hanoi to france by bike

19.04.2007

Best day ever, a night in hell and up on the mountain

Hello loyal readers,

First of all, thank you very much for your comments, we can’t tell you how touched we are by your obvious concern about our asses. You really don’t have to be that worried, it’s not getting worse, on the contrary, it’s really getting much better.

Last time we were at Zongdiang trying to pass the 4313m mountain to reach Deqin. Well, along the way, we lost a lot of that little belt of fat we had on us and had cost us years of effort for maintenance. Luckily for us, it was not an uneventful route and luckily for you, I will tell you all the details.
The first day was the best we have had since we started our trip: It was mostly downhill, beautiful scenery, a blue sky, with a blue that we have never seen before… At night we found a little nice hotel to crash in, soon, it will rapidly transform into an open hell…
After an Asiatic greasy dinner, we tried to go to bed but a huge group of monks insisted on making sure every corner of China knew that they were showering, seriously we never knew that monks had to scream that loud while under the shower... I know what you must be thinking; you must be telling yourselves that is not exactly hell. Well you would be right, because the worst is yet to come. Esteban was not feeling ok after dinner and around midnight, for the first out of seven times, he throws up his dinner. You can only imagine the state he was in the next morning.
Inspite of that bad night, we still decided to go on. We managed to do 15km which were uphill all the time. For Esteban it was like doing the stations of the cross (Notice the religious references in the writer’s choice of words in this article). Finally we get to a little village in the mountains which was inhibited only by Tibetan monks. After a brief visit of the village, we have dinner with 2 very nice monks (one of them had a anarcho tshirt underneath his cloak!!!) and then we run fast for a well deserved sleep, especially for Le Bleef.
The next day, off we went for the last 40 km... Well, it took us 8 hours to get there. At the end we had to stop every 500m because of the low level of oxygen in the air at that altitude. On the way, we crossed cars full of crazy crowds of Chinese and Japanese who wouldn’t stop taking our photos.
Finally the first day was over, we were at 4200m, but we couldn’t feel very happy about that because we still had 12km to reach our destination at 4313m.

Up where we were standing, it was covered with snow and the vision was breathtaking… But we could not stay for very long because the sun was starting to sink and we had to go down a bit to find a place to sleep, which we can’t find and so, for the first time, we put up our tent. After we swallowed our bowls of instantaneous noodles we fell asleep directly.
Today after taking down the tent, we finished the 20km that separated us from Deqin, a small village not very nice but with an altitude of 6743m gave a very nice view.



That’s all for now folks, and now I still have the heart breaking mission to announce to you that we will not be able to update our blog for a month because we will be in the Tibetan Autonomous Region in 3 or 4 days and it will be very difficult to find a place with internet connection before we get to Lhassa.

Have a good day and see you soon.

PS: On the French blog, you will find new photos of the Tibetan shelf and a new video

15.04.2007

Finally in the Tibetan shelf

Hello everyone,

We left the Throat of the Jump of the Tiger 3 days ago towards Zongdiang. Our first day was painful, we climbed up 60km, under constant rain which made things even harder. Around noon, we still couldn’t find any place to stop and eat, so we decided to pull over and ask at a house on the side of the road, to see if they would lend us a little place sheltered from the rain to be able to cook.

The people of the house were nice enough to invite us in. They even gave us some potatoes to cook and we prepared our instantaneous soup, all the while trying to get all the heat we can from the cooking fire. After lunch, in that same house, it was our destiny to meet, for the first time (which will certainly not be our last), a drink that was midway between rotten cheese and yellow vomit: Tea with Yak butter.

After our meal, we cycled up 3200m; we will stay on the same altitude until we reach Zongdiang. The scenery is breathtaking from here, it is a semi deserted region inhibited mostly by a Tibetans, the rest is just yaks and snow-covered mountains. We did the fabulous discovery of Tibetan style traditional houses surrounded with white stupas and colourful flags randomly hanging from about everywhere…

Yesterday we did around 40km to get to Zongdiang, where we saw again many of our friends whom we have met before, 2 Israeli guys, a couple of French and a German who looks like Pierre Richard. Since we arrived early in the afternoon, we decided to make use of our free time and visit a Tibetan temple, and my what a lovely temple it was, exactly what we would have expected a Tibetan temple to look like, except for the monks we saw strolling around with their iPods and and VTT’s!
Tonight we had a musical gathering with a guitar, a Japanese banjo, a harmonica and a mouth harp. Even though it was our first time, by the end of the night we were playing the harmonica four times as good! The Tibetan whiskey is really good, we were scared at first that it’s going to be something like rice alcohol, but actually it was really good, it changed a bit the horrible taste of yak tea we were drinking.

Our timetable for the coming days is: Departure for Dechin (180 km far). To get there, we have to get through mountains that reach up to 4250m and then a free 3550m ride down to Dechin as well as, ofcourse, our first nights in a tent. Zhongdian is the last big village we will pass through before Lhassa (1300km far from here), that’s why our last update of our blog would be in Dechin, after which, well… we could always send each other text messages!
So we’ll see you again in 4 days when we get to Dechin, if ever we manage to live through the 4000m high mountains...!

Lolo and Esteban

12.04.2007

The Throat of the Jump of the Tiger

Hello dear readers,

First of all thank you very much for your messages on our blog, they make us real happy.
Secondly, we would like to reassure you all, that we are completely out of the little mess we put ourselves into in the beginning. Esteban has a new passport and Chinese visa, as well as, a secret bumbag that he keeps hidden under his shirt. Please do not diffuse that information randomly!!!

So we are back in Lijiang after a trip to Chengdu that lasted only 2 nights. 2 days ago (Tuesday morning), following heart breaking goodbyes with Mama and Papa at the guest house, we got back on our bikes under the rain. We did 70km with no incidents inspite of the cold weather and the rain which has never left us alone. On our way, we met a French couple, in their sixties, who were cycling all around China!!!

We came across the Throat of the Jump of the Tiger (a canyon on the Yangzi river located at 60 km in the north of Lijiang in the Chinese district of Yunan) where we went hiking for 2 days. After a goodnight’s sleep in a guesthouse, we locked our bikes and went for a walking tour along a little road on the mountainside running along the Yangtze River. Facing us were 5000m high mountains with snow covered peaks. It was fabulous. That night, halfway through, we slept at a little shelter with around ten other real cool backpackers.
Tomorrow, we will take our bikes to cycle to Zongdiang, 100km far from where we are. This village is at 3200m of altitude and apparently covered with snow. And the serious stuff begins.