Advertisement
Published: July 16th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Today we have to ride 300 miles - not normally a problem but today the last 100 miles will be on dirt roads climbing from 1300m up to 4996m, that's a lot of up!! But its exciting as tonight we will be sleeping up on the Tibetan Plateau at 3800m. At 07:00 we set off in the dark (that's Beijing Time for you - the locals would call this 05:00!!) but the sun soon rises over the flat agricultural plain. Sometimes the landscape is desert like and other times very green with trees lining the road but always in the distance are snowy mountains. Passing through small towns you realise just how much info your eyes are taking in without you realising it - the smallest words written in English leap out at you from the strangest places that you didn't even know you had looked at.
As we start to climb the dirt road is really good and luckily it stays good all the way Its a great road to ride as it twists and turns its way up the mountain-side (and down again and up again etc. etc.). Down on the plains the temperature was 24C but at
not a bad spot for a pee stop!
there are snowy mountains in the background if you look closely the top of the pass its 0C and we are surrounded by snow - but thankfully not on the road. Ahead of us are the usual snowy mountains but this vista contains K2 - how exciting is that? (although a quick internet check suggests you cant actually see it from the road and have to either trek down the valley or climb 450m higher)
Our destination is Mazar, it looks like a town on the map being marked with a big dot and big letters. But a town it is not, it's a collection of 12 ramshackle shacks which function as an all night truck stop. There's no running water (apart from the little stream outside), no toilets and one big room for everyone to sleep in. The big room is right next door to the all night kitchen and there's no real partition between them so every time the wok is fired up the room fills with acrid oil smoke and chokes everyone. We have a lucky escape as there are complaints that the room is too full and as the last to turn up we are shuffled off to another shack which is warm and quiet. There
are ducks roaming around outside playing in the stream but after we have had our supper there are 3 less!
There is a positive side to no loos - when you trot outside in the middle of the night you are greeted by the most wonderful starry skies. With no light pollution around the milky way is visible in its full glory.
We may be up on the Tibetan Plateau but we haven't officially entered Tibet yet, that's still 300 miles away on gravel roads with passes in excess of 5200m. Lets hope there's nothing like the Irkeshtam Pass ahead of us!!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.313s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 17; qc: 80; dbt: 0.0753s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Aaron Sprague
non-member comment
Thanks
Thank you for including me in these, I love your take.... Be happy you missed the oil and the lady arguing over the vegitables!