Deer Park

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

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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.

Shaxi to Weixi. This looks surprisingly like the track from 2 days ago, another double-back

Mountains to cross today

The upper Yangtze, called the Jinsha at this point

We follow it for half the day, over there behind the trees somewhere

There. Today is stunning. This is one of the reasons to come to Yunnan

With some good riding on small roads

Undisturbed villages. Stopped here to watch tobacco leaves being sorted

Here. She’s got the most sorted

Different method

What they’re doing is tying them to small poles to hang

Slacker! He’s just thinking about his leaves so far this morning

Slow and peaceful

Then you turn a corner and you’re back to the huge river

Still Chinese traditional building so far, as we travel north, but this is the transition zone. More soon

It’s constantly beautiful and not like anything on the big ride so far. Giant scale, very green

These homes are more Tibetan. No raised corners, smaller windows. But the changes become more pronounced soon

The biggest mountains we’ve seen on this ride so far, ahead

The last of the agriculture for the day, as we enter the mountains

Choppy, patched pavement, a big river, full Ti Akrapovic system booming off the walls, heading north in China, that’s more like it

Then we do a monster climb and descent, and no photos for some reason.

Weixi to Deqin

Another big climb later today, but we stay high this time

A mountain village in every view

A Polygonum in classic pink

Now here’s something. Right beside the road, in the scree

The bloom looks like Incarvillea, a couple of which come from here, but the plant is shrubby and the foliage isn’t right. We spent a few minutes just now trying unsuccessfully to find the species name

And this. Scrambling all over everything happily

A Clematis, how nice. Clematis akebioides.

Three very decent plants in one day, without leaving the road. Heartbreaking in a way as this is a plant collector’s paradise, but this is too late in the season, we’re not alpine enough and we’re on a group ride. Somewhere up there, at some time maybe a month or 2 earlier, Gentiana farreri, for example, was blooming. Epic adventurous plant collecting history was made here by Forrest (who died in Teng Yueh here), Delavay (died somewhere unspecified in Yunnan), Cavalarie (murdered outside of Kunming, Yunnan), Farrer (who died near the China/Burma border). David, many others. If this piques your interest, here’s the wiki entry for George Forrest. Victorian era plant collecting heroism
A river again, this time the Mekong

We stop at an interesting village. Now the Tibetan thing has really kicked in. Color, crisp lines

Here’s Anita is making us lunch. Jamil is strictly Halal. So that he doesn’t starve to death he’s come prepared with all kinds of stuff for emergencies, like this. Anita plays Mom and we all join in. Well, the four of us on three bikes, now that we’re basically not talking to the rest of the group. OMG. Solo is so easy!

I flip-flop at lunch between being loyal to my friend Jamil and eating the local fare. I usually decide after a look at what’s on offer both ways. This kitchen for example looks excellent

The market, a few doors up. I took some photos at the end of this table of things I wouldn’t publish here, btw. I know we’ve gone private blog, but my daughters read this and would be upset. So things are very different everywhere you look in Chinese markets

Two characters. Judging by their dress and demeanour, big wheels in this town

Off again

Classic Tibetan now. A little further north for the final touch

Here’s a hint, flags along a steel bridge over the river

At that’s Lucinda, half way across

View from bridge

Flag close-up

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This town is only 30 minutes from our destination. We stopped to load up on beer

We noticed this bike shop

Walked in to check it out

Here’s the Tibetan/Chinese take on bikes

This. The frills are part of the equation. One more detail a few pictures down

Now the ride to Dequin, along this road

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Stop to watch local Tibetans walk past

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Wow, would love a week or two here

There’s been a landslide and some heavy equipment is working on clearing it. We wait for about 40 minutes

A nice-looking family waits too

The angelic daughter on Andrew’s bike. She’s gregarious and loves playing to the small crowd

Here’s the last important Tibetan detail on the bikes, the super-ornate, vividly colored mud splash. All the bikes have them

This one has a boom box up front

And this, beside the road, while we waited. I haven’t found what it is yet, because it doesn’t really ring my bell, although far from weedy

Dequin. Amazing place, very small. Tibetans make up 80% of the population.

It’s all about this. The view across the valley to the Himalayan Plateau, but in particular to this mountain, Meili Snow Mountain, right on the Yunnan/Tibet border. Also this is where the Jinsha (upper Yangtze) Mekong (Nu) and Salwan (Lancang) flow from, and beyond, with combined drainages that include half of Thailand, nearly all of Laos, some of South Vietnam, most of Cambodia and a large percentage of central China. So one of the more extraordinary places on the planet

There are 13 peaks in immediate view over 6000 meters, with Kawagebo below  at 6740 (almost the same elevation as Huascaran in the Cordillera Blanca, much missed because the riding was so much better) We’re viewing from 3550 meters

We were tired from the day, crashed early and were up early to watch the sun on the peaks, above. Apparently we were lucky as they’re usually clouded in.

Deqin to Shangri-La

Now we head southeast. Deqin was our northern most point on the route. Twisties today, as below

Up to 4400 meters

Monastery before the climb

Near the top

The top. The story here is that there are snowstorms all around us. We’ve threaded our way through but the group wants to hang out here as the snow is dusting us, the rest of the group has zip experience of alpine road conditions and Anita says she has never even seen snow. Lucinda and I are never the first to get nervous in any group, but here it’s obvious any weather could happen immediately. It’s below zero, the clouds are swirling around us and puking snow on surrounding peaks and we’re trying to hustle everyone along, with little success (they’re taking photos), before we get snowed in for the winter and resort to murdering and eating the girls first. So we tell them for the third time this is not a good situation, we don’t want to eat anyone, and take off, trying to force the issue. Fortunately, they follow shortly and all ends well. It was fun, really, but was possibly more serious than my friends realized

And over the top to this

Skies clearing

Downhill from here

Andrew, a fat bike, a slim bike, a fat bike, Jamil

View back at the switchbacks

Villages again

Towards a famous gorge to

the Moon Bend of the Yangtze river

Lunch town. We were surprised at how hot it was. We were freezing a few hours ago, now it’s around 80 or more again

A fantastic ride through the afternoon

Those huge walls opposite bulged and overhung towards the camera. A sport climber’s paradise

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Then the first view of the lake. Shangri-La is on the north shore. It look magical already. We all stop and think about the ride to here.

Shangri-La is a fictional name and place from the book Lost Horizon by James Hilton. The original name is Zhongdian but they changed it in 2001. The Chinese liked the fictional name and it’s good for business

The it starts to rain gently. We all stop to look at the above view. Bee gets off Greg’s bike and jumps into the truck, to stay dry, rather than cover up for the short ride into town.

Reed, Andrew and Jamil take off and I follow Greg into town. To make a long and horrible story short, Greg overtakes a semi just as it swerves to miss 2 pigs and gets sideswiped hard. We’re immediately behind and watch the bike explode and Greg get thrown over the guard rail into a 3′ deep concrete ditch. Nightmare.

We pull over and jump into the ditch with Greg. He’s got lucky and has just broken his upper arm (and clavicle, we find out later) But in huge pain. The truck stops, calls the riders ahead, and Bee joins me in the ditch. We do the standard things to help Greg and wait for the ambulance, which takes forever

A temple in the main town

A Yak for Chinese tourists to ride. A very strange animal. We eat Yak regularly for dinner, it’s good. Jamil is OK with it as the killing method is sufficiently Hamal for him. And in fact Stephan had a Yak burger here and said it was the best burger he’d ever had

The next day was a rest day and we headed to the temple. It’s the largest Tibetan Buddhist temple in Yunnan, built in 1679, completed 2 years later

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The temples within the huge compound

We weren’t supposed to take pictures, but at one point one of us (who because of his own strong religious convictions is our moral decision maker on these things) whips out his camera and we all take a photo or two. This isn’t a good one, but you can see the extraordinary detail, color and scale. It’s the most impressive interior I’ve seen in Asia

Jianshui to Shilin

One more day of highway. After 3 days of rain it starts to clear

Here’s a Chinese toll booth. Motorcycles pass free in the right hand lane. We’ve gone through maybe 10 of them so far

Oil and damp steel. A little too much gas and you’re on your side. Paddling is the way

Boring, nothing to see. We can’t read the signs and there are many

I have a hell of a time keeping up with Jamil and Andrew on their GSA1200’s. Not only do they have a windshield, but their bikes are made for this highway.

And they can ride. Here’s Andrew on his track bike, the brilliant Aprilia RSV4

And Jamil on his Duc 1098. Jamil at his most active put 100 track days in a 2 year period.

They’re good friends. A classic bromance.

I think this is the Nanpan River, I just tried to mapcheck it, but maybe not

We arrive, crash, and the next day head off to the Shilin Stone Forest like the tourists we are. It’s odd, but solo I never feel like a tourist. Here, in this group, I do, and don’t like the feeling much.

Anyway, the bridge across to the stone forest

Unreal formations, not large, but interesting. Like free-standing, isolated hoodoos

Lots of Chinese tourists come here

We’ll be taking some photos over the next few weeks of Chinese ‘cool’. I’m interested in what their spin is. There’s a lot of visible wealth around the cities, the Porshe Cayenne being the suv of choice, in black

Where were we? Oh yes.

(Jamil, Andrew and myself have ‘cliqued’ off from the others. This is a terrible thing to do, but it’s happened. The fact of the matter is, we know what we’re doing, the official guide and back-up guide don’t, and after 5 days of screw-ups we’re close to mutiny. We actually talk about mutiny, but the official Chinese permissions, at the most, require we exit the border and sign out as a group, at the almost-most that we stay together all the time. Solo is so much easier)

The 3 of us walk around the stone forest together

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Preparing the stone and chiseling in words is traditional here, and looks nice. I can’t think of anywhere else it would look as right

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Steps thoughtfully carved in. The stamp of the Chinese on the landscape is everywhere

A yellow, robust pea relative, we think

Not sure, maybe Nicky has a guess

Here’s this spider again. It’s enormous, maybe 3 inches body length, with a web that we’ve seen span from tree to tree, 20 feet or more. We saw it way back in Timor-Leste, and before that, more than a year earlier a very similar one across the Pacific in Panama with Eddie. For some reason it’s really nice when these links with prior experiences happen

A very still and deep pool. I check it carefully for life, nothing

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Shilin to Kunming

Kunming (population 6.4M) is the largest city on the ride. It’s the political and economic capital of Yunnan province

Wiki says it’s a significant example of China’s modernization effort

Electronic signage lines the streets, the fashion ads are specially interesting. More later

Green Park in the city center. Late fall, so little in flower

Chinese dance. We see this often. Very slow and restrained with a central movement theme, but around that the movement can be free-form and individual but never at a different pace, everyone’s very slow timing is locked-in and it’s somehow satisfying to watch

Musicians and singers in the various structures. The music is also slow and restrained. There are traditional 3 string bowed instruments of various shapes and sizes and frequently a violin

Kunming to Shuanglang

We’re headed for Eklai lake

More of these…

Into a small village before Shuanlang. Architecture chat later

Lunch. General food chat later

Fresh shrimp

And bird-on-a-stick. I guess the strategy is to eat the body part and leave the head there on the stick. The eyeballs are glazed over which gives them an foetus-like look

A kitchen off the street, with the traditional basket-steamer over a wood fire. Anything and everything could be in there

Onwards

Fishing cormorants. The wiki entry has a picture from this very lake, here

Here we go again. Rich kids and their shades

And to our destination, full of Chinese tourists

Shot of Jamil, Anita, Andrew at our hotel. If you’re a riding ace like these two you can carry whatever vast top box you like and be beyond style criticism. Andrew had all kinds of amazing bike stuff in his, Jamil had all kinds of amazing food stuff in his. They were like Santa at times

Fabulous rental scooters. We should have done this for an hour but it didn’t occur to me until now

Shuanglang to Shaxi

The track so far, from Chiang Mai

How that looks on Google Earth

Just south of the Himilayan Plateau, where we’re headed

We start with a nice ride around the lake

A representative well-off home from this area. New construction looks like this

Through a typical smaller village. Vendors side-by-side at street level, homes above, same as everywhere really

However money is being made now, this is the classic style of newer homes. Walls, white-panelled, open-fronted to the courtyard, decorative edging, Chinese characters and often dark blue landscape scenes painted into the empty spaces. For this whole central part of Yunnan, this style is consistent

The traditional temples are everywhere, this one very small

Me, Jamil, Andrew, Anita. Not a selfie because my helmet’s on

Miles of this

Low hills, a rare small lake

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A long stretch of this. For us these avenues are a good time to think

Into Shaxi. This is one of the most important and protected towns in China. To quote wiki, it’s the most intact caravan town on the ancient tea route from Yunnan into Burma and Tibet. Trade started here in the 7th century

My room in the old, wonderful hotel. This is the nicest room I’ve stayed in since, well a looong time. Here for 2 nights, great, felt like going to bed with iBooks and getting up in 48 hours, such comfyness

Cars can’t get into the old town, so the hotel has this buggy to pick up luggage for tourists. The tires were a bit flat. Rather than help, we watched the 3 girls struggle a bit. They looked at us like we were lazy males. We laughed. It seemed funny at the time, 2 moto pros being useless, but not so funny now… oh well, you had to be there

The fab hotel, right on the main square

Next day, Shaxi day ride

Getting into the country was great. Boo! to organized rides. Other than with Helge. And then, you ride your own ride and just meet at the day’s destination. Anyway, it was beautiful. Andrew with Anita, Jamil, and me. The troublemakers

Zooming through little hamlets

Dodging cows and goats, both here

These

Andrew and Anita, water crossing

Jamil

Barely wider than a path

Then we got blocked by a huge number of small parked trucks. It didn’t make any sense, we couldn’t figure out why. So after checking there were no alternates on the GPS, we reversed.