Blogs from Deqin, Yunnan, China, Asia

The ride to Shangrila was pretty ridiculous, especially with Mary occasionally feeding me songs from her eclectic iPod shuffle. I highly recommend taking scenic rides with opera music as background. Shangrila used to be called Zhongdian, but it was renamed after a fictitious place discovered by Joseph Rock in the book Lost Horizon in order to promote the tourism industry. Besides a taxi driver who I think was just used to his old route and a "SAVE TIBET!11!!" French couple who also called Xinjiang "East Turkmenistan," everyone seemed to call it Xianggelila. We were clearly entering the Tibetan region of Yunnan. One time we had to stop the bus for Yak crossing and also we passed maybe 20 vultures circling a stupa on a hill, waiting for a sky burial (dinner!). The mountains got taller and ... read more

Well its been a rocky ride and we’ve only been on the bikes for a bit over a week. It started tough after 3 weeks of leisure off the bikes despite the almost flat terrain. It was certainly flat compared to what we got a few days later, and maybe the only excuse for falling off my bike is fatigue coupled with altitude. So the daily stats: Tuesday 17th June: First day back in the saddle: Dali to Eryuan , 60.9km and less than 100m climbed net Wednesday: Eryuan to Jianchuan, 59.2km and less than 200m climbed net Thursday: Jianchuan to Qiaotou, 87.9km, overall descent but 620m climbed in the day Friday: Resting at the mouth of Tiger Leaping Gorge. Small trip into the gorge itself Saturday: Qiaotou to camp near Shangri-La. 73.9km and 1650m climbed. ... read more

We embark onwards to Deqin, the closest that we will get to Tibet this trip unfortunately, but were not disapointed in anyway what's so ever! The 6 hour bus journey from Zhongdian (Shangr i la) was through some of the most breathtaking scenery that we have ever encountered so far - and certainly justified the compulsory $2 Life Insurance ticket. Zhongdian sits at around 3270m above sea level, and as soon as we boarded we began to climb even higher. The surrounding areas consist of mountaineous peaks and large plains where herds of yaks and cattle roam the grounds. The animals here are so 'free range' it really is a case of building fences to surround patches of food and other agricultural products, while cows, and pigs the size of cows, take over the meadows and ... read more