Shangri-La to Lijiang
Huge drying racks in the valley surrounding Shangri-La
A little out of town up on a ridge
Following the Jinsha south
Greg is at the hospital, we’ve visited him and he’s being flown out for surgery. His bike will be shipped south in a truck. In typical Aussie fashion he’s uncomplaining and good-humoured about the whole thing. We’re more than aware it could have happened to any of us and as you can understand we ‘re all riding with a little extra caution.
For reasons I can’t remember, we’re in a hurry at the point below, but Andrew, Anita, Jamil and us stop for photos here, beautiful spot
…
Lunch town
Park here but eat across the street when everyone else shows up. This is where my starter motor shows the first signs of serious distress. For the last week it occasionally plays up but starts with only minor complaint. Here, it won’t start and I’m starting to drain the battery. Andrew pulls jumpers out of his huge inventory of bike parts and it starts almost first try. But not the battery, we know
Then an uneventful ride into Lijiang, one of the most important towns on the old Silk road
A beautiful place
A rest day, so we spend it walking around and on-line. Andrew and Jamil have gone out for a day ride to Tiger Gorge, but I badly need to use the VPN-enabled internet at the hotel to catch up on some chores and do some forward planning. Until today there’s been no Gmail or other ride essential internet from behind the Chinese web-wall
Small plots in the middle of the town
We’ll frequently see young Chinese couples having wedding photos taken in important places, it’s a common and fun sight
Lijiang at night. It’s Jamil’s birthday, we go out and celebrate
Lijiang to Dali
Anita’s last day. A pic of her and Bpui
A very different day today. We ride into a huge valley
We ride through this for hours
And then the three of us split off and ride a road around the lake
This was a dead-end but a lucky find, very pretty
Haven’t had a Lucinda selfie in a while
We stop here for coffee
Hired scooters everywhere on this lakeside route
Through small streets for a few miles
Couldn’t figure these out
This was different. Wealthy homes with plots in a formal grid
I can’t remember where this was!
But the town had this temple in the middle
Dali to Lincang
Andrew and Jamil were leaving separately to drop Anita off at the airport. Temple close to our hotel
I set off with R and Stephan/Bpui on polished, damp roads and medium-heavy traffic on the highway out of town. I knew following R’s sketchy navigation out of town would be stressful and it was. After a few tentative corners we got into the main traffic flow and accelerated up to speed in a group. Just a minute after settling in there was a huge crash sound from behind me. I looked into my right hand mirror and there was a truck no more than 50 feet behind with what looked like a bike wreck attached to the front. He was hard on the brakes, so were we, immediately in front of him. R headed off the right curb, Stephan to an escape lane and me in front of an island, just behind him and Bpui. I jumped off my bike and there behind the truck was a man on the ground screaming, blood everywhere and his leg completely removed. The truck had hit him head-on and he’d been run over, scooter still attached to the truck. I turned around and ran to Bpui and Stephan, yelling at them both to not look back. But they had. It was a shocking sight and no one would approach him as he went silent and we assume died there quickly. There were further details but’s that’s enough.
Looking back at Dali when I stopped to breathe again
Into the country
Lunch stop
R had pulled in here and assured Stephan and I there was nowhere else on this road for food. I don’t eat pork, so I skipped and walked around for photos. Hanging, ripe pork
Down the road a bit
The only other picture I took
What a fucking day.