Did I say before already that we have had some fantastic cycling in China? Yes? Well, I'll say it again: absolutely fantastic! Today was another such day, going from one WOW moment to the next, constantly stopping to admire the landscape and shoot pictures. The mountains get bigger, the terraced fields more impressive, the valleys deeper and steeper, the scenery increasingly astonishing. Really, from WOW to WOW again (and also a lot of AMAI, but only our Flemish friends will understand)!
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| View from our room in Mojiang, morning market |
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| Almost every town in China has some bakeries, although they don't sell the kind of bread we know. It's mostly sweet bread and pastry, soft and fluffy. They do have some bread however, and in this bakery in Mojiang (Joy Bakery) we found delicious sugar loaf bread (suikerbrood) |
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| Mojiang town, a typical street view |
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| The Tropic of Cancer mark, and yes, it rained. Again! |
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| After rain comes sunshine; today, we had a wonderful sunshiny day on the road |
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| The delicious spicy Sichuan hotpot I mentioned in yesterday's post, second round... |
The statistics paragraph then. It was again no walk in the park today. 50km gradual up, although the first 25km was constantly up and down, so after 25km we had been climbing a lot (I estimate at least 500m, probably more) but only gained 200m net. Then we climbed another 500m in the next 25km, very feasible yet a long climb obviously, to an altitude of just over 2000m. From there it was fun all the way down, almost 40km descent, losing about 1500m altitude. Yes, we'll need to climb these again at some point in the future, we're trying not to think about that yet... All together another day of 88km and at least 1000m climbing.
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| Rice paddies ready to be planted |
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| Wind turbines on top of the hill, there were many. China has invested a lot into renewable energy. |
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| The rice paddies became more and more impressive, sometimes on impossibly steep slopes |
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| And more... |
We're now in a very small town called Mosha. A lot of the buildings here are relatively new, it must be a town that has just boomed over the past few years. Almost all buildings are painted pink, very strange. Our hotel here (Hong Sheng Hotel, seems quite new) is an incredible surprise, probably the best we've had in China so far. The room is mimicking a Sheraton room, with logos on the sheets and pillows included. It has a soft bed (YEY!!), and a big modern western bathroom. And all that for the enormous price of... 10EUR!
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| A typical lunch on the way, here we are nearly at 2000m altitude |
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| And this is the type of fridge in which to point to what you'd like to eat |
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| We thought this was the mountain pass after almost 50km of climbing, but it was still a few gentle km further up |
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| The other side, looking back to where we came from, going down now! |
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| Our bicycles, safely parked behind the hotel reception |
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| The Sheraton euhm Hong Sheng Hotel |