The Wind in the West

You may have seen Jonathan Watts writing in The Guardian yesterday about the Three Gorges of the Sky.

Here's his opening paragraph:

"In the vast natural wind tunnel that is Dabancheng, the gales that roar between the snow-capped mountain ridges get so strong that trains have been gusted off railway tracks and lorries overturned."

This takes me back 2-and-a-bit years to when I was trying to cycle through that vast natural wind tunnel, on days 158, 159, and 160. On day 158, in particular, coming out of Turpan, the wind was so bad that in six-and-a-half hours on a flat road I only made 47 km - and that was before the wind really started blowing. Once it really kicked up, making any sort of forward progress at all became impossible. I had to lie low in a culvert under the road and sit it out.

Someone told me at a petrol station that trains were blown off the tracks in that sort of wind; I wasn't sure whether he was exaggerating. Apparently, though, it's true. Either that, or Jonathan Watts got his information from the same bloke I did.

By way of a post-script...

It will please many of you, I think, to learn that Asmund is not only alive, but apparently also well.

(That link will take you to a page on Rob Thomson's blog - which I heartily recommend. He has some stories to tell.)

Ed

Now that's what I call breakfast


--
All photos and text copyright Edward Genochio 2006

Hotel sign, Dunhuang, Gansu province, China


--
All photos and text copyright Edward Genochio 2006

Camels on the lake shore, Xinjiang, China.


--
All photos and text copyright Edward Genochio 2006

Central market, Almaty, Kazakhstan.
All photos and text copyright Edward Genochio 2006

Carrying pole, Guizhou, China.
All photos and text copyright Edward Genochio 2006

Petrol Station, Guangxi province, China.
Copyright (C) Edward Genochio 2006

Musician, Guangxi province, China

Vietnam Sunset

Bicycle Bounces Back into Belgium

21,542 km from Shanghai, or 42,000 km from Exeter, my bicycle carries me back to Belgium, 29 years and a month or two after having been born there. It's a long way round to getting nowhere.

It has rained a lot in Europe recently, as you have probably noticed.

Ukraine

The hot news is:

1. It's hot.
2. I'm in Lvov (aka Lviv), Ukraine, where it is hot.
3. It's hot.

Apologies for lack of blog since China. Will make up for it one day, I promise.

Hot news from Kazakhstan

Chaps, I'm in Uralsk.

 

Asmund will fill you in on the details, I expect.

 

Edward

Shymkent

Shymkent. Hot. Cycling. 14,288 km since Shanghai.

 

Hope you enjoy the new minimalist blogging style.

Edward

Kazakhstan

I apologise for the absence of any photos in the previous post.

Here is some clover, which made a nice soft bed for the night on the way to Almaty.

Almaty calling

Almaty, Kazakhstan.

 

Internet access here ain't what it is in China (where every second building has an internet cafe in the basement or the attic). Updates might not happen for a while.

 

We need Asmund back. It's going to take a concerted campaign to make him feel loved again, but with enough emails I think we can do it.

Please write to Asmund and say that you miss him and want him back on the 2wheels blog. The setting is perfect. I'm in Almaty, nobody knows where I'm going from here, and there may be no news from me for weeks on end. Asmund would be perfectly in his element, free to speculate wildly about any number of potential catastrophes.

 

I hesitate to publish his email address directly, but perhaps this will help:

 

xxxx_xxxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx

 

The first word is the short form of Asmund's preferred form of transport. It is four letters long and rhymes with hike.

Then there is an underscore (_).

 

The second word is Asmund's first name, which rhymes with Hasmund and is six letters long.

 

Then there is an @ sign.

 

The third word is a well-known email service owned by Microsoft that has nothing to do with frigid females.

 

Then there is a dot.

 

The last word is three letters long and if you write it backwards looks like this: moc.

 

Please write to Asmund and tell him we need him.

 

Until next time,

 

Edward

Day 272 - Cycling from Khorgos (China) to the Charyn Canyon, Kazakhstan

Start: Khorgos (Huoerguosi), Xinjiang, China
End: Charyn Canyon, Kazakhstan
Distance: 155 km
Time: 7'34"
Avg: 20.5 k/h
Max: 38 k/h
Total: 13,438 km
Total riding days: 175
Riding hours: 0930 - 2110 (Chinese time)

So, farewell then, China.

Across the border, the smell of low-octane petrol says: welcome back to the USSR.

Day 271 - Clock-watching in Khorgos

0 km etc.

In 14 hours time they will let me over the border, inshallah. Yesterday I haggled with the borderfolk for a long time. It really wouldn't be such a bad thing to let an honest man into Kazakhstan 2 days before his visa officially starts, would it?

You must wait here, said the borderman. Khorgos (Huoerguosi, the Chinese call it) is a lovely place, said the borderman. Time will fly here, said the borderman.

I am watching the time flying by, on the tips of growing grass.

Meanwhile, there is always the blossom.

Day 270 - Cycling from Sailimu Lake to Khorgos

Start: Hillside above Sailimu Hu, Xinjiang, China
End: Khorgos (Huoerguosi), Xinjiang, China
Distance: 90 km
Time: 3'50"
Avg: 23.7 k/h
Max: 48 k/h
Total: 13,283 km
Total riding days: 174
Riding hours: 0930 - 1930

Braked down the hillside from the world's most booooootiful campspot to the main road and went down down down an extraordinary green valley (how long it has been since things have been green and lush) full of Kazakhs chasing livestock around on horseback (the Kazakhs, not the livestock), and selling honey and honey-flavoured kvas, back into the hotlands, the flatlands, the really rather drablands of the Xinjiang semi-desert.

(No, I haven't shaved. That's Andrea, a German cyclist heading for Kyrgyzstan.)

An update, of sorts

Sorry, all very quiet here on 2wheels recently, I know. I have been pedalling furiously in a vaguely westerly direction.

I am now sitting in an internet cafe in a place whose name I do not know, not far from the Kazakh border.

More than that I cannot currently tell you. But when I can, you will be the first to know, I promise you.

Hang on in there.

Edward

Cycling around Sailimu Lake - Day 269

Start: Sailimu Lake (east end), Xinjiang, China
End: Sailimu Lake (west end), Xinjiang, China
Distance: 25 km
Time: 1'28"
Avg: 17.1 k/h
Max: 46.5 k/h
Total: 13,192 km
Total riding days: 173
Riding hours: 1905 - 2110

For me this has been the most beautiful spot in all of China. They save the best to last.

Green and white mountains, crystal waters, flowers everywhere, sunsets the size of... something pretty big.

Cycling from a sand dune to a lake: somewhere beyond Jing He to Sailimu Hu (day 268)

Start: Sand dune, 20 km beyond Jing He, Xinjiang, China
End: Sailimu Lake, Xinjiang, China
Distance: 116 km
Time: 8'27"
Avg: 13.7 k/h
Max: 36 k/h
Total: 13,167 km
Total riding days: 172
Riding hours: 0845 - 2030

Who's been leaving tracks in my desert campsite?





Oh, just a little beetle.

Things were a bit moister 116 km later, with the sun setting over the supposedly salty but in fact fresh enough to swim and cook in Sailimu Lake.

Cycling across the northwestern Xinjiang steppe (day 267)

Start: Somewhere outside, Xinjiang, China
End: Sand-dune, beyond Jing He , Xinjiang, China
Distance: 125 km
Time: 8'27"
Avg: 19.9 k/h
Max: 35.5 k/h
Total: 13,051 km
Total riding days: 171
Riding hours: 0905 - 2145

No photos today. Diary a bit sparse too. Must have cycled a bit. Head down, that sort of thing.

Day 266 - Cycling from Kuitun to somewhere in the Xinjiang steppe

Start: Before Kuitun, Xinjiang, China
End: Somewhere after Kuitun, Xinjiang, China
Distance: 120 km
Time: 6'37"
Avg: 18.1 k/h
Max: 40 k/h
Total: 12,926 km
Total riding days: 170
Riding hours: 0920 - 2030

Sad news about one of PG's distant cousins:

Nice highways they build out here.

Squatting technique still needs some work.

Day 265 - Cycling Wutaigong to somewhere before Kuitun

Start: Near Wutaigong, Xinjiang, China
End: Near Kuitun, Xinjiang, China
Distance: 122 km
Time: 5'28"
Avg: 22.4 k/h
Max: 36.5 k/h
Total: 12,806 km
Total riding days: 169
Riding hours: 0945 - 2015

Fast, flat, easy cycling, powered by plenty of 5-mao ice creams.

Mao himself, meanwhile, has become a petrol pump attendant.

Cycling from Urumqi to near Wutaigong (Day 264)

Start: Urumqi, Xinjiang, China
End: Wutaigong, Xinjiang, China
Distance: 98 km
Time: 5'01"
Avg: 19.6 k/h
Max: 34.5 k/h
Total: 12,584 km
Total riding days: 168
Riding hours: 1130 - 2130

I now have a Kazakh visa.

These people don't.

Days 261, 262, 263: visa hunting in Urumqi

0 km etc.

Went to find a visa at the Kazakh consulate, except that it isn't the Kazakh Consulate, it is the Passport-Visa service of Kazakhstan railways Urumqi representative office, and don't you forget it.

A good time was had by all.

Technical hitch

OK Houston, Abergavenny, Bury-St-Edmunds, etc., we have a problem.

 

I can't access my blogging software from this part of China.

 

My cynical mind says that this is because I am in Xinjiang now, which is inhabited by people who don't think they are part of China. The Chinese government, which just wants to be loved, makes a special effort to prevent people in Xinjiang connecting with the outside world, believing that, deprived of the opportunity to love anybody else, the locals will love the Chinese government instead.

 

All of which explains (a) why I am feeling angry, and (b) why I can't give you the usual 2wheels photofest.

 

Laziness on my part accounts for the absence of the dull bits - mileage stats, etc.

 

So, instead, a quick summary: lots of desert, a few mountains, no pikas.

 

I am now in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, which I could call East Turkestan, but that would probably have the local Boys in Blue (formerly the Boys in Green) (plainclothes branch) round quicker than you can say "Independence for Uyghurs Now!"

 

The much-trumpeted auto-email-blog-update-notifier thing seems to be on the blink too. Sorry. Will see what I can do. Probably nothing, since I can't access the HS2HTCACM (Highly Sensitive 2wheels High Tech Command And Control Module).

 

I met a cyclist the other day who knows Ruth/Yellow Gloves! Do you think someone could tell Asmund/Pink Gloves ?

 

Until the revolution,

 

Edward

Biking Dabancheng to Urumqi (day 260)

Start: Dabancheng, Xinjiang, China
End: Urumqi (Wulumuqi), Xinjiang, China
Distance: 81 km
Time: 4'36"
Avg: 17.7 k/h
Max: 38.5 k/h
Total: 12,585 km
Total riding days: 167
Riding hours: 0640 - 1240

The wind turned.

And so did the windmills.

Underused word of the week: Receptacle.

Petrol station of the week: this one.

Dangly job of the week.

Cycling from the desert to Dabancheng (day 159)

Start: Culvert under G312 beyond Turpan, Xinjiang, China
End: Truckstop beyond Dabancheng, Xinjiang, China
Distance: 64 km
Time: 8'38"
Avg: 7.4 k/h
Max: 16.6 k/h
Total: 12,504 km
Total riding days: 166
Riding hours: 0640 - 2045

Another day, another hurricane.

But a nice little gorge to ride up, a break from the desert, at least.

Oh, yes, that's the Daban City peasant trade market. 2 serfs for my villein, anyone?

It shouldn't happen to a bike...

Bike-battling out of Turpan into the desert (day 158)

Start: Turpan, Xinjiang, China
End: Culvert under the G312, west of Turpan, Xinjiang, China
Distance: 47 km
Time: 6'20"
Avg: 7.3 k/h
Max: 23.2 k/h
Total: 12,439 km
Total riding days: 165
Riding hours: 0955 - 2145

Looked out of the window and it looked promising. Turpan, baking yesterday under a 45 degree sun (OK, the sun itself might have been a bit hotter, but you get the picture), was today cool and cloudy. I was privileged to feel the tickle of a dozen raindrops on my nose - Kashgar gets about 16 mm of rain a year, so this was something pretty special.

And then the wind started to blow.

I spent most of the day hiding in a hole in the desert. I reckon the wind was up around 80 or 90 km/h. Moving was impossible, holding the bike upright without being blown backwards was a struggle.

This man, Serge Girard (left), had it easy. He was going downwind. Running from Paris to Tokyo, 75 km a day, admittedly, but downwind, eh? No wonder his beard doesn't grow properly.

Ah well, at least the sun set nicely.

A bed for the night. Those are my toes.

Day 257 - Into Turpan

Start: Turpan turn-off, Xinjiang, China
End: Turpan (Tulufan), Xinjiang, China
Distance: 6 km
Time: 0'30"
Avg: 12.8 k/h
Max: 23.4 k/h
Total: 12,392 km
Total riding days: 164
Riding hours: 0830 - 0905

After a gruelling six k, I go to poke my camera at a minaret, and eat a lot of ice cream. The latter was more rewarding; a photograph of the former follows.

Day 256 - Cycling to Turpan - almost

Start: Qiketai, Xinjiang, China
End: Petrol station strip, Turpan turnoff, Xinjiang, China
Distance: 141 km
Time: 8'03"
Avg: 17.5 k/h
Max: 40.5 k/h
Total: 12,386 km
Total riding days: 163
Riding hours: 0945 - 2045

Tried to stay in Shanshan, but after checking into a very nice little flatlet hotel room, and having a shower and a watermelon, the boss chucks me out for being foreign, strict orders from the Boys in Blue (formerly known as the Boys in Green).

So I try to hack it to Turpan across the Flaming Mountains, and nearly make it. But I take a short cut which turns out to be a long cut ending in sand dunes, and by the time I'm back on the road, I've run out of puff and daylight. So I spend the night in my preferred habitat, a petrol station. Jolly nice one too.

Day 255 - Riding the road to Qiketai

Start: Sandaoling, Xinjiang, China
End: Qiketai, China
Distance: 202 km
Time: 10'52"
Avg: 18.6 k/h
Max: 39 k/h
Total: 12,245 km
Total riding days: 162
Riding hours: 0645 - 2040

202 km, eh?

Never done 200 before, and I don't think I will again, either.

OK, I know that Asmund does 200 before breakfast every day and twice on Sundays, but he drinks Cherry Coke.

A lot of desert, more wildlife, and some sore feet at the end of the day.

Day 254 - Cycling from Hami to Sandaoling

Start: Hami, Xinjiang, China
End: Sandaoling, Xinjiang, China
Distance: 86 km
Time: 5'10"
Avg: 16.6 k/h
Max: 25.9 k/h
Total: 12,043 km
Total riding days: 161
Riding hours: 1145 - 1800

Trucks come past carrying beehives. A number of bees fail to observe basic safety precautions and are not wearing seatbelts. As a result they fall out, doomed to a sad and rather lonely death in the desert - but before that, they have time to buzz around a bit and try to fly up my nose, mouth, shirt, etc.

STOP THIS CRUEL TRADE!

END LIVE BEE EXPORTS!

From the west, coal trucks chunter past lobbing hunks of coal at me as they go.

And then some unexpected wildlife pops up at the roadside.




Life is rarely dull on the G312.

Pika news

The ever-alert CW has spotted another pika:

I thought my bike was feeling a little heavy the other day... and my biscuit stocks seemed inexplicably low.

From our own correspondent

A.R. writes to say:

 

I cannot resist asking this question:  I recall reading somewhere that a nineteenth century explorer - possibly Sir Richard Francis Burton (the chap who translated the Kam Sutra in 1883) encountered a community of Tibetan monks who had devised a code or private language through a series of intricately nuanced farts.

This is probably an early 'urban myth', but have you heard of or encountered anything like this on your travels, or any evidence that such behaviour might be within the range of normality? For, although I am interested in and respectful of Tibetan Buddhism, I can't help hoping there's some truth in it!

 

I will ask my Tibetan contacts, A.R., and get back to you.

 

Get this

For the hard-core nothing-better-to-doers among you, an experimental new service, brought to you with revolutionary new technology developed in conjunction with the CIA, Nasa, and the Communist Party of China:

The 2wheels blog by email in real-time!

Never miss a post again!

What does it do? Any new post, or comment, on the 2wheels blog, gets zapped straight to your email inbox, instantly, as it happens, and in, like, real time, man.

Why would I want that? Search me.

How does it work? That's a trade secret.

How much does it cost? The 2wheels blog email notification service is being offered at the incredible introductory price of 0 Peruvian zlotys a month. (Terms and conditions apply.)

What's that in Her Majesty's Pound Sterling? Works out at about 0 pounds, 0 shillings and 0 pence, at current exchange rates.

I'm sold. How do I get it? Just send an empty email to 2wheelsblognotifier-subscribe@googlegroups.com, sit back, and wait for your life never to be the same again.

What about the old monthly 2wheels update list? That will carry on just as before.

Can we have a picture now please? Sure, have two.

See what big wheels I have? And what steep hills I climb?

Hami moon.

Day 253 - Hangin' in Hami

0 km etc.

The Hami-ites make the best Cornish Pasties in the world (Cornwall included). Not especially vegetarian, but we all have our moments of weakness.

Meanwhile, here is a small mosque.

Gated community

Locking out the desert, Huahaizi, Qinghai province, China.

Spot-the-pika: Competition Results

I'm pleased to announce that CW is the winner of last week's Spot The Pika competition.

Here is the winning entry:

Carl, your pika awaits collection from the Tibetan Plateau.

Desert flowers

On the G215, the desert road from Dunhuang to Liuyuan, after a couple of days' rain.

Day 252 - Cycling Luotuojuanzi to Hami

Start: Luotuojuanzi, Xinjiang, China
End: Hami, Xinjiang, China
Distance: 63 km
Time: 3'18"
Avg: 19.3 k/h
Max: 29.3 k/h
Total: 11,957 km
Total riding days: 140
Riding hours: 0640 - 1100

A quick sprint through the desert, the mountains of the Tian Shan ahead and to the right, and meltwater-fed oases down to the left.

A nice desert sunrise, too - but spot the discrepancy in this photograph:

Day 251 - Cycling from Xingxingxia to Luotuojuanzi

Start: Xingxingxia, Xinjiang, China
End: Luotuojuanzi, Xinjiang, China
Distance: 142 km
Time: 7'54"
Avg: 17.9 k/h
Max: 41 k/h
Total: 11,894 km
Total riding days: 139
Riding hours: 0645 - 1640

A cold, cold morning in the desert.

The roadside is littered with shoes.

The invisible unidexter, naked but for a black leather winkle-picker, hitch-hiking on the desert highway to Urumqi.

A pretty funky hotel for the night, with a pretty funky world-cup-ready water-tower.

For fellow-travellers: there is nothing at all on the road until you reach the oasis at Luotuojuanzi, after about 135 km, except a tin-hut mining operation at around 35 km and a solitary house around 95 km. The map shows other places, the roadsigns say things like "Yandun 73 km", and after 73 km there is a sign that says "Yandun". But that is it, really it. No houses, no people, no camels, not a potato in sight. Just a sign saying "Yandun", and desert.

Day 250 - Pedalling from Liuyuan to Xingxingxia

Start: Liuyuan, Gansu, China
End: Xingxingxia, Xinjiang, China
Distance: 88 km
Time: 5'32"
Avg: 15.9 k/h
Max: 29.4 k/h
Total: 11,752 km
Total riding days: 138
Riding hours: 0845 - 1515

Tonight I am in a truck-stop. The room is painted two-tone, pale blue and white, it feels like a Soviet mental asylum. And they have turned the heating on for me. They must be crazy. I can't sleep with heating. I have to open the windows and let all the heat straight out again. I'm just left with the banging hot-water pipes.

In fact I didn't mean to stop here at all, early in the afternoon, but I saw the truck stop and pulled in on auto-pilot. Before I knew what I was doing, I had paid for the bed.

Earlier, up ahead I saw a shape. It was the shape of a touring bicycle. Touring bicyclists can spot another touring bicyclist from 5 miles, in the same way that a certain species of sparrow knows from five miles away whether or not a black dot in the sky is another member of the same sparrow species.

I spend a happy half-hour hauling my conspecific down, and feel rather chuffed when I am on his tail. He is only carrying two half-packed rear panniers. I am on full load, front and rear.

Mr Kou is his name, and 72 is his age.

I feel a little less Lancey about catching him. He and three mates (he's the oldest; they're all over 62) are cycling from Xi'an to the Russian border up in Altay. They've been 1,900 km already in 25 days.

Mr Kou (right) (72) and chums. When you've been going as long as he has, you can do it with your eyes closed.

Day 249 - cycling from Dunhuang to Liuyuan

Start: Dunhuang, Gansu, China
End: Liuyuan crossroads (G215/G312), Gansu, China
Distance: 127 km
Time: 8'11"
Avg: 15.5 k/h
Max: 22.2 k/h
Total: 111,664 km
Total riding days: 137
Riding hours: 0855 - 1910

Baked beans for breakfast. No toast though.

A good road across flat desert. After two days of desert rain, today is bright, sunny, and the air is super-clear. Once out of the workshop strip, the road runs through an amazing green oasis, bright spring trees everywhere, fields planted with sprouting vegetables. The air smelt fresh and moist and succulent and clean, and then towards the end of the oasis, the wind blew in off the desert to the north and the smell of the air changed, becoming first heathy, then sandy and salty.

Riding the oasis was like cycling through some insane dream of a Swiss clockmaker's workshop. Cuckoos cuckooing everywhere.

The weather in the oasis was perfect, the sort of day when everyone has a ready smile, everything is easy-going. Suddenly back in the desert and I am back in expedition mode, thinking about where my next water is coming from.

And then the desert smelt of dung for a dozen kilometres. Far off to the left a gang of camels loaf about looking haughty even from a distance.

Ponging like that, they have little to look haughty about, in my opinion. I long ago perfected my humble cyclist mien.

The evening was amazing - so often the best time to ride, a beautiful rich clear intense soft light bathing everything, suffusing the desert with deep colours, dark black hills, green grit slopes, red, yellow, orange sand, the road a satisfying black, not a washy grey, the yellow centre line bold and strong.

All the horizons seem to slipping away downhill, as if I am on top of a vast mound or dome. But I never reach the downhill, and I realise that the desert is just flat, so flat in all directions that you can see the curve of the earth, and the distant hills seems half-buried as a result.

Publishing sensation

Asmund fans may be interested to know that the pink-gloved one now has his own blog at http://pinkgloves4ever.blogspot.com.

 

(Since the contents of Asmund's blog are deemed politically sensitive, readers in China will not be able to access it. (Try!). You can, however, sidestep the Great Patriotic Firewall of the Motherland like this: http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://pinkgloves4ever.blogspot.com)

 

Day 248 - Being cheated by the banana-merchants of Dunhuang

0 km etc.

Dunhuang is supposed to be an oasis town in the middle of the desert.

Since I have been here it has been cold and drizzling solidly. The place has a very English feel to it...

In fact I don't like Dunhuang very much - it has more than its fair share of dishonest traders. And I am unduly sensitive about the price of bananas.

On the plus side, you can always pay a visit to the Dunhuang Luminous Cup Factory.

Or take a solar-powered trip someplace.

Road shafety

Have you been drinking, officer?

Ouch!

The wire beading in my rear tyre has worn through its housing.

This is giving me punctures every 2 days or so - which makes a change from my ride from England to China, 20,000 km without a puncture.

(Or, one puncture, but it didn't count because it came from a spoke-hole, and my wheel didn't have any rim tape in it....)

Day 247 - pedalling to Dunhuang

Start: Akesai, Gansu, China
End: Dunhuang, Gansu, China
Distance: 79 km
Time: 3'43"
Avg: 21.4 k/h
Max: 40 k/h
Total: 11,537 km
Total riding days: 136
Riding hours: 0730 - 1230

Where in the world?

Ashgabad?

Agra?

No, it's Akesai (Aksay), Gansu. One of the most interesting places I've seen in western China.

The whole place has been knocked down (assuming, that is, that there was a place before) and replaced with a monumental avenue in Sino-Islamic (i.e. white tiles + pointy arches) style, crowned at the western end by a towering, Taj Mahal style mosque.

It looks particularly good in a sandstorm, when the sky turns custard-yellow just before the sand hits.

They have a nice statue of some geese, too.

The ride to Dunhuang was flat, downhill (you know what I mean), and easy.