3 days further, 3 nice days, and some tough parts too. 3 days ago was very nice, from Mosha to Shuitang. It started with 300m uphill, then down again, and then a 20km almost flat road to Jiasa. Cycling on a flat road, that was nice! There was even another road, more scenic, with some places worth visiting, but we still chose to go the easy way. We've had so much mountain cycling; in fact, since Vang Vieng in Laos well over a month ago, roughly every day has been mountainous cycling. So yes, 20km flat, felt like a treat! We arrived for lunch in Jiasa, a weird town. It seems almost entirely newly built, the road going into town had beautiful landscaping freshly done. The town is done in a Dai like style, and all the buildings are almost the same. But a lot of it looks empty, there are not that many people around compared to the amount of buildings. Big project, Chinese style, for the growth that is yet to come...?
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| Good morning! |
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| Just a random bridge... |
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| Coffee break with a view! |
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| Crossing the Red River, which flows into northern Vietnam before reaching the bay of Tonkin. |
From Jiasa it was another climb, and near the top we took a second, long and nice break. We knew our destination town was not far anymore at all, and it was such nice scenery and perfect weather that we'd rather still spend some time outside. We bought some delicious oranges - this was orange growing country - and had a one hour "picnic" before rolling into town. Shuitang, another weird town. The road leading into this small town is the main road; it's full of - again - newly built houses, all in the same style. At least half of the buildings are hotels, other than that there is almost nothing. At some point I thought it was maybe because a lot of buildings had been destroyed by an earthquake some years ago, but while I did find several earthquakes in Yunnan province over the years, none were in this area. A funny side story about Shuitang too. The route we're following is very similar to that of Andy and Claire, whose blog Pedalling West I referred to before - which has become a very useful source of information for us. We have also been in touch for a couple of questions. Well, when we checked in to our hotel in Shuitang - one of the many hotels in that street - they looked frantically for a notebook. Once they finally found the right one, they opened the first page, and on that page where Andy and Claire's passport and visa details. It was the notebook they use to register the foreigners. What a coincidence! Also, it means that since April last year, we were the first foreigners to stay in that place... Not so surprising, still fascinating.
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| View from the picnic towards Shuitang, where we stayed for the night |
We left Shuitang early, as we knew we had a long and tough day ahead, all the way to Shuangbai, the next possible place to stop. Once we had zoomed down the hill, we were stopped at a roadblock however. There were some works ongoing to reshape the mountain side, for a dam construction on the Red River. More than an hour and a half... Oh yes, we used the time for our coffee break, but as it was going to be a long and tough day, this was bad timing for such a delay. Nothing to do about it, and once the roadblock cleared we made good progress for almost 40km. The road was relatively flat for a while, then more undulating but still good to make some speed. It was also spectacular scenery - again. After around 45km of cycling we had lunch, and from that place onwards the road started to climb, relentlessly, without interruption, for more than 40km, to gain 1500m elevation. First still very gently, and getting steeper and steeper as we progressed. Never too steep though, but getting more and more tired it became tougher and tougher. We first had 20km of great, new road. And then... it became torturous... road construction... gravel, sand, stones, dust, trucks, name it. For 10km it was an absolute nightmare, then it became a bit better, the road surface was a little bit more rideable and there were a bit less trucks, nevertheless it made the entire climb much harder - especially Ellen suffered from it. After a false peak, we finally came to the top by 6pm, we then still needed to do 12km of which the last 5-ish km uphill again. By 7pm we arrived in Shuangbai, with 102km covered and probably almost 2000m climbed all together, tired but happy, and checked in in a nice hotel (Xintai) for the night. What a day!!!
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| Making the most of the lost time at the road block, enjoying coffee in our comfy chairs |
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| We now cycle along the Luzhi River, in a wonderful valley with no traffic at all |
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| Another part of the valley |
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| An arid landscape |
A tough day, but also a very nice day. It was extremely beautiful. We had the road almost entirely to ourselves - except for the part with all the trucks - and were riding through incredible valleys. The landscape was quite different again, semi arid in some parts. There were almost no villages, little farming, just mountains and forest. It's hard to believe, in our entire trip so far, we have had by far the most nature and impressive scenery during our weeks here in China; jungle, pine forests, bamboo, etc etc. We have been riding mostly on good and quiet roads with very little traffic. I definitely didn't expect that from China!!!
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| The pleasure and fun of riding through road construction sections |
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| A farmhouse on the way up |
It was also a nice day, because we met so many nice and friendly people. Lots of people gave us a smile, a thumbs up, shouting "chaiyo" (which means something like "fighting", to encourage us), but it was more than that. Not long after the road block, a pickup truck stopped and the driver waved at us. He then showed a pack of cans, I though it was ice tea (or beer???). I went up to him, and just like that he gave us 2 cans of Red Bull! He probably knew very well what was still coming up for us... Then, on our way up, a young woman in the back of a car waved at us, wished us luck. When we got to the top of the climb, that same car was parked there, and the woman immediately jumped out and gave us 2 bottles of water. Later on, they passed us again, and she shouted "chaiyo". And lastly, we went for dinner in Shuangbai and had some noodle soup. When we asked for the bill, they refused to let us pay. It was free, on the house!!! Incredible, what a beautiful day, so many nice people!
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| Riding uphill (of course) through pine forest |
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| Thanks to the slow travel by bicycle you get to see this kind of charming authentic villages |
I mentioned already a couple of times that people are so helpful, and really get things done. The communication barrier remains a challenge, and it's such a pity because it would be great if we could chat with these people. In the last few days, less people seem to have a translation app on their phone. As they can not explain things, several times they started to write things down, in Chinese!, hoping we would be able to understand the written language at least!!!
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| Our hotel in the "ancient" Yi city, the Jinglanmingzhu hotel |
There's still 1 day left to cover, today from Shuangbai to Chuxiong. Yesterday evening, as it had been such a tough ride, we left it open whether we would take a rest day today or not. We got up a bit later this morning, had a long lazy breakfast, and only then made up our mind to leave and cycle to Chuxiong. It was a relatively easy day cycling, with maybe "only" a total of 500m climb, and 66km or so - not too hard for our sore legs... Part of the day we cycled through pine forests, it almost looked more like the Provence than China! Chuxiong has an "old" town, which was our destination, and where we looked for a hotel. It's called ancient town, but it seems most of it is actually newly built. Well, it's nicely done, it clearly attracts a lot of people, and it's all centred around the Yi culture. Nice for a few hours, tomorrow we're on our way again however!
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| The ancient city |
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| A "traditional" Yi woman in the ancient city |
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| Still, quite nicely done, pleasant for an evening stroll |