Wow - what an incredible journey I am on! The road through China was (and still is, long and quite a solitary one) but I am almost in Kashgar and soon will be in Kyrgyzstan, and from there over to Istanbul by the end of April.
I had a bit of a turbulent start as it is very difficult to get sim cards for your mobile phone and even withdraw money from the atm. But once this was sorted things went smoothly again.
In China you have no access to many of the western websites, so my apologies for such a big gap between blog entries, but now thanks to some assistance from friends I am able to send a short blog update and will post a longer one once I have access again. Thanks for your patience ;)
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| The mountains of Dongguan |
I started early in the morning, surrounded by the beauty in the middle of the mountains of the Yunnan province. After 110km and two hill tops later I arrived in Dongguan in the late afternoon. A half hour later I found a hotel for 60 yuan. I had a shower and was about to go out to eat when they invited me to join their family for dinner. When I went upstairs the whole family was there to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Nobody could speak English, but these days we have smart phones with translation apps, from Chinese to English and the other way around. Every time anyone had a question they would translate it into English and I wrote my answers back - it was an unforgettable evening. Later when they bring me back to my room, they gave me my 60 yuan back; I was now a friend of the family forever :)
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| Chinese New Year fireworks |
The next day I cycled 80km to Meng-la but I struggled to find an atm to work for me. One of the bank employees was so kind and helpful - she organized a bus for me to Jinghong, 160km from Meng-la and she also paid for the bus ticket. She called a bank and assured me that I could get money in Jinghong and yes, 5 hours later I was a rich man again.
On the road when I was looking for accommodation I met Daniel from Astonia, the only other foreigner I have met since crossing into China, and he could speak English, Russian and Chinese! He was kind enough to show me to a nice hostel, where I met Yu and his wife, who assisted me to get a sim card for my phone. I had a really great time in Jinghong for 2 days. I was invited by Yu who showed me around, and when a Chinese invites you they pay for everything, I was not allowed to pay for anything - thanks Yu :)
After Jinghong I travelled in the direction of Kunming another 700km away, with a lot of mountains, steep mountains. You climb slowly, slowly until you reach heights of 1000m - 1500m long slopes. Quite gentle but 25 to 30km of climbing, whew, and after that the big descent, the longest one was 38km.
The roads in China are a brilliant quality, which means you hardly need to brake, sometimes I reached speeds of 55 - 60km per hour.
After a turbulent start I began to enjoy China very much. Wherever I have been the people were very nice, and their hospitality was superb. More than once I was given meals for free. Once when I was about to leave a restaurant and went to pay, I was told that somebody had already paid for my meal - unbelievably amazing I think I am a lucky guy.
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| A sign encouraging people to cycle |
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| Hot air balloon |
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| Daphne - my greatest supporter, a big fashion brand in China |
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| Dongguan to Kashgar |
