Monday, 27 April 2009 00:00 Last Updated on Monday, 22 June 2009 16:32 Written by Billy van Graan

We had 2 days to spend in Kashgar before our flight back to Guangzhou. Lucky for us one of these days was a Sunday so we could visit the famous Kashgar Sunday Bazaar. This turned out to be very cool indeed. This market is what the Istanbul bazaar should be but isn’t, a dirty, noisy and very busy place where the locals shop.  We had some lamb and tea in from of the market at a place where I doubt very many foreigners would dare eat.

We got out beards shaved at a barber shop and Muis had his hair cut as well. I lost a bit of weight during all the cycling so I ate so much every day we almost got sick to try and make up for it. We went around town to see all the touristy stuff and boxed our bicycles for transporting them on the airplane.

Sunday, 26 April 2009 00:00 Last Updated on Monday, 22 June 2009 08:44 Written by Billy van Graan

In the end it took us nearly 3 days to get back to Kashgar from where we stopped cycling. After leaving getting over the last pass we drove through the desert at night. Near Kudi we had to take off our bicycles from the truck because there was a police check point and the driver doesn’t want to get seen with us by the police or army. We don’t know the reason for this but he was clearly very nervous about this. In two of the small town in the desert there is also a police check points so we had to off load our bicycles in the middle of the night in and cycle 25km and wait for him to pick us up again.

During this he was also selling part of his load to people next to the road. The whole thing felt very “illegal”. This whole taking the bicycles off the truck and putting them back on was a pain in the ass and we were very tired. When we arrived in Yecheng 3 o clock in the morning we parked in a yard somewhere presumably where he had to sell the rest of his load. The driver told us we could wait till sunrise in his truck but Muis wanted to get to a hotel and a proper bed so we decided to ride the last bit and get it over and done with.

Once at the hotel they wanted to charge us more than the last time and I was pissed off. I just stood there until they gave us the proper rate. The woman behind the counter got all nasty but I didn’t care.

Woke up this morning and had my first shower in 11 days. We took a bus to Kashgar and booked into the same hotel. When we arrived at Kashgar bus station I really needed the toilet so I ran in to the bus station and asked around till I found it. The smell was very bad and when I stepped inside there was no doors on the cubicles and you could see some people sitting and doing their thing in full view of everyone else. Lucky for me I only had a number 1.  I loved Muis’s look when he came back from the toilet. He was clearly as shocked as I was.

We spent the rest of the day eating and getting everything organized to go back to Guangzhou including buying boxes to transport our bicycles in.

 

Saturday, 25 April 2009 00:00 Last Updated on Thursday, 18 June 2009 16:38 Written by Billy van Graan

After packing up everything we went to the road to wait for a truck to come so we can hitch a lift. We waited for about 40 minutes and the first truck came past which we stopped and explained we wanted to put our bicycles on the back and go to Xaidulla town. The driver agreed and we fastened our bicycles on the back on top of bags that contained stones. After Kosbel pass the driver stopped and slept for an half an hour and we continued to Xaidulla. When we arrived we went back to the guesthouse we stayed 2 days earlier and had some food which cheered us up a bit. We hanged around to see what is going to happen since we couldn’t really communicate with our truck driver or anyone else in the town.

When he was ready to leave another guy told us to get back in and he also got in and off we went. We negotiated a price for the driver to take us back to Yecheng where we would try and catch a bus back to Kashgar.  We settled on 400 yuan for both of us which we thought were a bargain. It turned out the other guy that got into the truck with us was also a truck driver and his truck broke down just before Chiragsaldi pass. We spent around 2 hours at his truck while the driver of our truck helped him. On our way up Chiragsaldi pass it started to snow and further up everything was covered in snow.

Although we were heading back and the trip was pretty much over I still enjoyed riding in the truck even if it was at an average speed of 25km/h. It was nice and warm inside. I was listening to music and watching the mountains and snow covered passes roll by. There was just something special about it. The truck can go fast but as soon as you reach 30km/h it shakes so much that the driver can’t control it.

We tried communicating with the truck driver and figured out a couple of thing like what his driving route was. How much it costs per trip and all kinds of other things. He knew who Mandela was which was amazing. I guess everyone around the world knows Mandela.

We drove till early the next morning until we reached Mazar where we slept in a small quest house for truckers. It was about 3 in the morning but the owner woke up and cooked for us. The food was like usual extremely tasty.

Wednesday, 22 April 2009 00:00 Last Updated on Thursday, 09 July 2009 09:42 Written by Billy van Graan

Cycling Day: 8
Distance: 73km

When having a break today Muis told me he wants to go home. He is coughing all the time and not getting better and he is not enjoying himself. I told him we can talk tonight when we have finished the day. So I had a lot to think about during the course of the day but decided if he wants to return I would go with him. It is pity because so much effort, training, money and hopes have been put into this and I just feel that we haven’t done nearly enough.

I had a really good day today and I feel like I’m getting into good shape for touring. It usually takes a week to 2 weeks for your body to get used to cycling for such a long time every day but once you reach that level everything just becomes more enjoyable and little easier.

We passed a junction that leads to the Karakorum Pass, South-Western Aksai Chin and India. After the junction we then cycled over a 4300m pass to reach a road repair station that was locked up. It wasn’t abandoned but there was no one there. The wind was howling when we got there so we needed to find a place to pitch the tent that would be sheltered. We ended up staying in a structure behind the repair station that looked like an old barn or storage facility. Muis decided to warm us up he would make a small fire with some wood that he found in the barn we were going to sleep. This wood included a heavily varnished bed case and it was engulfed in huge flames within seconds. I shouted to Muis to make a plan because the smell was very bad, there was smoke everywhere and if the flames were to get any higher it would reach the roof made of grass and wood. The book case was in the corner in an upright position and he tipped in onto its side. This didn’t help much and soon the flames were licking the bottom of the grass roof. We had no choice but to spray some of our drinking water over it, then started throwing sand on it until the fire was small enough so we could drag the book case outside.


All this happened right next to our tent of which we left the door open and everything inside was covered in dust. We got into the tent after cleaning it and chatted about leaving. Muis was still coughing badly. I was very disappointed. We managed to do just 800km and haven’t even reached Tibet and for me it felt like we were only getting started.

 

Tuesday, 21 April 2009 00:00 Last Updated on Thursday, 18 June 2009 13:43 Written by Billy van Graan

Cycling Day: 7
Distance: 44km

We woke up today feeling like shit. I didn’t sleep very well and Muis’s cough is getting very bad. We packed up as quickly we can so we could descend further down the valley. Once we got below 4000m we soon felt 100% again. I think we are struggling to acclimatize because we are trying to do it while cycling were as with climbing you go to a certain height and sit and do nothing. Here we are constantly busy working hard and I think that our bodies are just not getting the time to acclimatize.

As we reached the town of Xaidulla I was yet again attacked by another dog. Luckily this one was smaller and I saw it coming from a distance so I could take my feet out of the cleat pedals ready to defend myself, but in the end I easily out peddle it.  Muis really enjoyed seeing this and was laughing very hard.

Xaidulla is supposed to be the last important town for the next couple of hundred kilometers so we were surprised it was so small. And you couldn’t buy much more here than you could in Mazar. We booked into a small guesthouse where we could store our bikes inside and ate and awesome meal. The woman that runs this guesthouse was amazing. She could cook very delicious food, ran the guesthouse and ran a pharmacy / clinic as well. She was a really hard working and somehow even found the time to help us at the local shop to try and buy a phone. Since no one in the town could speak any English we got her to phone Eric back in Guangzhou and this way we could explain everything and we ended up buying one of her second had phones.

Later that day a whole bunch of army guys pitched up and found us very interesting. They invited us to eat with them and have some beers. The food was awesome and we had a lot of fun trying to chat with them. I ended up giving them almost all the South African notes I had left. Today we has a lot of time to rest since we arrived in Xaidulla before lunch time so I think tomorrow would go quite nicely.

 

Monday, 20 April 2009 00:00 Last Updated on Thursday, 18 June 2009 10:50 Written by Billy van Graan

Cycling Day: 6
Distance:  83km

The man we stayed with woke up early this morning to make the food we would take with us. I got the times  wrong and he woke up much earlier than he should have. My bad.

We planned to cycle to the beginning of the steep section on the next pass called Xaidulla which was 66km away from Mazar, but if we then still felt ok we would go over the pass and sleep on the other side in one of the abandoned road repair stations we knew was there. On the route we printed it said that from Mazar to the pass was the first bad road of the route. We were really surprised at how bad some of the previous sections was we thought this won’t get much worse than that. We were very wrong and ended up having a very hard day. The roads were extremely bad with loads of loose stones, rocks and sand and even though the previous day was a rest day after 50km of this it surely didn’t feel like it.

The landscape around us was so beautiful and different. If you want to get an idea of how it must feel on mars this is a good place to start. Nothing grows here and some sections of the mountain are red with the rest gray. The lifelessness of this place is eerie but special.

When we reached the steep section of the pass my energy was running low but we decided to tackle the pass even if it means walking. The steep section of the pass is 10km long and when we reached the 3rd km of this we saw on the side of the pass a water break going straight up to near the top which we could walk rather than go up the pass that keeps on switching back and forth making it so long. If we walked up the water break we might cut the distance in half although it would be much steeper. We ended up walking up the water break and stopping quite a few times to rest and to eat and drink something. Pushing our fully loaded bikes on this very steep section up 800m was no walk in the park and when we reached to top I was really relieved.

We then rode down the back of the pass down into a beautiful valley to 4420m where we made camp in an old repair station. We were drained of all energy and with our luck the lake in front of this building was completely frozen over.  We managed to break 2 chucks of ice off the top and melted it for some drinking water. It was freezing outside so we got into our sleeping bags ate a bit and tried to go to sleep.

Valley at the back of Xaidulla - Click to Enlarge

Over the past couple of days Muis have developing a really bad cough which doesn’t seem to get any better.  Tomorrow we will have a long time to rest in the next town since it is all downhill from here and only 30km away. Hopefully this would give him a little bit of time to recover.

Sunday, 19 April 2009 00:00 Last Updated on Thursday, 18 June 2009 10:36 Written by Billy van Graan

Distance: 0km
Rest Day: 1

View from Mazar - Click to Enlarge

Woke up late this morning and since I didn’t brush my teeth yesterday my mouth tasted very bad. I went to brush my teeth immediately in the ditch in front of the little place we stayed in. It is pretty cool this ditch runs past the front of all the little shops / houses in the town (there are only about 6) and the water in it is perfectly clean to drink since it comes out of the mountains.

It was time for breakfast so we asked our host to for the menu and started pointing at some dishes we would like. He kept on saying he didn’t have any of it. After a while with no luck he called us outside and took us to the back of his little house and showed us his chickens. He wanted to know if we wanted one to eat. I was hungry and told him to just get on with it. He slaughtered and cleaned it in a matter of minutes.  Cooking it took much longer though and we started cleaning our bikes and luggage from all the dust that was still in and on everything since the sandstorm.

 

 

The dish that was prepared had the whole chicken in it, including head and feet.  It was very nice and afterwards we just lazed around, read and went to look for a phone at the nearby army base with no luck.

We asked the man to prepare some food for us for tomorrow which we can take in our lunchbox.  It was nice a good rest and tomorrow the fun starts again.

Saturday, 18 April 2009 00:00 Last Updated on Wednesday, 17 June 2009 17:02 Written by Billy van Graan

Cycling Day: 5
Distance: 55km

Because we didn’t make the planned kilometers yesterday we slept just under 4000m. I wanted so sleep a bit higher for acclimatization purposes. We started off on asphalt for the first couple of kilometers before the dirt road started again just before the pass. All the rivers are now frozen over completely and it is much colder. The pass started off very steep with loads of switch backs but at 4200m it became less steep and very long. We stopped at 4300m for lunch (yesterdays noodles they made for us in Kudi which we didn’t finish during diner) a nice spot where we were surrounded by 5000m plus snow capped mountains.

Already here I could start feeling the altitude. From here it was 11km to the top of the pass. The last 5-6km’s was very steep and the altitude really got to us here. We had to stop very often to catch our breaths and near the top I had a pounding headache. It felt like I had 6 Black Labels the previous night. We ended up walking 1km near the top just to vary from cycling a bit. On our printed out route it says you can see K2 from the top of the pass if you climb above the road, but there was soppy melted snow everywhere so we couldn’t really go off the road which was a bit disappointing. We were proud to have reached the top of the pass at 4980m though.

Chiragsaldi Flat Stretch - Click to Enlarge

From the top it was a 24km downhill to reach Mazar, the town where we slept that night and take a rest day.  Once we started to descend my headache disappeared and I felt fine again. Descending was rough and the roads got considerably worse. The dry bag that Muis had mounted on his handlebars kept moving to the side because of all the shaking. We had to stop several times for him to readjust it. He was getting very frustrated and finally snapped. This was really hilarious; he went to the front of the bike and started hitting the shit out of his bag. It looked like he involved in a boxing match with his bicycle.

 

We reached Mazar early the afternoon and went to the first shop we saw to have lunch.  We ended up staying in the back of the shop in a room the owners of the shop rents out to truck drivers. The room is really cool and colorful. The shop and this room is pretty much a shack put together with wood and sink plates. But it is nice and warm inside because they have a coal stove and heater. The beds are wooden planks on stilts covered with colorful material and they supply these really thick blankets and heavy blankets. I sat and read till late. Tomorrow is our first rest day after 5 days of hard cycling.
 

Friday, 17 April 2009 00:00 Last Updated on Wednesday, 17 June 2009 16:22 Written by Billy van Graan

Cycling Day: 4
Distance: 74km

Getting out of the tent today was really cold but luckily most of the dust has disappeared and we could see some real blue skies for the first time since we have arrived in China.  When we cycled over the very top of the pass we had an awesome view of really big snow covered mountains in the distance and we were surrounded with massive mountain. We descended the pass on the other side and even though it is all downhill is still hard riding since you can’t really go fast with the bad road conditions and all the luggage on your bike.

 

The pass bottoms out at 2570m and then we started climbing again but luckily the asphalt started again and lasted the rest of the day. Most of the day was riding next to a river in a valley surrounded by huge mountains. The scenery was breathtaking and the ride was really enjoyable except for the fact that we were totally drained. I don’t know if it was from the previous day or just not eating enough but by the time we reached Kudi, a small village, we were finished. O just before the village a massive dog attacked us and I couldn’t get my feet out of my pedals so I ended up pedaling for all I’m worth. Luckily I got out in front of Muis and he didn’t have cleats so he had his feet free to try and kick the dog in the face. It was a close call and once we were out of reach of the dog we could slow down a bit because our legs were burning.

In Kudi we had a huge bowl of noodles for lunch and also got our lunchbox filled with noodles for that evening. We sat around for a while just to give ourselves a chance to regain some energy. At the end of Kudi there is a big police checkpoint with booms and guards. When we arrived at the checkpoint it was very quiet and the only person there was sitting in an office working on a laptop and didn’t notice us. We decided not to bother him and just bend under the booms and be on our way. Luckily he didn’t notice and there were no issues.

We cycled for another couple of hours before we decided to call it a day and look for a camping spot. We didn’t do as many kilometers or reached the altitude we would have hoped for but we can make up for it tomorrow.

Thursday, 16 April 2009 00:00 Last Updated on Wednesday, 17 June 2009 15:44 Written by Billy van Graan

Cycling Day: 3
Distance: 120km

Woke up quite early and made our breakfast using a kettle in the room. We got our bicycles from reception and were soon on our way heading for the 219 which was at the end of Yecheng at a roundabout. I was worried we would struggle to find the 219 but in the end it was no problem at all.  From Yecheng the 219 goes through about 90km of desert before it starts climbing into the mountains.

In the desert the wind was getting stronger and stronger the further we went. After about 30km of cycling it got REALLY bad and the wind was blowing so hard that there was sand and dust everywhere. We thought this would last only a couple of minutes but we were obviously wrong and there seemed to be no end in sight. We just kept on cycling (what else can you do) through the sand storm until we eventually reached a village where we could have some food and dust off a bit. I really enjoyed riding in the sand storm and for me it was a big adventure rather than an annoyance.  By then there was sand everywhere, in our hair, clothes, ears etc. In this village where we had lunch most of the shops were closed (due to the sand storm I presume) and the air was still dark and full of dust. I thought that since we are riding out of the desert and into the mountains and climbing all the time that we would eventually climb out above the dust cloud that we found ourselves in, but this was not the case. The dust in the air became less but we never got out of it until the next morning.

The town in which we had lunch had a police checkpoint outside but there was no one there so we just carried on. After lunch we cycled through 1 smaller village and then the mountainous area started and the climbing became harder. At 93km and at an altitude of 2570m the asphalt ended and the gravel started. The gravel road was worse than I expected and I was immediately glad we went through the effort to get Schwalbe Marathon XR tires.

We stopped in a small town called Akmeqit to buy some water and cool drinks before the pass started.  Just as we started on the pass some crazy truck driver came from behind hooting and squeezed us off the road almost crushing one of our water bottles that fell of Muis’s bicycle. This truck driver proved to be one of a kind since all the other truck drivers are extremely friendly and we always greet them and they us. We also know these truck drivers are our life line on this route and if something is to go wrong they would be the only people in n position to help us, so we try and stay out of there way as much as possible and be as friendly as possible towards them.

Then we tackled the 1st pass which was challenging. It was an 11km long off-road climb of 900m to an altitude of 3300m. On our way up 2 guys on a bike stopped and waited for us. We stopped by them and we stood around looking at each other for a couple of minutes and tried to explain to each other where we were going and why. They were really interested in our bicycles and we were also supprised that there small bike could carry 2 people over this pass.

At the top of the pass we found a small spot just off the road to camp where we were just out of sight from passing truck drivers. I thoroughly enjoyed today and will remember it for a long time to come. 2000m of altitude gain over 120km through a sand storm, not bad for a days work.