From China to Thailand
Boarding the plane to Hong Kong and knowing to be back on the road soon felt really good after spending almost 3 months in Germany. Arriving back in Kunming made me instantly feel like coming home. Before I could leave the airport I was held back by the immigration police as the only one, and there had been quite a few westerners with me on the plane. I suspect the visa-extension, I had obtained last year after leaving Tibet, or perhaps they had information stored in their database about the fine and the alien travel permit which I obtained in Ali in West Tibet. After a brief check (more…)
From Guizhou Province to Hongkong
I left Guiyang following the motorway. Unless there are alternative roads, taking the motorway with a bicycle is legal in China. I didn’t know wether there was another road nor how to find it, so I just continued and was rewarded with a nice 140km ride on perfectly smooth tarmac, little traffic and moderate climbs. Passing the ‘Dragon’s Backbone’, the rice terraces of Longshen, the first part of my ride that day took me along the banks of a stunning river in the direction of Guilin. Guilin, biggest city of Guangxi province, is well known for it’s surrounding environment, unreal-looking (more…)
From Yunnan to Guizhou Province
Northwest Yunnan was spectacular with its authentic Tibetan culture, gorgeous views and friendly people. But also, there was a big presence of package tourists, Chinese and international due to relative ease of accessibility of the region. Reaching the town of Zhongdian, better known as Shangri-La, was another milestone: being back to “civilisation”, and the first and best place to obtain the desperately needed visa extension. After I had found the PSB Office, I managed to get another two months on the spot without hassles. I also got my camera repaired. Mr.G, the manager of the place where (more…)
Lhasa to Yunnan
I had planned to stay five days or so but in the end left Lhasa after almost two weeks. I had caught a cold with a strong cough and cycling without being well didn’t sound like a good idea. The cough was persistent, though after a couple of days when I felt fit enough I decided that there was no point in hanging out for another week, so I hit the road hoping it would vanish with some exercise. Lhasa is a great place to hangout and I could have easily stayed for another month or two, but the winter was approaching and my visa was about to expire – and try was no way to (more…)
Travelling the Xinjiang-Tibet Highway
I reached Lhasa on Sept 19. We left Kashgar as a group of four: the Catalans Imma & Pep, me and Joe from Switzerland. On the 2nd day out of Kashgar a few km’s down the road from Yarkand, we Claude, the Yakman. The perfect time for a break to hang out with this bike-celebrity. The usual bike-traveller chit-chat started and when the topic came to broken rims, I mentioned that my back wheel was behaving funny since Tajikistan. Claude mentioned that he had cracked several rims on his seven year Round the world trip, so we had a closer look and discovered a crack (more…)
On the Pamir Highway to China
The rest of the ride through Uzbekistan passed without any particular events. Most of it was through shadeless desert, except for the occasional caikhana. But once in a caikhana, I couldn’t really enjoy it. As soon as I arrived at place, I was besieged by curious locals. The problem with them wasn’t their curiosity in the first place, but rather that everybody approached me individually with the same set of questions, making me feel like an answering machine. So. Most of the time I got fed up with it and preferred the heat of the desert of the shade…
Samarqand: after I had killed almost a week’s time, I headed for the Tajik border. Before I came to Samarqand I had already been to the ancient Silk Road towns of Chiva and Bukhara, which I altogether found a bit disappointing. Regarding tourism, Uzbekistan is fully developed, with the respective price differential and the corresponding attitude local people tend to develop towards big buck spending package tourists: the foreigner is looked upon as something like a travelling purse.
To give an example what I’m talking about: in Bukhara I happened to have the luck of a grocery store conveniently located next to my guesthouse, which itself was located fairly central. The particular feature of this grocery store was that price tags were used, something rather unusual in this part of the world. So when I went in there for the first time, I was asked about 1/3 more than what I had calculated. “Hey hold on pal, I had calculated a different price…” – so we went through the prices of every single item with a calculator, and: “Oh sorry, sorry, mister…” did he excuse himself and charged me the correct amount. OK, no big deal so far. The next day I went to the shop again, same game, different cashier, same story. OK, probably they all lack a bit of education, no worries. But when the same game started the third time as well, so I began to wonder if they were doing this on purpose… Another example. Me, a girl from the US and a guy from Argentina went to restaurant in Samarqand. They ordered a good deal of meat, I wasn’t very hungry and ordered something cheap. Then when we asked for the bill, the bill was significantly higher than what we had calculated according to the menu.
When we asked the waiter where the difference came from, he told us, it would be the loaf of bread that we had ordered a little later (without asking for the price). Well, that was probably the most expensive loaf of bread each of us ever had! Well although it was a bit of an ego-thing, I had learnt another lesson. But, it would also be a bit unfair to blame people for acting without giving it any thought. Apart from tourism, there is almost no work available since the collapse of the USSR, on the other hand most tourists are also responsible for provoking this behaviour. Most of them come here with their western attitude and concept of morality, throwing around big bucks, which often goes without the slightest relation to the average local income. No wonder that the impression builds up that all tourists are rich and don’t care getting ripped off.
Departing Uzbekistan then was quite exciting. Let’s think back for a second: on entry I didn’t declare most of my cash and now I had to convince the customs officials that I lived from ten Dollars the last month. That didn’t sound very realistic to me, so I had made up the idea to give a reasonable amount and explain it with the story that I had some money withdrawn from a teller in Tashkent, but the machine would not have given me a receipt.
I had written off the money for the worst case, but was hoping that they would not search me and my stuff and find the rest. After I had filled in the form I queued for the counter, thinking of something nice to calm myself down a bit. Finally it was my turn. The customs official checked the forms and of course did he find the irregularities. I tried to explain, but he just mentioned something in Russian along with some gestures which I interpreted as: “fill in the same amount as stated on the other form.” Quite nervous, I went back to the desk, filled in another form and after he had checked it again, he filed the two sheets and allowed me to advance to obtain the exit-stamp. Fair enough, but I only made it half way yet, because my Tajik visa did not entitle me to enter the country before the next day. I still wanted to give it a try – I had to anyway, and I counted on the fact that border guards in such countries do not like it much to have foreign witnesses lingering around. The Tajik border post looked something like a mixture of a scrap yard and a bazaar.
Whereas in Uzbekistan there was a proper, official looking customs building, on the Tajik side, there were only some simple rusty military containers and shanties made from corrugated tin sheets. Although there were quite a few people around, I couldn’t make out any apparent hierarchy. I was standing there having a look around to find out where to address first, when a well-nurtured Tajik bloke with precisely trimmed moustache approached me and asked me to follow him. I liked his outfit immediately: he wore a camouflage suit with corresponding cap and a pair of shiny black slippers. Immediately the proverb “Always be careful with fat men in thin countries” came to my mind. I followed him into his box. In the corridor had been some Tajik women dressed in traditional outfit. When he passed them, each one of them gave him some cash. Once in his office, he had a seat and asked me if I had filled in a customs declaration form on the other side. I said yes, and made clear that I also wanted to fill in one here. He opened the drawer, took one out and, suddenly, asked for 5 Dollars – for the “Velociped”. I replied in German that I would not speak any Russian, and why I would need to pay for the bike. He started filling in, asking me for other valuables such as a camera, and mentioned the five Dollars again.
In the meantime a friend of his had entered the room. At least one could have assumed it by the way they greeted each other. How their relationship was really like became clear to me by their firm handshake and the customs official’s right hand vanishing in his pocket for getting out the stamp. After his “friend” had left, he asked me once more for five Dollars, presenting the entry stamp in his right hand. I told him that I would not have 5 Dollars, but only 2000Som (equivalent of 1,20Dollar) left. He accepted, probably assuming that they would be Kyrgyz Som which are of higher value. Then he stamped my passport and I was in. The same day I made it to Penzikent, where I stayed for the night at the Intourist Hotel. I had chosen this one for two reasons: first, because I liked Soviet baroque, and second, because this Hotel was the only one entitled to perform registrations, which would eventually come in handy. In contrast to its neighbours where compulsory registration is nowadays handled sloppier, it’s still handled rigidly in Tajikistan. Violating the registration could mean a nice extra income for the respective official, but at least some serious trouble which could be easily avoided, or at least the chance of having to pay a fine of up to 500 Dollars could be decreased significantly by being able to present just any kind of registration form. In any way, the official rules are that one has to register initially 3 days after entry latest, and if staying in a place with an OVIR office (the respective registration authority) for more than 3 days reregistering again every time.
The initial registration normally costs 25 Dollars with each additional registration usually being free, but no rule without exceptions. Apart from the OVIR all major hotels are entitled to perform registrations, but in some places this won’t be acknowledged due to reasons given above. Anyway, the cardinal problem was that additionally to the fair distance which I could easily make within two days on average terrain, I had to cross the Anzob Pass, which had an elevation of roughly 3800m and therefore would not make it to Dushanbe within three days and there wouldn’t be any other place in between where I could get the registration done. After arrival in Dushanbe, I checked into the Hotel Dushanbe, a left-over from the prime-age of Soviet Socialism for ten Dollars a night. All other options had either been more expensive or not available. My next task was to find Iqbals office to collect the GBAO permit, which I needed to travel the Pamir Highway. I had already checked arranged it several weeks ago, so once I had found his office, it surprisingly didn’t take long.
Dushanbe itself is a rather quiet place. Which doesn’t mean it would be boring – at least not to me. Cyclists, in contrast to people travelling by public transport, usually travel in between places, so a major place like Dushanbe is always an oasis of relaxation and culinary joys. A few days later and after I had let the hotel doing the registration for me because it was a good deal cheaper and less hassle, I hit the road. One of the greatest highlights on this trip was waiting for me and I had dreamed of cycling this part of the world since I first heard of and saw pictures of it several years ago.
I took the road via Obigarm and Komsomolabad to Kalaikhum, from where the road leads through a deep gorge with spectacular views to Chorog, mostly hugging the banks of the Pyanj River, the border stream with Afghanistan. Form Chorog the road climbs up to a plateau with an elevation of 3800-4000m, with the Ak-Baital Pass at 4655m as the highest point, passing the towns of Alichur and Murghab before, Karakul and the Karakul Lake after the pass.
2 more passes had to be mastered between Karakul and the Tajik border post with some gale force winds in the valley, when me and three other cyclists whom I had met before Karakul decided to pitch tents and call it a day already in the early afternoon.
After the Tajik border post the road dropped down into a wide valley towards the Kyrgyz border post and on to Sary-Tash with great views on Pik Lenin. The strain of high altitude cycling and the shortage of decent food made me ache to reach Kashgar. Perhaps to every cyclist who is cycling this part of the world Kashgar is something like the land of plenty. An oasis it indeed is and a bustling place with a variety of fresh and tasty food available as a break from the ole instant noodle diet. 3 days later I had made it and together with some fellow cyclists we enjoyed it for a couple of days doing nothing but eating 5 meals and several snacks of ice cream sundaes a day …
