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Yunnan Province; China

Mar
2004-09-14 15:37:29

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situations where Chinese don't know how to handle it. The rule that foreigners need to sleep in a hotel still exists and there is no hotel or guesthouse here. I try to look tired and cold and try to ask if we can sleep somewhere. Lot of discussion between the villagers, handing over the responsibility to each other to answer my question. Which normally means 'Mei You' (no). Raymond buys two instant noodle soups at one of the stalls next to the road to demonstrate that we take care of our own food. Just as we have given up hope and intent to cycle and pitch our tent somewhere, one of three other young men tap me on the shoulder. We follow them and are offered a room in the house of the uncle of one of them. The uncle leaves us behind at the fireplace and departs with the three men after he explained that tomorrow morning we should just close the hanging lock on the door.

After a breakfast of some cookies (all we can find that looks like breakfast) we cycle 68km towards Shangri-la (Zhongdian) over a pass of 3200meters. After the pass we noticed a cultural change, people are dressed different, different type of cattle and farming. We have reached the area of another minority in Yunnan, the Tibetans.

After three days rest and rain we decide to cycle away anyway. The road climbs up and down to the Yangtze River, after which we follow the river 20km where we found a village to stay. From this village the road leads up a total of 65km to the summit, which lies at 4260m. We want to cycle this in one day, go over the summit and sleep just on the other side and than continue the next day to Deqin. Deqin is the most northern city in the Yunnan province. The road has the most beautiful scenery we have seen so far. High mountains surrounding us, and the higher we get the deeper and more narrow the valley gets. Some villages have Buddhist temples that we can see from our road. After 25km the road changes from asphalt to a gravel road, relative ...