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?