I thought my bike was feeling a little heavy the other day... and my biscuit stocks seemed inexplicably low.
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!
See what big wheels I have? And what steep hills I climb?
Carl, your pika awaits collection from the Tibetan Plateau.
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.
Mr Kou (right) (72) and chums. When you've been going as long as he has, you can do it with your eyes closed.
Or take a solar-powered trip someplace.
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.
Start: Huahaizi, Qinghai, China
End: Akesai (Aksay), Gansu, China
Distance: 109 km
Time: 6'02"
Avg: 18.2 k/h
Max: 47.5 k/h
Total: 11,457 km
Total riding days: 135
Riding hours: 0745 - 1600
If you feel nature calling on your ride across the G215 desert highway, save it for KM 280. Out in the middle of the desert, about 100 million miles from the nearest person, place, or thing, they have built this:
The most beautiful, clean, shiny, spotless public convenience in the eastern hemisphere.
It is really quite the most extraordinary thing, for want of a better expression.
You would think it is just another mirage, except that you can go and bang your head against the walls.
Whose idea was this? Perhaps Asmund is planning to ride this road next year, and he's sent out a crack team of Norwegian hygiene engineers to prepare the route for him?
Or maybe it is the work of some recluisve philanthropist, wanting to make a non-ostentatious contribution to humanity.
A long slow slog up to the Dang Jin pass, though in fact the road somehow slices through these imposing snowy mountains without climbing above 3648 metres.
And then an incredible downhill, finally off the high cold deserts of Qinghai and Tibet, and down into the low-altitude deserts of Gansu and Xinjiang.
On the way down, an SUV from Shanghai stops, and its occupants very generously give me their day's chocolate rations.
(Asmund would not approve. He will not even take water from other vehicles, on the grounds that this is cheating. I do not quite follow the logic. Is it OK to take water from wells? Taps? Shops? Or do you have to tow your own glacier or iceberg around with you and melt water as and when you need it? Fine for Norwegians, I guess...)
In Akesai, I am invited to spend the night in a mutton-drying shed.
This proves to be a mistake. Most smells you can get used to after an hour or so. Not so drying rancid mutton. I was still retching when I woke up the next morning.
Those are half-dried pieces of sheep hanging from beams, up above my bike. The smell was indescribable.
If, like me, you are trying to become a better vegetarian, a night in a place like this might help. Along with bivvying in a hut full of boiling yak hooves, this sort of thing helps to dull your primitive carnivorous urges.
(NB fellow-travellers: there are a lot of daobans marked on the maps. However, all these road depots have been abandonned and are in ruins. There is nothing now between Dachaidan and Huahaizi, apart from a couple of buildings and a herd of sheep at Yuqia / Ike.)
