It was a very crisp morning in Yongren. When we left, we were wondering if we even needed our down jackets. However, we knew we would be climbing soon, and that would get us warm quick enough. We actually started climbing after about 100m already, and with the pleasant morning sun it didn't take long for us to warm up a little. The climb was quite steep even to start with, although it soon became more gentle. This was the pattern for about 20km; gentle climbs, some slightly steeper parts and a few flat or slightly downhill stretches. It brought us to above 2000m again, a good 600m higher than where we started, over a very beautiful route.
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About 6km out of Yongren we cycled through this nicely decorated gate, in the middle of nowhere, no idea what it meant.
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| Pleasant and beautiful uphill cycling; mostly pine and eucalyptus trees in this area. |
When we reached the top of the climb, there was a nice parking area, with benches, some statues, toilet, really pleasant rest area - and we were there all by ourselves. The ideal place, as you could guess, for a coffee break! This rest area was actually on the border between Yunnan and Sichuan province; from now on, we're cycling in Sichuan! Just to give you an idea: both provinces are larger than Malaysia (entire country, including Borneo), and up to 15 times as big as Belgium...
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| The pleasant rest area |
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| Pine forest at the rest area |
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| At the rest area still; the weather was absolutely beautiful, with a perfect blue sky and very good visibility - about the best we've had so far I think |
From that place high up, it was a long and super nice descent into Panzhihua more than 1 vertical km lower, 70km in total, mostly gently down with a few short ups. After a few km, we came to another small parking spot, for a viewpoint over the mountains and the Yangtze River in the valley below. This was one of the most fantastic moments of the trip so far, it was incredible to stand there, realise that we had cycled all the way to that place, the view was so overwhelming, and it was the Yangtze River down there!!! The Yangtze River! Goose bumps, cheers of happiness! This was definitely the kind of moment we do it all for!
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| Into Sichuan from here onwards! |
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| Goose bumps moment! |
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| All the while, before and after the goose bumps moment, the road was lined with cherry orchards; we're too early for the cherries unfortunately but it's also nice to enjoy the blossoms! |
After that moment (I guess I could call this euforic again 😎) we rolled down, still on cloud 9, enjoying the easy ride and the wonderful landscapes. For about 40km it was really great, with a few short stretches of roadworks - which we could always bypass on our bicycles. Cars and trucks were often stuck for a while, so it meant we had very little traffic (there was little traffic on that road anyway). After 40km it became a bit less interesting, and then the last 20km into Panzhihua were not the nicest kms. As usual, coming into a bigger city, it's less nice cycling, but here in particular it was very bicycle-unfriendly. No shoulders to ride on, some roads on which bicycles were even forbidden, not as we knew if from all other Chinese towns where there are usually cycling lanes. Luckily we could go quite fast and there was little traffic, and also luckily for once we knew which hotel we were heading to, so all in all it was not too bad.
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| We passed more solar farms on our way up, and then once we were at the top, saw this enormous wind farm - what you see here is only part of it. |
The first impression of Panzhihua was not so good, but once we got here and walked around a little, it became much better. It has a nice central area, with lots of shops and restaurants, wide sidewalks, trees, even some traffic free streets; we liked it much more than at first view, and therefore stuck to our intention to stay for a day. Then today, on our rest day, we had a great experience. We made coffee this morning, finishing our pack. We opened our next one - so called 100% Yunnan Arabica coffee - only to find out it was 3-in-1 instant coffee. Yikes! This meant, instantly, that we were out of coffee! This can not happen!
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| Roadworks on the way down; these guys waved to let us through, narrow but just enough to pass through with our loaded bikes. |
So we had a mission: buy new coffee. Now, that might sound easy, it's not in this region in China - as we had already seen over the past 3 weeks. We went to several supermarkets, here and in other places before, only to find out they have only instant coffee. So we started to look for coffee shops, where we could possibly buy coffee. In the first place we entered, a customer who spoke a little English, asked if she could help us. We explained, she thought about it, said she didn't know any place, made some calls, checked out a place with us without result, called some more, took her time - even if we told her it was ok, no need to put so much effort into it - and eventually brought us to a place (less than 200m away from our hotel!!!!) where we were able to YES buy some fresh ground coffee. It was so lovely, friendly, she did this just to help us, so heartwarming! That is a great example of how beautiful China can be!
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| I believe this is the view from cloud 9? |
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| With the fantastic woman who helped us find coffee. |
The rest of the day was very relaxed, we walked around a lot, went to the park, to a few more shops, just enjoyed being in a city with lots of things to do and enjoy... We even found a place (yesterday evening already) with a decent choice of Belgian beer at affordable prices. Impossible to resist! Just 1 though (Rochefort yesterday, Chimay today, ahhhh), tomorrow it's bicycle time again!