We didn't get up early today, as it was going to be a relatively short ride. We couldn't have planned this better! It rained during the night, and it was still raining on and off this morning. Thanks to our late start, we missed the morning rain, it was dry by the time we left! Because of the rain, it was a quite cold morning though, but luckily we would be climbing soon, good to warm up. Pu'er is not a very big city, yet it took us a while to get on the G213. Not because of distance, but we simply couldn't find it! At the very place where we were supposed to rejoin the road, there was a giant construction site, and no sign of the G213! Weird...
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| A massive construction site, it looks like an ancient-style town is being built, it will definitely become a tourist town! |
So we rode a bit further along the road we were on, to find some small roads reconnecting (hopefully) to our road. We did find the connection - first we thought we had to drag the bikes up some stairs but then found a way around that - and were so happy to get there that we promptly forgot this was still a connection road to the G213 - the consequence being that we turned in the wrong direction. After a little while, not more than a km or so, I realised my mistake, we turned around, and after about 10km and 1h on the road, we were finally properly on our way.
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| Still the tourist village, here a cable car under construction, you can also see the pillars on the mountain in the distance and the cabins readily waiting at the building |
We started climbing, for about 10km, gaining around 500m again to get to 1800m asl or so, and then found a great spot on the way down with jungle view for our coffee break. It started with some weak sunshine, but after a while it was getting clearly colder, we decided to pack up, and by the time we left it started to rain again. This is the first rain we have had since south Thailand about 2 months ago, and downhill cycling with rain at around 15C is much colder than cycling in the tropical rain, brrrrr, even with several layers of clothes and rain jackets. Well, it was still a nice long downhill, there was later on also some more uphill again of course, but all in all a fine day with 54km and 700?m climb. Lots of forest again, and still beautiful tea plantations everywhere too.
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| More tea |
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| Other than the (lack of) traffic, this picture sums up the day: cloudy sky, wet road, tea, hills |
Once we were almost entirely down the hill, we stumbled upon a little tourist village, a renovated (we think) old tea village which was on the tea horse trek. Nicely done, and a great place for lunch. There was a lot of traffic on our route today, especially in the opposite direction it was very busy, no idea why. It was definitely not as nice as the previous days at all, there were a lot of trucks, it was busy, noisy, smoky sometimes, chaotic. The traffic from behind was not a problem, these drivers would take care. But there were many mad drivers from the opposite direction who could not wait to overtake, and just went for it, meaning we had to be really careful to ride at the edge of the road - and not too far, because there was a 1m deep drain most of the time... So far it had been great cycling in China, today was much less. Hopefully it'll be better again from here.
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| Lunch in a traditional farmhouse style restaurant (is how they present it), no idea if the house is partially really old or not |
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| The tea horse trek village, definitely a bit artificial but still very nicely done; it certainly makes you feel in old rural China! |
We stopped in Ning'er and are in a very comfy hotel now, the Pu'er Tea Home Town Hotel (what a name!). Our bathroom today is big enough to sleep in, quite a contrast to yesterday! It's even a room with breakfast included, I think this is the first time since we are on the road. I guess it'll be a Chinese breakfast, which will definitely be fine. Usually we have our own breakfast which we take with us, some bread, spreads, honey, yoghurt, muesli. Other than that we are fully into local food wherever we go and loving it, but the breakfast is still nice to have more western style - plus it's practical to eat before leaving on the bicycle...
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| The hotel interior! Yes, it's a nice hotel, and yes, we're in China! |