kora.


Finally I made my way back to the front of Ganden. Stall sellers recognised me from the day before (my bike horn had created curiosity as well as our achievement of riding up) and cried "hello" and waved, congratulating me on having done the kora.


I then headed back to the campsite quickly having walked the kora and thus created luck for our future journeying (or for mankind, or for the Tibetans.... ;-)

Everything was packed up at the campsite, K was lost in a bookworld so I sat down to rest for a while and slather on the sun cream in preparation for a day in the saddle under high altitude rays. We gradually moved the bikes and gear down to the rocky pilgrim path which we were going to ride down in order to head back to Lhasa. As I picked up the last few items (my helmet and camera bag) I descended from the campsite thinking how great it was that we had found such a cool spot and that neither of us had injured ourselves (the latter being a bizarre and unusual thought indeed). As thoughts go moving on to something else as quickly as you have thought them, mine proceeded to think of ants in my helmet and that I should warn K about hers. All of a sudden within seconds of all this happening, I found myself hurtling my helmet and gloves through the air as my ankle twisted sideways on a rock edge and I banged my knee and back into the sharp rocks surrounding me. The pain was excrutiating (I had many years ago twisted my ankle very badly) and I lay on the floor uncomfortably amongst the rocks rolling around in agony unable to make a sound. K who was very close by and had her back to me did not see any of this happen, I could see her but could not communicate. Finally, I managed to weakly say something like "help" or "fell" (neither of us are sure which) and K ran over to my aid. She administered the necessary first aid to my bleeding knee, bruised ankle and damaged ego (the star that she is) and I eventually felt strong enough to move on. We decided that we should continue on with our planned route down the rocky path rather than back up to Ganden and down the tarmacked road that we had ridden up. We were both desiring some offroad action and my ankle did not feel as though it would hinder us, besides I am better on two wheels than I am on my own two feet...

Looking down at the rocky path that we were going to follow down to the valley floor. After the corner the path dissapeared from view and we did not know what would be on the other side.


Looking back up towards the campsite and part of the descending path which we had just ridden :-)


The path started fairly smoothly but very quickly deteriorated into steep rocky sections that were unrideable due to the amount of luggage that we were carrying in our panniers.

Here I am enjoying one of the easiest sections with a smoother surface :-)


For the most part the road was very narrow and there was no margin for error on our part.


There were sections were it would have been too dangerous for us to even attempt to ride due to large chunks of rock which covered our "path" and we would have to carefully maneuvre the heavy bikes and luggage on foot. Using a techinque by rotating the bike on the back wheel by pulling a little wheely using the back brake we could position the bike over the easiest of the rocks, dabbing the front and back brakes accordingly would prevent the bikes and our kit from rolling away downhill and dragging us behind.



Here I am having a rest after a successful navigation of an incredibly steep and rocky section which by any account of responsibility and containment of self control I would not have ridden. Alas, the terrain presented itself to me and having spent some time over the last hour getting used to the handling of the bike offroad whilst laden, I found that I was back to my normal devilish self and unable to ignore the challenge of riding some scariness. It was great, I feathered the front brake whilst picking my route, I rolled the front wheel over large rocks and kept my weight shifted back whilst I ensured that I pressed down on the bars enough to compensate for the light front end because of the luggage on the back. There was a drop to the right hand side which had not been a very good deterent either and I found myself descending on the edge of my panniered skill and it was all very good, life giving, adrenaline fuelled fundido :-) :-) :-)


K was a ROCKSTAR too. Occasionally she would go first but for the most part I rode up front judging the rideability of the terrain - it being my forte. I do feel as though this was an oxymoron on her part though because we all know that I lack any sense when it comes to offroad rockiness, having a want to always ride steeper and rockier and push my skills to the edge :-)



It was certainly steep in places and we would have to keep our eyes on the road - occasionally we would be able to catch a glance of the awesome view surrounding us.


It's ok K, just grit your teeth and bare it, your mother will be proud :-)


Sensibly I did not encourage her to ride this part...


"Eagle Eye" K spotted this lizard on a rock. Soon there were many scurrying between rocks around us, I was on a particulr steep section of downhill when one ran in front of my bike and I just managed to avoid squishing it...


Looking down into the valley which we would eventually descend into. Even though we had already spent an hour or so descending we still had a long way to go...


The trail continued down...


I was much happier (and so was my ankle) riding the bike than walking it (no surprises there) and soon after a few hours of descending the strain was beginning to take it's toll on my ankle and I was feeling that it was getting weaker. I informed K that I was at a point where I could no longer walk and that we would have to reach the end of the rocky section sooner rather than later. We had just descended down an incredibly steep section of rocky switchbacks and I was at the end of being able to maintain my sure footing. Five minutes later as we descended into a rocky wash, once again pushing the bikes my ankle finally gave way and I fell into a heap on the floor with the bike on top of me. Again unable to speak, K came to my aid lifting the bike from me. She got my shoe and sock off and had my foot elevated within moments of me finally being able to let go of my foot. We were concerned that I may have broken my ankle but upon closer inspection we agreed that I had badly sprained it. She pulled out a roll of tape from the first aid kit and made a support over the top of my sock. I was OK to ride but could not push the pedals too hard. K got my bike up to a rideable section and we soon joined a smooth dirt road. Soon spotting a mountain stream I stuck my foot into it in order to reduce the swelling, this helped immensley. We watched a worker irrigate a field and redirect a stream as we sat in the sun and I soaked my foot. Eventually we got on our way again and joined the main road. K took up the front and we pacelined it back to Lhasa with me getting a free ride on her slipstream.

We were both exceptionally tired after our few days of riding and have spent much of the last few days recovering with me trying to rest my ankle as much as possible...I'm sore, but I will be back on two wheels in no time :-)

We had an amazing trip with some exceptionally good riding despite having to push the bikes on occasion :-)


Thanks for reading!

Finding the campsite...

When we were stymied in our desire to ride the Ganden-Samye trekking path we headed around the back of Ganden to have a look around to see what our options were....we parked the bikes and then I went for a look around...and then A went for a look around. Hmmm.


I got these prayer flags blowing in the wind...yup, I forgot again, you will have to watch sideways :)
click here to see the movie in a new window

Looking out from the kora, we decided that the fort ruins looked like they had great potential! :)


The fort ruins....


A monk tried to stop us from going down the path to the ruins and at first we thought he was telling us that bikes weren't allowed, but then he mimed that we would crash and get injured (which was very funny to watch). A pulled out the Mandarin dictionary and explained that we were "professionals" :) We all laughed and then we headed on our way as they watched to make sure that we really were not going to kill ourselves.

The ride down to the campsite...

K rides down the start of the kora...


A heads off the kora path (prayer flags in the background)


Check out that valley view...


A's more interested in riding (and she is starving, so we must get moving :)


Down...


down...


down!


The look back towards Ganden from the campsite - you can see the thread of a path back up. It was a GREAT ride...


We had a bit of a look around the ruins and the views over the valley...



and then I got busy cooking dinner :)


We waited until the sun was setting to put up the tent, so that it wouldn't attract too much attention.


Then we watched the sun set over Ganden...


...and the moon rise over the tent :)


After a good, if windy, night's sleep we awoke to a brilliant sunrise!


This is A's view out of the tent when I woke her up after sunrise :)


We made some breakfast, A was waking up - our ledge was in the bright sun and that helped :)


Then when A went off to walk the kora, I stayed to guard the bikes and read my book...

Tashi delay :-)

Today TwoWheelsWhirled celebrates six months of travelling - although we are not quite sure how we are going to celebrate the occasion yet :-)

Photos from our two day Ganden trip...

Finally after a vast amount of strain and breath taking, lung aching and quad screaming pedal turns we reached our destination - which seemed to be placed in heaven itself - Ganden monastery :-)



Nestled away on the backside of a mountain it is seemingly in a well protected placement however this did not prevent it being partly destroyed by bombing and artillery fire during the Cultural Revolution and amongst the rebuilt structures one could easily see the remains of a damaged past. The red and white buildings, some topped with gold plated roofs, stand out against the backdrop of the brown of the mountain and the blue of the sky. The red flowing robes of the monks - the same colour as the red mausoleum that houses the tomb of Tsongkhapa (AKA the Serkhang) - occasionally trick the mind into thinking that the building itself is alive and breathing due to the movement of said colour. The red robes of the monks flow and float around the monastery buildings and kora as though they are clouds in a timeless sky.





Ganden is important because it is the main and first seat of the Gelugpa order since it was founded in 1409. Tsongkhapa was the reformer and images of him and his disciples are found throughout the site. The Dalai Lama is not the head of this order and unusually the abbotship has been earned not through reincarnation but through scholarly merit.

Prayer flags adorn the mountainsides around Ganden...



Having drunk some restorative cold Jasmine tea, I left K to babysit the bicycles whilst I went and explored the monastery grounds a little.


I walked along a narrow path greeting monks who passed by and I soon found myself at the main assembly hall (the white building on the right hand side of the photograph) .


Pairs of shoes scattered in front of the side entrance to the assembly hall indicated that it was busy inside. An old monk motioned that I may enter this way too and that there was no need for me to remove my footwear, unlike when we were in India and were removing our shoes all the time.


The assembly hall was dim inside, sunlight which did enter the building entered high up into the roof and the rays were not able to reach down to floor level. The usual smell of yak butter lamps filled nostrils and the flickering flames once again added to the mysticism. There were no other visitors in the building and rather than the sound of chattering touring groups and the crucially noisy guide, I heard the sound of monks chanting and repeating scriptures.



The hall was a hive of activity - I had caught a time when monks were starting to gather. In dribs and drabs monks would enter the hall and join those who were already seated in rows on the low, wide benches. Some of the monks were wrapped in more robes and some cross legged would be rocking back and forth as they read out loud.


I walked up some stairs to view the throne of Tsongkhapa where a monk tapped me on the back of the head with the yellow hat of the Dalai Lama and thus gave me some good luck. I then circumnambulated the hall a few more times in order to take in the atmosphere and then decided to leave due to the arrival of many more monks and the fact that K and I still had to find a campsite before sunset...

The ride to Ganden...

We headed out of town on the road on the south side of the Lhasa River...sadly missing our favorite little pass, but we needed to get moving. We wanted to find the bridge across the river so that we could use it for our return journey when we would definitely take in our favorite little pass. We found the bridge after some lovely road - not that it was easy to miss, it's draped in prayer flags that whip in the wind :) It's a steel decked bridge, wide enough for one vehicle and it makes a racket when anyone drives on it.


We also stopped for a snack at the bridge....deep sea fish oil biscuit anyone??? :)


As we continued on the road we spotted this big girl...she provided much amusement for the next few kms :)


After much moaning from me (I know, again!!!! :) because we were under the impression that Ganden was 40kms from Lhasa (according to LP) and we had passed 46 before we finally got to the turnoff...and it was marked only by a Chinese sign!!!! I had to get the LP out, get irritated because they only listed Ganden in English and Tibetan and I only had a sign in Chinese. Then I found a small section buried in the back of the language section of the LP that was called Gazetteer and it had Ganden in Chinese (whew! :).

A knew just what to do and announced that we were having a food break....ah, that is much better now :) I was also better because I knew we were going to be climbing and I love to climb :):):)

A was having issues of her own....she was threatening to ride backwards up the pass and threw this rapper pose and several gangsta quotes out which had us laughing and nearly falling off our bikes *again* :) You can see the road winding it's way up the hill behind "gangsta girl" :) It was also at this point that we both admitted that we were truly insane. This is the second time the lack of oxygen has had this effect on our brains :)


This is hard work!!!!


Looking back down...


More rest!


We have come a long way...


Getting closer....




Finally the top!

Photos from our afternoon at Sera Monastery...

We had read in the book that the monks held a debating session most afternoons at Sera Monastery and we had intentions to go several times before we finally made it.

We rode up to Sera, just 5kms north of town, locked our bikes and paid the entry (you have to pay to get into the monasteries...more later) and then we walked through the gates and up this leafy road to get to the main assembly hall.


We have been unable to take photos inside most of the monasteries (Potala, Jhokang, etc.) but now we were able to photograph for a fee - and now you can see what the inside of a monastery looks like! They are all fairly similar....well, the ones we have been in.

Monastery buildings are fairly similar, too - whitewashed, with lots of windows and with a small fabric awning over the windows, contrasting trim in that dark red paint.


This is the door into the main assembly hall, it's a typical Tibetan door and the fabric you see hanging from the ring is made of braided scarves. These scarves (which you can buy in the market) are usually draped over the Buddha statues (given as decorative gifts). Each color means something - orange is for wisdom, white for purity, etc (A covered the colors in the post from Xi'an :)


This is the main room - the monks sit here during prayer/chanting/scripture readings, etc. Each monk has a place and leaves his cloak and hat (and the occasional snack :) on the padded, raised platform. The room is highly decorated with thangkas (the hanging pictures with the fabric borders), much rich red and gold paint and silk hangings.


This is one of the monks robes and hat...


This is one of the thangkas...


These are some of the statues across the back of the hall, with a yak butter lamp in front...


At the back of the hall there are some stairs to enter into three chapels. In the middle of the three chapels we found....

A cabinet of scriptures...


A large Buddha statue...


and at the feet of the Buddha you see piles of 1 Jiao notes that people have left as offerings.


After the main assembly hall we were walking farther up the hill and we could hear the debate going on - lots of loud voices, loud claps....we followed our ears :)

There were lots of people watching, including this cute girl with the dog :)


The courtyard was filled with monks sitting on the ground...


or standing and making their point with a loud handclap....


there were small groups debating....



more handclapping...


and even some physical debating :):):)


After the watching the debating for a while we walked around the monastery a bit more, but they were closing the buildings, so we decided to go walk the kora (the holy walk around the monastery).

Down the narrow pathway...


up the hill around the top...


Then there was a mani wall built of mani stones (with prayers carved on the stones) and all sorts of other offerings...including some not so old yak heads/skulls :)



This is about halfway around...we found a small spring, saw some rock carvings of various Buddhas and we could see the monastery buildings inside the walls.



then we continued our walk...


more rock paintings...


and this tower for hanging large thangkas from during festivals.


about this time we spotted this dust storm descending on Lhasa - it was pretty nasty when it hit, you could smell the dust in the air and it made for a bit of headwind on our ride back into town.


We could also see some evidence of the destruction of the monastery....



And lastly...this massive woodpile! Firewood for the monastery?

Some random photos :)

Is this the right image to sell a bike rental business???? That is Ullrich riding for T-mobile! And they are doing a TTT. I love it, but I would bet that most people walking the street don't have any idea ;)


and another wacky mistaken image...the package says round biscuits, but when you open them up they are square! A also bought some cookies for me and the cookies inside did not resemble the picture on the outside - the outside advertised an Oreo copy, but inside they were golden yellow!


I tried this ice cream...it's radish flavored :) It was nice.


One more thing we have seen throughout the last 6 months of travelling...plastic trash everywhere - this is hard evidence why we should all bring our own fabric/reusable bags to the grocery store with us!


Remember that nasty tire hole A got - here it is. It doesn't look all that bad from the outside, but the inside tear was twice the size.

This is pretty scary...

Rioting in China

No, it's not in Tibet :) But check the last three paragraphs! If you make 30,000 a year (GBP or Dollars, doesn't matter) your fine is 300,000? Yikes!

We are busily working on photos...off to get some lunch :)

A FABULOUS two days on the bikes :)

Yesterday we left at about 10am for the 40km ride to Ganden....well, LP does not have their facts right and it was 46kms to the turnoff to the 9km of climbing! We had a very tiring 55kms and nearly missed seeing the monastery....but A got in there and got some photos for you :) I do not know if LP got the altitude right...it said just under 4300m altitude on my watch and it's only about 50m off now that we are back - LP says it's 4500m. I can confirm that it FELT like we climbed up to 4500m :):):) and it's definitely the highest we have slept.

We were stymied in the route we planned - the trekking trail to Samye is about as developed as a sheep trail snaking up the hillside....not for bikes! So we spotted another trail down the backside of Ganden - rocky but ridable :) and we dropped onto that and we camped in....the ruins of an old fort :) It was awesome!!!! We explored the ruins and then I made dinner (seaweed/mushroom/garlic/ginger/noodle soup :) and then we set up the tent and watched Ganden slow down as the sun went down. A great evening after a long day in the saddle. Then, this morning, I left A to sleep as I went to watch the sunrise from the valley end of the ruins and then after breakfast A walked back up to Ganden and walked the kora.

We then packed up the bikes and A had a small mishap on the way to the bikes from the campsite (up a very rocky trail) and crashed and got a slight twist in her ankle and skinned up her knee pretty good - ah, we have carried the first aid kit for 6 months and finally needed to use it (thank goodness it was for something minor! :). The ego was more bruised than the body (she has often said she is better on a bike than on foot :) and we decided to continue down the trail that we could see off the backside and down into the valley we presume we would have come into if we had been able to do the Samye trail. A was her typical queen of rock and she rode some pretty hairy stuff, even with the panniers! We both said more than once that this would be an awesome trail if we had no luggage (we could have probably ridden 30% more).

It was rocky and we rode about as much of it as we had to walk, but we had HUGE grins on our faces - this is more than likely virgin singletrack...no bikes have been this way before :) We finally made it to the bottom, A twisting her ankle and making it a little bit worse just before we reached the bottom, but nothing to stop her riding back to Lhasa. We formed a train and hammered it back to the youth hostel where we could get a hot shower and chase some much needed food - it was hard work riding these past 2 days, but we are thinking that it's right up there with the best days we have had on the bikes and we are very glad we finally made it to Ganden.

Photos coming soon....but we are tired and we will catch you tomorrow :)

Now - photos from around Lhasa...

Here is one way to keep your toddler/baby out of trouble - bind them to your back. This is how many young children are transported in Tibet and it is not unusual for us to see the carrier reach around the back and check those split pants for any action :-)


Pedicabs are a great way to get around Lhasa but you have to work hard at bargaining for a decent price. Many of the pedicab cyclists wear copies of DC shoes which is quite amusing. As the pedicabs ride the streets the riders whistle or ring bells in order to keep people out of their way - they move pretty fast and sometimes have to break sharply, when this happens we hear the groan of metal upon metal.


We spotted this bicycle with two seat tubes. It looks like the owner may have wanted a longer wheelbase without adjusting the reach from the bars to the saddle :-)


The narrow streets of the Barkhor area...



Hauling goods through the narrow streets.


Shopfronts adjacent to the Jokhang monastery and on the kora circuit.


K writing postcards - needlessly inspired by a great view of the Jokhang opposite :-)


Looking down at the kora circuit of the Jokhang with monks, pilgrims and stalls in view.


In an act of unusual behaviour, I awoke early one morning to go and visit the Jokhang temple early in order to escape the large tourists groups. K did wake up and make me coffee...just before she went back to bed :-) Instead the Jokhang was overwhelmingly full of pilgrims who were devoutedly saying mantras. The atmosphere was amazing - there were hundreds of people queuing to see the Jowo Sakyamuni statue. Before entering the temple, many of the pilgrims would have circumnambulated the outside of the Jokhang complex three times, thus fulfilling one kora. I walked the kora also, watching the activities en route...

Pilgrims throwing juniper into the burners near the Jokhang.


The entire area around the Jokhang was filled with smoke, sometimes it stung my eyes and made them stream with water.


Yak butter lamps burning in the small hall in front of the Jokhang temple complex.


Pilgrims are able to buy/rent(?) a thermos filled with yak butter. The melted butter is poured onto lamps inside the temple as offerings (they have a large yak butter holder with many wicks stuck into it that people continually top up with yak butter from their flasks...and which a monk keeps neat and orderly by scraping the excess back into the mass of yak butter). Sorry...no photos of that as there are no photos allowed in the temple.


The various faces of pilgrims and people walking the kora: For many people, visiting the Jokhang is a lifetime ambition. Some people may have walked from afar in Tibet to get to Lhasa. It is possible to determine which region somebody comes from by looking at their dress - unfortunately I am not adept in this and cannot fill you in on the details, neverless, it is interesting to see the different types of people who come to Lhasa. Some of these people will have to beg for Yuan in order to be able to get the funds to return home again.

Many Tibetan women look so elegant and formal in their style of dress. In the background too you can see pilgrims prostrating.


Many men are also decorated with jewelry of carnellion and coral beads. You can see the thick smoke in the background of this photo too.


Many people walk the kora whilst muttering their mantras using prayer beads to count the number of mantras that they repeat. For most this is an automatic action and it is not unusual to see many people walking ther streets of Lhasa whilst fingering their prayer beads (much like a rosary).


There are also various size prayer wheels that people spin. The wheels are on the end of a handle and inside the main body is enclosed a paper coil of mantras, each spin of the prayer wheel is the equivalent of saying the mantras inside. Many people speak the mantras and spin the wheel at the same time for extra credit :-)


Nuns walking the kora.


People of all ages, with various degrees of fitness will circumnambulate the Jokhang, each has their own reason. Perhaps it is for prosperity, for strength for the next generation, for a good husband or wife, for longevity... It was interesting to watch and see the different faces.













K in the Danbala Bar with the Pekingnese pup which she cannot leave alone :-)


Thanks for reading :-)

Tashi delay :-)

Today we were going to go on an overnight cycling/ camping trip to some place high up, involving a large ascent over one pass or another :-) However the misfortune of my having a couple of nosebleeds during the night has prevented this from happening and instead we are going to go to the Sera monastery in a moment to watch the monks debate. Firstly though - we have been collecting various photos of people and "interesting" things around Lhasa - finally I have time to post them :-)

As always, eating is a great time of day for us, here are some more photos of us indulging ourselves - again!

I had eyed this "corn" ice lolly a number of times and K finally made the purchase for me. It was corn on the cob shaped - actually it just tasted like a vanilla ice cream with a wafer style corn shaped covering! Very bizzarre, the covering was the only thing that seemed to be corny about it.


Ah - here I am again about to indulge in a radish soup. It was fantastic, a clear soup with slices of radish/turnip - oh and the neccessary dried chilli peppers :-)


This is K's Yak burger - she quite enjoyed it and said that it tasted just like... a burger!


Ah now, Tibetan momos (small raviolis). My favourite version are vegetable with lots of chilli sauce. These momos were filled with apple, cinammon and raisin - YUM, needless to say, they all dissappeared.


This is K's response after taking a sip of Goodwood roast coffee with hot milk - she said that it tasted like yak (probably more yakky than the burger by the look of it :-)


Continuing with yak - every night each of the butchers has a yak meat delivery, this is what happens... An open topped flatbed truck pulls up (normally at dusk) and two people will grab an end each of an uncovered carcass and will then place it on top of some cardboard/ tarpaulin that is laid down in the middle of the street. The butcher will then make a cut to check the meat quality and the sale will then be agreed if the result is good. Then, the butcher will set about chopping up the carcass with an axe (fur and hooves still attached sometimes) - right in the middle of the walkway... :-)


...and this is how it ends up the next morning for sale... There are quite often many big fat flies buzzing around the butchers shop front so the owners will burn some juniper - this seems to do the trick and keep the flies to the minimum. Any of the flies that are left buzzing around are whipped away with something that looks like a piece of yak tail. Still, it is a lot better than what we saw in India :-)


Yak butter for sale in the streets near the Johkang.


We purchased some roasted sweet potato on the street. It had a fantastic taste having been cooked over coals.



Here is our favourite beer in Lhasa, it is called Stout Lodge...cheers! K says: it is really a black lager and not a real stout - it's a German recipe, as described on the label. This is a "premium" beer and it costs 18 Yuan at our favorite bar (the Danbala :) - that is just over 1GBP or just over US$2. We found a place that has Duvel!!! I know, AMAZING :) and they also have Boddingtons (and we did have one can each :) at the exhorbitant price of 38 Yuan a can (that is about 2.5GBPs or US$5). For comparison...Lhasa beer (the local brew) is 10-12 Yuan (under a Pound) in a bar/restaurant, or 4-5 Yuan if you buy it in the shop (about 35p or 75 cents :). Lhasa beer is a decent lager...it's drinkable :)

Ah! I wrote about the nice weather and cursed it! DOH! :)

Yesterday morning we woke up to rain, so our early departure for Yamdrok Tso was delayed (it's over 100kms to get there, with 1100 meters of climbing, so we need ideal weather). So we made good use of our day and decided to decide about our departure from this fair city.

It is such hard work! Nothing about our departure will be easy and the only way it will be cheap is if it is fast. There are so many options and we don't know when we will be back this way again (I have lots of other places I want to explore :) it makes it so hard to choose. One thing we definitely want to do is incorporate riding the bicycles - we see so much more than the average tourist does from the window of the vehicle they are riding in. Please be patient for commentary around that topic to be expounded upon by us - we are not going to say too much until we cross the Nepal border :)

At all the foreigner accomodation places (be it our youth hostel or one of the big hotels that is recommended in LP and RG) there are big bulletin boards where people post the trips they are trying to arrange and find more travellers to fill the seats (interestingly, there are way more Chinese messages than English messages...which matches a theory I have, I will explain more about when we hit Nepal :). We spotted a great looking trip to Kailash that hit all the places we wanted to go, including Everest Base Camp and the Nepal border....but it is very expensive and we haven't heard back from the guy yet when we asked about taking our bicycles. We are also looking into doing our own thing with one of the local bicycle trip companies so that the jeep has a proper bike rack. It's no more expensive than any of the regular jeeps trips - it's a racket here, they know how much everyone else charges and the quotes are all about 1000 Yuan per day plus the costs of permits and a guide. We have been told that the guide is 260 Yuan a day with apparently 160 going to the guide agency (the official Chinese guide agency) and the guide seeing the other 100.

The guide and permit situation is driving us batty! It seems that it depends on who you ask (travel agents)...which is a bit scary. At one point yesterday we have the travel agent tell us that they don't care about bicyclists, the police don't speak English and we would have no problems riding the Friendship Highway without a guide(then what the heck have we been doing cooling our heels in Lhasa for all this time??? We could have been in Kathmandu by now!!!!!) but I told her about the problems and then she phoned a friend and got the right information...hmmm, it seems you need a guide. Ah, it has been frustrating!

We are looking to make a day trip to Samye Monastery - it's a monastery built in the form of a mandala...which is the shape of Buddha's house (roughly :). We also want to ride to Ganden on a 1 or 2 night trip - it will be a lot of climbing anyway you look at it (Ganden is at 4500 meters, Lhasa is 3680), but if we go offroad off the backside trekking route we have an offroad pass of 5200 meters to cross :). Then it will be time to get on the road to Nepal...but how fast and what do we stop to see?

Here are the things we discovered yesterday:

-> The southern leg of the Friendship Highway, the bit that goes to Gyantse, is under construction and closed to jeeps...they drive along the top and then hook back to Gyantse from Shigatse. Bicycles are allowed while it's under construction, but you have to have a guide with you and the guide rides in the jeep....hmmm.

-> The permit costs for us and a guide to get to Everest Base Camp in a jeep will top 1000 Yuan (400 for the jeep and 180 per person) just for the permits! That is 65GBPs or about US$130 to get up close and personal with Everest.

-> We paid for a permit to get into Tibet - that was 500 Yuan each in Xi'an (and we hunted around and it was the cheapest we found). That is a bit of money spinner - to get a new one while we are here is only 60 Yuan and all the permits come from Lhasa (ours came from one of the local hotel travel agencies). OUCH! We found this out when we discovered that we need to get a new one - our original one expired May 1st! When we applied in Xi'an they did not ask us how long we wanted it to last and we didn't ask - the guidebooks indicated that the Tibet permit wasn't the key for how long you can stay, it was the Chinese Visa that is the important document. To add insult to injury, on our permit it says I am a housewife and A is a beautician - the only Chinese name on our permit had accountant next to it and the other American woman was also a housewife! Ah, can you believe it!?!?!?! My reputation is in tatters! :)

We *are* formulating a plan and it will involve riding the bikes...we will see Everest for sure (you can see it from the highway) and we will probably shell out for the permits, as it is once in a lifetime. We have to get out of China by the 19th of June (when our visas expire) and, if I get my plan the way I want it, it will take us 10-12 days to get to the border - we need to be moving out of Lhasa by the first of June. More news as it happens....

The weather here in Lhasa is lovely....24C and sunny (abt 75F)

We know we have to go back through Kathmandu to Delhi to get the motorbikes so we were wondering just how hot it was there. This is today's weather:



That is 108F for you metric challenged people...feels like 126F!!!! Yikes! The lows are 27C/80F. We are going to ROAST!

(just for comparison....it's 30C/86F High, 17C/63F Low in Kathmandu, temps for Calcutta are pretty much the same as Delhi and if we head for the mountains it's currently a nice 17C/63F for a High in Leh in the Indian Himalaya...ahhhh :)

A question from the peanut gallery :)

Q: When you're laying in your tent at night, what sounds can you hear around you?

A: When we are laying in the tent and darkness surrounds us and we are about to fall into a deep sleep :)...we hear all sorts of things.

Life stops not long after dark and it gets dark (like really dark) at about 9:30, so by 10:30 (if we can stay awake that long :) it is very quiet. The herdsmen all go home at dusk, so the livestock are put away - we may hear the occasional moaning cow/yak, but not often. We rarely hear people. We have heard dogs barking - one place we heard what sounded like a massive dogfight, we wondered how the locals put up with it - it sounded awful and we were at least half a km away.

If it's windy or raining then we hear those sounds against the tent. If there is a bigger road nearby then we hear the occasional traffic...and horns (they love their horns here :). Only when we were camped by the river did we hear river sounds...and occasionally though the night we could hear the rock wash tumblers grinding away and the occasional truck taking the washed rock away (Medro Gunkar was a decent sized town compared to where else we camped so it was noisier).

In the morning we hear lots of different birds...and the start of traffic. Life is very much linked to daylight, so you hear things slowly get going as the sun comes up (it's dark at 6am but light by 7ish...7:30 if the sun is blocked by the mountains).

We have not heard anyone or anything walking near our tent....except yaks :)

Tashi delay :-)

Last night we decided to go and burn off our late dinner of salad and chilli potatoes by taking a walk around the kora of the Johkang. It was a great idea because in the dim light the experience was quite different to that which is experienced during the busy daytime...

The stalls which normally sell Tibetan handicrafts, religious tokens, clothes etc were for the most part packed up so there was not the usual hustle and bustle of trade. At the front of the Johkang there is a small, low level hall, within which there are housed many hundreds of burning yak butter lamps which are placed in rows. We took a look through the unpaned window and felt the heat as the glow fell against our faces.

Joining the pilgrims who were still doing the kora even at this time of night we began our slow meander through the narrow streets flanked by the whitewashed walls and store fronts. There was missing the smoke from the burning juniper offerings that is abundent throughout the day and stings your eyes.

There were many people begging for money. Many of these were monks as well as pilgrims although we are not quite sure how to tell the difference between a genuine pilgrim or anyone who may be taking advantage of the tourist dollar. Pilgrims often need the donations in order to be able to return home again. We had both been saving our Jiaos for moments like this. As we walked in the dim light there were pilgrims who were doing the kora by falling onto their knees and lying face down on the floor, then moving to where their hands were and starting the process again. These people will go around the Johkang 3 times for a full kora. I can imagine how much their abs must hurt when repeating this process so often, it would take many hours.

There were many women who sat with very young children. Both were equally as grubby. The women would outstretch their hand waiting for some money to fall upon it, their eyes would look pleadingly at us. The children (sometimes well trained) would run up and follow us, their hands pressed together, they would mutter in Tibetan and look at us with such sad eyes. Some of the children took a more gleeful approach and would smile, sometimes bringing laughter amongst their desperate situation. A grubby, chubby mother and child both smiled sweetly at me. I had already placed a Jiao in the woman's hand but the child had not witnessed this and she proceeded in grabbing my thigh by hugging it and would not let go. Luckily K made the right motions with her hands and the sound of the words from her mouth to make the child return to mother.

The monks who sat on the kora asking for money also varied in their approach. I was feeling apprehensive last night about giving money to any monks because while I was in a phone booth last night a monk grabbed hold of my arm and repeated "money, money" at me with his hand outstretched. Some of the monks, who mostly sat in rows of no more than five, would be chanting mantras together. In front of them sat a pile of money, more so than the pitiful amount that we had seen in many of the pilgrims hands. We saw many monks who seated together on the floor were counting up their mound of cash. We found this a little disturbing, we had seen people who looked hungry nearby and the happy monks looked greedy in their success in comparison. There were also nuns who were asking for alms and were singing too, they also had a decent size amount of cash but it is really quite obvious that the monks receive more than anyone else. I am not sure whether the monks also need the money to get back to their monastery that may be located far away I guess the competition can be quite fierce. Within 5 minutes of walking the kora I was down to my last Jiao, both K and I had been particularly selective about who we gave money too, we had decided that only those who were disabled or women with children who would get our Jiaos.

There were people who walked the kora very fast, speeding around it as though it was an everyday occurrence for them. We know of one Tibetan who does a full kora of the Johkang every morning. There was the sound of mumbling mantras and the sight of spinning prayer wheels that people held in their hands. There were people out with young toddlers who cried in their arms, it being past a decent time for someone so young. Chinese tourists were taking photos (I do not remember seeing any other "western" tourists last night).

As we came to the end of the kora we reached the front of the Johkang. Children were playing on the scaffolding of the empty stalls. There were a few people out selling their wares, their overtired children nearby. I think of how hard it must be to have to stay out so late trying to sell the most smallest thing in order to make some money. A couple of women who sat with their backs against the butter lamp hall spotted K and I walking. I had spotted them first and watched as they spoke to their children who were obviously sent straight over to us, having singled us out, in order to gain some donation. I kept hold of my last Jiao, I did not like the situation especially as the mothers were drinking beer. Perhaps I am harsh, it is always difficult to know who to give money to, guide books advise that you give it to an organisation but when it is as little as 1 GBP I wonder how beneficial this would be, it is more likely to be appreciated in the hand of an individual.

We left the kora and walked through the narrow alleyways back to the Beijing Donglu on which our hostel is located. There were people still working, selling bread, stitching clothes for example. Other businesses were restaurants (with various degrees of styling), bars or just a pool table that was momentarily hired out to willing punters.

I have some photos to post which show the various types of people that we see walking the kora, these will make it onto the blog soon.

A day of thorns....

We decided that today was the day to go and ride the old road up the pass (the same pass that we always ride out of Lhasa) - we spotted it just below the new road the first time we rode the pass and we have been biding our time. It's just a small section of dirt road, maybe a km in length, and a bit of a climb, but it would be worth it for the rocky descent (so says the queen of rock :).

So we put A's new tire on the back of her bike (it's a decent tire - a Kenda Koyote that claims it's a 2.1 but it's more like a 1.95 - and it didn't break the bank and it's not heinously heavy) and headed out into the sunshine. We were basically going to ride 12kms each way for a 2km dirt ride...yes, we are insane :) So we hammered it out of town, also using it as a judge of our fitness (we have ridden this road a lot :) and we were feeling good on the unloaded bikes! We got out to the pass, chose our route over the open ground to hook up with the bottom of the old road and headed down. It was a nice little ride over the rocky ground (maybe 300 meters) and it was an easy hookup to the old road. Excellent!

We were ready to head up when we decided to check the tires....yikes, there was a thorn in my tire...and there was one in A's tire, too. Oops. We started a tire check and there were...*34* thorns in my front tire alone! Hmmmm, maybe riding this old road wasn't such a good idea. We didn't notice any thorn bushes on the way down. A was calling out the number of thorns that when she pulled them out they went "puff" - I heard 5....6....7...yikes! We decided to head back to town immediately and forget the old road. We were travelling light and I only brought one spare tube with me and our patch kit has been depleted over the last month and I hadn't refilled it - I had 2 patches. We were in trouble. By the time we pulled all the thorns we could see and walked the bikes back up to the road 3 of our 4 tires were flat - only A's new Kenda was holding a decent amount of air (but it was still slowly leaking).

We pulled the tubes on the three wheels and checked to see what we had...well, A's front had 8 punctures in it :) My front had 5.... Since A's rear tire was the only one holding any air we gave her front tire the new spare tube and off she went in to the village that was about 2kms away to see if she could get some spare tubes or have the two holey ones patched. Forty-five minutes later (it's all down hill there and a climb all the way back - we were on the pass :) she arrived with the the tubes unpatched and 10 patches - the guy had no spare tubes and we could patch them just as easily has he could. I got to work and patched just the big holes (3 on each tube for my front and rear) and we pumped them up and rode to town as fast as we could - pumping twice on the way :)

We could have done with some of those self sealing tubes....or the Slime we have sitting in our luggage in Delhi! Oh well :) We bought some new tubes from the shop next door - the same brand as we have been using - so we are back in business! Ah, what an exciting day!!!!

Hey all...article in the Times about the Tibet permit situation....

click here to view

Later!

Tuesday 15th May:

The night sky had been decorated with bright stars against a backdrop of clear sky, however when we awoke it was again cloudy. We did not really do much. I went into MG and purchased some petrol and some more food. On the way to MG I raced a two stroke tractor cart that was carrying passengers. Really, it was no match for me as I sped by snarling/ smiling much to the amusement of onlookers. In fact it was great to have done this. Previously, whenever either of us tried to ride the bikes hard we would be gasping for breath like drowning fish (?!). Now I had no ache in my chest and did not have to stand leaning against the bike in order to recover but could continue riding and still manage to get my breath back - woohoo, the acclimatisation process had moved on to another stage :-)

I arrived back, we lit the stove (K had changed the jet for the stove to accommodate the new fuel - petrol) and ate some more noodles. Just as everything was packed up the heavens opened and the rain lashed down on us. We were in the tent in time and spent the whole afternoon playing cards and reading more Poe.

In fact K played Patience and won straight up and then I set up a game of Clock for her and she won this too. The odds of winning Clock are very slim (if you know them then please e-mail us, we could not work it out exactly), it is a game of luck over which the player cannot dictate any move. We were equally surprised at these successes.

Not much else happened - it carried on raining and we went to sleep early.

Monday 14th May:

We awoke with frost on the inside of the vestibule of the tent. Actually, I tell a lie - K awoke to frost on the inside of the vestibule of the tent. I was in the middle of a dream (which must have involved a warm cosy fireplace or something of a similar nature) when I was rudely awakened by a orange buff topped mass making it's way towards the door inside the tent and shouting that there was frost and that it was a beautiful morning and that I should really open my eyes and come have a look. Sure I thought turning over and going back to a land of bright warm sun and radiators. I am still baffled by how someone can be fast asleep one moment and then within a matter of seconds turn into a highly energised buzzy humanoid :-)

Some time later I awoke to condensation on the inside of the tent and damp grass outside in the pasture, with very little sign of any frost. K made me some coffee using the firewood as fuel that she had gathered the night before. With this she enticed me out of my dream like state and managed to engage me in a conversation regarding our plans for the day. We decided that we would have a day washing ourselves and our clothes in the cold river and that we could ride into MG and get some supplies - most importantly some more kerosene for the stove.

The day was now bright and sunny. We washed our hair in the river and ceased any blood supply to our cerebral complex as a result. Once our scalps had thawed out we decided to wash our clothes. Behaving like proper little housewives we managed to get everything rinsed, wrung and hanging on the line quite quickly and then had the excuse of sitting around the campsite whilst we waited for the clothes to dry.

We both felt a little hungry so we lit a wood fire again and cooked up some noodles with extra garlic and ginger - delicious. We were both feeling incredibly relaxed too because we no longer had to behave like fugitives keeping out of sight of people who would find us more interesting than TV. In fact, the worse thing about being a tourist is gawking at people and it is certainly not nice when you find the tables turned.

We have been reading the Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allen Poe to one another so we spent an hour or so reading a few chapters before "Action K" shot off into town to hunt for a spare fuel bottle and some kerosene. We had worked out that we would need more fuel for our assult on the pass and that our one bottle would not be enough.

K returned unlucky. She could not find any bottle that would be deemed safe enough to carry explosive liquids and she had no success in finding any kerosene either but she was offered something that was scribbled in the back of our Mandarin book that we still did not know what it was. She had also been offered corn oil elsewhere - you go figure out the connection between corn oil and kerosene, we can't :-)

We decided that I would take the fuel bottle that we already had and that I would purchase the unknown flammable liquid that was written in the back of the book but that I would try and find out a little more regarding what it was. Given great directions I found my way to the same store and had a confused conversation in Chinese about the unknown character in the back of the book. The store man motioned that he would have to go down the road to buy the liquid for me. I decided that I may as well go myself because I had the bike if he would only give me directions. He explained and I was none the wiser. Then in a sudden flash of inspiration I remembered a petrol station further down the road and asked him if I could buy the unknown liquid there. He laughed and laughed and then replied yes, then seated himself down next to a friend and I could tell that they were laughing at the dumb foreigner (things will become clear in a moment).

I jumped on the bike and after riding for a minute or two I managed to get K's pannier (which I had borrowed) caught in the spokes of the rear wheel and slam dunked myself into the ground. Many people were concerned for me but I dusted myself off and got on the way. I went to the petrol station and this is where the fun begins. Please bear with me, it is hard to explain....

"Mei you" means "Kerosene".
"Mei you" also means "not have".
"You" means "have".
"You mei you" means "have or not have?"

Are you following this?

So, I asked the petrol pump attendant "You mei you mei you" (do you or do you not have kerosene?)
To which he replied "mei you"
I said "mei you" as a means of justifying the fact that I wanted kerosene and he said "mei you, you chee yoh"
"mei you" I said, indicating again that I wanted kerosene.
"wo mei you mei you, you chee you" he said.
Now I was confused and frustrated so I said in English "Do you or do you not have any kerosene?"
I received no reply.
So, I brought out the Mandarin book and showed him the mysterious character in the back of the book which he confirmed that he had saying "chee you". I soon fathomed out that chee you meant petrol - now we were getting somewhere and it also explained why the guy was laughing at me earlier (I could picture him thinking of course you buy petrol from the petrol station - duh!). Now all I needed to do was work out whether he had kerosene in addition to petrol.

After some more confusing exchange I pointed at the petrol pump and said "chee you", he confirmed "shi" (this means is). Then I pointed at a nearby smaller pump and said "mei you" to which he said "shi".
Success, I had worked out that he had petrol and kerosene. Promising to return, I went back to the camp to consul with K and explain what had happened. It was only when I went back the next day that I found out that what I had pointed to and said "mei you" (kerosene) was in fact a strange looking fire extinguisher - this amused us even further :-) :-)

Back at camp we decided to change our plans and that we would not head toward the pass the next day due to my cut tyre and that we were unlikely to have enough fuel to see us through. We decided to head back to Lhasa very slowly and that we would stay in the pasture for another night. We spent the night playing cards, reading more Poe and sipping whisky from my hip flask :-)

Tashi delay :-) :-)

Medro Gunkar, (I shall abbreviate it to MG for ease of use) contd...

Having spotted a small supermarket we popped in and made a purchase of 2 x 330 ml cans of Budweiser with the hope that we would ride a few kms back down the road and be successful in finding a camping spot and could then indulge in our small treat in time for sundown.

At the "campsite" I had another opportunity to flay my arms around in the hope of getting conversation across in my pigeon Chinese come universal sign language technique. We wanted to find out if we were able to stay there. It worked and I am glad that when twisting my body around whilst straddling the bike in order to point at the tent that was bungeed to the rack, that they did not think that I was pointing at my arse and asking for something completely different. The Chinese occupants were fairly nonchalant and indicated that we could go wherever we liked. Wanting some privacy, K and I made our way further into the thicket following some small tracks and we found the most perfect little enclave which gave us easy access to the river but enabled us to remain invisible from the road or from most of the pasture.

Wasting no time we pitched the tent and tried to light a wood fire. The fuel for the fire was too damp and after half an hour of constantly blowing on the slightly burning embers we decided to give up. Still, we did succeed in having a sip of our beer whilst there was a flame amongst the twigs, it was no bigger than one which you would expect from a small match - does that count as having a beer around the campfire? :-) We were visited by a toothless drooling Yak herder at this point who watched us curiously and with a smile on his face, perhaps he thought that we were slightly mad for trying to light the fire with small twigs that had a coating of dampened bark. He soon disappeared into the trees, I think that it was to catch up with the Yaks who were making their way down the road, afterall he had probably scared them away by throwing stones at them and I have no doubt that they were making a dash for it while they could.

Next we set about skimming stones in the nearby river. We had both had a desire to do this for some time and we could finally fulfill this ambition. Still, I cannot help but think that any onlookers would have thought of us to be two yobbos (rednecks) and if I had spotted us wielding stones and a beer can each, then I would have probably given us a wide berth. Anyway, skimming the stones reminded me of my Dad and how patient he was with me when he taught me how to pick a perfect skimming stone and how to launch it at the correct angle towards the water, so thanks Dad. Still, "Action K", as always, being the best, managed to get a whole long row of skims in from one stone, in fact it was very impressive, the best that I could manage was four. Maybe she should go join a Yak herder school and learn to throw stones at livestock using the slingshot, I think that would be better than trading her in for a few camels when we get back to India...

It was still very early when we jumped into the tent. The sunset was not particularly spectacular and we were both tired from the riding. It was a cold night already and the sun had only been down for enough time for the blink of an eye. I put on all of my tops again and tried to sleep.

Equipment we use...WARNING - Geek post!!!! :)

If you are not interested in this subject you can skip right over it...but for those of you that are geeks, read on :)

I spent a lot of time planning for our journey - both for the motorbikes in India and the bicycles in China. We sent a box to Beijing and picked the stuff up when we got the bikes, so all the planning had to be done before we even left for India. We did not think that we would be able to get reliable equipment while on the road....and though we have found plenty of outdoor stores in China and Tibet, I think we made the right decision. This was definitely the case with motorbike riding gear in India (the quality of helmets available is a bit too scary for my valuable head to think about :)

The bikes you know about - Trek 4500 WSD mountain bikes - but you probably are not aware of how much we have come to love them...and not just because they are head and shoulders above all the other bikes we see here! Both of us will readily admit to being bike snobs - A worked in the bike industry and has had access to the best kit available and I am just a gear head and insist on the best :) These bikes are great! They have handled everything we have thrown at them - they handle amazingly well, even fully loaded - and we have no hesitations taking them anywhere we want to go. We have put over 1000kms on them thus far - on the flat, climbing and descending big hills, on pavement, on dirt, on rocky paths and on singletrack - and they have not even burped! You never know, A might take hers home to add to her collection of bikes...

We only have rear racks on the bikes and they are rated for 50lbs. We each have a set of panniers with clothes and tools, etc. and then on top we lash the tent, sleeping bags and Thermarests, plus a bag of spare bits that doesn't fit anywhere else (our cups, shower shoes, waterbottles, etc.).

How much detail do you want??? Well I will give you something in the middle :)

BIKE KIT: We probably have more bike tools than we need but I didn't know what we would find so I have BB and freewheel tools in addition to the standard small trail tool that has everything from allen keys to spoke wrenches and a chain tool. Of course we have a patch kit, but we have been though both of the ones we brought and are working on one we purchased in Lhasa - we've had 12 puncture so far! We have a WrenchForce pump with a gauge and it has been getting an enormous amount of use...poor thing, but it is holding up to the onslaught well :) I also have a Paratool, which is like a Leatherman, so it has pliers and a saw, in addition to screwdriver blades and knife blades of all sorts. We have duct tape and some zip ties, too. As for bike parts we have spare spokes and lots of little nuts and bolts, spare cables plus 3 full sets of brake blocks (we were going to be doing a lot of descending, if you remember :)

CAMPING KIT: Ah, I had such fun investigation what we would need, making sure it was light enough to cycle with and sturdy enough to deal with the extreme conditions we will find in this very rural and high altitude place.

The tent is a Mountain Hardwear Airjet 2. It is a single wall tent, meaning that it doesn't need a rain fly as it's waterproof already (that makes it lighter and faster to set up). There are mixed reviews on this tent and I wouldn't take it to a damp place as there is just not enough ventilation, but it's dry at altitude, so I figured it would be ok...and it has been. We have had condensation on the inside, but nothing bad, certainly not enough to make us wet and cold...when it's wet and cold outside :). The worst condensation was when we had heavy rain that first night we camped; we had no condensation when we camped on the old road. There are vents in the top of the tent and around the bottom edge and you just need to open the vents to allow the air to flow. I think part of the condensation that first night was caused by the closing of the top vents - it was really raining and blowing and the water was coming in the vents so we closed them. I also like the inpenetrableness of the waterproof fabric as it's also warmer when the wind is blowing...and we know this from experience - our tent is toasty :)

The sleeping bags are from Blacks, the UK sports retailer, and they are the 2 season Quad bags, (polyfill, not down) in the women's model (makes them lighter because they are shorter :). The bags are rated to 0C-ish (whether they are warm enough or not always depends if you are a hot sleeper or a cold sleeper) and I was concerned that they might not be warm enough but we have not had any problems and we have had frost form on the inside of the tent - that is a good sign :). We also had great fun in purchasing some silk bedsheets at a market in Beijing and had them sewn into a big pillowcase shape (that is exactly how I explained it to the woman at the tailor shop using the Mandarin dictionary :) so we have silk inside the bags (posh and girly - one sheet is off white and one is pink :) and that definitely keeps us warmer!

We also have two Thermarests - the women's TrailLite model. They are the big indulgence as they are not super light but they are fantastic insulators against the cold, hard ground and they definitely soften the rocky ground that we have been sleeping on. Honestly, there is no substitute for a good night's sleep when we are wearing ourselves out like we are. The bags and the Thermarests we had the opportunity to test out at a few bike races the summer before we left and after that experience I knew A was never going to part with her Thermarest....we just had to bring it or she wouldn't get any sleep in a tent :). She has had some of her best sleep in all of Tibet sleeping on her Thermarest. I can sleep anywhere, so I'm happy :)

The other two necessary items that I fussed over were the stove and the water filter. It is cold here and having something warm to eat and drink will help keep us alive, so we needed a good stove. (Needless to say...having something warm to drink is the ONLY thing that will get A out of the tent in the morning, so it better be a good stove :) A gets a dodgy stomach fairly easily and there are rumors that Giardia is fairly common in the Tibet water supply...we needed a good water filter/purifier as the best solution or we would be boiling a *whole lot of water*. Well, I have been an outdoor person most of my life, I have read Outside Magazine (years ago, before it was all full of ads)...I'm a gear head and I love REI :) I know who the big players are and I read lots of reviews on the web, emailed my brother :), and decided to go with MSR for both the stove and the water filter.

We have an MSR Whisperlite International stove - it burns all sorts of fuel, whatever is available, including unleaded petrol (which is what we are burning now). I tested the stove at A's Dad's house with unleaded before we left and nearly lit myself on fire (we did it outside in the bricked walkway - no potential of lighting the place on fire, I promise :)...I am much better at it now :):):) We started from Lhasa with kerosene (or what we think might be kerosene - it's not in the dictionary...we had some weird experiences with the liquid that we bought...we are now using much cheaper and much more identifiable! unleaded petrol). The stove sounds like a jet and it heats the water incredibly fast...but it uses a lot of fuel. I have a 350ml bottle and it lasts about 3 days. We ran out of kerosene and couldn't get anymore in Medro Gunkar (but it was fun trying :) so we bought the unleaded. When we got back to Lhasa I bought a new 1 liter fuel bottle so we should be fine for a week cooking everyday.

The water filter is MSR's MiniWaterWorks and it is excellent! I used it in India (their water is pretty dodgy there, too :) on tap water and we have been sucking several liters of water a day, through the filter :), out of the Tibetan streams and into our bottles. A murky stream will slow the filter down, but it's so easy to take apart, wipe the sludge off, screw it back together and it is back up to speed.

We bought a cheap stainless steel pot in the market in Lhasa and it works fine. We have 2 sets of chopsticks we got at the grocery store, but I also have some camping silverware...but we never use it, chopsticks are handier :). We each have a pocket knife for slicing the garlic and ginger...and sharpening sticks to be toasting forks :) We have 2 plastic mugs that we bought in Hong Kong so that we had something to make tea/coffee in for the long train journey to Beijing - we still have them and still use them. Brilliant! and they were cheap, too :) We have a foldable bucket that we use for washing, it's army green :) I also have a magic bag of camping supplies with emergency foil blankets, some hothands chemical heaters, paracord, a whistle, a lighter, spare shoelaces, etc. :)

That is about it....we are well prepared as you can well see!

A loved the tent and her snug sleeping bag :)

Now lest you think A is a bed princess (she does have a history of it :) understand that she feels the cold a bit more than I do. I am always moving and always eating, so I am always warm. When we crawled into the sleeping bags at night I was wearing my wooly socks, a pair of hiking shorts, my long john (thermal) shirt and a Buff on my head. A wore her wooly socks, a pair of fleece long john bottoms, 2 or 3 thermal tops of various weights and a Buff on her head and often the hoodie from her thermal top pulled up over her head. She needed coffee or tea in the morning just to be able to survive the morning temps outside the toasty sleeping bags....well that's her excuse anyway :)

The ride back to Lhasa - Day 7

We said goodbye to the campsite on the river...


...and we were off!


We rode past the monastery that we had passed on the way in, a few days previous...



...and a ruin of what looked like another monastery.


The road north was not looking good...thankfully we would be heading south in a few kms :)


Then we headed back over the bridge and we were on our way south. The weather was good, it hadn't rained so the road was dry and dusty, and we noticed that we were heading ever so slightly downhill...maybe with a bit of a tailwind here and there - we were cruising!



15kms down the road we stopped for a bit of a snack (we were hungry already :) and some photos at this photogenic stupa :)



we could see Medro Gunkar across the valley...


...and then we hit the road again...


...past the herds...



...and on down the valley to the pass...


which we topped (with a bit of breathing difficulty, some tired legs and a bit of euphoria :)


and then A was bombing it down the pass, but not for long - that weakened tire required plenty of caution! So I left her behind, bombing down at 55kph :) The bike is so stable at speed, even loaded!


Then we were back in Lhasa...at our favorite place - the Danbala Restaurant and Bar - complete with lovely black beer and an adorable puppy...not to mention some great food! I inhaled a cheeseburger, a salad and some chilli mash, in addition to what was left of A's egg fried ride and a plate of greens :)


If you can't tell that we are happy bunnies just look at that photo again :)

Days 4-6...we leave the Old Road campsite for Medro Gunkar and the yak pasture :)

Another helper photo for you :)


We awoke to a beautiful, sunny morning in our trough of a campsite...yup, that's A in the tent again :)



Just as we had found the campsite the evening before A had hit a sharp rock and got a puncture on her rear tire - it was a big hole. I had patched it and she could get up to the campsite, but it was a big hole in the casing of the tire and we would have to be careful with it to get it back to Lhasa in one piece. In the morning I pulled the tire and put a tube patch on the casing to give it some support and I put a nice piece of duct tape in there, too, just for luck :) Then we swapped the front and rear tires - the rear was taking most of the load so we thought we should have the strongest tire at the back.


Before we headed out I wanted to ride the old road back the other way...just to see what it was like - it was rocky :) A was having a momentary bout of dodgy stomach so she wasn't up for the ride, but it went as soon as it came, and we were on our way in a couple of hours.




While we were waiting for A's stomach to settle we were sitting in the shade (the sun is fierce!) and we noticed this strange effect around the sun - we could see it with our eyes and one photo is with A's camera and one is from mine - it is not a trick!!!! Cool, eh? :)



Then it was time we packed up and got the heck out of dodge :)


We continued north on the dirt road...thinking it was only 2kms to Medro Gunkar...doh! It was about 20 :) We saw this great rock formation that looked to be part of the old road....it also looked like a gaping maw, something out of Lord of the Rings :)


We continued north....


...until we finally found the bridge! Well...we found 2 bridges and we opted for the more interesting of the two (the other being a cement monstrosity :)


The view north was lovely...except what was that hanging there on the wire????


...it was dead things! They look liked newborn baby lambs and calves. Maybe some sort of sacrifice? It's still a done thing around these parts....


the view back across the bridge...


Then we were heading south on a paved road, about 5kms north of Medro Gunkar - riding slightly uphill into the wind...and we were starving! But we made it and we stuffed ourselves at a local restaurant and hit the shops for some juice and BEER :) and then went to find our camp.


Woohoo! Our luck is SO good!!!! We found a little niche and set up camp :)


Then we cracked the beers...


...and watched the sunset :)







The next morning we made coffee and toasted some bread...on a proper fire!!!! I had collected some wood the afternoon before because we had found the wood so damp when we tried to light it that evening.


...and then cleaned ourselves (clean hair!!!!! :) and some of our clothes :) I must say that this is the first time I have ever had an "ice cream headache" without eating ice cream...that water was COLD!!!!!



It was a beautiful day and we made some noodles for lunch....



In the afternoon we played cards (A has hauled this deck, a prize from a Christmas cracker from years ago, through India and China...it was about time we put them to good use :)


would you trust this face??? :)


The next day we gave the stove a rest (we were running out of fuel at this point) and built another proper campfire :)


I told you this was a yak pasture :)


We spent 3 nights in this campsite and we would have stayed longer, but it was time to head back to Lhasa...

Sunday 13th May:

We woke with no dripping condensation in our tent. The sky was beautiful and blue and we had successfully had a great nights sleep. We took in our surroundings and looked at the fields below as well as the surrounding mountain peaks - the views were as spectacular as ever, enhanced by the blueness of the sky. "Action K" repaired my damage tyre by patching it up and I would eventually swap the rear and the front around in order to give the weaker tyre the least amount of load as possible.

Soon I became overcome with a terrible nausea and could not overcome it. I was fearful that I was becoming very ill and that our riding would be coming to an end as a result. I informed K how terrible I felt but did not quite divulge how awful I felt hoping that it would pass. She suggested that I lie down for a while and not move. This I did but as soon as I felt that the nausea had gone and tried to get up I would again be overcome with the feeling of sickness. I ended up taking a Pepto Bismol and surprisingly this worked quickly. I no longer felt sick but I did feel weakened, particularly in my arms. K packed up the tent then went exploring the old road whilst I sat and rested some more. I watched her disappear around the hillside and occasionally she would come into a distant view as the walls of the old road would lower every now and then.

Upon her return she sat down where I had been sitting. As I reached across to take something from her I knelt on the most ferocious stinging nettle that I have ever encountered. The burning sensation that immediately followed was intense, I hobbled around in disbelief it's effectiveness. My shin had a patch of nasty welts swelling on it. I hobbled around more. K found another type of leaf that we thought that I should rub on it (the theory being that dock leaves grow near to nettles) but all that this did was leave a big green smudge across my leg.

Eventually the burning sensation passed and we sat together and looking at the sky K noticed that there was a mother of pearl effect from the light shining through the clouds - it was amazing to see and we looked at it transfixed for a while.

Finally we left at noon, the quarry men had returned to work already but were again on a break when we left. We rode by a shepherd who was taking a nap from watching the herd as we descended back down to the dirt road. We headed toward Medro Gunkar - we had not filtered any water thinking that we would be able to buy some in the town very soon but later would find ourselves needing to meet this requirement. The road varied from good even surfaced dirt road to rocky construction. We rode by the workers who were tarmacking the road a few kilometres away and they excitedly waved hello. The stretch that had the new surface was very small but it ran through the village that was flanking it and we wondered how the life of the apparently sleepy rustic looking village would soon change as a result, we were happy that we were passing through in the present.

The road again changed to a long stretch of rocky construction which sapped our energy although we did not realise it at the time. I was also on the constant lookout for my tyre for fear of the cut in it worsening despite K's fantastic repair. We had still not reached Medro Gunkar and were wondering how we were to get to it. It was on the other side of the river valley and looking up and down the course of the river we could not see any bridge - the bridge would also be very obvious because it would have to be large in order to span the river. We stopped for a snack and watched a herder slingshot stones at an escapee goat who had decided that it was going to liberate itself from the flock which could be seen munching on the nearby hillsides. It was amazing to hear the sound of the small rocks fly by, they sounded like missiles and it is no wonder that the shepherds use this effective method to round up their livestock by scaring the wits out of them. After the stone was launched the long slingshot would wrap itself around the shepherds legs. We sat and watched for a while. Soon the shepherd came over to look at us, I offered him a Shanxi date to eat and demonstrated that he should watch out for the stone inside having noted that he was missing many teeth. Taking the date he continued on his way with rounding up the stray animal.

We continued riding and decided that we should pump some water. We could not get to the fast flowing river due to a nearby man made drainage channel that we could not cross which barred us from reaching the cleaner looking water. We had to contend with filtering water from a murkier looking source but the filter being so effective provided us with enough water in order to get to the next town (at this point we had given up with the idea of Medro Gunkar because we had still not seen any bridge). At this point we were joined by a young Tibetan boy on his bicycle, he was perhaps no more than 12 years old, he parked up and sat down next to us and watched us closely, occasionally whispering to himself. To our dismay he took a cigarette packet out of his pocket and soon sparked it up, smoking as though he was big man, as all children do mimicking the behaviour of influential adults. As we were about to leave K noticed that she had a puncture. We stayed put, unloaded the bike and got on with the repair as our young guest watched and smoked.

When the puncture was repaired I went and flagged down a passing digger truck that was being used for the road construction some distance away. It was quite amusing. I asked the driver in Chinese how far away Medro Gunkar was, especially how far it was to a bridge. Luckily for us he said that it we were only 4 kilometres away from the bridge. This really raised our spirits and we rode on happily knowing that we would reach the town despite having to ride back down the valley on the other side of the river in order to get to it.

We arrived at a small town where the road that we were travelling on intersected with the road leading to the river bridge. We checked that we were heading the correct way and proceeded to towards the opposite bank finally. As we were about to cross the new cement road bridge, "Eagle Eye K" spotted an older suspension foot bridge nearby. We decided to cross by using this instead.

Next to the older bridge there were some ruins of old adobe buildings. The bridge itself was floored with horizontal planks of wood suspended with twisted metal rope. Above us on the bridge there was a large red star. Hanging to the side of the bridge there were bundles of what we assumed were sacrificed newborn calves/ goats. Perhaps they had been sacrificed for the river or surrounding mountains.

Having crossed the bridge we then passed through a small village, the route through which was muddy and we felt like we imagined that the flooded way resembled the roads of medieval Europe. We joined the main tarmacked road and with a headwind road towards Medro Gunkar. We passed a ruined a monastery as well as a newer monastery. The river was closer to us and it was very beautiful to see it flowing by at a rapid pace.

Just before we reached Medro Gunkar we spotted a campsite with a few Tibetan tents that was located in a pasture next to another river. We made note that we should come and explore this as a camping option after we had purchased our supplies and eaten. Arriving tiredly in town we found a restaurant. We each devoured another plate of egg fried rice each and shared a dish of chilli aubergine. It is hard work to order food sometimes when there is no English menu or English speakers.

With our tummies filled we decided to head back to the campsite...

... the rest of the story is to follow soon...

Thanks for reading :-)

Day 3 photos....

We had another night of rain, but it wasn't nearly has bad as the previous night and it was no where near as windy! As the vultures cruised overhead...


you weren't going to find A sequestered in the tent this morning, she was out shooting the sunrise as it was truly spectacular!!!!





While A was up and about I made camelman tea (black tea with dried milk powder - the one we bought was especially for women, the other alternatives being for children or old people :) and some black sesame porridge :)



Then we dried everything out, packed up and hit the road. There was a long discussion as to where we would ride, but common sense prevailed (even though we were very disappointed) and we headed back down the valley instead of up and over the pass, sure to be snow covered after the past two nights of bad weather.

The road to the pass....


...and our route out of there :)



The only problem with the campsite was that there was no water...but we had to ride through Lhundrub on the way out so we stopped for water and some freshly baked bread before continuing on our way :)

We passed villages and more geologic wonders...




and then we turned left to follow the Lhasa River to the north east...excellent quality dirt road - they are in the process of paving it.


We saw fort ruins...a section of which has been added on to accomodate birds :)


Beautiful riverscape...


A monastery...


Villages....


And this selection of wild things :) We haven't seen any large wild animals, mostly birds and flowers.

Here is a momma duck and her ducklings...


We have seen this wild flower in several places...


Wild irises lined the road up to Lhundrub...


This flowering shrub was it our second campsite...


When the afternoon was growing long we spotted the potential campsite on the old road up the valley wall...


...yup, that will do :) The third excellent campsite!!!!

Saturday 12th May:

We woke up to a beautiful sunrise after another night of rain - although it was not as heavy as the previous night it still kept us awake for much of the night. In an act of the most unusual behaviour for me, I jumped out of the tent and went about taking photographs of the nearby peaks which were now covered in snow. The change in shades in the Lhundrub valley was amazing as the first rays of sun found their way around the mountain peaks and orientated their way up the valley floor. Vultures circled above our campground and unnerved me for a moment with my wild imagination, although this very soon changed to my fascination with them. Many birds flew by our campground and would also stop and chirp close by for a while not seeming to care about our presence.

"Action K" and I heard a sound on the backside of the stone floor of the saddle being trodden. We both made our opposite way around the stone mound to see what was the cause. We saw a pack of six stray dogs making their way up the hillside toward us. I quickly joined K fearing that that may eat me (I know, I am pathetic but yesterdays growling image was still in my mind). We both picked up a stone each and peeped over the mound to see them. It seemed that they were far more scared of us than "I" was of them for they had already made a U turn and headed back down towards the dirt road.

Again we had to wait for our tent to dry, there was much condensation on the inside again also as well as the dampness of the rain on the outside. K had fired up the stove for much needed warming tea and we spent this time discussing what to do with our day. Surrounding peaks that had not previously been covered with snow now had far more than a mere dusting of white and it was obvious that the snowline was far lower than the height of the pass which we had intended to climb. After much discussion and debate, we decided to ride up the valley a little to see if we could see the pass in the hope that it was not as snow bound as we thought (wishful thinking).

Eventually we loaded up the bikes and departed. Having made our way to the dirt road we could already see that lower peaks were heavily covered. We disappointingly had to admit that we were not equipped for such endeavours and that trying to ride a heavily snowed pass would be too risky particularly at an altitude of 5000 metres or so. The weather front was also very bad to the north (the direction we would have gone) and the prospects were not at all good.

Sadly we headed back towards Lhundrub town deciding that we would follow our route anticlockwise in the hope that the weather would clear up by the time we reached the backside of the said pass and be able to tackle it at a later date.

In Lhundrub we purchased some Tibetan bread and water (for we had not had access to water at out campsite), many people gathered around K as she watched the bikes whilst I made the necessary purchases. Under the watchful eye of onlookers we refilled our water bottles and having said our "goodbyes" continued on our way. We retraced our path back down the valley of the previous day, stopping for fifteen minutes or so to eat some bread.

We experienced more of the same - people waving to us etc. As we rode along we cheered up and decided that we had made the right choice in making a U turn, the weather was brightening up and raising our spirits. We were also still a little tired and in such condition it was certainly not a good idea to have taken on the breathtaking pass.

We made our way back to a small Tibetan town where we thought that our turning may be to take us up another river valley - roads are also very few so options are small in number. We had guessed correctly (for the roadsigns were in Chinese and we do not have a Chinese map) and gladly made our way along a new road that had a smooth surface of dirt. We passed a small hydroelectric station and followed the redirected river for a while. It was obvious that the land surrounding us had been reclaimed by the control of the passage of the water, thus much new agricultural land had been created. It was great to ride along the dirt road, this always pleases me much more than tarmac and we were both incredibly pleased with our decision.

Everything began to have a far more rural feel, there was very little traffic and the villages became far more rustic looking. Sometimes we would see a dwelling that looked like a ruin only to see that there was somebody inside a doorway or that there was washing hanging on a line. Many of the dwellings were designed around a compound where the family's livestock would be kept during the the night - during the day the herd would be grazing on mountainsides under the watchful eye of shepherd or cow/yak herder. People were pleasantly surprised to see us ride by and again we spent much time waving and saying hello. We rode passed an abandoned fort and some monasteries and continued along the road going deeper into a less modernised area - it was fantastic. We had beautiful river views and saw fields being ploughed by Yaks and workers crouching and perhaps planting new crops.

Having ridden almost ridden 20 kms along the dirt road alone we decided that we should start to look for campsite numero tres. We had already eyed a disused road high up the valley walls which must have been in use before the road that we had been riding on and before the flooding river valley had been bought under control. "Eagle Eye Action K" spotted a great place above a quarry where the old road looked as though it had side walls. It did mean that we would have to make our way passed the many tractors carrying loads of sand from the quarrying to nearby roadworks and thus would arouse attention that we did not particularly want. We decided to make a go of it anyway when there was a gap in the presence of the workers before they returned to the site with their unladen carts. As we rode towards the quarry along it's approach road in order to get to the old road my rear tyre hit a sharp rock pointing out of the ground. As my wheel slipped off of the rock my rear wheel immediately deflated with a gust of air that was far more efficient than any exhaling that my lungs are capable of.

Gutted. Not only did I have a puncture but upon closer inspection I had a half inch cut on the inside of my tyre which showed as a quarter inch hole on the outside. Whilst replacing my inner tube the quarry men returned too but it seemed that it was only for a quick discussion as they soon all drove off in their tractors. We watched them group together some way down the dirt road and appear to go down to the river which was now following it's natural course. Having inflated my rear wheel, we took this opportunity to ride up to the old road and found it more than adequate as a camping ground. Ensuring that we could pitch our tent away from any falling shale and that the steep walled sides of the road would not cause the surface to turn into a drainage channel should it pour with rain again, we decided that we had yet again found a perfect spot. We could look down on the dirt road, we were out of sight of anyone below and we had more than enough protection from any wind channeling down the valley. Nearby we also had a supply of clean fast flowing water that we could easily filter and perhaps do some washing in later when the quarry men had finished their work.

No sooner had we pitched the tent the quarrymen had finished their work for the day (20.00 hours). There was one however that was left behind who had been joined by a woman and some others. The woman took a walk up towards the old road, perhaps she had spotted us because less that fifteen minutes later one of the quarrymen came up to our tent and sat down next to us. We exchanged some words in pigeon Chinese and fathomed from him that Medro Gunkar (our next destination for we needed some supplies) was only 2 kms away. I offered him some water and the three of us sat in an awkward silence for some moment until he was called away by the people that remained in the quarry. K stood up and watched him descend down the hillside, soon he and the others were waving goodbye to her as they drove off on the back of a tractor together. We were now alone and "Action K" fired up the stove again (there were a few problems) and we soon had our staple food of noodle soup and trimmings - it was as delicious as ever.

The sun disappeared and the brightness of the sun was replaced by the shine from stars and planets. It was not that these were more numerous in number than normal, it was that they shone so much more brighter and vividly than they do at home or at lower altitudes and seemingly less... congested? They just seemed bolder.

It was a night of no rain and very little wind and I for once did not have to wear most of my clothes to bed :-) It was our third night of behaving like fugitives. Our new campsite made us think of hobbits and we half expected to see orksies coming around the corner of the old road a few metres from our campsite.

Photos from Day 2 :)

It was a cold, damp morning out there when we awoke...as you can tell, A has yet to get out of the tent as I fire up the stove :)


A finally got out of the tent (and the toasty warm sleeping bag :) and headed up a nearby hill, presumably to get her blood pumping :) You can see how our campsite is situated - between the wall and a stream. We are packing down...


...trying to dry everything out.


This is the view of the village from the top of the hill that A climbed...


For some reason the ditch across the road from our campsite is an old shoe depository :) Actually...we see tons of discarded shoes everywhere - more so than any other type of trash - it's very strange.


I pump some water for our day of riding...


The bikes are parked up behind the wall, against prying eyes, but it actually turned out to be very good protection from the storm, too.


Then it was time to get all the kit back across the stream so we could load it on the bikes and get on our way...I get all the fun jobs :)


Ah, finally....back on the road :)



It's a grey day, but the colors of the rock on the valley walls is amazing! Almost as colorful as the Tibetan tents :)




You can see how low the snowline is...the valley floor is about 3700m.




This is the day that we took the wrong road...it was a flat valley, not very photogenic and not very challenging riding, so we didn't stop very often for snacks :) When we came back across the valley (on the wrong road :) we spotted this shrine and it looked to me like it might be a good spot so we rode up there.


It was ideal! We were on the back side of the hill (the other side of the shrine overlooking the back of a village on the other side), hidden from view on both sides and protected from the wind. There was a perfect little area that was nearly clear of loose rock and we cleared it in a matter of a few minutes (yes, there is a bit of a slope, but it wasn't bad :).



We even built a rock chorten in thanks for finding a second great campsite :)


On to day 3!!!!

Friday 11th May:

We had not slept well after a night of bad weather. Luckily the tent held up well and I managed to stay warm by wearing almost all of my clothes and happily had not needed to wear my day glow rain jacket although the condensation in the tent in the morning made me think that I ought too :-) The sounds of the night consisted of heavy rain pattering against our tent, dogs howling (the domesticated kind) and winds howling (the non domesticated kind). As the night turned to day we heard the sounds of cuckoos, pigeons, more barking, sheep bleating and the cracking of whips of shepherds who taking their flock out stopped nearby for a moment.

K fired up the stove again, knowing that the only way to entice me out of the tent was to make me some coffee. I having a sudden rush of caffeine and soybean breakfast drink induced energy ran up a hillside to get an idea of the lie of the land as well as to take some photos as she busied herself by shaking out the tent and hanging up the sleeping bags to air. We had to wait for everything to dry out before we could move on. I ran a few errands here and there as K went about pumping water and generally being busy.

When it was time to leave we had to get everything back across the stream. I focused on getting myself across first (with the aid of K) and waiting by the bikes "Action K" proceeded to display her strength by jumping back and forth across the stream wielding various items. I suspect that she had sneakily drunk one more coffee than me judging by her high energy :-)

We hit the road and continued up the valley towards Lhundrub. The road, although straight and boring, was secondary to the views of mountainsides of various colours and shades, as well as the people whom passed us by or we passed them. We reached Lhundrub and were exceptionally hungry. The sky was grey and the town looked drab. We were both tired and stiff and did not at all have the energy that we had the day previous. We discussed what to do and decided that we should maybe stay in a hotel the night (yes I admit it).

Seeking some help in finding the destination of a hotel a kind Chinese man, a teacher at the local school, who spoke English escorted us to a binguan (hotel). I went inside and checked it out. I walked through a small shop and up the winding decrepit stairs to the second floor. The room was a pitiful sight, the beds had not been made from the previous occupants, the light in the bathroom was dim and there was no running water in the bathroom. The sink had been torn off of the wall and when I questioned how we were to get water the translator looked terribly ashamed and told me that it was not a hotel that housed foreigners by way of a reply. I thanked the proprietor but declined the offer of a room even at the price of 60 yuan (4 GBP) for two people.

Informing K, we decided to get some food and press on with our journey. We had at this point been joined by another man who also spoke English very well, when we informed him of our journey he told us that the pass that we were planning to tackle was at 5000 metres and that there was one road out of town to it and that the road was not in good condition. Hmmmm, not good news.

We were pointed towards a good quality restaurant, nobody there spoke English but it being a Chinese restaurant we used the Mandarin phrasebook to get by. We ate a whole plate of egg fried rice each as well as some wonderful chilli aubergine, some not so great funky strange woody mushroom dish and some cabbage and chilli peppers (we had hoped that the aubergine, mushrooms and cabbage would all come together in one dish but were mistaken). We were the centre of attention again as school children flocked to the windows to watch us eat - the waitress shooed them away but they only moved to our bikes which were parked outside which also became objects of curiosity. Again the waitress disposed of them and proceeded to cover our bikes with a plastic table cloth each in order to keep them hidden from view as well as from the rain.

Having had our fill we pressed on.

The road out of town was under construction and it turned to a dirt road and stone mix. We came to an intersection, the road to the left was tarmacked and the road on which we were travelling continued on in and even worse condition - a lumpy gravel road. We took the left turn having been told that there was only "one road" out of town to the pass (and confirming that fact on K's map), thinking that the way ahead could not possibly pass as being the one road out of town. Riding along, we continued to look for potential campsites, the valley was very wide though and all the land surrounding us consisted of arable farmland that was being processed.

We spotted a wide bridge under which was a very wide dry river bed, we remembered this thinking that should we unable to find anywhere else that we would at least be able to stay under there the night. Next we passed through a small village flanking the roadside. A dog stretched it's front legs looking as though he cared nothing for our passing him by. As we passed him he sprang forward showing all of his teeth and in my mind he looked as though he was ferocious and crazy... and then I noticed that he only had three legs! We span the peddles fast in order to get away from him having heard about the rabid and ferocious dogs of Tibet (I carry a whistle to blow at them). He gave up the chase immediately but the event was enough to strike fear into me whenever we passed by a dog thereafter.

We rode on and on until we came to a T junction, we thought that we should take a right because we should have been heading north by this point. I thought it wise to question some people in the village (Chinese phrasebook in hand again), they informed me that we had to go back the way that we had come which meant that we should have carried on up the dirt road to get to the pass. Everybody in the village stopped what they were doing and watched us, a large group of women stopped their manual labour and stared, the men stopped playing at the pool table and the children stopped hitting rubber tyres with sticks. We waved at them all and departed retreading our tracks feeling very tired and disappointed.

We stopped at the bridge again but after further surveying we both felt that we there were two many flaws with it's positioning. We continued back to where we had taken the wrong turn and "Eagle Eye Action K" spotted, behind a quarry, a little saddle in the hillside that had potential for some privacy and camping. We cycled up past the quarry as some of the workers there who were having a break tracked our movements until we disappeared around the corner of a hillside. One of the workers walked around the corner and us having stopped, looked back at him. Luckily he waved at us and motioned that we should continue on with our route, we did...passing a yak carcass en route. We reached the hump of the saddle and upon it's top there was a man made stone mound topped with a prayer flag pole made from a branch. There were also various bits of skeletons lying around, including an intact horn, as well as many small stone chortens. We went over the hump and found a flattish spot on the other side.

We were distant enough from the village below to not be seen in our green tent and were hidden from view behind us by the shape of the saddle. It was a perfect camp spot. We built our own little stone chorten in the hope of a good nights undisturbed rest. Tired, we set up the tent, we did not bother eating and were in our sleeping bags by 8 o'clock.

Again it rained all night.

Photos from Day 1 of our ride....

We made it to the top of the pass!!!!! Check out my new trousers...they are not even an hour old :) They are the best in Chinese "Mountain Hardwear" copies and I got them for a tenner :)


Once we bombed down the pass we were cruising along the riverside when we saw this destroyed village...it was time for a snack anyway and A went exploring and to take some photos....





The day was beautiful and sunny, the riding was good....ah, we are so blessed :)




until we got a puncture...or three :)


and the clouds were hanging in some of the valleys....


We see LOTS of pool tables outside...in front of houses or shops, we even saw one that was straddling a drainage ditch next to the road! Some of them have plastic sheeting to protect them and some of them have small tin roofs to protect them from the weather :)


We decided to get off the paved road and get onto a dirt road closer to the valley wall....and we spotted an ideal campsite protected by a wall and a stream...and a mound of dirt :)


Then I set about starting the stove (for the first time!!! :) to make some noodle soup for our first dinner in the wilderness :)



Our luck is amazingly good - just about the time we had finished eating and washing up and we decided it was getting chilly and it was time to crawl into the tent...it started raining...and then blowing. Well...we had specifically brought the Edgar Allen Poe along for just this situation!!!!! So I started to read :)


Then it really started to blow and rain was really coming down - check out this movie of the storm from inside the tent:
click here to see it

I had to go out for some reason, I forget why, but I came back in with hail in my hair....it stormed the whole night so it was a wild first night in our tent!!!!!

Tashi delay :-)

The adventures of TwoWheelsWhirled just keep on growing :-) Having been inspired by the The Narrative of Arthur Gorden Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allen Poe I now bring to you our latest shenanigans in a journal format. Unlike the aforementioned book though, I have no stories of ghost ships or cannibalism (and no prizes for guessing who would get to go into the cooking pot first) - thank the Lord! :-)

Thursday 10th May:

Captains Log, Stardate 490... no, no that is not right.

Cold and hungry with wolves chasing us, vultures hovered above with sharp talons ready to pluck us from our ... no, no, sorry that is not right either - or true for that matter (well some of it :-).

We had a great ride leaving Lhasa, we did not leave the city as early as we had hoped though - K insisted on a quick shopping trip before our departure :-) Apparently Uncle M, you would have been proud of her, she managed to purchase a pair of trousers (I believe that you call them pants) in a time of a little under four minutes :-). Again I digress so moving on...

The bikes were loaded up with everything that we would need for a weeks worth of adventure into unknown realms (K will place a post on the kit) and surprisingly, despite the extra 25 lbs or so of additional weight, we both sped out of Lhasa and up the pass faster than we could have anticipated. At the top of the pass (the same pass that we went over on our way to Drak Yerpa) gasping for breath with a look on our faces that could be mistaken for HUGE grins, we were greeted by three excited Tibetan women who were picnicking. They were surprised to see that we had ridden to the top and stood watching us as we both parked up the bikes and climbed up the embankment to place the small stones that we had carried up the climb - next to the many others that dotted the mountainside. They signalled that we should come and drink with them but fearing that it was Tibetan yak butter tea and coupled with our late departure we decided to press on :-).

We had a great ride down the switchbacks on the other side, although I have to admit that for once I erred on the side of caution due to the extra weight on the bike and the uncertainty of the handling when cornering so sharply. K on the other hand, in a switching of roles, threw all caution to the wind and decided to take on a truck that was closing in behind her in a game of pursuit. It was very amusing to watch and she would have won if she had not waited for me at the bottom :-)

Next we followed the Lhasa river valley. The road which followed the rivers course has a false flat and we only discovered upon our return journey that we were gradually ascending the whole time. We passed by an abandoned village. All of the residential dwellings looked as though they had been deliberately smashed up some years ago rather than having naturally crumbled. There were remains of a kitchen stove as well as a mill stone left behind. We climbed above and looked down into the rooms that still showed a little of the decorative red stripey paint inside. We were not sure if there was a connection with the Cultural Revolution or not, naturally our imaginations ran wild with thoughts of Tibetans fleeing for their lives as the Red Guards ran them out of their homes. Of course we could be very wrong... or not...

After a little food and watching a woman pick herbs at the roadside, we continued on. We came into a modern "Chinese" town with Tibetan housing on the outskirts. K discovered that she had a flat in her rear tyre and we pulled up (unbeknown to us) at a large school. By the time we had the wheel out and the tools about us there were 30 or so frenzied school children shouting hello out of the windows from the second floor of an ugly looking concrete block. At first we shouted "hello" back but we soon got tired of this. In fact we could not believe the noise that was coming from inside the institution - it normally be reserved for the playground. We fixed the flat as quickly as possible and continued on our way, waving to shop owners who smiled at us as we left town.

We continued along the same road keeping the river to our right and the mountainsides to our left. The mountains were not the prettiest to behold, many of their slopes had been quarried or rock had been taken away. Soon I managed to "catch" the second puncture of the day in the rear wheel, we pulled over underneath a cliff and set about the repair. It was an easy fix (or so we thought) and were soon turning the peddles again only to find five minutes later that we had not found "both" of the holes. Not again! The bike was unloaded and sulking a little we made the repair.

Pressing on we came to the point where we were to leave the Lhasa river valley. We passed a large ugly industrial site of some nature, it's frontage decorated with large red Chinese characters. Amusing to us, there was what looked like a Chinese holiday park next to it.

The road now carried on through another broad valley, with mountains flanking both sides, some were covered with a little snow. The villages a little way back from the main road appeared to be less wealthy or modern, many of the houses were of adobe and the community was based upon agriculture rather than the sale of commodities. Many people waved to us from the side of the road or from the back of vehicles. Toothless women, carrying woven baskets on their backs which contained firewood or other necessities that they had collected throughout the day, smiled at us and replied to our "tashi delay". Women with bold coloured scarves turbaned or draped over their heads and men sporting straw brimmed hats, waved and expressed their happiness at our acknowledging their presence as they passed by in the back of open topped tractor carts. Gobsmacked children waved excitedly too and we were the centre of attention everywhere that we went. Even the 4x4's containing Chinese tourists would beep at us and we would get the occasional "hello" shouted out of the window.

We stopped for more food at the side of the road, down an embankment and next to a small stream. We decided that we should soon look for a campsite but we agreed that the roadside was not a great idea lest we should draw too much attention. We continued to ride for a little longer when K decided that it would be a good idea to leave the tarmacked road and to take one of the dirt roads leading to the villages and to follow the potentially least used tracks that followed the base of the hillsides.

Great idea - after some surveying of the area we found a great little spot at the back of a village. We had to cross a stream to get to it but we positioned ourselves at the point of an intersecting adobe wall and mound of dirt, we even had tree coverage to our right and the hillsides to our left. The track that we had ridden along to get to the spot seemed unused and we were fairly confident that despite our proximity to the village that we would be able to remain undetected and that if we were seen it would be a bit of a jump across the stream to get to us.

We threw our supplies across the stream and K helped me jump across it. Later when I went to get a bowl of water my foot slipped and I got my shoe and sock wet, I had to spend the rest of the evening wearing one shoe and a flip flop :-)

Eeek, just as K had the stove fired up and our bouillon soup noodles, dried seaweed and mushrooms bubbling away we gained some guests. We had only set our tent up next to the path that children used to return from school to get to the outlying villages. The next thing that we knew we had at least twenty or so curious schoolchildren watching us attentively. We politely said "hello" and I engaged with them in a little Chinese (regretfully we do not have a Tibetan phrasebook). Soon we intentionally changed our "hello" to a "goodbye" in the hope that they would disperse. This did work with many of them but a few stragglers remained behind, one of whom we suspect swiped the horn from K's bike. After some fighting, climbing trees, slipping into the stream and stone throwing at one another, the children were down to two in number. I sat with them and went through the alphabet correcting their pronunciation every now and then. Eventually they tired of us. As they left they were shouting and pointing high up in the sky. We did not get this meaning until almost thirty minutes later we were in the tent as the rain poured and the gale force winds buffeted our tent.

Overall it was a great first day and we had ridden 69 kms, we were very pleased with ourselves :-) :-)

A better map....

Here is a photo of a section of my Nelles map of the Himalaya. It is not a perfect map (as we found while out there in the world :) but it is better than anything else I found on the web. Click on the map and it will take you to the full size image in PhotoBucket (in a separate window, so you can look at the map and read my text :).



Find Lhasa in the middle. Head out of town to the east north east and you will find a pink star and "Ganden Monastery". Ganden is on the "big" road, in orange, on the east side of the river - we rode the white road on the west side of the river.

Almost directly across from Ganden you will see the white road fork to the north west - that is the road we took to Lhundrub Valley (which is marked on the map as "Lhundrup" but it is known locally as Linzhou - the Chinese name for it). We camped about 10kms to the east of town the first night.

The second day we followed the wrong road (one that is not even on the map and hence our navigational problem - it looks like there is only one road on this map so we followed the only road we found :) and went directly west of Lhundrub across the valley, we ended up turning around and coming right back and finding our second, amazing, campsite (our luck was exceptional :) just north of Lhundrub.

The third day we awoke to more snow in the high country (after our second night of rain) and we had to admit that crossing a pass that we were told is 5000m when it was looking very much like the snowline was 4500m was not the smart choice - the weather coming in was also not pretty. We changed our plans and headed back down to the Lhasa River - to the the fork across from Ganden - and decided to take a left and head northeast along the river, still on the white road. The road below the fork had been paved, but the road above the fork was dirt, but a nice solid dirt road :)

We rode about 20kms up the dirt road when we spotted what looked to be an ideal place for a campsite on the old road that we had been following along the valley - evidence of a past history of flooding. It looked high enough off the road to hide the tent from the roadway so we went up for a look and found the road to be in a bit of a trough - just the perfect width for the tent and we were well hidden from the road (again, brilliant luck in a campsite!).

The next day we continued northwest on the white road to get to the bridge to take us to the other side of the river and to a big-ish town called Medro Gunkar (what looks like Maizhokunggar on the map) - we wanted some restaurant food and we needed fuel for the stove. Our quarryman visitor from the night before had told us it was only 2kms up the road but the bridge was nearly 20kms up the road and about 5kms north of Medro Gunkar with a 5km ride back down into town - not what the map indicates at all! I am not dissing Nelles - the Chinese build roads rapidly and both the road across the valley and the bridge we quite new constructions.

As we rode into Medro Gunkar (starving :) we passed what looked like a proper campground...we didn't think they existed, but we were happy that it looked to be so - there were 3 Tibetan Tents set up and we also saw another dome tent. We were more interested in food than in checking it out :) so we headed into town and then we came back to it. We rode up to a group at one of the Tibetan tents that looked like they were having a very good time (if you can judge that by the number of empty beer cans around them on the ground :) and A pointed to our tent and the guy waved his arm around the place which we took as an affirmative (our communications are getting better everyday :).

We rode off into the scrub/yak pasture to the edge of the river (this is the river that goes directly east and a bit south of Medro Gunkar, not the Lhasa River) and found a nice protected area and promptly set up our tent. The guy that had welcomed us came to check on us and smiled...and didn't ask for any money :) Suffice it to say that we liked the place so much we stayed 3 nights :) We had many visitors, from yak herdsmen to families.

When it was time to head back towards Lhasa we headed back up the road to the bridge we crossed a few days earlier and hammered the white road back towards Lhasa. We thought it would take 2 days - it being about 90kms - but we had good legs and we were back in a day.

Find Lhundrub on the map and look at the road going north to Talung Monastery - that is the road that we wanted to take, with the 5000m pass. When you get to Talung you can see a very small pink road going east south east to join up with the white road that we were riding. The plan is to do a reverse loop - ride back to Medro Gunkar and connect up with that small pink road, ride to Talung Monastery and then take that white road south, up over the pass back, back to the Lhundrub Valley and then back to Lhasa. We really want to ride that pass :)

I hope you enjoyed this cartographic experience :)

Hello blog readers...we are BACK!!! And we had such a good time we are going back out :)

We have 2 small niggles to sort out that have made us return to Lhasa (a hole in a tire and fuel for the stove), but otherwise it couldn't have been more perfect! We camped for 6 nights at 4 different campsites, rode 281kms (yesterday we bombed 95kms back to Lhasa and we were feeling great!), got rained and hailed on, were blown about by gale force winds and had blistering sunshine and brilliant blue skies. We had paved roads, dirt roads, quite a lot of road construction and even some rocky trails to navigate. The scenery was spectacular and every campsite was a jewel (in it's own way :).

We did not follow the plan, however, as the weather derailed our plans (and you have to pay attention to the weather at this altitude!). We made it to the Lhundrub in beautiful weather...but then the rain, wind and hail came over night and we woke to snow blanketing the surrounding mountaintops...that is not good news for climbing a 5000m pass on bicycles. So we changed the plan and stayed in the valleys. When we go out again we are going to head to Ganden (4500m) and then go attack that pass :)

We have more info coming...and photos! But we are back in Lhasa - safe, happy and ready for more cycling!

Later!

P.S. the odometer on the bike computer rolled over 1000kms as we rode back into town last night.

Ok...we are heading out of town...

We have been shopping for supplies for the road and we are off to the hostel to get packed and the bikes sorted for an early departure tomorrow morning.

Here is the plan:

Leave Lhasa and go back over the pass that we rode when we went to Drak Yerpa, but we won't take the left up the canyon we continue on and take a left further on to get to the Lhundrub valley. We will probably stay there 2 nights (there is an "old road to Lhasa" to investigate on the bikes and a couple of monasteries to check out, if we want :) and then we will ride towards Reting Monastery, finding a nice place to camp within riding distance of the monastery. Then we will ride to the monastery the next day, have a look around and come back to the camp (if we liked it) or find another place to camp. Then we will head back towards Lhundrub, but take a left down a river valley (should be a nice ride) and then we will stop for the night (not sure where). Then we will head to Ganden Monastery, stay there for the night and then head back to Lhasa. We should be on the road 7 to 10 days (depending on how hard it is and how much we have to recover....or how much fun we are having and how loathe we are to move on :). It should be about 350kms...and lots of climbing! The Lhundrub valley is the same altitude as Lhasa, but the monasteries are above 4000 meters.

Here is a VERY basic map...



You will hear from us when we get back...we are heading into the back of beyond and we don't expect any internet cafes.

Later!!!!

Photos from our ride to Drak Yerpa!

We started the climb proper and we stopped to have a look back at Lhasa before we turned the corner...


Over the edge at this point we could see lots of farming....


...and the road to the top of the pass.


Woohoo! The top of the pass - the sign said 3980 meters - it is as high as either of us have ever been on a bicycle (until later in the afternoon, of course :).



And then the road down....


and the flat hairpins that descend off the backside of the pass...where we bombed down in payment for our effort on the climb :)


We stopped for lunch...here is A (looking very rested :) and the lovely view up the canyon.


These are the fort ruins across from our lunch stop...


...and this is a view down the valley - which we had just climbed up.


We hopped back on the bikes and continued up, passing some villages...


Then we spotted this old dam and we just *had* to go offroading...there was a trail on the left, begging to be ridden :)


While A was raging on the rock....


...I spotted this lovely flower growing next to the trail :)


...then A caught me traversing the riverbed.



The yaks were plentiful in the valley :)




You can just see this fellow's horns poking up - special Chinese spy yak, I think :)


Not that we are Hobbits or anything....but we stopped for a second lunch after another hour of riding :) This is the view down the valley....


The view across the road - there was a spring coming down off the mountain making everything green.


...and looking up at what we still had to ride....


...and then getting on with it :)...


...and then stopping for more air (there is not a lot of it at 4000 meters!)...or was this one of the times we laughed so hard we had to stop for air??? :)


At this point we need to stop and show you this absolutely STUNNING skyscape. Wow, or what, eh? :) Photo courtesy of A's magic camera!


Just past the 2nd lunch spot we reached Lo village and looking up we could see the retreat caves (those black holes in the middle). The road we were riding used to be dirt and Lo village is where the pilgrims left the dirt road and got onto singletrack to climb up to the monastery and caves. Now the road goes all the way up to the top - paved up to the last village and then 2 kms of dirt switchbacks to get to the monastery.


This is the monastery from Lo Village....



This is the last village at the end of the pavement...


...and check out the view through the village up a side canyon!!!! I know it's hard to see, but there is a hole in the rock at the top of that valley...no idea how it got there, it seems a bit high for water to have done it.


This is taken from the dirt hairpins - it's the last paved hairpin before the village...and a nice view of someone's ploughed field :)


Then it was up the dirt hairpins....


...resting occasionally :)


You can see the hairpins and look down on the last village here...that is another side valley that has a very interesting dirt road going up it...hmmmm :)


Then we were at the top!!!!! This is the view down the valley.


We arrived at the stupas that we had been shooting for! On one side there were many small rock chortens



...and then left them behind as we climbed even farther up!


Then we reached the top of the top (finally!!!!)


Drak Yerpa had been heavily damaged during the Cultural Revolution (according to the book) and we saw a lot of ruins up there, but whether they are from that time or they are older ruins...we don't know.




The prayer flags on the mountain make it look like the monastery keeps a very large spider as a pet....


We were in desperate need of water and all the sudden we were surrounded by people that wanted to help us....maybe sell us a ticket...or just be friendly :)




And then it was time to head down down down...past the stupa, the dirt hairpins and the paved road!


Needless to say, we had been climbing for most of the day and it was time to bomb down :) - we didn't stop much for photos. This is our little offroad foray across a demolished bridge - it was at our second lunch stop and we made a note of it for the descent. You can just barely see the broken bridge (just below the top of the pole) and the trail down the right hand side. Then you can see us crossing over said bridge :) Sorry, I would have got A riding the rocks again, but she was gone before I could get my camera out :)




We bombed the valley back down to Yerpa village and hung a right to climb the flat hairpins. I tried to sprint to the top to get a pic of A as she was climbing up and I nearly died - there was not enough oxygen!!!! So much for attacking the climbs. I did get far enough ahead to get the photo, though :)




Here is another picture of A gritting her way up the final climb when there is not enough oxygen to even sing as she rides :)


And the bikes did a wonderful job carrying us up and down the hills and through the dirt and along the rocky paths - they rock, too....just like we do :)

Two last things!!!

First...my hair cut. There are TONS of places to get your hair cut in Lhasa - from tiny little shops to bigger salons. A said I needed to look for a clean place and we walked around and found one that looked good. I asked for a hair cut and they indicated no problem (there is a bit of a language barrier here :). They said 30 Yuan, ok? I said OK - that's only 2 GBPs :) So snip snip snip...with the largest pair of scissors that I have ever had my hair cut with - they were as big as the ones the tailors in India use! An 8 inch blade, for sure :) And then we were done and I was ready to pay and go when they said they were going to wash my hair...that's a good idea, I don't have to walk around with little bits tickling me, so off I went to have my hair washed in the back room (A was reading magazines in the waiting area). Then it was back in the chair for what I thought was a bit of drying then a comb and I would be out of there...but no, it was time for a massage :) It started with ahead massage and then moved to my neck and face...then it was thwock thwock thwock (startling A from her magazine :) as he did some noise making with his hands on my head. Then it was my shoulders and back getting the massage treatment and then even down my arms as he did a twisting motion all down my arm and then on each of my fingers. Ah, lovely. What a great haircut routine! :)

And for item number 2...we did say that there is a bit of a language issue here :) We went shopping for all sorts of things at a massive grocery store, including shampoo and shower gel, which we are out of. I found a bottle of Olay Body which looks like the stuff my Mom keeps in the shower and I love to use when I visit. We checked the smell and it was decent...a very helpful sales girl tried to get us to sample it, but we didn't think we needed to sample the soap :) A opened a couple of bottles of other things, to give them the sniff test, and ended up covered in lotion when the bottle, obviously packaged at a much lower altitude, released it's pent up pressure :) After our ride A got the first shower and commented that the new shower gel wasn't foaming very well...and you needed to use quite a lot to get the coverage (it wasn't that we were that dirty from our ride :). SO I go in for my shower and try to use it and I suddenly realize that it's not body *wash* it's body*lotion*! They could be a little more specific on their bottles....but it was good timing, as we both caught the sun on our limbs and have a bit of sunburn and lotion is just the thing to make it feel better :)

Later!!!!

Tashi delay :-)

We had the most awesome ride yesterday, it was truly inspirational. As we left Lhasa our legs were spinning at a reasonable cadence and my lungs felt strong with only a little strain. The ride just outside of Lhasa took us past a landscape lined by mountains, on the right hand side sat the Lhasa river it's opposite bank walled by another range. There was much agricultural land, carpeted with neat rows of vegetable and herb plots, as well as plastic coated greenhouses. There was quarrying work being carried out and as a result the front of some mountainsides were left with irreparable scars which looked ugly now stripped of their covering compared to their untouched brown and green velveted cousins nearby. Smoky and noisy trucks carried away huge hunks of rock. I silently hoped that these were not sacred mountains. Near to the quarrying there were a few sites where smaller pieces of rock were being cleaned by being washed and rolled in a tank, these pieces were also taken away by trucks.

Our first gradual climb started with a small village lining the roadside, the gradient was easy but I was feeling some stress on my lungs. K suggested that I tried to breath deeper and as slow as possible in order to take in more oxygen. This worked well but I also gained a dry airway - fortunately it did not feel raw which normally leads to much discomfort. We had a gentle and short downhill which provided an opportunity for a little recovery. Next, we were on the climb up the pass proper. The mountainsides walled us to the left, they were decorated with paintings of Buddha, colourful Tibetan script and paintings of ladders (we still have not quite worked out what these mean). K was strong and she had a high cadence, in my mind she rode like she had a tailwind, I dropped behind her with my slower cadence wondering how she could be so lively and energetic. I shouted to her to slow the pace a little as I plodded up the ascent, patiently waiting for my body to get used to the extra work on top of the altitude adjustment. We stopped a few times, taking in views on our right hand side of the Lhasa river, more agricultural land as well as a small dam and hydro electric power station. I sucked on a mentholated sweet with the hope that it would help with the dryness that I was feeling in my airway. We continued to ride up, a few trucks and agricultural vehicles past by very slowly. My lungs felt the strain more than my legs and I focused on an even steady breath rate. This was hard work and we had only ridden about 15 kms.

The top of the pass was amazing, covered with hundreds of prayer flags which we could see and hear flapping in the wind as they shed their prayers. We were alone for quite some time, no vehicles passing us for a while which enabled us to enjoy the isolation and the views. Down the other side of the pass we had a gradual downhill made of plenty of switchbacks which probably trebled the distance to the bottom of the valley. We ripped it up, leaning sharply into each corner in order to maximise the momentum. There were trucks behind us that we managed to gain a lot of distance from as we caught up with the truck in front, finally overtaking it on the home straight (we achieved 60 kph :-).

We came into the first of the more rural Tibetan villages, there were many white adobe dwellings - we agreed that they reminded us of the style of South American houses. The houses were topped with more prayer flags. There were plots of land where vegetables were growing, people working in these fields waved to us. We could hear cockerels, dogs barking and the muffled voices of unseen children. We took a left and started our next climb - thinking that it would be as high as the pass that we had just ridden.

After 10 minutes or so we stopped by a stream and sat on some rocks, we had been riding for an hour and needed to eat some food - we snacked on dried dates, mangoes, raisins and very crunchy salted peanuts. All around us were chunks of coloured rock - white quartz and green, purple and maroon rocks. We could see the remains on the opposite hillside of an old fort and village. Below us we watched the stream change course due to it being blocked off and sent towards nearby fields. There was a river that despite it's wide rocky bed, had only a little water running along its course. At other times of the year with more snow melt it would be a torrent.

We jumped back on the bikes and continued to climb. We stopped momentarily to look at yak that was lying down in the shade of a drystone wall. He was panting heavily and watching us closely. He stood up which caused his breathing to become even quicker, he made a small sound that was very much like a squeak - this surprised me because I had expected yaks to sound like cows :-) We decided to ride on so as not to disturb it any longer. A shepherd waved at us. We came to another village and spoke for a few minutes to two young girls who had flagged us down and, I presume, wanted to practice their English. Riding on we saw more yaks that were tethered, some were decorated with red ribbon. More dogs barked and I could hear some singing from a nearby construction of a residential building.

We had to stop every now and then to catch our breath but riding in the middle ring was ample enough to keep a decent pace but still be able to maintain an even breath. Another man waved to us and made a motion with his hand of encouragement as though he was pushing us up the hill. We came to the disused dam and K with her eagle eye spotted an off road trail that was on the other embankment of the dried up riverbed. It was really rocky and difficult to ride with the clips and straps due to their bulkiness catching on rocks. We found a "path" to follow back to the road, weaving between huge rocks as we went.

I love riding on rock - I slipped the bike into a granny gear and span the peddles really fast which gave me the momentum to ride over lumps that stood in my path, I kept my weight back and allowed the bike to flow smoothly. It was fantastic :-) We crossed a small stream and then rode up to the road. Ahh, the burn. It was only a short steep climb but with the loose dirt surface it took a lot out of us and once at the top we both jumped off the bikes and panted trying to catch our breath and get oxygen to our starved limbs.

We rode on and saw the prayer flags high up on the mountainside which marked the position of our destination up the valley. Damn that was high. As we climbed the air became thinner and I was feeling a fatigue unlike any that I had before. I would make us stop every now and then so that I could recover, I needed to get the oxygen to my legs. My arms felt weak too. K and I laughed and laughed. We had to be careful for our laughing made us nearly fall off of our bikes on a number of occasions. We laughed at our weakness and the silly comments that we were making.

We climbed up to the last village waving to more workers and a child. We hit the dirt road and had a great time climbing up the switchbacks. I was really feeling the altitude now, it was hard work and had to stop more frequently. K commented that she was deeply tired. The views down the valley were incredible and we could see where we had ridden from and as we climbed higher the switchbacks came into view too. We laughed further as we lightheartedly (and lightheadedly :-) blamed one another for making us ride so high, we agreed that we were insane to put our bodies through this :-)

We reached the stupas - our destination - but decided to carry on to the next bend so that we could get a better view. We were out of water, our mouths were dry and after some rest K made a great decision that we should climb higher to see if we could find somewhere to buy a drink. This was really hurting now, every time we stopped and then started to ride again the burn in my legs was incredible, my whole body felt like led and I could not get enough oxygen. We both felt lightheaded. Reaching the end of the dirt road we came to the ticket booth for the monastery where we could buy some drinks - the ride up that last switchback was worth the effort! Purchasing some cold green tea and water we sat accompanied by some locals who were intrigued by us and also impressed that we had ridden from Lhasa. I conversed in a little Mandarin and taught a woman a few English words, when she said them back to me I realised how British my accent must be due to her mimicking my pronunciation.

We were at 4350 odd metres - the highest that I had ever ridden a bike before and I was in disbelief. It was amazing, we felt an exhilarating sense of achievement and happiness would be an understatement :-) :-) :-) We decided to jump back on our bikes and head down the 12 kilometres of descent because we wanted to get back before nightfall.

The dirt road was great, there were cambers on each of the corners of the switchbacks and I rode them fast, it was as though I was on a rail, the surface of lose dirt and stone made me feel as though I was on the edge of my skill level and the drop on the other side made my adrenaline surge. It was a spectacular descent back to the road proper as we left behind clouds of dust :-) And, for once, I left K in the dust and had to wait for her at the village down below - now I was really feeling good :-)

We bombed it down the tarmacked road, leaning hard into the corners and getting speeds of up 65kph. K had spotted a small dirt path on the way up and we took this as a diversion to get some offroad in. Here, before crossing a partially collapsed bridge, I had my first sighting ever of a live marmot, he ran across the embankment and disappeared into his hole in the rocks. WOW. He looked like a beaver but without the buckteeth and the big tail :-) We hit the offroad trail, I took the lead (rock being my specialty). Keeping my weight back I glided over rocks and got air just from pulling on the bars a little. The rocks would cause me to take an unchosen path but with some quick maneuvering I managed to keep my line and speed. Ah, what a buzz :-) :-)

We crossed another stream and climbed up to join the road again, got back up to speed on the tarmac and waved and called "hello" to more people as we approached a small village. We took another offroad path, which was not so challenging, and then I found another diversion which started with a really steep rocky descent. I was unsure whether I could handle it but committed myself to it when my front wheel rolled over the point of no return. I gritted my teeth, it was hard work to keep the wheels within the very narrow line that had no margin for error due to many unrideable large rocks. I made it to the bottom and joined the road again with the biggest grin on my face :-) :-)

We continued back down the valley and eventually took a right which lead us back onto the road of switchbacks on the backside of the first pass. I found this climbing hard. My chest was tight and wheezy where it had not been before. I could not get enough breath despite the much lower altitude and had to succumb to my asthma inhaler. This helped ease the tightness and we climbed with regular stops back up to the prayer flags - the people in the trucks and cars passing us would shout "hello" and give us the thumbs up....and blow kisses :-). Taking the descent on the other side we sped back down into Lhasa, overtaking many agricultural vehicles and enjoying the free ride. Back in Lhasa when we were riding on the flat I felt as though I had a strong tailwind and a motor on my bike. It was great, the increase in oxygen gave me fresh energy :-)

It was an amazing day. I was particularly impressed by my bike. I loved the way it climbed, each turn of the peddle giving a great responsive power. The positioning for the challenging terrain gave me no fears and the bike handled everything that I threw at it, I really could not believe what this bike was capable of. I did not have to think about where my positioning was on the bike, the geometry allowed it to come to me naturally - all that I had to do was just enjoy the ride. The bike maneuvered so well and as good as bikes that I have ridden that are 4 times the price. Truly fantastic and a great bike for our trip providing reliability in numerous and demanding conditions :-) :-)

Last night, I was so tired. Lying on the bed when we got back I still felt as though I was moving and it took 15 minutes or so for my body to calm down - it had worked hard all day. Truly though, it was one of the most spectacular days of our trip, the terrain was breathtaking (along with the atmosphere :-) to ride and the scenery was worthy of dreams. Never before had I felt so happy that my parents had created me :-)

Hopefully you too will get to ride on the roof of the world one day :-)

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!

We are acumulating more Lhasa photos for you and will post them soon, but I want to test the video out on you all :)

Oh...I said yesterday that we would be offline for a couple of days....we didn't ride today because A had a bit of a dodgy stomach, but she is fine now (she scarfed her veggie burger at dinner so that is a good sign :) and we will ride tomorrow.

The video is in photobucket and the link will take you there to see it. Next time I will remember not to turn the camera....this is the crosswalk signal, sideways :)
click here to see it

If you have problems...let me know - email is on the right margin...it starts twowheelswhirled and it's a yahoo account in the UK :)

Later!!!!

We went mountain biking in Lhasa...wooohoo!!!!! And here are the photos to show you all how totally awesome it was! We were such happy bunnies at the end of the day we could hardly stand ourselves :)

We headed to Sera Monastery on the street - it's just 5kms north of town. The monastery was very busy and we were feeling good on the bikes so we gave the monastery a miss. We will go back, they have debates every afternoon except on Sundays :) We took a path along the south wall of the monastery and headed for dirt...and we found it! Here is A (tiny on the left side) riding the singletrack in view of the Potala :)


And here I am riding some of the same singletrack :)


It was a scenic ride, this rock chorten was next to the trail...


After playing around in the dirt for a half hour or so we headed back to the east...on the way we spotted these solar powered kettles :)



Continuing on, we found our way through a small village...



...stopping once for directions and then ended up getting a puncture on the way (this is A's THIRD!!! puncture....which is how many I had on the moto in India :). It was not surprising, the trails were covered with thorns.


While I was fixing the flat A got into the peanuts and also snapped these birds on the wire...looks like a woodpecker to me :)


Once we fixed the flat and moved on we were heading up towards the Pabonka Monastery and a Sky Burial site. The trails were amazing!!!! This is looking ahead and back the way we came.



I also spotted these tiny purple flowers growing by the trail....


We were getting into more and more farmland and we started to follow an aquaduct around the valley on it's accompanying tractor trail. We stopped for a photo op on this stream crossing :)




We decided it was time to move on and we again hit the street and bombed back to the valley floor and then picked up another dirt road through another village to get around the mountain to another monastery (just a general destination - we heard it was an off-road ride from Sera to Deprung :). Then we rode along the canal for a little ways, houses lined the other side of the canal...


As we continued on we came to the nature reserve where there were lots of cows grazing and some good views of the Potala :)


Then it was more dirt road and more villages...




...some Buddhist carvings...



...some friendly guys waving hello...


...and a lot of great scenery and rock :)






Just after we nearly got choked by a truck passing us in the dust, we came upon a nunnery on the side of the trail...we stopped to chat, we took some photos and handed over a small amount of cash for some new shoes :)





Maybe I didn't give enough cash to the nun or maybe A just needed the time to walk up the hill to get some pics of the prayer flags spanning the gully - we had been riding to these flags for a half an hour - but not a minute after we left the nunnery I noticed that I had a puncture. I not only got the second puncture of the day but the 3rd and 4th, too - I had three thorns in my tire and three holes in the tube! I patched A's tube from earlier in the day as I only had three patches left in the patch kit - we wouldn't want to have a tube with a hole in it *and* no patches left, that's just asking for trouble :)



A's view from the hill as I fixed my puncture under the tree (you can see it in the center there, the tree on the left :)


The dirt road petered out and we were surrounded by Chinese military and other administrative type buildings, and it was getting to be dinner time :), so we headed back into town...grinning like idiots who have had a wonderful day playing in the dirt and seeing places that no other tourists ever go....

Our trip to the Potala :)

Yet another scenic view of the Potala...and the fabulous Tibetan sky :)


We had to book our ticket a day in advance and then arrive a half hour before the time specified on the ticket (why they don't mark the ticket a half hour earlier and tell us to come on time I don't know :). When we had booked our ticket we were asked for our passports - that was the first time we have ever had to produce passports to enter a tourist sight! When we showed up to go in the next day we couldn't get in through the door without again showing our passports and then we were sent to the x-ray machine to have our bags scanned. This was all very strange for a tourist sight, we usually only have the bags x-rayed at the train station. There was no queue, it was just us.

Once you get in the gate you are in the Shol Village at the base of the Potala. This used to be a pretty dodgy section of town - it's where the red light district was. Now it's newly restored showing...not very much. The sign says that there are cultural restorations and administrative buildings but it's pretty dead and the one building we tried to go into was in the final stages of construction and didn't contain any of the items that the sign said it contained.

We navigated ourselves using these helpful signs :)


The view of the Potala from the village...


As we walked through the Shol Village to get to the stairs....


Then it was up up up with the occasional bench to rest your tired lungs (definitely necessary at this altitude :)





Here we are on our way up (you can tell the lack of oxygen is affecting our brains - we were (well A was :) very silly!



There are no photos allowed inside the palace, not even from the roof outside, so you guys will have to make do with only exterior shots, sorry. The inside was amazing - so much gold!!!! (If you want more info and links to pictures, go to the bottom of the post - am I good to you guys, or what? :) We went through these doors and then put the cameras away...

Door edging, Tibetan style :)


The main door...


The drum at the top of the stairs as we entered the courtyard.


Here are some Potala Views (the best ones, just for you :)





This is the People's Park from the Potala (we already gave you the Potala from People's Park :). In the foreground is the Shol Village....with the strangely uniform rooftops. I would like to know what it looked like when it was still a village...


There were quite a lot of workers moving around while we were there, carrying heavy loads up and down the stairs.




When we exited the palace we got the cameras out again - here is the door as you exit :)


This is me sitting outside the back gate surveying the scene for our ride the next day :)


This is the backside of the Potala...


Burial Stupa information
Buddha Statue infor
Portrait of the Qing Emperor








Now, it't time to say how weird it was. A combination temple and museum. The place is empty except for tourists and security people. The monks that work there (some seemed like security - they were in the rooms making sure that the tourists behaved - e.g. gave the appropriate respect to the Buddhas) are not allowed to wear their monks robes, they wear regular Tibetan clothing. But they do chant their mantras and you can tell they are monks. The security people were both in uniform and in street clothes...but you could tell they were security (and they were not Tibetans). Much of the place is not open to visitors, but the main temples and halls are as are the rooms where the burial stupas are and the residence rooms of the current Dalai Lama...he left behind his alarm clock (understandably, it's huge :). We had mixed feelings as we left. We much preferred the Jhokang and we want to go back...but we have seen enough of the Potala.

Tashi delay :-)

The Johkang temple on approach is an unimposing building and little is given away to the splendour that awaits inside. As a monastery to all branches of Tibetan Buddhism it is an important place for many people. As K and I walked into the forecourt we had to pick our way through prostrating pilgrims so as to not tread on a limb or anything worse.



Some of the pilgrims knelt on the floor and placed their foreheads to the ground, others, in an act of subduing ego then slid their hands further forward on to the flagstone thus bringing the whole of the front of their body to the ground face downwards. Then after standing up and raising their hands above their head, this process was repeated again and again and... again.



Some of the pilgrims had a cushion to soften the contact with the stone slabs, they also used wooden blocks or plastic from old bottles etc. to protect their hands as they slid them along the floor, many had their knees bound too. With a thermos flask and some snacks by their sides they were prepared and nourished for the task. The flagstones were polished and indented from all of the prostrating pilgrims over the years, for many of the visitors this is a lifetime ambition fulfilled.

As we walked through the entrance we encountered the usual fierce looking Lokapalas (or guardians fo the four cardinal points), these particular ones were not crushing demons :-). We made our way passed them having nothing to fear and walked into the bright courtyard. Upon the roofs encircling the courtyard stood many tourists holding cameras and wearing brimmed hats (in my mind they looked like paper garland dolls) and as my eyes came into focus adjusting to the light everybody else merged into the background as I looked at the bright colours of the buildings around me with the sun shining off of them.





We purchased our CD rom ticket (how impressive :-) from a monk and we then ascended the stairs that took us onto the roofs to join everybody else. As we walked around the courtyard and looked out towards the Barkhor area we took in some amazing views of Lhasa. We could see the pilgrims, monks and tourists circumambulating the Johkang Kora (a holy walk) which was also lined with stalls selling religious souvenirs.



We could see the Potala palace and the surrounding mountains, as well as nearby rooftops decorated with Tibetan prayer flags and Yak fur.









There was a gilded Chakra wheel and deer statues upon the rooftop and they shone golden in the sun.




There were some workers who were repairing the floor, as they flattened the freshly laid cement by patting it with the end of a long pole, they would sing together, the singing was harmonious and beautiful, it sounded tribal.



We explored the second floor area for some time. We walked along narrow corridors also open to the sun and we looked down upon the row of prayer wheels encirling the main temple.







We came across residential areas as well as many other courtyards.






The walls and roofs were painted elaborately with symbols of the Buddhist faith, doorways were covered (in the traditional Tibetan style) with fabric coverings.










We walked up and down narrow steep staircases and eventually found our way into the main temple.






Due to a ban on cameras we were unable to take photos inside the main temple, hopefully I can give you some idea of what it was like... :-)

Neither K and I were prepared for what awaited us as we walked into the main temple...

In the dimness (a stark contrast to the sunlit courtyards) we were surrounded by pilgrims who were wide eyed - we probably mirrored the same expression of wonder on our faces. Most of the light in the temple was provided by rows of yak butter lamps and it took some time to adjust to the darkness and to then get our bearings. In front of us was the prayer hall enclosed by low railings. Within this area there were rows of cushions and low wooden tables ready for the burgandy robed monks who would later be chanting their mantras here. Looking around I saw large statues of Chenresig (the Tibetan name for the Bodhisattva Kuan Yin), Jampa Buddha (Maritreya - Buddha of the future) and Sakyamuni, they dominated the view although after looking closely I noticed the thangkas and some fabric decorations hanging from the walls.

Pilgrims were moving swiftly to our left, mumbling mantras as they made their way clockwise around all of the chapels that encircled the main prayer hall. Chapels such as the Chapel of Maritreya, Manjushri, Guru Rinpche - there are many to name. Inside the chapels stood (behind glass cabinets) gilded figures of Buddhas and bodhisattvas, the room no more than 16 metres square was a tight squeeze especially with the placing of a butter lamp stand in the centre. Pilgrims would enter through the small opening to the chapel and would walk clockwise whilst chanting. They carried Jiao notes with them (there are 10 Jiaos to a Yuan) and would make an offering by placing the money inside the cabinet through any gap that they could find. They would then exit and move onto the next chapel.

The most revered statue in the whole of Tibet is the Jowo Sakyamuni which depicts Sakyamuni at the age of 12, it has been in Tibet since the mid 7th century and it has it's own chapel in the Johkang. We had to queue to get inside the chapel and there was some pushing from behind me as people excitedly tried to get a viewing. K and I could not help but get caught up in the religious fervour, our lips were silent but if we had known of any mantras ourselves I am sure that we would have joined in with the chanting. As it was we joined the pilgrims (walking upon the sticky and slippery floor covered in Yak butter from the dripping lamps :-) and ensured that we visited each chapel. Some of the pilgrims would say "Tashi delay" or would nod to acknowledge our presence, taking a momentary break from their prayers.

We also went up to the second floor and visited the chapels there, just managing to get a look in before the area closed for the day, the monks were already scraping the lamps clear of solidified yak butter and sweeping debris on the floors. They were also gathering up the bundles of currency that had been left as offerings in the temple, it was amazing to see how much money had accumalated in a morning. The smell of the yak butter and incense, the sound of the pilgrims and the bright statues in the flickering flames added to the atmosphere of mysticism. The Johkang was an amazing experience, despite the fact that many of the statues were new (there had been much damage to the Jokhang during the Cultural Revolution) we both felt as though it was a timeless experience and we plan to go and visit again before we leave Lhasa proper :-)

Exeunt... :-) :-)

Hello people :)

We are having a great time in Lhasa :) Here is an example:


We have checked with the travel agency and things still haven't loosened up so we are starting to make more solid plans. We have done the 2 big sights in Lhasa and then we went riding in the dirt. Today I got my hair cut and we drank some lovely dark beer :)

Tomorrow we are going to ride to Yamdrok Tso, a lake (that is what a tso is :) that is on the Friendship Highway but still ok to get to without a permit. It's about 40kms there and the lake is about 1000 meters higher than Lhasa, so we have a good test for the legs. We are going to do it on the unloaded bikes to see how our lungs and legs like climbing 1000 meters at this altitude before we try this sort of thing our for real (I'm ever the tester :).

The day after the ride we are hoping to do a 1 or 2 day jeep trip to Nam Tso which is north of Lhasa - it's the 2nd largest salt water lake in the world (I think it's the 2nd) and it's surrounded by 7000 meter peaks - and is supposed to be fabulous. We will try for the 2 day, but the company running the mini bus says the 1 day trip fills up faster and they need 6 for the trip...we will know tomorrow afternoon. We would ride there on our planned north east loop but the dogs are supposed to be particularly nasty to cyclists and we don't want to risk it.

Then we are still thinking of riding to Gyantse and back and doing the north east of Lhasa loop, plus there are a few Tibetan holidays coming up that we want to be around for - Sakyumuni's birthday and enlightenment are 2 of them I forget the third one. They should be around the middle of the month - we haven't gotten an accurate translation from the Tibetan calendar to ours yet :) After that...we are toying with the idea of doing some volunteer work in a village in Tibet for a few weeks and delaying our arrival back in India. Who knows...

We know now that we can for certain get to Nepal via jeep (today, if we wanted to) so we have a way out of the country. Not that Nepal is in great shape at the moment - if you have been reading the news it is not pretty there, politically, right now. We still can't ride the highway without a guide to accompany us, so that is definitely out - we will run out of time before the security loosens up enough to let us do it.

Another idea we are toying with is after doing all the riding we can around Lhasa we could get a jeep to take us to Everest Base Camp and then we will ride to Nepal, with escort. It would be nice to ride unladen and it would make the couple of days of pure off road (something we were planning on doing of we rode the whole way) much easier and pleasurable for us - it's a cart track that we can pick up a few kms outside of EBC which takes you to Old Tingri on the Friendship Highway - not an easy route by any stretch, it goes up over a 5000 meter pass :) but the road is used by the 4x4s, so the jeep can come with us and be our porter and yak :). We also want to do the bombing 3500 meter descent to Kathmandu :):):)

We have a ton of pics to post - they are on their way, but we will probably not be online for a few days, so be patient! Must get back...I left A to take a hot shower and it's my turn next, hopefully she hasn't used all the hot water!!!!!

Later!

Tashi delay :-)

Instead of sitting around and sulking over the fact that it is not possible for us to ride from Lhasa to Katmandhu (and therefore having a great dream dashed), we decided to get out of the hostel and to go and see some sights. We have just had a great two days! We have visited the Jokhang temple (the most revered religious structure in Tibet) and the Potala Palace and then we spent yesterday riding our bicycles around Lhasa - hitting some off road trails in the process and thus putting us both in the happiest of moods :-)

Firstly, the situation here has not changed with the tightened security (meaning that we would have to be accompanied by an official Chinese guide wherever we go and we would have to pay for the pleasure) and we are unable to ride to Nepal (or even back towards China). However, we can get to Nepal overland, maybe even with a stop in Everest Base Camp, but we will have to wait for a couple of weeks for everything to settle along with the pricing. We have therefore decided to spend our time riding in the areas where it is permitted for us to ride legally - which for the most part is the province of Lhasa. We will hopefully include a looping ride to the north east of Lhasa taking in several monasteries and a place that the Rough Guide describes as a great destination for mountain bikers (and it sounds like Wales - the Lhundrub Valley - we can't say no to that :-). This should enable us to get about 1000 kms in our legs before we leave this region, which was part of the original plan :-)

First photos from Lhasa!

The Potala, you can't help but be drawn to it...


We finally had enough energy to go see the Potala (with all those stairs!), but first we had a picnic in the park :)


This is the park where we had our picnic - it's called People's Park and it has a massive statue to Chinese Power...I like how it is put in it's place in my photo :)


This boating pond is also in the park - if you look really close you can see that the boats have weapons!


This is the Chinese May Bank Holiday week (a Chinese holiday, not a Tibetan one, so Lhasa is full of Chinese holidaymakers)...police presence is very heavy right now - we haven't just seen them at the Potala, they are everywhere, we just managed to sneakily take their photo here :).


When we arrived at the Potala to buy our tickets we were issued with a voucher and told to come back tomorrow. So we did the Potala Kora - a kora is a pilgrim's walk around a holy site - which walks all the way around the outside walls of the Potala. There were prayer wheels about half the way around and tons of pilgrims spinning the wheels and lighting incense and prostrating themselves and begging....




Embedded in the walls of the Potala are many different icons, here is a sampling:










We got the bikes!!!! It was a bit of a pain, but we finally managed to wrench them from the grasp of the train cargo people. The guys that worked there were really helpful and gave us much assistance as we put them together. The bikes arrived a bit battered and bruised but in working order. We are glad to have them back! :)


We rode them into town and snapped this very scenic photo of A posing with her beast in front of the most famous monastery in town :)


On one of our first days walking around town we stumbled upon the Muslim Quarter - there is quite a Muslim presence in Lhasa - and we spotted this multi-lingual sign.


Here are some other streets of the Tibetan Quarter - this is typical Tibetan architecture.



Our hostel hosts this biker bar (for Chinese bicyclists, not motorcyclists :) We have been in to chat with them and they are most helpful.

Tashi delay,

We bring to you a Train With A View :-)

The landscape from the train was absolutely stupendous there was literally hours of wilderness. Naturally ones photo digits were busy for the duration, so now we bring to you thousands of pictures from the train :-)

...actually we have cut it right down to forty or so :-) ENJOY!

(The small size of these photos does not do them any justice, for those of you who are technically adept you may want to use properties to get the source of the image and go view in Photobucket... Don't worry if this does not make any sense to you - it will to others :-)

As you can see there was not much room in the cabin (Its not that K's feet are BIG :-)


The cabins were not a pretty sight after the first 12 hours, can you imagine after 36 hours had passed by? :-)


If one needed to take a break from the can for a cabin, one could take a window seat in the narrow corridor.


The first day of the journey - we passed mainly cultivated agricultural land as well as towns and cities that were adjacent to the railway. This was the green phase and as we climbed higher the view gradually became dominated by shades of brown.


We saw a few hundred military trucks heading along a parallel highway towards Tibet. Some of them had red banners on the front with Chinese characters in yellow - we do not know what they said but it would have been interesting to find out.



In this photo the small dots are the convoy, the trucks were evenly spaced as they drove along. The train was faster yet we seemed to keep overtaking the trucks for kilometres.


The road paralleled the railway for most of the way, sometimes the road was dirt, sometimes the road was paved.


The terrain was forever changing, we encountered desert complete with sand dunes. On the top of this dune there were some rocks poking through the top.


They had set up these rock patterns and wind breaks to protect the soil from wind erosion - we saw the rock patterns lining the tracks on both sides for many kilometers.


We even saw this tundra type surface...

We passed a large lake, surrounded by high mountains. This was the Blue phase :-)



A motorcyclist heading towards his tent - seemingly in the middle of nowhere.


We awoke on our first morning to a breathtaking snow covered terrain :-) Ahh the white phase :-)


...and the train was still snaking it's way up and up.


The snow was pretty thick at the higher elevations - the train tops 5000 metres!



As we hooked our way south again from Qinghai region, the snow became less abundant and the views even more spectacular.



White Stupas amongst the snow.



Astounding mountain views from midday on the second day...




It was hard to take your eyes away from the windows lest you missed the ever changing landscape.



En route there were plenty of tunnels.


There were many grazing wild yaks.



We saw some working yaks, too.



Various dwellings some as simple as these tents but all were dwarfed by mountains.






As we got closer to Lhasa there was so much exposed rock faces, showing a variety of colours, patterns and shapes. We can see the frontside of the vertical rock formation in the last photo from Lhasa city.






Then we arrived!!! This is Lhasa's new and very modern train station.

And now for the bad news....

Last week 5 student from Students for a Free Tibet protested at Everest Base Camp and were thrown out of the country. It was a peaceful protest (they raised the Tibetan flag and sang the Tibetan national anthem), but one guy ran and somehow sent his video of the protest out - you can see it up on youtube. Read the CNN article here: 4 held for protest on Mount Everest

All this has irritated the Chinese government in Tibet and they have severely tightened permit regulations...so much so that they have been requiring an approved Chinese guide for all groups and you must be in a group. It also seems that they are not even issuing permits to some places - Everest Base Camp being one of them. It's hard to say, things are changing everyday. They have been turning travellers back from places along the Friendship Highway and making them return to Lhasa. Also, the approved guides are in short supply - one agency we visited said that they couldn't arrange a tour for us at all, at any price. So it looks like we cannot ride to Nepal, and it might be that we cannot even get to Nepal from Tibet and we will have to leave Tibet through China (people going direct also have to pass the checkpoint near Everest Base Camp and that requires a permit).

We are not happy bunnies, as you can well imagine. We are not giving up hope though, don't you worry!!!! :) There is a lot of riding to do around Lhasa and there are no checkpoints as far as Gyantse...so my tattoo eyes may get to see the originals that inspired them at Kumbum Monastery (but we are not going to push it!). We are still trying working on a plan and we will let you know as soon as we know. If we can get to Nepal we may just go ride the Annapurna Circuit, who knows :)

We do want you to know that even though the Chinese Government has their knickers in a twist over this protest - WE ARE SAFE! There is no danger for foreign tourists, they are just restricting our movements outside of the Lhasa area.

We will not let this put a cramp in our totally chilled out traveller mood - we are still having a great time and seeing and experiencing some beautiful things.

Later!

Tashi delay,

I am really sad. Not because we cannot travel so much but more because of what it means to live in a country that does not allow freedom for it's people. Our trip is minor, our dream to ride across this land is minor, people here have bigger dreams - as simple as a bird flying free in the sky. Last night we were looking at the stats for our website and we noticed that all connections to it from China go through Beijing. My thoughts are running wild, I also think about our own governments policies and how they effect us. I just got an e-mail from my bank today informing me that any transactions processed through the US from my bank account has to have a declaration that the personal details of the individuals involved may be disclosed.

Uurgh.

I am not sad for myself, I am just feeling some reality at the moment.

We were "somewhere" trying to find out about our permit situation and were waiting patiently for some attention (that is about all we want to say about the finer details...) when some other people arrived, said a few things about police and travel permits and upset the agent that had just greeted us. He (a Tibetan) was immediately, incredibly agitated and started shouting...

"My wife does not work, I have two children, I do not want to be thrown in jail"

It really brought it home to us the reality of the situation.

Later he unexpectedly came out to speak to us as we were leaving. Quietly and away from everyone else he informed us about how things are here.

Maybe the protesters have achieved something, maybe they have just caused problems, either way they have caused a reaction and have drawn attention to this region. I am not sure that the rest of the world understands though or even cares.

This has made me more determined to get as much as possible out of the time that we have here. The Tibetans are some of the kindest people that I have ever met. To stand on the street and have so many people give us (foreigners) such big smiles is an amazing feeling.

We are off to the Potala to climb the stairs and test our acclimatisation :-)

Tashi Delay!

My final post for the day - our last moments in Xi'an...

Xi'an train station.


We waited in the queue for a long time for our tickets.


Nobody dared step out of line, including us :-)


Next day - in the waiting area designated for the Lhasa train :-)


Thus ends our time in Xi'an :-)

... our next bunch of posts will be exactly what you (and we) have been waiting for - the train to Lhasa and hopefully some pictures of the city itself :-) :-)

Until next time...

Tashi delay :-)

We spent our last afternoon in Xi'an (after we purchased the train tickets to Lhasa) at the Wild Goose pagoda. Julia joined us too.

We caught the bus to the pagoda. Unfortunately the bus bumped another bus which had cut in front of it. We had to wait whilst the drivers argued, in the end all the passengers bailed and found other methods of transport.


The Wild Goose pagoda! Anybody who has seen the Japanese cult serialisation (called Monkey) of the Chinese story Journey to the West, will appreciate this. Here is where the scriptures were originally stored that Trippitaka brought back from India :-)


The monk Trippitaka. Ahh memories, Pigsy, Sandy, MONKEE!!! Remember when monkey used to blown on his hairs and turn them into little fighting demons? :-)


Details from inside the pagoda and some of the surrounding temples.






The monk Trippitaka upon his horse - which is an incarnation of a dragon prince.


Julia and K talked whilst I went and climbed the spiralling staircase to the top of the pagoda. Here are some of the views from the top from each of the four cardinal directions. You can see how modern Xi'an is. There is much building work and expansion being carried out to the south and east sides.






I could look down and see Julia and K seated in the pavilion within the gardens.


This is Julia :-)


Next with Julias help - not only with translation but finding the placce, we went to the Trek Bike Shop where we were kindly welcomed :-)


What every bike shop needs in it's window... :-)


The store had a really good range of stock. I felt right at home here, I was only selling some of these items to stores like this one a little over six months ago :-)


We were presented with some hand painted tshirts - Wang Shui (the proprietor) stands next to me on the right hand side of the photo. Later he kindly took us out for dinner (see K's post below for examples of the food) :-)

Finally....Warrior pics :)

When we arrived on the bus we were faced with the shopping zone! We have no idea why they were selling so much fur....


But then they route you into this peaceful zone on the walk to the Warriors :)


Three pits of warriors have been discovered - the first is a standing army, thought to be defensive, the second is more active with many horses, both calvary and charioteers, plus the archers and the third pit is thought to be the command center. The first pit is by far the largest, followed by pit 2, which is still quite large, pit 3 is much smaller. Here are the photos separated into pits and then the details of the warriors.

This is the view as you enter pit 1.....awesome, indeed!


And views form the walkway that surrounds the pit:








They think this is defensive (and not offensive) because only a few warriors are facing outwards (only the very outer soldiers), the rest are facing front.


Much of the pit has not been uncovered...they are waiting for a time when the technology has advanced enough for them to restore and preserve the warriors - now is good, but they are losing some of the color and other details.


Many of the warriors that we could see have just been left as they were found...




There was a section at the far end of the pit where you can see how the archeologists are putting the warriors back together - I think someone said only 1 warrior has been found totally intact.



Here are some of the closeups...good thing A's camera has a good zoom, as they don't let you very close to the action (for good reason, of course)





You can see some of the colors


On to Pit 2 - the horses and the archers. This pit has not been explored very much, much of it is still under the remains of the wooden roof.






Many of the warriors are left in situ...





And finally, pit 3 - the command center. This pit is tiny compared to the other two and it has been completely uncovered and just one section is left in situ.







And now for the details!!! There was a small museum section in the pit 2 building where we really got to get up close and personal with the boys and their toys :)

This is the first fellow...



Contestant number 2 :) This is thought to be one of the leaders, with many bows on his uniform.




Another of the warriors



Another head - apparently the bodies (of a type) were mass produced and the heads and hands were done individually, possibly to represent actual soldiers.


One of the kneeling archers...






Some of the remains of the weapons (these guys were armed to the teeth!) - some arrow heads and the release mechanism for a cross bow. They used both crossbows and the standard bow...and thousands of arrows!

The modern city of Xi'an :-)

I quite liked the design of some of the modern buildings which had a flavour of original Chinese design.



A view of the city walls....the modern, updated version so that the traffic flows :-)



...also lit up at night :-)


A view of the bell tower from our hostel window. We were in a great place to watch all the comings and goings of the city centre.

The bell tower also lit up at night.


Strings of kites for sale can be seen at most bell towers and all other tourist spots in all major cities :-) They are really amazing to see as they snake up high in the sky.


We were walking one night in the city and came across a large group of people dancing in the street. It was not a performance for tourists rather they were ordinary people that came together and danced as their hobby. Some of them had fans, some were in traditional costume and the music that played was also traditional. It reminded us of the people in the park in Beijing that got together to participate in various activities in order to wind down from a week of hard work.



Whilst out walking one day we also spotted this bike with a rather interesting fork made out of rebar :-)


Busy streets and much construction.


The people in the cities of China are as varied as they are in the UK.



These women or seamstresses sat on the streets all day. For a fee they would stitch hems and make repairs to fabric. Occasionally they would shout something at passersby, I wondered whether they were shouting "Oi scruffy, your trousers are too long, I can make them fit" :-)


Public transport - You could take a trike :-)


Some of the trikes were covered.


Flatbed rickshaws moved goods around.


Taxi!


Police cars fitted with cameras. Contender eliminated :-)


Brave cyclists crossing the traffic at the bell tower roundabout. Later we were crazy enough to join in the fun :-)

We are in Lhasa!!!!

Here is a taster of what it looks like :)

More Xi'an food! We went out in the Muslim Quarter with Julia and we also went out with the guy from the bike shop...we eat so well!!!!

Julia and I went up to order at one place...veggie for them and meat for me :)


Here are some street scenes from the Muslim Quarter - we has some of this soybean sweet cake and then it's pretty much all meat stands :)






When we went to the Trek bike shop we were treated exceptionally well and then we were asked out for dinner and a drink....I told you we were living well :)

This is a famous Xi'an restaurant - that is their sign in the background.


Julia and I patiently awaiting our meals :)


The cold noodles and chili sauce...YUM!!! This is an ancient Tang Dynasty dish and I can see why they still make it :)


And the pork sandwich...DOUBLE YUM!!!! :)


Then they arrived with more noodles! These are the veggie ones...good, but we were already pretty full.


Then we went to a small bar for a few beers and some more conversation :)


As you can tell, we had a great time in Xi'an with our new friends!

Tashi delay,

Finally we can bring to you some photos from the Longmen caves. We had a great ride there from Laoyang (see K's earlier post) it was fantastic to ride fast without the bikes loaded up, in fact it was rather refreshing!

We could ride all the way there on the wide cycle/bus lane - it was frustrating to share it with the buses though and whenever K and I got the opportunity we chose to show them (the buses that is) that cycling is still the fastest mode of transport in town :-) Ahh, the self righteousness of the cyclist :-)


Looking out from the bridge en route towards a futuristic looking skyline of downtown Laoyang.


Onto the caves of Longmen - surprisingly no other tourists were harmed or barged out of the way in the taking of these photos :-)

Despite the high volume of people at the site, there is no dispute that the statues are still amazing. The coloured lotus design (a symbol of purity) on the roof of this cave is beautiful. On the left of the picture you can see thousands of very small Buddhas.

At the entrance of the Thousand Buddha cave there was another wall of tiny Buddhas. I would need a lot of cups of coffee to get this lot carved out...


The caves were endless, some were empty - the statues having been taken over time and have ended up in museums around the world or in private collections. Many caves contained Buddhas with smashed heads - such is the fate of Buddhist statues by assailants not only here but also throughout Asia.


This was the main statue of Sakyamuni, the carving was amazing. Naturally everybody wanted to get their shot.


...and close ups.




It was possible to have your photograph taken at any number of places at Longmen and then have it turned into a badge or a clock. In front of the main Buddha statue was the most popular (with all of the other tourists in the background too). We did see quite a few people that were wearing badges of themselves standing in front of the caves.


More smashed statues. The lotus design carved into the roof of this cave was also beautiful.


Detail of carving above a cave entrance.


Some of the caves still had traces of their original colouring.


There is much repair work and restoration being carried out. We did not have access to all of the caves as a result.


Considering that there were hundreds of caves, it is no surprise that it took hundreds of years to complete this work.




In order to see the many caves there was a maze of stairs to walk up and down.


A view of the Yellow river and the bridge that one crosses to get to the caves on the opposite side of the embankment.


There were things to look at other than the caves...

Fish in a pond.


Regimented displays of flowering pot plants :-)



There is a natural spring at Longmen, many people washed their hands and face in the cool water - including me :-)


As with all of the tourists sites that we have visited, there were plenty of security cameras. It was a scary experience at the Shaunglin Si when the camera also had a loudspeaker which unexpectedly shouted at us "no photos" - it made me jump out of my skin as well as look around everywhere expecting to see a guard with a megaphone.


Ah ha - a police golf buggy. It would be entertaining to see one of these in a police chase :-)


This made us giggle. It was a smokers booth, smoking was not allowed outside of these booths.


If one could not face the "long" walk to the cave site it was possible to jump into one of the many electric buggies (for a fee). Along with a shopping mall that you are forced to walk through, these make up the formula for every four star tourist site in China :-)


For some reason it was deemed necessary to place this large model of lotuses in the middle of the river which split the site in two. I guess that it was to help create atmosphere - along with the traditional music and occasional gong sound that was played over the loud speakers.


Looking across the Yellow river at the main site of the caves, the rock looked like swiss cheese. You can also see the hordes :-)


The least visted east bank.


..and finally we spotted this wee one amongst the crowds. Split pants - every mothers dream/ nightmare? You decide :-)