Kellen Smetana
Before starting this trip, I had read about people breaking the 200 km mark in a single day, but I thought it was just the stuff of legends and fables.  I figured we would maybe hit 160 km (100 mi) once or twice, but I wasn’t sure if we would ever cross 200.  Our longest day for the entire first month was only about 130.  Then, we hit 202.

We left Jiayuguan after a lazy breakfast and were riding by 10am, fearing headwinds.  All of a sudden, whoosh – tailwinds.  And by tailwinds I mean Hurricane Andrew force tailwinds.  At our first break, Ben and I turned to each other and both said, “Eat as quickly as you can, we’re riding ‘til the cows come home today…”

By 8pm we had hit 181.  I told Ben we had to go for it, we had to break 200.  He was on board.  We rode through 200 and immediately found the next ridge to camp behind as the endless west swallowed up the sun.  No photos, no celebratory libations, just a quick fist pump and a big smile.  And you can imagine how fun setting up camp was in these conditions.  We worked in pairs on each tent and even then I had a half-inch layer of sand to sleep on when we were done.

The next morning we woke up to Hurricane Brenda (again tailwinds… I probably would’ve cried had they been headwinds) and were on pace to break 300 until we hit the construction.  The only highway was turned into a lovely gravel pit for 130 kilometers.  And still we managed 160 kilometers on the day dodging trucks.

Trucks, trucks, and more trucks.  Did I mention we passed a couple trucks en route?  The exhaust and accompanying dust were almost as good for my lungs as an aroma therapy session at a day spa.  And of course, they know that when passing other trucks, giving oncoming cyclists three inches on the shoulder is plenty of room to ride in.  The one good thing, though, was that a couple colorful, fully-loaded cyclists must have been quite the break from the monotony of the gravel, desert, and truck caravan.  We got so many honks, cheers, and waves that we had a contest with ourselves to come up with the most creative response.  This led to frequent pointing, saluting, bowing, and laughing; I even threw out a couple rock-n-roll-tongue-and-hands, blew a couple kisses to the women, and thought about a Sammy Sosa home-run celebration.  Not quite sure who won, Ben’s bows were pretty classic.

We continue to dart across the desert at a torrid pace, soaking up the tailwinds as they come and bearing the headwinds otherwise.  As for camping, we’ve even managed some clever solutions there.

Ben broke three spokes en route to Hami, but fortunately we were able to get them fixed here as we refreshed on melon after melon in this oasis town.  We’re halfway to Urumqi, our next major destination, and look to have some pretty slick tan lines on arrival.  Oh, and we’ll take Hurricane Carlos tailwinds if we can get them.

Kellen Smetana
From Zhangye, we have picked up the G312 and will be following this for the next 2,000 kilometers as we traverse the northern Silk Road route out of China.  It’s one of the only paths west out of China and pretty much every person cycling here takes it eventually; we have actually already passed a couple Chinese cyclists in the last few days.  Lucky for them, they were heading the opposite direction.

Many people originally suggested I head west to east and I brushed their insight aside.  Now we are feeling the repercussions in the form of massive headwinds.  At some points it slows us to below 5 miles per hour, and we have resorted to serving sixty minute shifts as a wind-shield up front.  Very draining.  Unfortunately, the terrain has opened into completely barren desert and it looks like we will have to battle these winds until we exit China (see distance above).

When faced with such obstacles, you find yourself constantly scheming up clever solutions.  The best we’ve found so far has been to use hay trucks.  I saw one pass at a much slower speed than most traffic, yelled to Ben, and immediately bolted to catch its slipstream.  It worked: I tripled my speed for the next hour and a half; I just had to put up with a little stray hay in the face.  Now I’m just hoping that people in western China need a LOT of hay from the east very soon.

We took a rest day in Jiayuguan, often considered the end of old imperial China.  It marks both the western end of the Great Wall and the site of the Jiayuguan Fort guarding the Hexi Corridor, a narrow valley between two mountain ranges that opens up into eastern China.  China obviously now controls much more territory west, but hundreds of years ago this area was left to the barbarian armies of Central Asia, kept at bay by the mass of the wall and the mountains between.

We paid a visit to both these sites and I’m happy to report my Michigan driver’s license is still passing for a valid Student ID (bad news for Ben: his paper Hostelling International card didn’t work this time…).  In points the two sites seemed a little fake as they were completely restored in the mid-1980s, but all-in-all they were well-worth the visit.  It’s pretty cool to be here and imagine how awe-inspiring and daunting they must have been back in the day to the invading Mongol hoards.

There was an excellent Great Wall museum where we learned about the system of fire signals that allowed guards to transmit messages 500 km in a matter of hours (try those speeds in headwinds) and also that at one point during the Ming Dynasty China employed nearly a million people guarding its borders.  A million people – 500 years ago!  The entire population of North America at that point was just over 50 million – fascinating stuff.  And from these sites you can also see that the town does mark a last bastion of green opening to the Gobi Desert to the north and Taklamakan Desert to the west.  Note to self: take plenty of water in the weeks ahead.

For the time being, our celebrity status seems to be continuing strong.  In Jiayuguan, we stopped to ask a kid for directions.  He was so nice and excited to see us that, against our best pleas, he immediately went into the store to buy us some bags of milk and muffins.  Awfully nice of him; we thanked him thoroughly and snapped a photo.  The next day at the fort, it happened to be China’s National Tourism Day.  I’m pretty sure someone was taking photos to show the turnout, and they consequently quickly eyed a couple token Westerners (us) to corral for the epic shot below.

And finally, not to be left out of this post, eight police officers showed up at our hotel to make a copy of my passport.  Three women, five men, one copy.  They were very nice and we were allowed to stay – whew!

Kellen Smetana
As you saw from the last post, our route through northern Sichuan province was closed due to Tibetan unrest and we were forced to take other means of transportation around the region.  As you also saw from the last post, we were both absolutely derailed for about a week with foodborne stomach issues.  I will leave it to your imagination to picture how pleasant an eight hour bus ride and a twenty-five hour train ride are with a tummy that feels a bit like a blender.

I do want to recount one short story from the train, however, that shows pretty well the complete lack of patience in China.  Early morning, I was next in line to use the bathroom.  The two men waiting behind me conferred, and decided that the woman currently in the bathroom was taking too long.  So, they took turns kicking the door until she exited a minute later.  She walked out like nothing had happened.  “No pressure,” I gulped to myself as I entered.

Rested and somewhat recovered in Xining, our new launching pad to head west (and probably another city of over 2 million people you’ve never heard of), we were ready to get back in the saddle.  Fifteen minutes into the ride, it finally happened: one of us was hit by a car.  Fortunately, it was nothing serious by any means.  We were navigating a row of parked cars when all of a sudden a man opened the backdoor of one of the taxis and laid a Vladimir Konstantinov-like hip check on Ben, who, bike-and-all, slowly fell into the hood of the SUV parked next to the taxi.  Everyone got out to assess the damage but seemed to be more amused at the scowling Ben than the newly imprinted dents on their vehicles.  After all, it’s not every day you get close encounters of the traveling cyclist kind.  And it’s a good thing Ben didn’t look back, as I had to admit later I was stopped behind the cars laughing hysterically at the comedy of the whole scene.

If you remember, I lamented the fact that we missed out on snow-capped peaks in northern Sichuan… well, ask and ye shall receive.  From Xining, we went UP.  After a day of climbing, we woke up to a cold misty rain and started to attack the first of three mountain passes through the Qilian Shan range.  By mid-morning, the rain had turned to snow!  We passed herds of wild yaks and the riding was beautiful.

Then we kept going up.  The light snow turned into a full on blizzard, and the temperature dropped below freezing.  When I had longed for snow-capped peaks, I didn’t necessarily want to be in them.  But still we went up.

Four hours later and long after losing feeling in our fingers, we reached the top of the pass: 3,793 meters!  (12,444 feet – that’s high!  For reference, Denver, CO is at 5,130 feet).

We both cheered half-heartedly because we knew we had the worst part still ahead of us – the descent.  Next time you’re driving your car through a snowstorm, picture yourself steering from the roof; that’s a bit what cycling downhill through a blizzard feels like.  Winding wet roads, white-out conditions, freezing temperatures, 30km of holding the brakes, and a whole lot of wondering why you still want to bike across Asia.  For the next hour, I took turns holding the brakes and flailing my arms about trying to get blood back to my fingers.

Finally a town on the horizon!  I had already made up my mind I was going to warm up in the first building no matter what.  I set my bike against the wall, flew open the door, and pointed to the central coal furnace.  Because I looked like I had just completed an army of snow-angels face-down, the two men knew exactly what I needed; they brought up a chair right next to the fire.  A minute later I waived in Ben and we spent the next 45 minutes there defrosting.  “Next time,” he said, “let’s head for the mountains in late summer.”  I agreed; and quickly, we also realized the building we had entered was another police checkpoint!  Luckily, this one was for trucks and not foreigners, and the guards were more than helpful, even taking a photo of us two sorry cyclists.

As it was already mid-afternoon, we felt that we had taken enough of a beating for the day, and we ought to eat and find a hotel in town.  Of course, in China nothing is that simple.  After a nice meal, our English-speaking hostess offered to take us to the nearest hotel.  One hotel, two hotels, three hotels – no rooms.  On the third, I finally said to her, “no, that’s not right… these hotels have rooms.”  “Yes,” she said, “they are afraid the police will see you.  You’re not allowed to stay here in Qingshizui; you must go to the tourist hotel in Menyuan.”  Menyuan was a town 40km out of our way, and as you learn traveling through China, foreigners are often blocked from staying in the cheapest hotels like those in this particular town.  “That’s ridiculous,” I exclaimed, “we’ll go talk to the police directly and ask if we can stay here!”  (See the last post for reference on how well our debates with police normally go over).

We marched on to the police station, a small crowd in tow.  I spent twenty minutes pleading with them that we were tired, they had a pretty town (they had told me it wasn’t nice enough for us), Menyuan was out of our way, and explaining to them the general absurdity of the fact that we are barred from hotels where even the room descriptions are in English.  Finally, I threw up my hands, put on a big smile, and said, “Ok, we stay in Menyuan.”  We thoroughly thanked our restaurant translator and walked out the door.  As we descended the front steps, I turned to Ben: “Are you thinking what I’m thinking…?”  “Yep,” he responded, “looks like we’re camping again tonight.”  If you can’t beat the bureaucracy, go around it.

We left Qingshizui, turned away from Menyuan, rode six kilometers up the road to a small village and found a nice sheltered abandoned building in which to set up shop.  A few farmers saw us setting up, and when we finally explained to them what we were doing, one returned with a broom to help us clean out the room and another returned to invite us in for tea and bread.  (I even tried to give one of the kids a tour of our tents but he quickly started crying – I never knew I was so scary!)  So there you have it: Chinese bureaucracy be what it is, when you peel back the layers you’ll find that the people here are still downright nice (if a little impatient… see above).

The next morning, as we were packing up, Ben, who had been up to the bathroom earlier, said, “You haven’t seen it out there yet, have you…”  Stepping out, I realized the clouds had cleared and we had finally reached the payoff.  We found ourselves in a high glacial plain surrounded by a cauldron of 4, 5, and even almost 6,000 meter peaks on every horizon.  Yes!

The next two days were filled with amazing riding: more yaks and sheep, golden pastures, and so few cars that we were able to ride side-by-side and hold conversation for most of the day.  We did climb two more passes the next two days, slightly lower than the height of the first and much warmer.

And on the fourth day we left the mountains with a long downhill into Zhangye.  From here we will turn even further west and pick up the old Silk Road as we brace ourselves for the long trek out of China.  Much more desert, and much more wind to come.

Kellen Smetana
China has issues.  BIG issues with you-know-what-province.  If you ever look into traveling to Tibet, a five-minute internet search would confirm that you cannot visit the province without the 24-hour accompaniment of a government-sanctioned guide.  What you will not find on the internet are many travel details about the vast Tibetan region that pours over into Sichuan, Qinghai, and Gansu provinces, and it appears that these bordering regions are often the setting for some of the most heated conflict.

Almost two months ago a Tibetan monk from the Kirti Monastery in northern Sichuan killed himself through self-immolation to protest China’s policies toward Tibet (story here).  The Chinese government responded by sending military forces to the entire region to (forcefully) calm any potential unrest and pre-empt any further monastic headlines by immediately imprisoning hundreds of monks in the region (more details here).  In Songpan – itself a very Tibetan town just south of area in question – we heard reports coming from the north of dozens of monks being rounded up by the military.  I’ve read other travel logs that joke about the fact that it’s easy to distinguish Tibetan territory simply by the number of police on the streets: a fact I now fully comprehend.  Songpan’s main road was like a Fourth of July parade.  And the few foreigners we met who had made it south through the region told stories of being awakened at their hotel and told, "the weather will not be nice, [they] should head for greener land.”  Wow.  Despite what you may read in the Business section, modernity has not yet arrived for this country.  Or maybe they’ve leaped ahead and this is the George Orwellian post-modern state.  Either way, it’s scary.

So for us, our time in Songpan felt a bit like being stranded on death row.  We had heard the area north from Songpan to just south of Xining was closed to foreigners because of the recent events and had already worked out our backup plan before heading out to the first police checkpoint.  Stubborn as we both are, we thought our good looks, feigned ignorance, and a little use of the force may get us through.  Thirty kilometers north of Songpan there it was: sandbag rows across the road and militia in plastic chairs.  “Ok, remember, we just want to go to Lanzhou.”  We had conveniently selected the largest non-Tibetan city north of the mess.  “Play dumb, be persistent, and whatever you do, don’t stop smiling.”

Immediately as we rolled up, everyone stood up hands waiving.  Young guys, I decided to have a little fun with the situation.  “Whohoaa! WHAT is the issue?” I said with a big smile.  More hands.  “No, no!  Go back.”  (You know it’s a bad start when they don’t even request your passport).  We spent the first half-hour passing back and forth a cellphone translating our humorously ignorant inquiries and their universally negative responses.  Chinese cars and trucks pulled up every minute, each one accordingly validated and let through.  “So it’s dangerous for us… but not for them.  Surely if we get in the car with one of them we will be safe then” (mostly communicated through hand gestures).  “No, no, no.”  We laid out our Chinese maps and drew up numerous work-arounds for them; each one must have struck through an even more questionable area as these were met with big laughs and more rigorous head-shakes.  Four guards soon multiplied to nine, and they kindly brought in an English-speaker to dispel us.

As luck would have it, a bus with some of the Westerners leaving the region passed while we had our maps laid out.  I saw them coming, and so I stood like Vanna White with my open-palm following the bus as it slowly crept out around the blockades.  “Now they’ve got some explaining to do,” I thought.  Well not really, but it was fun to imagine us in a fair argument.  This incident led them to explain to us the logic: “Chuanzhusi to Langmusi… dangerous.  Langmusi to Chuanzhusi… not dangerous.”  “Oh!  No problem!” I said, “we’ll just do the Langmusi to Chuanzhusi route in reverse.”  Needless to say, the humor was lost in translation.  Maps, cellphones, smiles, charm; everything to no avail.  Ben and I both even scoured the hillsides for old truck routes, thinking if we just made it past this checkpoint we would be home-free (conveniently ignoring the fact there was probably another checkpoint 20 kilometers later).

By this point we had switched our goal to simply trying to get someone to truly admit why we weren’t being allowed to pass.  They don’t want any reports of what is going on in the area to get out to the foreign press.  Two hours later as the arguments waned, the translator hit us with the dagger, “it is my country,” she said, “please you must just respect our laws.”  Ouch.  It felt similar to when your parents tell you they’re disappointed; there’s just nothing against that.  No matter how backward the rules may seem, she was right.  It’s their world, and we’re just passing through.  So it was on to plan B: the long retreat to Chengdu followed by a couple thousand kilometer train loop around “the dead zone.”

Our one minor victory in the ordeal, at the risk of losing my camera, I did manage to sneak back and snap a photo of the checkpoint.  Just picture Jason Bourne in tight cycling shorts.

Back in Songpan later that day, I had a very candid conversation with Sarah, an English-speaking restaurateur.  I joked about our experiences up the road and asked her opinion in the matter.  As with 95% of the population, Sarah is Han Chinese, and she immediately expressed her resentment towards Tibetans.  She decried the fact that her country gives them new schools, big parcels of land, and livestock.  And the kicker, as a minority ethnicity they are allowed to have four kids, to her one.  With all these perks, it just goes to show you that the only thing that matters sometimes is freedom.

Per usual, we drowned any hint of disappointment we had with copious amounts of food.  Sarah’s husband cooked us up a deliciously spicy “special Sichuan hotpot” for dinner.  Tasty as it was, it was certainly special as I think it will soon be competing against the South Beach Diet.  I lost five pounds in one night (Days Booting: Kellen – 1… to be fair, Ben already has 2).  Chalk that one up to part of the experience.

In spite of our two misadventures, our three day stint in Songpan was excellent.  During the few days we had excellent hosts like Sarah and her husband who continue to build our Mandarin vocabulary.  Songpan itself is a lovely medieval walled mountain city set high on a grassy plain amid mountainous terrain.  On our official “rest day,” we hiked around Jiuzhaigou National Park and captured loads and loads of beautiful photos soon to be posted.  And though we don’t get the immediate payoff of our climbing of open mountain-circled grasslands and tiny Tibetan villages (as they are on lockdown), we will still hit some more mountains as we head west from Xining in a few days.

Kellen Smetana
When I used the word “Mountain” in earlier posts, just replace with “mountain” (lower case) or “really big hills.”  With a fully loaded bicycle you can almost forget what real mountains are until you’re back in them.  And we are now.

China can basically be divided into three broad regions: the arid basin and desert of Xinjiang province in the northwest (plenty of that to come…); the Tibetan / Qinghai plateau of the southwest which includes the Himalayas; and the fertile plains / river basins of the east fed by water from the mountains.  In the past week, we left these basins for the last time and have ascended into the plateau.

After a couple flat bland days buzzing across the intensely populated Sichuan Basin, we were both really looking forward to the jolt of the earth’s crust rising on the horizon – much like you experience driving west into the Rockies.  The jolt was there; the mountains did appear, but they weren’t what we expected.  We had to put up with a couple more gray days climbing along the silt-ridden Min Jiang River until we finally got into The Mountains.  It was rather dramatic still; we came out of one of the countless mile-long tunnels (definitely worthy of their own later post) to snow-capped peaks.  Yes!  We have arrived.

Fortunately, the gray days of climbing weren’t without sights.  Actually, we quickly discovered why the entire valley was so gray: landslides.  Landslides caused by the massive earthquake that shook this region back in May 2008.  It’s pretty hard to miss, as China has made sure to label every rock that fell during the quake (“5.12” for May 12) and primed the entire region for tourism.  It was also an interesting mental exercise for me as I remembered reading news articles about the earthquake back when it happened and in my mind I had placed this industrial central-China river valley somewhere miles beyond the ends of the earth.  Let’s just say it wasn’t a place I envisioned myself exactly three years later; strange things sometimes happen.

And lest I forget we are one month into the trip and there is a fundraising contest at hand (if you are unfamiliar with the details, visit the Sponsor page).  April’s winner is: The Denton Family – Jim, Laura, Steve, and Jeff.  Expect an email shortly.  (And to everyone, it was done fairly with an Excel random number generator if you’re interested).  As you saw from the food post, we have a difficult enough time ordering food, so it may be tough to cook something up right away.  But don’t worry, we will eventually put our chef hats on and make sure to document on video.

For now though, we have thus far reached an altitude of 2,800 meters (that’s 9,186 feet for those of you still stuck on the old system) in the northern Sichuan town of Songpan and have much more to climb as we head further north and west.  Word on the street is heavy snow and potential problematic run-ins with military checkpoints in the next week.  Stay tuned.

Kellen Smetana
We took a rest day in Leshan (Lughhh-shan, practice with me) so Ben could renew his visa and we could pay a visit to Dafo, the tallest Buddha in the world.  The Grand Buddha was carved out of a rock face between the Dadu and Min Rivers to protect local fisherman and it was quite a sight; like Mount Rushmore, only 1214 years older.  We’re hoping he’ll bring us some good luck as we continue northward.

The landscape has certainly changed as we have entered the grand Sichaun basin.  Green, green, green: fertile land everywhere.  You may not know this – as I certainly didn’t before this trip – but this basin centered on the city of Chengdu is one of the most densely populated areas on the planet (check out the red spot in the middle of China).  Fertile land brings people, and we’re sure to have more many more encounters in the next few days in the basin.

I also wanted to use this post to highlight two customs here that you would think I would find annoying but I actually find very amusing: Buddha bellies and flying phlegm.  On hot days, many men roll up their shirts or tuck them into their collar to flaunt what I like to call a Buddha belly.  I haven’t quite deduced the reasoning yet because I don’t actually think you lose that much heat through your stomach; so maybe it’s to cool off or maybe it’s just to prove they’ve eaten.  Either way, it’s awesome.  Truckers, shoppers, farmers, pedestrians – all showing some tummy.  Watch out later this year, I may try to bring this fashion statement back into the US.

Hot days or not, another ever-present sight is spitting.  Riding, we’ll often see a beautiful woman in vibrant flowing dress, hair newly done, walk out of her house and give us a smile.  A second later she takes a rolling suck in through her nose, works all that back up her throat, and shoots it to the ground right in front of you.  Nothing unusual here; everyone spits and they spit a lot.  People spit on the ground here like they were putting out a fire without any water.  Even yesterday in a supermarket I rounded the corner to see a guy leave a big one right in the aisle, no one seemed to care.  It might sound gross but it’s just more accepted, and I’m down with it (though not in the supermarket of course… could be a bit slippery).  In fact, I’ve probably even spat twice since you’ve been reading this, seems like a fun enough way to fit in.

Bellies out, spit flying, we’ve now turned directly north to start climbing like crazy.  It’s gonna get cold.