Now that's what I call breakfast


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All photos and text copyright Edward Genochio 2006

Hotel sign, Dunhuang, Gansu province, China


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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 120 or 130 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.