An unplanned interruption

I'm writing from a miserable and wet London...and no my supersized thighs didn't propel me home in record time. I had a pain in my knee that I just couldn't fix and decided to fly home from NW China to see if I couldn't sort it out and get back on the trail in May.

I won't bore you with the details of my IT band dramas, suffice it to say physio hurt but I should be back on the road in a couple of weeks. The question is where...I'm not entirely sure and it depends on when I leave, but at the moment its looking like the eastern end of the silk road down through Turkey - will keep you posted.

PS thanks for all the birthday happinesses!

Separatist movements

Tibet is not the only region in China with separatist movements...and I suspect that this is the reason for heavily restricted internet in Xinjiang province. I can't get on blogspot here at the minute (am posting via the UK). Rest assured I will update ASAP.

In the meantime - the bus to Wulumuqi was hideous as expected, stinky feet all round and comedy bunk beds that were tiny (anyone over 6 foot would really be struggling). Toilet stops in the middle of the motorway in the dark - not so great. Herding camels on a motorbike which made me laugh out loud because it looked so ridiculous. All good craic...

The bus banter continues

So it goes something like this...on the last bus my bike had a run in with 14 sacks of...yup you guessed it....onions. My bike computer well and truly bit the dust or the tarmac or the onion skin - the sensor may be making friends with any of the afore mentioned as it sure wasn't in the bus. While not a major catastrophe in the scale of global catastrophes it is mighty annoying. Particularly since I am unsure where I will be able to get another one.

This, combined with silly distances between water stops around the desert, desert heat, a dodgy knee blah blah blah is seeing me killing time before what I suspect will be a truly horrific bus journey to Wulumuqi (Urumqi). It leaves at 6pm and gets in at 9 tomorrow - morning or evening I'm not entirely sure and didn't ask as I reckon some degree of ignorance may help in this particular expedition.

This means that the bike is once again being held captive in the dark dungeon under a bus. I said to the woman that they are not to put anything (onions or otherwise) on top of it....suspect this will go unheeded, but at least there are bike shops in Wulumuqi where I can get a new bike computer (fingers crossed) and anything else I might need. So much for no more hideous industrial cities...on the up side apparently Wulumuqi has a great museum...

Resuming the tourist trail in Dunhuang

I'm in Dunhuang, on the eastern edge of the Taklamakan desert. I got the bus here from Jiayuguan to avoid what is by all accounts a pretty shabby road. Those who have ridden it report variously a seal that looks like it hasn't seen any attention since the adventures of Marco Polo, gross amounts of dust and loose gravel thrown up by the passing trucks, and motorway expeditions - I for one have had my fill of motorways.

So to Dunhuang. An important stop on the Silk Road at the edge of the desert and popular with tourists - I have had my first conversation since leaving Lanzhou (I have some pity for those who are subjected to my banter starved stream of consciousness on such occasions...). Famed for caves...Buddhist caves...by the name of Mogao Grottoes.

There are in excess of 700 caves, all of which are manmade, carved out of the rock. About 500 of these have been painted, decorated and statued. In short they were incredible. Funded by rich people, presumably keen to ingratiate themselves by building a temple, they were all different, ranging from the small to the enormous (35m buddha, with a slightly unfortunate face reconstructed in the middle of the last century). Inside the caves was a veritable treasure chest of buddhist painting through the ages. The oldest cave I saw dated from about 1500 years ago, although there are some older ones that are closed to the public.

So next time you see a communist construction that looks fit to house nothing more than the desert's air conditioning system, be sure to take a closer look...

The Great Wall

Jiayuguan was the last stop in ancient China before travellers faced the vast expanse of the desert and the mountains beyond. It is no coincidence that this is where the last sections of the Great Wall can be found. I headed 9kms north out of town on the bike to get my first glimpse of the Wall (having been preoccupied with the great visa hunt in Beijing).

This section of the wall is known as the overhanging wall because of the steep hills it traverses. It is actually 2 sections (with 2 separate tickets required...). It was a steep ol' climb to the top, between that and the desert heat, you have to wonder what crime would befit the punishment of being sent out to the western end of the Great Wall.

The views out over the Gobi from the top of the northern section of the wall were awesome. For the first time I could see a clear demarcation between civilisation and the start of the desert.

Along the length of the wall there are watchtowers with the TINIEST little doorways and staircases.

While surveying the scene I stumbled upon this presumably left by one of the messengers or maybe conjured up by the winds of the Gobi?? Think this one's for you mum -

From the wall I headed back into town to the Jiayuguan fort. Built in 1372 this place was a maze of fortress walls, layer upon layer. The mix of big fortress walls with traditional Chinese architecture made for an interesting contrast.

Exiled Chinese are said to have been thrown out of the western gate of the fort to fend for themselves in the desert beyond...

Zhangye-Jiayuguan

It has been a solitary 262 kms since Zhangye. The landscape has been amazing. I have been riding a road that is sandwiched between the western reaches of the Gobi to my right

and the Qilian shan to my left.

This left me singing a warped version of Steelers Wheel's Stuck in the Middle for some time...anything to pass the time, on roads like this there's not much in the way of sights to take in.

Aside from being famed for being a corridor between two rather inhospitable landscapes (Hexi/Gansu corridor), this area appears to be the onion capital of China, if not the world...there were onions everywhere (removing some of the stench of the revolting revolting toilets), even the sheep were eating onions. I was a little surprised (but not all that upset) not to get any of this particular local delicacy in my noodles.

Other than that the only thing to break up the monotony of various shades of desert brown were these really bizarre little pink houses. Given that all the other buildings are mud/clay/brick constructions in the same old shade of desert brown I'm not sure what happened here. Maybe the local officianado got a job lot of candy shade pink cheap...

Along the way the towns were less frequent than has been the case to date, and often they were little more than villages with a pool table (they have a lot of outdoor pool tables here) and a shop. However, I have managed to find places to stay, just don't ask about the amenities and don't expect to be able to use ANY of the taps (Justine the hand sanitiser came into its own - thanks!) - why they have basins and taps if there is no running water is beyond me.

The joys of gaffa tape

I had a problem with my teeth (no I didn't fix it with gaffa tape). Which led me to several dentists and doctors in the hospital (apparently also called dentists, without the scary looking chair but only able to give out medicine). The short version is that I wasn't entirely convinced that I would escape tooth ache for the next 4 months so I kept attempting to get a second opinion which in and of itself was a mission.



In the space of about 3 days I was cooped up in the dentist's equivalent of a gold fish bowl with the local old people coming in to get a good look at me, the object of numerous photoshoots in local hospitals and then ended up entertaining a bunch of kids in the local English "school". I say "school" because they didn't appear to be learning very much.

How I ended up there is a long story, but as I was there I was roped in to entertain the children. Given that they couldn't really speak English and I don't really speak Mandarin (and what I do speak they struggle to understand up here) it was a slightly painful hour. Some of the kids were very sweet but it was all a bit bizarre - me fully lycraed/waterproofed up 80kms later standing at the front of the classroom being stared at by 50 little kids and listening to a comedy rendition ofhappy birthday.

The teachers were comedy. I couldn't really work it out. Apparently they all taught English, but only one of them spoke enough to be able to have a conversation with me. Anyway, this being CHina, the electronics capital of the world it wasn't long before the cameras came out. Again - 80kms later, no shower, no change of clothes, not so much aye, not so much. It was all a bit awkward, and ended with a photo call out the back....not just one, or two, but a full ten photos at least.

So the gaffa tape I hear you ask. Well, you may have noticed that I haven't mentioned the velo in all of this. It was locked up (with my stuff still on it) at the bottom of the 4 flights of stairs to the school. The guy on the ice cream stall was supposedly keeping an eye on it.

Well he clearly wasn't. By the time I got back to the bike one of the little cherubs pictured above was busy trying to unscrew my bike computer. I shouted, he ran. Luckily for me he wasn't the brightest of the bunch and didn't realise it just unclips (no screwdriver required). Not so luckily for me he ruined an already dodgy screw thread. Thankfully I have gaffa tape...and the bike computer looks a little limp, but still works (for now).

The sights of Zhangye

Today I have had my fix of sights. I started off this morning in search of the largest indoor reclining buddha in China. Thankfully I had the foresight to look up the CHinese name on the internet yesterday to aid me in my search (what did people do before the internet?). Explaining that it was 2 blocks away was clearly too much for the girls in the hotel and they suggested I take a cab for 3 kwai. They are not very keen on maps over here, it would have been a very simple map to draw - 2 blocks south, one block west....anyway I found it (on foot).

I was expecting to be thoroughly underwhelmed. The "biggest", "best", "most amazing" tags usually are over hyped. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. There were lots of smaller buildings with old and not so old buddhas in. This earth pagoda which was quite impressive

And an immense reclining buddha. I walked into the room which houses it and looked around wondering where they'd hidden it. Turns out I was staring at it...the room wasn't too big so you walk in staring at its belly. It was impressive despite being shrouded in scaffolding for renovation. Apparently Marco Polo himself saw this very same buddha on his travels.



I have also seen my first pigeons. Those of you who know me will know what an aversion I have to pigeons and how much they tend to like me (or more specifically pooing on me). So it was with some trepidation that I walked through a flock of pigeons and doves (which I decided are just as gross as pigeons) to reach this wooden pagoda. Since there are hardly any birds in the Chinese cities (a hangover from the 70s when people were given quotas to kill so as to make their cities "modern") the novelty clearly hadn't worn off and there were small children letting the birds crawl all over them....grim. Once the trauma of the birds had worn off I climbed the 110 steps to the top.

From the top you could almost see the mountains if you squint through the atmospheric haze (aka pollution - which incidentally is much better, but the locals are still wearing face masks and so am I). This is the view to the west.