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July 9th, 2005: From Kunming to Dali

The landscapes of Yunnan are diverse and exotic. Given the province's size and range of elevations, the natural vegetation ranges from tropical raniforests to glacial deserts. Rare plants grow in places with low population density. Faunal richness is the highest in China. Endemism is high. Several large rivers cut through the area producing a pattern of high mountain ridges and deep valleys. The region is inhabited by peoples of different ethnic origins. The people in rural areas have long been prohibited to move from their respective villages and the village life is still to a large extent untouched by the globalization and tourism. We feel like exploring a part of this authenticity.

Bike is a traditionnal way of moving in China, but only for short distances. When we tell our Chinese friends we want to bike from Kunming to Dali, they invariably produce a smile of incredulity. But we are not the first to do so. Two years ago, a Swiss couple, the Liechti, biked a route similar to the one we plan to take. It is an ancient road through the mountains that has been traveled by Kublai Khan's horses centuries earlier. This road is a part of a long stretch connecting India to China, called the Old Burma Road. Until recently, the bit west of Kunming has been no more than a mule track. The segment between Kunming and Dali was first paved in the first world war by the Chinese armed forces. The paved road brought the cut-off villages closer to the city. But a new expressway was built between Kunming and Dali, leaving the old road almost free of traffic and leaving the villages around it again to their peace.

The stretch between Kunming and Dali represents a horizontal distance of some 430 kilometers and a vertical distance of some 3600 meters, including four major passes. We buy two good touring bikes at the Fat Tire Fun shop in Kunming, the only shop we know of where it is possible to choose the components and have a decent customized bike built. The owner makes us choose from American and Japanese brands, off course Made in China..

It is raining cats and dogs on the day we are ready to leave. The southern part of Yunnan lies under water, and Xue is worried. We postpone the departure by a day. As we wake up on the following day, it is still raining. But the mountains are not in danger of floods and we are too excited to wait. Sensing our determination, the rain turns lighter and occasionally even stops. It is midday, we cycle through Kunming, and at the sight of fellow cyclists, our 30 kilos of luggage feels lighter.



At the outskirts of the city, the traffic starts to include horses, donkeys, and most amazing customized vehicles. Near Western Hills, we stop for a savoury lunch. On the first downhill after Kunming, Mathias rolls over broken glass and punctures a tire. Fortunately, we brought a repair kit. We cross the city of An Ling. It is getting late, and we find a room in a village that does not exist on our map.

Next day, we enter the Yunnan's wine region.





The grapes are delicious but the art of wine making, introduced by the French missionaires, still needs some fine-tuning.

Here comes the first serious downhill, about 15 kilometers of steep fun. After the city of Lu Peng, we enter the tranquil countryside. The water buffalos love muddy waters.



We bike through the cloud forest along a speedy, red-colored river. The walls of the gorge grow higher and higher. At five, we squeeze our tent between the cliffs and a tiny maiz field.



Sitting in the lush vegetation that overlooks the river, we drink sweetened soy milk, eat cereals with fruit, and listen to the song of bizzare birds never seen. Next day, the road climbs somewhat through the gorge, occasionally sneaking through pitch dark tunnels. We cross a couple of villages with rice fields and clay houses before stopping for another tasty lunch.



In front of the farm house we stop at grow exotic flowers and the tea pot is always ready.





The farmers' wife takes us to the kitchen, and we pick the vegetables for the soup and the side dish and we choose the meat. It is not necessary to order green tea or rice, it is a matter of course. The seasoning differs from village to village.



We let the heavy rain showers pass and set on a 33 kilometers climb.



We pitch the tent at the highest point. There is only forest around.



You can also be alone in China.

The next morning's downhill is one big grin. The plain below is dotted with corn and vegetable fields, interrupted by grassland for cattle. The local specials include the sheep's intestins and stomach soup with Sichuan peppers and tofu noodles and vegetables you put in as you wish.



Farmers' kids also bring us some sort of fruit. Ignorant of the proper proceedings, we add them to the soup. The kids cover their mouth and go report to the grandpa.



We continue through a hilly landscape full of tiny villages. People burn construction bricks in the ovens, carve marble doors and work their fields with simple instruments, cut trees, and collect mushrooms. We pass the Chu Xiong city. We have some 90 kilometers in the feet when we eventually arrive to the village of Sha Qiao Zhen where we find a room with a nice view.

The monsoon rain comes again heavily in the following morning. We spend the morning in the village and start to push the pedals towards 3pm. It goes seriously up again in very wild landscapes.



From time to time, we see an isolated house. The mountain minorities speak no common language and you can tell they rarely see a stranger. It looks like a hard life working in the steep maiz fields.



We start to feel hungry. The next time we see people, we make signs like we were eating a soup. The people seem to understand, point ahead, and show us three fingers. After three kilometers, there is a small village. But we get the same answer, no food here, and three fingers of a hand. This happens two more times, and we dig into the strategic chocolate reserves. But then we get some real treats in the village of the Dai people, the descendants of the Thai ethnies. We get a more or less clean room, but it is noisy, and the restrooms are, frankly, scandalizing. Nothing to do with Thai culture. We look forward to camping again.

The following day, it feels like we arrived to Italy.



The climate is much drier. The sky is big blue. It smells the pine forest and the land is sandy. It goes up and down, mostly againsts the wind but there is a long long downhill, the so called free kilometers. We find a nice camp spot.

My nose is tickled by the nice smell of fresh Yunnanese coffee. It is another lovely morning.



We get invites from the locals of still other ethnic origines, very friendly people indeed.



It is rather hot as we arrive to the "Arab" lands.





The region seems to have good standards of living. The houses are made of stone or brick, with carved wooden doors and tile roofs. The streets are clean. There are flush toilets. The horse taxis are well fed. The cows get transported in trucks.





We see high mountains in front of us, so we buy enough refreshments on the market. We climb steadily, and get fabulous glimpses of the plains. The sun sets as we pitch the tent. The views are majestic.





In the morning, someone is sniffing around the tent. The curious goats.



After a while, a shepherd arrives and starts a conversation. He talks his dialect, Mathias answers in Swiss German, the goats add an occasional meek.



The discussion goes on for half an hour. Then a group of worker women emerges from the forest, followed by a man loaded with truncs.





We exchange polite greetings with everyone, then it is time to go. The road continues winding up. At some point, we arrive in a village where all the women wear elaborate costumes.



The children are many. The one kid policy, maximum two if the first one is a girl, does not seem to apply here. And again, little Mandarin is spoken. We ask about an eatery. The people point ahead and show us three fingers. We exchange looks and buy Coke and cookies, just in case. It turns out it was a prudent thing to do. In three kilometers, there is nothing around but mountains. On the kilometer twelve therafter, we see dried meet hanging in the windows of a solitary house. The owners could do noodles for us, but no vegetables. They would also have chicken meat, but it is still running around. We thank and continue, hoping for better. After fifteen more kilometers, we get to the right place.



A farmer catches a fresh fish from the pond in the front of the house. The fish gets fried with a lot of chili and ginger and served with the vegetables from the garden and the obligatory rice. We sip our green tea, the farmer smokes something suspicious from his massive bamboo pipe, his three daughters watch a melodramatic TV series from the imperial times. The window is wide open, giving a view of a river delta. The water level is too low for the season.



Well relaxed, we make the final kilometers to Dali. The immediate surroundings of the old city of Dali are less than romantic. A road construction, silhouettes of beer, marble, tie-dyed cloth,furniture, and paper factories, tourist busses, intensive agriculture. The biking lane gets suddenly blocked by a cart load of pig manure. The manure is simply dumped into a river that throws itself into the jade green Lake of Dali. Not an ideal place for kitesurfing I guess..

However, as we enter the old city, the ambiance changes completely. The old town is an oasis between thick walls, with running rivers, greenery, and temples. We soon find a place with a lot of character to relax the muscles. The place is an old stone house renovated in the so called "cynical realism" style. We park the bikes in a painters' atelier, take a steaming shower in a bathroom made purely of natural stone, and hit the bed.





Other Dali's attractions can wait.

July 16th, 2005: Dali

During the reign of Tang and Song dynasties, Dali was the capital of Dali and Nanzhao kingdoms. Its strategic situation on the Silk Road of the South made it a bustling commercial center.







The town is inhabited by several minorities, predominantly the Bai people.









Dali is also a culinary center of the region. Yunnan produces about two thousand different vegetables, and Dali offers a good choice. It is also the season of juicy mushrooms, snakes, snails, chrysanthemums and orchids..

July 20th, 2005: Zhongdian / Shangrila

We are on an eight hours bus trip to Shangrila. We feel like excited kangoroos on the rough road but the landscapes compensate for it all. The first curve of the Yangze, the tiger lilly carpets, the amazing valleys, the first high plateau. After about six hours of driving, the bus suddenly stops jumping. For some reason the road has received new pavement. There is also a newly built ghost town. Brand new buildings but no one around. Perhaps a newly planned industrial center in the middle of pristine nature. We hope not. Maybe just overinvestment.

The bus climbs higher still before we reach Shangrila at 3200 meters above the sea level.







We settle in the guesthouse Harmony, a hundred years old house powered by solar energy.





From the terrace, we see a huge golden prayer mill turning.



It takes at least two strong men to bring the mill into motion. To say the prayers, three full circles have to be completed. We see the mill turning for hours as the villagers come to pray. This place has a soul.

Until 1959, southwest Sichuan and northwest Yunnan belonged to Tibet. The region is still tibetan in all but the name. A 300 years old lamasery shines over Shangrila.







The lamasery's walls are one big painting.









New temples are being built from generous donations.



Currently, about 700 monks live in and around the lamasery.







Back in the village, people gather for the daily dancing ritual. Young and old, men and women, farmers craftsmen, and shopkeepers graciously move in perfect synchronization in the rythm of tibetan music.



At some point, the music fails. The surprise is general.









It takes a little while to find the rythm again.

We make a few hikes in the surrounding mountains and villages.





The grass is extremely soft, covered in places by clusters of aromatic bushes, thousands of edelweiss and other flowers rare or inexistant in other parts of the world.

July 26th, 2005: Biking in the Himalaya

For three days, I am fighting with an unpleasent stomach bug, the price for going to an upper class restaurant with lower turnover. On the fourth day, we are on the road again.

We leave Shangrila at 2pm. We drive the bikes east of town towards the higher peaks of Eastern Himalaya. The first twenty kilometers on the high plateau, the landscape reminds us of Cantal, France.



After the first climb, I feel some weakness, and we settle for the night.



The road winds up through the forest smelling mushrooms. In these remote regions, most Tibetans still live a semi-nomadic life, walking long distances in the mountains.



We reach another high plain where a couple of villages are nestled, surrounded by flowering potato fields and cushions of wildflowers.





At the next crossroad, a couple of busses catch up with us. They both turn left. We turn right. The road on this side is narrow but new and smooth. With no traffic at all. This is probably the best biking lane in China. We lead our metal donkeys through the fresh air of the valley in which horses and yaks graze by meandering brooks.



We filter some water from a fast-running river and cook light food. My stomach is back on track.

We get higher and higher, and the last wooden houses become smaller and smaller.



The air is thiner. We drink a lot. But we get increasingly excited. We are in great shape, and biking in the highest place we have ever been to. Uphill was rarely this fun. At the peak, we are at 4000 meters above sea. And we are looking at peaks reaching close to 6000 meters above the ocean.



Just below the top, a Tibetan family set up a tent.



We ask about food. Jiulong, they say. Some twenty kilometers downhill, vertically some thousand meters lower.

Houraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!! We let go. The air gets loud in the ears. The curves are many and delicious. We test the steepest inclinations possible with 30 kilos luggage. From time to time, we pull full brake to admire the succession of steep V-shaped valleys below.



Much further down, Tibetan's welcome greetings send an echo "Hello! Hello!". It seems English is the common language here..



The women wear wide square hats. We arrived to the Yi's people land.



In Jiulong, we are treated well.



We know we could not sleep with such a full stomach. With renewed energy, we bike the amazing road back up as the sun disappears behind the bare rocks.



Towards the top of the pass, huge clouds have gathered. We pitch the tent two seconds before the first big drops fall down. Lightenings cut the skies with daylight intensity. After a couple of hours, the roaring backs off to distance. We sleep in a cloud of tiny droplets.

Back in Shangrila, the salty tea with yak butter tastes just great. We sit with a Tibetan family by the fire, eat tsampa, offer some chocolate back. These people have a very nice smile.



We will find an excuse to come back.