Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
All posts by WanderCyclist
November 25 – NaoMaoHuXiang to Somewhere in the Desert
The days are getting shorter and harder, especially to get out of bed and get on the road.
I pack some lunch and I head West to the Petrified tree park. It’s about 15km through a few small villages with a slight tailwind. When I arrive at the park, there is a massive empty parking lot, trees made out of fiberglass, and another large structure for buying tickets. I dislike buying tickets before I know what I’m getting into and I believe it’s closed. Eat my lunch behind a faux tree and look at the map through the park. It looks pretty massive but it still all looks the same to the horizon. I debate about taking a trail around the ticket booth and into the park, maybe camp. It’s cold and windy, I head back towards town, to continue West through the desert.
A man on a motorcycle stops to chat with me, the basic questions. We part with smiles, “Bye Bye”s, and “man man zou”.
Headwind.
I pass along the outskirts of town and look down the road West. Long, straight, nothing…but the maps seems to show there will be something along the way.
Empty coal trucks come from behind me, taking tracks into the desert. Loaded coal trucks coming towards me, taking tracks from the desert.
The Tianshan mountains are my view to the West, on my left. I can see it running all along the way.
Later on I can see work trucks plowing sand up into peaks towards the Mongolian border. I see the attempts at preventing desertification with the planting of trees in a grid like patterns.
It’s a bit warmer out here, but the head wind sucks. I stop to set up camp around 6, far enough from the road and out of view of a watch tower. What am I going to do with all this time, waiting for sunrise.
Cook, read, sleep, wake, sleep, wake, I’m really thirsty…I’m running out of water and I hope to have a little to get me to a destination tomorrow. At one point, I wake and grab for a bottle to drink…luckily, half asleep, I realize its a bottle filled with instant oatmeal. That would of done me real well for quenching the thirst.
I stayed warm and awoke before sunrise. Waiting for the tent to dry and brushing off ice and snow.
November 24 – YiWu to NaoMaoHuXiang
There is a deep sigh and an attempt for a morning motivating talk. Cold, always cold.
Load up and I’m on the road around 12:30. View of YiWu from the Southern part of the city.
Continuing a descent down the Tianshan Mountains. I can feel the weather getting a little warmer and skies clearing. Early afternoon I find myself in the desert with the snow capped Tianshan behind me.
It’s beautiful smooth tarmac but falls off at one point and I’m on gravel and dirt and dust. I kind of love this because it could mean I’m going off the grid but another half hates the dust in my eyes/lungs/mouth and the far from smooth ride. Some locals give me a strange look, I ride through an area of trees, brown and barren for the winter. In my mind, I imagine the Spring, the place filled with green and life. Their is a small creek winding through the valley. After a couple hairpin turns in gravel, I find myself back on tarmac. Far off, I see smog, a town, and a straight road leading down into this basin. All reminding me of my straight ride to Erlianhaote, the border town to Mongolia…where it seemed to take forever, straight and against the wind.
Edge of town, industrial with coal trucks, oil and gas trucks, and some sort of plant pumping smoke into the hazed sky. I find an over priced bingguan, eat, and pass out after carbo loading on some pre-packed bread from the market. This leg of the tour feels very sluggish, can’t I just hibernate through these months.
I am on the edge of the Gobi, that’s kind of cool…and I guess there is some sort of petrified forest a little West of town. The photos advertising the place shows a vivid blue sky with orange twisted trees. I have a bit of doubt, but I’ll check it out tomorrow.
Naomaohu Xiang is historically the first stop where traveler’s coming from Mongolia via the Great Gobi and Eastern China via China’s side of the Gobi could find water and rest. It’s just a little outpost, a little more than a village, less than a town.
November 23 – Rest Day in YiWu
Cold Uninspired Sore Cold Really Cold
Looking North, where I was the past few days.
Keepin’ my buns warm.
Ninja Journalin’
November 23 – Rest Day in YiWu
Cold Uninspired Sore Cold Really Cold
Looking North, where I was the past few days.
Keepin’ my buns warm.
Ninja Journalin’
November 22 YanChiXiang to YiWu
Sleep wasn’t so good. I was a little chilled and kept waking up worried of my bike and gear, being stolen or freezing. Every time I would wake up and see that it was still black out, I would pray for the sun not to rise for the sake of getting some more sleep.
Around 8am I can hear the rustling about next door and by 8:30, Mother is preparing something at the foot of my bed and Father has just entered to ask me how I slept. I could hear the little boy next door a few moments before, a delightful happy sound coming from him.
“I slept good, thank you.”
Today will be a short day and there is a descent to the desert basin…shouldn’t be too bad. Dress and go outside, clear blue skies but very chilly at 9:15.
“Would you like some tea?”
“No, I should go, thank you.”
“man man zou” – directly translates to slow slow go but it’s more of a well wishing, rather than “goodbye”.
I shake his hand with another “Thank you”.
He helps me push my bike through the snow and he stays behind as a continue on and over the embankment.
Black ice…lots. Smile and wave good-bye.
I have to walk for the most part until 11:30 because my hands and feet are freezing. Gotta keep the feet warm.
Arrive to Yiwu around 3 with frozen hands. Laobanniang at the hotel squeezes my hands after she sees the bright red hands removed from my gloves.
November 21 Songshu to YanChiXiang
Even in another country, I know the sounds of shoveling snow, snow plows, and even the type of light that sneaks through the window to let you know…SNOW!
Yep, 2nd day riding and I get about 3″ of snow along the top of the mountain. My morning greeting:
It’s about 3km of backtrack to where the road breaks to go North to the desert. I pass about a dozen trucks putting chains on their tires and only feel my own tire slip once.
Lunch, noodles, a soda, head North. Steady incline for majority of the day. I can’t help but think how all m photos are blue and white…blue and white…blue and white. Between thoughts of “how am I going to warm my fingers?!”
The day basically consists of this scenery without traffic. At the top of the mini pass (I say mini now because after Sichuan and Tibet, the mountains and passes are only hills and bumps to me) I see trucks pulled off and a police checkpoint to my right with a small town to the left. This is the town where the men in Songshu said I should stay the night because I will never make it to Yiwu.
Police checkpoints still make my heart race, a lump in my throat, and my vision gets a little shaky. I’m rattled but I come back down and remind myself it’s only Xinjiang. Yes, exactly, it’s ONLY Xinjiang. Last night was my first visit by the local police, on my first day riding in Xinjiang, to take care of my foreign residence in China. Always a pain in my butt!
I go past the trucks, pass the checkpoint, and there is a man standing in the road with the long Army green coat that reminds me of the gate keepers at Emerald City…if it was Olive Green City. “This place have accommodation?”
“Probably not”.
“I will look”.
It’s a small village and I pull in and ask the man on the motorcycle, a Kazakh, “this place have accommodation?”
“Probably not”.
I still have about 3 hours of light so I power up to the tip top of the pass and begin a slight descent. Fingers freeze…Fingers REALLY REALLY FREEZE.
Camels!
I can see a small town ahead with some new construction, grey concrete with a crane.
The sun is setting fast…the roads are freezing and nearly a sheet of ice. Although on this side of the mini mountains it’s not as bad as it was earlier. My hands are completely frozen after removing my 2 pairs of gloves to photograph the camels, that walked away from me.
I get off to walk because of the ice. School is getting out, it’s nearly 6pm. There is a school, must be a place to stay. Walking puts feeling back into my frozen feet and I can fist my hands up in my gloves. A man tells me there is zhusu around the corner. I don’t see it.
2 boys on a scooter ask if they can help me. I tell them what I need, they tell me there is nothing there. It’s really hard for me to believe this. So I say thanks and walk all the way through the town…I have about 15 minutes before it’s dark.
On the edge of town they return. They tell me they will help me. One boy stays with me, the other goes away on this scooter. He returns, nothing. He asks me what I’m going to do…I say go on, slowly. I say I have a tent and hope for an offer of one of their homes. Nope.
Gotta go. Go.
About a 1/4km down the road I look on and it’s very very barren. All I see are headlights and the dark blue. Riding at night, on ice…not so good.
I pull off the road and into a road tunnel. It’s just one of those ditches under the road that cattle/sheep pass through or water. It’s dry, not a lot of turds, it’s not a concrete one, so I could pitch my tent – as it’s nearly 7′ in diameter.
It’s dark. I begin to unbuckle my rear rack bag on the edge of the opening and I hear a gate closing. Shit. Shepherd.
I run in. I can hear the footsteps crunching over the ice towards me…I walk to greet him, only seeing a dark figure with an orange tip from a cigarette. He’s about 5′ and I greet him with “hello” so he knows I’m not Han and a foreigner.
“What are you doing?”
“Resting.”
“Where are you coming from?”
“Hami.”
“what country person are you?”
“America.”
“Are you cold?”
“Alright.”
“Come into my home over there”, as he points to the small rows of concrete structures.
“Okay, is your wife home?”
“Yes,” with a slight smile.
We walk over and I rest my bike, fully loaded minus the bar bag, outside. The door is guarded by a dog and a Kazakh woman steps out from a small concrete room. They exchange a short conversation and she smiles to me. I enter a room about 8’x 8′ with 3 small beds shoved against the back and side with a little boy and color television. I smile and say hello to the toddler and directed to sit next to the small coal burning stove.
Basic questions and conversation. I lie and say I’m 28…I’m struggling to figure out her age…she looks like she could be in her late 30’s with deep set forehead wrinkles…but I keep doing the math of a 4 year old…and the hidden newborn in the cradle in the back of the beds. It doesn’t make sense…this is crazy. They’ve been married for about 6 years…he looks my age. She is 28…should have lied more. I don’t care what kind of woman you are, where you come from, how you’ve lived…no woman likes to feel “Old looking” – even nomads. She’s had a rough life and very weathered. I’ve got to start saying 24 when I’m dealing with nomads/shepherd families.
She washes her hands!!!! Then begins to make dumplings with beef. Wow, she washed her hands, and he does too after handling the coal. This sure isn’t Tibet!
At one point the man rushes out, to return with a baby lamb that he shoves under the bed. It comes out, shivering and “bah”ing with some poo hanging off it’s rear. It’s still so young it’s wobbling around on the floor.
We watch t.v. with a little conversation, she is making dumplings with a break to breast feed…and the little boy and I are entertaining ourselves with little games of facial expressions.
I have to force the 3 bowl of dumplings down…after repeated “chi chi chi”. eat eat eat!
The great thing I have found about minorities is that they are really kind and helpful but won’t talk your ear off like the majority. We had some basic conversation and they were curious what the Kazakhs in Kazakhstan are like…I can not answer. I don’t know.
The father is wonderful with his children. Both parents are hunkered down over the new baby girl. The toddler frustrated, banging against the small table the tv sets on. During the dumpling making, he had taken her out of the small cradle, that she was strapped into and cuddled with her. Talking to her, snuggling his face into her. He sets her up against a pile of blankets with her wobbly little head. When mother is taking care of her, he devotes playing time with the little boy, who is jumping over the metal frame of the bed. At one point, crossing back and forth over it, I see him grab his crotch and whimper. ooops!
At one point the infant is in the fathers lap and she is looking at me with her wobbly head, and she begins to smile, drool, and make a high pitched noise. The parents notice this and smile. I smile.
After dinner there is a little tea, curds added. Strange but good. He apologizes for his home being so small, I feel so bad because my Chinese isn’t so good and I smile and say “it’s not a problem”. What am I supposed to say?
As the toddler gets ready for bed, as he takes off layers and layers of close, he gets a little attitude and starts playing some sort of game. I can’t help but start laughing, with a few tears rolling down my face. The parents smile at this but I can sense a feeling of “what’s that foreigner laughing at”.
It was a delightful evening where I got to warm up, literally, and warm up to a new group of people in China that I haven’t had any experience with. Trying to learn customs and figure out how to photograph this simple life. I did notice no baijiu…which is always a relief.
I leave my bike outside, a little apprehensive, and go to the room next to the heated living room. It’s a large room with a bed with beautiful weaved carpets and fancy looking blankets with embroidery. He stands on the bed once I’m settled in and removes the light bulb. Goodnight.
Xinjiang route dedicated to Masato, a friend/cyclist, hit by a car
July 2011
It was near the border of Yunnan and Sichuan, I had taken a back road from Zhongdian…it was where I lived with the nomadic milkmaids, and I was on the side of the road snacking.
I was beat. It had been constant climbing…a steady incline…and needless to say I had lost, then found broken, my only pair of prescription eyeglasses. Luckily I had a pair of sunglasses but can be inconvenient at sunset and after…that’s another story of how I toured China with no eyeglasses for 2 weeks. As I sat on the side of the smooth tarmac without another soul in site I see a loaded cyclist.
You have to be kidding me!
His name is Masato (Japanese) and he had been living in Chengdu and was touring Western China. He could speak almost perfect English and his Mandarin was quite good too.
We decided to meet at the next town to rest after exchanging phone no.’s. He was headed to a park/Mountain…I think it being called Yading. I decided to go there to after chatting with him.
I found myself on a mountain pass and the wind was strong, the sign said around 4700m, and the sun was setting. To make a story short: he texts me letting me know he is down the mountain and found a luguan. I’m trying to get over this pass and before I know it I’m descending 10km in blackness with no eyeglasses…and I’m freezing. I don’t stop to dress because I’m racing to get to the bottom because of vision problems.
Anyhow, Masato and I stay at the same hostel for 2 days, then travel to the Mountain Park together with a group of Koreans…we all become quick friends. Masato and I stay together at the hostel, as we ran away from the Korean snore’er. We stayed one more day at the original hostel and he left 1 day before I to head to Litang.
On the way to Litang, I met 3 Chinese cyclists coming from Litang. They told me they had met Masato and he had lost his hat. I assumed they meant his helmet and that was such a pity. Masato and I still communicate via
SMS. In Litang, after I met the infamous Brandon Wallace, and we went to a little restaurant together…one of the locals thats famous with the foreigners told me he met Masato and he had lost his knit cap – not his helmet.
Masato and I reunited briefly again in Kanding, where this photo was taken.
Anyhow, Masato headed to Chengdu and then to Xining then onto Xinjiang. You readers know that Brandon and I headed to the land of awesome.
When I was in Tibet, I got a message from Masato. He was in the hospital and had been hit by a car on the way to Kashgar. He was recovering from surgery and would have to return to Japan. I just received an email from him telling me his back has been broken and has metal plates. He told me the police informed him a Uyghur man hit him and did stop to help take care of the matter – thank goodness. The roads out here, and in Inner Mongolia, go on and on and on and very straight at times. So, people do not practice safe driving out here.
I want to say that not a day goes by on the road that I don’t think of Masato. Thoughts of Masato also reminds me to stay off main thoroughfares. I may get lost, or add days to my tour without real km progress, but…I’ll take my time to prevent my possible death…
So to YOU…MASATO…my Xinjiang route is for you, my friend. Get well soon and I wish you a speedy recovering.
For the past 10 days I’ve been battling this:
2 Emergency Room visits, 2 I.V’s (wrong medicine from the first Dr. from the first ER), 4 Dr. visits, 1 minor surgery, 5 eye cleanings, 4 Dr. visits, and a lot of meds and eye drops.
I finally found the Eye, Ear, Nose, Throat Hospital of Urumqi and been visiting on a regular basis.
I knew if I were to lose my vision, well, no more touring and maybe even hamper my career of a photographer. I also had to not let my family down by reassuring them daily since I began my tour, “don’t worry, I can take care of myself”.
Today on the way home from the Dr. I took this photo in the taxi because I hadn’t seen my own eye in 4 days and wanted to see.