Passing out?

October 18th becomes a rest day. On the evening before, when I head for the huge monastery complex I am spotted by Enrique. He and Chele have arrived much later than they had told me they would. Enrique says he is waiting for a swiss guy they met earlier, who probably will arrive the next day. This gives me time to rest a bit, do some shopping and visit the monastery. The 19th we meet at 9 to have breakfast, unfortunately Chele is not feeling well and is not capable of cycling. Enrique decides to stay with his wife. The Swiss guy, Andre and I decide to get going, but not after a decent breakfast of potato pancakes. It is close to 11 when we finally mount our bikes. Andre's natural speed is close to mine, so we cycle together for the whole road, this in contrast with Chele and Enrique where we waited for each other at certain points. At the end of the afternoon we pass the first pass at 4696m. At the top we put on our gloves and hats (I have bought mine in Litang) and head down. The next pass is showing is already visible. We do not feel like climbing much more for the day, so we decide to set op camp on the plain in between the passes. We push our bikes for about a quarter of an hour and pitch the tent behind a huge boulder, so we cannot be seen from the road. When Andre sets up the tent I gather dry yakshit and branches for the campfire. We do not have much water so we limit us to eat only 3 noodle soups for dinner. It takes some effort to get the shit properly burning, the first half an hour it mainly creates a lot of smoke, but after that, it burns well and gives a lot of heat.
The next morning the tent is frozen, we wait with packing it till the sun enters the valley to defrost it and us. When back on the road we have to start climbing right away but fortunately we have not descended to much the previous day, so we reach the pass relatively easily. The pass is actually more a large plain with little lakes. The wind is not helping us today as it is against us, so even on the way down we have to peddle. At noon we reach Sangdui, where we have a delicious meal, although they forget to serve the cauliflower dish. Still the rice, chicken dish and the spinach dish are more than enough. Just outside Sangdui the road goes up to the next pass, at 4800m. The climb is very steep and we have to take several stops before we get there. Andre had read somewhere that some guys had done the same route as us to Xiangzhan (never sure about town names in China, so could be different) in one day, so we think we should be able to do that as well. We learn again that passes always appear closer by than they really are. When you think only two hairpins and then finally down you discover after one hairpin that the road goes up for an other few corners and then still it is further than you think. When we finally make it we go down in quick. In no time we have lost 1700 m of hard fought for altitude. At 19:00, it already is dark we finally reach Xiangzhan. We are welcomed by Chele who has taken the bus from Litang, Enrique has decided to cycle but has left one day after us. Today we have cycled nett 8 hours and covered 129 km, not a bad day, but we are totally exhausted. Andre finds out that the guys he read of had taken a different route and went to a different town altogether.
The 21st becomes a rest day again. Andre and I visit the monastery and after that we pick up Chele to have breakfast. A large part of the afternoon we lie down on a field in the middle of farmers working the land with yaks and plough.
The next morning we leave at 8, without Chele who decides to wait for Enrique. The first 22m are leisurely down, but then the real stuff starts. We have to climb to a pass that is at 85 km from where we departed over an unpaved road. The first part is not so bad, but when we reach the proper altitude we are only 50 km away from Xiangzhan, still 35 m to go of up and down over horrible roads with again strong head wind. With our last bit of strength we reach the pass slightly after 18:00. It is could and windy, after a few pictures and putting on some warm clothes, we go down as fast as possible. The road is still unpaved and has huge holes though, so we have to be careful. Soon it becomes dark, but we have not seen a proper place to camp. We decide to go down in walking pace with Andre leading, as he has a little light to guide us until the next village. After 5 km we see a house and lucky us it is a binguan (hotel) and are welcomed. We get a nice meal for 22RMB are invited for beers and can sleep for free.
In the morning upon leaving I discover my rear tire is empty. I pump it up in the hope it stays hard. I feel no rapid decrease in hardness and we cycle of. At noon we stop for lunch. While Andre prepares the noodle soup I repair the tube, which has a tiny puncture at the rim side. Probably got a few hard hits when I was going down fast through a hole. On the way down one of my panniers gets a few times into the wheel. Not a big problem, but the seam lets loose and soon there is a gap of 30 cm, I decide to sew it at th spot and in 15 minutes all is repared. At 18:00 we find a nice camping spot at the river. Dry wood in abundance so we have another campfire after we have eaten our noodle soup. Andre has a nice treat. He still has a bar of Swiss chocolate, which we wolf away.
Although we are at lower altitude in the morning it is freezing. With hat and gloves we eat our breakfast; hot water mixed with powder yak milk, sugar, porridge and some left over moon cookies. Delicious, when hungry. The ice cold fingers and toes do not stop us from going up a mountain again. It should be an easy day, Shangrila should not be far a way. Still the bad road prevents that we get there without any effort (the road to heaven is not to be known easy anyway;-). We decide we have earned a proper shower and some luxury, so we check in a relatively expensive hotel. When I unload I notice my luggage carrier is broken. I screw it loose and go to a place where they can weld it. It takes some time, but when found it is done in 10 seconds for no charge. Now it is time for a well deserved and needed shower.
At night, just when I am in bed the phone rings, someone is talking to me in Chinese. I tell the person in Dutch I do not understand a thing of it and hang up. A few minutes later, someone knocks on the door. I open in my shorts to find two girls there. One enters immediately and tells the other to follow. The first talks a lot but I have no idea where she is talking about. All becomes clear when she shifts to sign language. She makes the international sign for sexual intercourse. I ask Andre if he has any interest in one of them, but Andre is already half a sleep and is hardly aware what is going on. I push both girls out of the room and go to sleep. I see the girls the next morning again, they must work in the hotel, the question is as what?

To Litang

The first night after leaving Chengdu, I do not find a decent place to stay. The road is enclosed in between the mountains and where there would have been space to set up camp, people have their houses, gardens and land. I finally find a rope bridge that seems to lead to an unoccupied piece of flat ground. After pushing my bike over the bridge and up the slippery hill, I find a nice spot, where I can spend the night. Soon the night falls and I see some tiny lights. At first I think someone is coming from far with a little torch, but soon I realise they are fireflies, the first time I see them. Soon after it starts to rain, but my tent is set up well and all inside stays dry. After a while my shoulder gets cold and I find out that one of the seems in the tarp is leaking. Fortunately I can put my raincape over that part over the tent, which stops the leaking.
The day starts with one and a half hour climbing, before I reach a very long tunnel (Erlangshan tunnel) after which I go down for 15km. It is nice to go down, but frustrating at the same time, when you know later you will have to climb again. Still going down for me is the reward for climbing. After lunch I proceed to Kanding, but although not to far I have used most of my energy already and the almost non-stop rising road pushes me to the limit. At the end of the afternoon I reach the town, where I start to search for a budget hotel. After 2 hours of searching the cheapest hotel I found is 80RMB. May be for European standards not expensive, in China it would be my most expensive overnighting. I cannot find a cheaper one and as it already is dark (I do not want to cycle outside a city after dark) I go back to that hotel. It is very luxurious, I have my own bathroom and hot shower with water also coming from the side.
The next morning I continue with what I have been doing the day before, climbing. Five hours after I have left Kanding I reach the pass at 4298m. At this hight you cannot miss there is much less oxygen. everything I do, I'll try to do as slowly as possible to not get out of breath. I hang around the pass for a while. People want to be with me in a picture. It carresses my ego that people ask to be in a picture with me, so I am happy to pose. After a while it starts snowing, which is for me the sign to search for warmer places i.e. go down. Uptill now the road was pretty good, but halfway down the road gets to apalling quality, shaking my bones and bike. The shaking also makes my pedal problem reappear, but with the nail and a stone this is soon fixed. In the meantime I am surrounded by a group of women. Communicating is hard but I manage to get their address so I can send the picture by mail (I hope that the thing they wrote is their address). When I ask them where I can eat they point down the road, so I peddle on till I am in a town where they even have 2 restaurants and a guesthouse. I had enough for the day so I decide to stay for the night. After dinner I am invited to the home of an old man to eat some more. Always hungry I join him and finish the day with a bottle of beer.

My cycling buddies Chele and Enrique were headed for Litang as well. They had counted they arrived there the tenth, but I figure they might have miscalculated the distance too. On the 17th I cycle 10km when I reach a decent town. I have figured out that I will not reach Litang in the next three days if I keep on cycling so I decide to take a bus, to have some chance to hook up with Chele and Enrique. The only available spots in the bus are right at the end and I soon find why. At every bump, I am catapulted into the air. At several occasions my head hits the ceiling (40 cm higher than my head). The worse ones are the doubble bumps where, when landing you are immediatly are shot up again. The forces are that large (and the material that weak) that a seat in the row before me breaks under the pressure. Halfway I manage to secure a seat in the front of the bus, which makes the world of a difference.a> Late in the afternoon I reach Litang, with my kidneys still on the right spot.

Chengdu again

On monday morning I go to the trainstation to get a trainticket back to Chengdu for the next day. I of course could have done that much earlier, but my motto still seems to be "never do today what you can do tomorrow". Everytime when this strategy does not give the best results, I am determined to do things as early as I can, next time. I buy a ticket, even a sleeper, but only top bunks are available. Those are less desirable, because first you can not look out of the window and second the ceiling is very low, which makes sitting up impossible. I had planned to go to the Thai embassy, to inquire about entry points, but postpone that till when I am in Kunming, which seems early enough.

On the next day, I finally can get back my passport, hopefully with the required sticker and stamps. I secretely hope they will let the extension start on the 10th, but no such luck. It starts at where the previous one ended, so I will have to extend again the 30th. When I have my passport I head to the maglev station, which is only 2 stops away with the subway. I take a 2-way ticket to the airport which we reach in about 6 minutes, I take the same train back as I have nothing to do on the airport. So after 15 minutes I am back at where I started, 80RMB poorer and more experienced in riding trains. At night Marieke and I have dinner for the last time in our regular restaurant. In the train I want to update my journal, but my new book does not allow the 2 ballpoints put their ink in it. The other thing to do besides sleeping is working on my shirt and repairing my panniers. The people always find it very funny when I are stitching my stuff, this time they try to give me advise. I do not follow it, I have my own technique and I am happy with it. The second evening I am invited to share a bottle of disgusting Chinese liquor. After half a bottom it does not taste that bad or I do not taste anymore. In the wagon are two deaf girls and communication goes best with them, they are used to sign language and do not rattle on in Chinese to me. Instead we do a lot of pictionary. One of the girl warns me not to drink to much, she probably knows it is shit. People seem to like me, I get all sorts of food and drinks offered, this when they were making fun of me earlier, with pointing at me and then laughing. It may be because they think I am very poor, walking around in clothes which are falling apart and then repairing them.

In Chengdu I go back to the hostel where I stayed before. This was a rather smart thing to do, as I had left my bike and luggage there. Fortunately they still are, although it takes me half an hour to retrieve my backpack. I had planned to stay a while in Chengdu to at least see the pandas, but now I decide to leave the next day. I feel a little bit rushed. I have only 16 days before I have to reextend my visa and I figure I only can do that in a big city. But it might take me longer to reach one, considering I will go west into the mountains. Besides I sleep horrible in the hostel, now two Chinese hold a snore contest, which the man closest to the door wins by a narrow margin. In the morning at 5 a totally smashed boy comes in and right away falls a sleep on the last vacant bed. He does not snore, but he is wearing his shoes, which are covered in shit. The room smells awful, so at 6 I get up, pack my bags and leave.

Shanghai

In the weekend, after finishing visa business, we stroll through the centre. We are not the only ones, it probably is the most crowded weekend in the year. October first the birth of communistic China is celebrated and it seems all Chinese want to do this on Nanjing road. I can still look over the masses as the average Chinese reaches till my shoulder. During the week Marieke has to work hard on her graduation project and I have to entertain myself. Usually we have lunch together at 11:30 and we meet at 18:30 to find a place to dine. On wednesday I finally buy new shoes and throw away my huge boots. When I return to the campus I head straight for the football pitch with artificial grass. It already is crowded, with lots of people with balls. Two games are played on half a field. Initially I stand at the side line trying to pick up some loose balls, to show I am not a total moron with the ball. It takes to long before I am invited so I ask people if they speak English. After a few negative answers or shrugs with shoulders I find someone to converse with. We end up passing eachother the ball and when his team is up for playing a game I am invited to join. Each teams stands until the opposing team scores against them. We win the first match, but I can not prevent that the next team scores against us. I can not enjoy any rest, I am invited to play with the new team, which I gladly accept. By this time I already have a huge blister on the heel of my left foot. After 3 games won we are swapped with the third team, but in five minutes we are called to duty again. Most of us are still tired and soon we are defeated. After two and a half hour playing we call it a day. Now my foot realy hurts and my upperlegs soon are stiff, I feel and move like an old man.

There is no time to shower or change clothes, I have to meet Dave, from Urumqi, at People's square exit 1 at seven. Dave is already waiting and together with Marieke we head on Dave's advice to a Japanese restaurant. Although relative expensive, we enjoy a wonderfull meal. Dave has just returned from Japan and orders the dishes. We had to pay 3 times 98RMB and got all we could eat and drink. The different dishes keep on coming, one even more delicious than the other. The (Japanese) beer and prune(?) wine also taste great. Besides enjoying the food it is great to see Dave again. When finished, we take the taxi home, subway stops running quite early.

The next morning I feel much more older than the one day I have aged since the day before. I hardly can get out of my bed. Wearing my left shoe is killing, to day will be a day I will definitely do/walk not much. In the evening I manage to pull my body to a nearby restaurant where I am invited by Marieke to dine with her student colleagues. The bill is paid by the professor, although not present. I am Dutch enough to show up at something for free. Before going to Starbucks to have some coffee in town, spending all the saved money again, Marieke puts on someting warmer and I meet Qiqi, a law student. She wants to be in a picture with me, to which I do not object. She is so kind to send it to me later. On the way back from town I take of my shoes and walk on my socks, giving my heel a little rest and in the meantime spreading the hideous odour coming from my feet. If you hear of an environmental disaster in Shanghai, you know where it came from.

Visa, never easy

The busride from Zoige takes longer than I expect. I had hoped to arrive in Chengdu at three in the afternoon so I could get my visa extension even the same day. This was a slightly to optimistic view. When the sun starts to set I am finally able to disembark from the bus. I take out my bike and the wheels. Early in the morning in the pooring rain I had been trying to put my bike into the cargospace, with initially no succes. Almost al space was occupied and people kept putting in their huge bags. No one wanted to help me, but I was determined to keep on pushing and moving stuff until my bike was in. When I took of the wheels, fortunately my wrench was in one of my side pockets of my backpack, I managed to get everything in after reshuffling for 5 minutes. When finally I have my bicycle reassembled and my by bags strapped to it, it already is dark. I ask some bystanders where the centre is and start cycling in the direction indicated. After 1 hour I still have not reached it, I get the impression I am cycling round it. Then I find a guy who indicates he will get his bicycleto lead me to the centre. After a few minutes he returnes and 15 minutes later I am on the central square of Chengdu. Dave had advised me to stay at Hollies Hostel, the problem was that I did not have the address. My brother came to the rescue, he responds quickly on my request and after asking several locals I end up at the desired spot. I inquire how long it will take to get my visa extension and if I still can get a train ticket to Shanghai? With both answers I am not happy. According to the girl behind the counter (Holly?) says it takes five workingdays to get a visa extension and that there are no traintickets to Shanghai to coming week. After the good news I decide to have some breakfast, lunch and dinner. When I return to the hostel I am invited by two Americans to drink a couple of beers in the cafe on the 3rd floor. Later a Dutch couple joins us for a while. When there is no beer left at 2 we decide to search for our beds.

After breakfast with the 2 Americans, I take the bus to the trainstation to verify the girls claim. Halfway the ride a chinese girl indicates that I should switch to an other bus and just when I have done so, the bus refuses to start. Together with 2 others I push the bus and after a couple of tries the engine is working again. At the trainstation I am overwhelmed by the number of people queuing up. I estimate 2000 chinese are waiting for the 34 ticketboxes. One, number 11, has a sign "For Foreign guest" and I queue up. One and a half hour later I am served and to my surprise I can get on the next train and I have the option to get a hard sleeper. I promptly pay and hurry back to the hostel. The train will leave in one and a half hour and my hostel is on the other side of town. An hour later I am back on the station. I do not like taking taxis but this time I make use of them and fortunately they step on it.

I soon discover that a hard sleeper is much more comfortable than the hard seat. The 38 hour journey will, not even remotely be as hard as the 20 hour trip to Lanzhou earlier. It is a pity, however that the man sleeping in the bed next to me is snoring like there is no tomorrow. The windows are trembling in their slots everytime he breaths in. It is not till very early I finally fall a sleep. I kill time by working on my guru shirt, the number of holes do not seem to diminish though and reading the last part of my book of Jules Verne. The second morning, September 29, I arrive in Shanghai. Although Marieke has advised me to take subway line 1 and 2, I think I know better and I take line 3. For a change I am right and I text Marieke, she can pick me up at Zongshan Park, when she likes.

In the afternoon we go to a PSB for my visa. When we finally find it, a doormen shows us a note which says I have to go to a different place. It already is close to 16:30 so we take a taxi to get me there before the weekend (and the week holiday) starts. I am swiftly served but apparantly I need a yellow registration form, before they will process my request, fortunately they are also open the next day and my visa seems to be still valid on that day. This form is to be got at the local police office. Although the woman behind the counter assures me it is simple to acquire, the next day this statement proves to be a little beside the truth. After going back and forth to the policestation with different people and documentation, we give up to try to have Mariekes appartment as the place I stay. I end up renting a room in a hotel, where without any problem I get my yellow registration form. We hurry to 1500 Mingsheng road, where now without problems my case is accepted. I can pick up my passport on the 10th!! Because I only had a visa for one month, they are not willing to extend it with more than that, meaning that within 20 days after receiving my extension I will have to reapply for the last time.