Too short, too quick

After cycling to Moniya and Mandalay my cycling trip is cut short: I will fly back home tonight to attend to some family affairs. Nothing too serious, but I choose to be with my family.

So the Myanmar experience is basically cut short as it was just starting: Bagan and the North are beautiful and less hot than the south around Yangoon... also the roads and transports seem a lot better in the North so all that looked promising. I spend only time in Mandalay, but its surroundings are nice: Saigan with all the temples and towers and the famous U Bein bridge... Some good memories to keep and a good starting point for future visits to Myanmar.

Happy New Year.

A good nights sleep

After seeing most of the impressive and the most impressive temples and ruins in Bagan, I felt ready to leave this very special place.

My plan was to get the ferry a bit along the river and than start riding from there. Instead I decided to ride to the next ferry crossing 20 or so km north since the last ferry had already left. On my way out I went to see the monks where I had been before to say thanks and goodbye...

We ended up talking about meditation and soon they figured it would betoo dark to ride the bicycle so they invited me to stay over in their little ruin monastery... a unique chance that I took of course. Luckily I had some fruits and cookies with me as the monks don't eat
after lunch.

Sleeping the 800 year old ruin in a bed provided by the monks was a delight comparable with staying at a luxury hotel: it was cool, dark and out the door was a moon-lit pagoda... only the 5 o'clock wake up service was a bit early, but then again it got me off on an early day in the cool morning and in time to make it to the ferry north of Bagan to the city of Pokakku.

I am now riding north along the Irriwaddy river, west of Mandalay. After a good lunch I will continue towards mandalay. I will arrive there early tomorrow. From there I will make new plans.

Temple-seeing Bagan

Yesterdays morning excursion with the bike across Yangon had me almost missing the plane to Bagan. On the map it looked straight forward, but reality was a mix of roads, early morning markets and a near lack of street lightning. It was only with a quick rush in a taxi
that I made the last minute of check-in time.

With arriving in Bagan things are on a different speed: SLOW. The area is cramped with temples that are between 900 and 700 years old... lots of them. I had a wonderful day sight-seeing across the sandy roads by bike. I met some other cyclists both from Holland and Germany. The 2 germans had just done the exact same route in China that I did this summer and were now heading for India.

The best moments of the day were spent in an old monastery and meditation cave: cool and murky, but nice to chat to the monks who actually live in some of the old ruins, share some fruit and spend some time meditating there.

Today I am spending another day in and between the temples... and tomorrow I will continue north towards Mandalay.

Getting out of Yangon

I am in Yangon for another day as todays flights are all fully booked.
So better luck tomorrow. The good thing is that I will have some time
to buy a new camera and visit the big pagoda again. I lost my camera
on the bad road yesterday, it must have fallen out of its framebag
without me noticing.

Normally spending an extra day here and getting a new camera would not
be a problem, but Myanmar is different: it is not possible to take out
money or pay by credit card. So all shopping for souvenirs and things
to get has to wait until just before leaving to make sure the money I
brought doesn't run out before boarding the plane back to bangkok. Of
course I did bring quite some cash, both in dollars and thai baht, but
getting a camera and paying for the flight north will eat into my
emergency money...

Then again, not having a camera is kind of an emergency in a country
that mixes old style colonial buildings with marvelous pagodas and
monasteries, and is full of smiling and friendly people. The streets
are filled with a mixture of Indian buses, old cars that serve as
taxis, big Chinese 4-wheel drives and lots of trishas: bicycle taxis
where the passenger seat is set next to the driver.

I am staying the old colonial area: the city centre with many Indian
and Chinese people living in converted buildings and the streets are
lined with food stalls. Apples is apparently a big thing here as they
are carefully packed and sold piece by piece at the same price as a
full meal!

As for my bike: all the tires are now checked, checked, sealed and
checked... the rest of the bike is ok after tightening all the srews 3
times... yesterday I said the road was bad... I should have said that
the road was under contruction and basically they had just come to the
first stage of laying big rocks... worse than anything that I have
ridden so far... and I don't even have a picture to share of it.

Off on a rough start

After a day with sightseeing around Yangon with the impressive Swedagon Pagoda as the golden highlight, I started of towards the western coast and beaches. However, the start was more rough than expected in many ways: the heat, the road, the traffic... progress on the first day was slow.

I got caught by the dark in a tiny village just 7 km from the town where I planned to stay. Despite an effort to convince the local polisforce (all equipped with walkie/talkies) to let me stay, they were firm that I traveled on for my safety... when I pointed out the risks of riding a very bad road in the dark, the police commander organised a private van and 2 policeman to come with me to the guesthouse of his choice in the town. After making sure that I was checked in the police left me and one of the boys in the guesthouse showed me around town and to a good place to eat...

This morning I tried to make for an early start but with the road being even worse, I had another flat and needed to fix my tire along the road. Quite entertaining for the local children, adults and monks... Again the progress was slow and after crossing the irriwaddy river I got to small village where I had lunch and calculated that I would make it to the beach and back just in time to catch my flight back to bangkok...

Since I want to see more of Burma than just rotten road... I got on a passing buss back to Yangon and I decided to fly to north tomorrow...

From Bangkok to Yangoon, and onwards

It is time to leave bangkok and get to the airport for my flight to Yangoon. All is packed and ready and i have bought some extra salt tablets after seeing that the average temaperature will be around 30 degrees. Certainly a lot hotter than the tour around Tibet.

My rough route takes me west from Yangoon to the beaches south of Ngapali. From there i will go north, northeast to Bagan and then on to Mandalay. From there things are flexible and unplanned. I hope i will have a few days to spare around Mandalay and Inle Lake, and then take a train or flight back to Yangoon.

Roughly 15 cycling days in 20 days, covering between 1400 and 2000 k.

Internet and mobile connection are very limited in Myanmar, so pictures and updates will probably come first in January.

Best wishes and a happy new year,

bjorn

Preparations in Bangkok

Bangkok is as beautiful and hot as always. The smell of incense mixed with the noise of the traffic... I like it here, but i can never stay too long.

I have taken some time to relax and get over the sleepless flight... and i have fixed the essentials for my trip to Myanmar:

1. Visum (a lot easier than anticipated, and apparently easier than most since i got the visa without having fixed my hotel or my flight)
2. Flight to Yangoon since there is no way one can ride a bicycle up to the border and enter the country (except for coming from china with a special visum from Kunming). Getting the flight was not so easy as apperently all the expats in Bangkok are celebrating x-mas in Burma...
3. Hotel in Yangoon to secure coming into the country upon arrival
4. Map of Myanmar after a realised that the maps in the lonely planet are just a bit too small to be sure that there is a road going where i want to go...

With the essential preparations in place, i now take it easy another 2 days in Bangkok... Shopping, meditation, eating good food.

//

On my way again...

less than 48 hours untill i will fly to Thailand for a few weeks of cycling in the sun... I have seen large parts of Thailand on previous trips and my real goal this time is Burma... or Myanmar.

Again a beautiful, but uncertain destination. I hope to arrange visa and flights in Bangkok since the burmese government doesn't like people showing up at the border with their bicycles. If the visa procedures take too long I might divert to Chang Mai region or ride towards Cambodia.

Cycling gives freedom of choice and direction.

Stormy waters

Just before the outbreak of winter my good friend Claus came to visit from Danmark. Claus loves adventure almost as much as I do, so we decided to go for a kayak tour in the archipelago.

The weather was great and we got the most of the last sunshine weekend. We also got the best of the autumn: a feisty storm picked up just as we were about to round an island half-way between Nynäshamn and Utö. The waves were quite high and there even was a surf and despite som scary moments all went well.

HOME

I am home, stockholm Sweden, and it feels so nice! The sun is shining and I have just come back from a little kayaking on riddarfjärden... so nice.

The second part of the Xining to Lijiang trip went well: it was tough, cool, and beautiful. The changing landscape, the people and of course the passes: Crossing over to Derge towards the Tibetan border I climbed up to 5050 meters...a dream altitude! and a big big downhill after that. Unfortunately, I had to pay for the fun with 3 days of terrible and non-existing roads untill I reconnected to the main road to Litang. The fact that it was raining most of the time didn't help either, but it was worth it!

From Litang to Lijiang the road goes straight south, almost... it just switches across a few more mountainpasses before coming back to the Yangtze in the Tiger Leaping Gorge. With all the rain in the south of China, the Yangtze was at its max height and forcefully pushing through the gorge!

Coming back to Shangri-la and Lijiang from the north felt very different from last year when i came from the south... the air gets more clear, the landscape gets more rough, the people more tibetan going north... coming back the cities felt big, crowdy and noisy. Still, the food, teh shower and the real bed were very very nice and relaxing.

Before i knew it, i had to get my bike and stuff packed and i was on my way back to home... but with the plans for the next trip already resonating in my mind...

Onwards to Lijiang

The last 2 weeks I have cycled from Xining to Yushu along the G214
across the Tibetan plateau.

The riding has been great: we have crossed the highest pass of 4845 meters: cool, cold and just enough oxygene to feel like an astma patient. The roads are generally good and the views are fantastic. Along the way I have visited monestaries, camped out at more 4000 meters, visited Tibetan nomads and met some wonderful people. Unfortunately i can not upload the pictures. I think i have taken over 800 sofar.

Riding together with the others has been good, and good fun... cultural differences and lack of riding experience have created quite some occassions for confusion and laughing. All together, however, I have enjoyed the company and the talks and it has given more insights in china and tibet.

Yushu is about a third of the way to Lijiang and we were hoping to get the necessary permits to cross through Tibet Autonomous Region from here. However, NOT.... no permit, or better no permits. Apparently we need about 4 different permits to please both police and military in the areas we would cross. We tried to explain that we are friendly and all that, but the cities and the roads are more closed right now then ever before due to the unrest in north-eastern china.

To keep things simple, and avoid trouble and fines, I have changed the route slightly and will travel trough the Sichuan Province instead, staying close to the border. Also I will ride alone again to see some other things and to ride at my own speed. The group falls apart as the
chinese guy got bitten by a dog and refuses to leave town, and Hutch and the Tibetan boy will travel at an easier speed.

Last night we prepared all the maps with new routes and new choices, I am not quite sure how I will ride, but I plan to visit Derge, where they have the Tibetan library and bookprinting monastery, Litang, where they have the horse festival, and then shangri-la, where i spend some time last year. On the way I hope to tick of pass that crosses over 5002 meters...

Leaving for Tibet along road G214

Plans and routes have changed a few times this trip, but now it SEEMS set to ride along road G214 from Xining to Lijiang.

We are leaving soon for a short first day. WE, that is a strange group of 4: an american who has ridden all across China, a chinese from Shanghai, a tibetan who has never ridden long before, and myself. It will be interesting!

As for the Tibet situation, things look good as the american, Haqi, was one of the torchbearers in the olympic relay and he has good connections.

Recovery, shopping and new plans!

Taking time to recover in Lijiang is really great! I think my last few cycling trips might have missed the recovery part... and I know that some of you have said so...

Anyway, I have strolled around the town, ridden my bike to small villages and monestries, been for a swim in a beautiful resorvoir and basically I have been enjoying to stay in this town.

Of course it helps that I have a chinese friend here: she explains things and makes it easy to make the local choices rather than the tourist choices; breakfast in the market costs 2 yuan and in the cafe recommended by Lonely Planet it costs about the same as home.

Interesting however to realise how easy it is to develop habits to feel at home in a new town: the same tea house, the same nice restaurant... it is a good feeling to come to places where the people recognise you... just like home. Or almost.

Lijiang is a world heritage site and with all the tourists coming here, the shopping is good even though the chinese seem to focus on scarfes and dried meat. Not what I am looking for! Luckily some smart people target the westerners with a taste for old Tibetan artifacts... The bargaining is quite bisarr... it just doesn't feel right to offer 10-20% of the asking price, but that is more or less what they offer after you leave the shop... or just on the doorstep. It feels like I have done most of my holiday shopping already, even though I am just in the 2nd week.

Also the time in Lijiang has helped me develop or change the plans for the rest of my trip: I got a contact to a guy from Australia who organised a private mini tour to ride from the north of Tibet (Xining) to Lijiang... Starting thursday! After some calling, they offered to wait 1 day for me to make my way up north and welcomed me to their group. Aussie style. Apperently, you don't need a permit and all the stuff with 4-wheel drive car when you have a company and a residence permit... and you can bring along friends.

I have no idea what to expect from the others, but the plan is to ride 80 to 100 km per day depending on terrain and conditions. Sleeping will be as usual in small hotels and a few nights in tents... sounds good to me! So tomorrow I will fix the last things on my bike and get ready. The total tour will be 3-4 weeks. I am afraid there will not be so many opportunities to update the blog, but the experience and the sights will be worth it.

Tomorrow i will look for a map, but basically we will ride the whole length of road 214, the same road that I started out on last year into Tibet, but this time i will ride north to south.

More tomorrow.

Pictures!

Finally, I got the cardreader to work and in the China album I have uploaded a summary of pictures since the start of the trip.

You can see all the pics here.

I am now in Lijiang and enjoy being a tourist. I am using the time it takes to adjust to the altitude and to recover from the cycling last week, to explore small streets, beautiful monestries, old shops selling fake stuff, and eating good food. I am a tourist.

The weather has been really bad the last few days and I fear the worst for getting back on the road again... there will be a lot of mud. Since Tibet is definitely off, I have changed the motto for the coming weeks to "bike less, see more", and I look forward to spending some more time in small villages, visit the monestries in Yunnan and Sichuan and see the mountains.

Up and down in the Chinese mountains

The last few days I have crossed through a mountain range... it looked like a nice road and a good way to get away from the traffic around Chengdu, but it turned out a to be a road full of surpises!

What it feels like to be a superstar: Arrive in a village and people want to touch you and your bike, somebody fixes hot water so you can make coffee, people are friendly and say hello, 5 girls invite you for diner and even though they dont speak any english they want you to stay and drink beer with them, you fly down-hill on perfect asfalt for 30 km, you get the best room for half price...

What it feels like to be a tramp: The road dissappears in the fogg, the mud clogs up the wheels and you fall over, covering all of you in mud, including the new camera, you bike 50 km on a bad road to discover that you missed the turn, when you discover that nobody wants to speak to you, after finally getting a ride back to the missed turn-off, there is nowhere to stay and you sleep along the roadside, you are chased away from local fertility event and people refuse to sell you water and food, despite the store being full...

The scenery and the people compensate for the toughness of the cycling: I have no cycling computer or altitude meter, but I must have passed over 2500 - 3000 meters at least twice, the ridiculous down/hill in the end showed that I had gained lots and lots of altitude. The gorges I rode in made me feel like riding on the bottom of the Grand Canyon! So high!

The minority people in the district I am in are the Yi, they still live very natural (or poor and backward by chinese standards) a lot of folk clothes, but also a lot of empty beer bottles along the road and quite obviously the problems and poverty seem bigger closer to the main roads than on the mountain.

A thought that keeps coming back: How many chinese would cycle from Stockholm to Dalarna to see some people in folk clothes?

All together things are good. I am tired after 7 days of riding. I have now come to the south of Sichuan and will cross over to Yunnan by bus. I know. But need a rest day and the whole area is flooding after the most torrential rains that are causing problems with floods and roads in the south of china. Last year it was the earth quake, now it is floods.

In Lijang I will spend a few days in the country side, then I will continue by bike to the north... also I hope to find a usb cable soon.

To the top

The 52 km to the top of mount Emei were basically all upphill through beautiful and shifting scenery: from green and warm to foggy and bare...

The ride up took 5 hours, after that there was still 1,5 hours of walking up massive stairs before reaching the top. Nothing much to see: fogg and darkness... So I decided to stay to give the "Golden Summit" another chance.

I got the last room in one of the hotels on the top and got up early to see the sunrise that can be really beautiful here. This morning, however, was quite foggy and bleak. There were some glimpses though of the mountains in the west and also I got a good view of the monestries and temples on the top. I had a "budhist only" breakfast of rice soup with spicy vegetables for 6 yuan. Very cheap considering that the cable car brings up 1200 tourists an hour and everything else was about double the price of things down in the village.

After a good look at the top I took the cable car down to safe my knees and then got back on my bike to ride the 52 km downhill: a nice start of the day. Now I just had a western style lunch with a chicken burger and I am ready for the second part of todays riding.

How strange is China? Very! The guesthouse owner just seriously explained that tourists can not travel in Tibet because the Lama is a bad man and the government thinks he wants to attack the tourists, but not the chinese... what can you say to that?

The buddha was very big indeed

The giant buddha in Leshan really deserves its name. It was very big and very beautiful.

The site is a major chinese attraction with many tour buses full with tourists around. I took some nice pictures and enjoyed some quietness in a corner of the park. I needed that after the morning ride with a lot of muddy roads, noise and polluted air.

Chengdu area is a basin that literally fills up with badly polluted air from all the industries that are located in the region. Not to mention the traffic and trucks.

After visiting the Buddha I continued to Mount Emei, one of the sacred mountains in budhism. I am not sure what I was expecting when I looked on the map, but when I arrived in the Emei village it came as quite a shock that the top of the mountain is another 52 km from here and 3000 meter up. I will sleep on whether I want to hike up (10 hours) or ride my bike. Apparently it is possible to sleep on the top and see the sunrise! Going up will also be a good acclimatisation: train low, sleep high...

My new camera is working fine, but there are 2 problems with the promised pictures: 1. I expected the computers to have cardreaders and didn't take the usb cable for the camera to save weight. 2. China effectively blocks the whole of blogspot... so what you see here is uploaded via mail to Sweden.

3 policemen entered my room

Today was my first day on the bike. The weather was grey with a slight rain... not quite the summer weather we had in Stockholm last week. 

It was a day with contrasts: leaving the big city of Chengdu with 4 million inhabitants took almost 1 hour, then it was another few hours with a lot of traffic untill all of a sudden I was in the countryside with typcial chinese ricefields, bamboo and a nice river view. Still things took longer than expected and on the small roads the 135k to Leshan became longer and longer... I rode 120k and there is still 40 left for breakfast to visit the worlds largest buddha statue.

 

Tonight I am staying at a small town "hotel"... there is a bed and a warmish shower... and just after I had washed all the dirt of my legs and my face, 3 policemen entered my room. All dressed up in uniform, they explained that they were the police and needed to register me. I guess this town doesn't many foreign guests: it took them 10 minutes to figure out what line in my visum was my name. 

After that they became very friendly and I was allowed to go around town to have some food. To add to the joy of this little town they are paving the road just outside my hotel. It feels like they are going to keep doing that the whole night. At least I will not oversleep again.

 

After arriving in Chengdu yesterday I fixed my bike and then went for a stroll around town together with Michael from Australia whom I met on the plane. He is here to visit his Tibetan friend who is a monk in Tibet. He explained a lot of things about the different schools of budhism in Tibet and it was really interesting to meet. I might be able to pass by the monastry along the way at some point during the trip.

Half way

Stockholm Arlanda: easy check-in, friendly people helping with my bike... total weight checked in 24 kg. Handluggage appr. 6 kilos. No problems.

Bangkok airport: great coffee, great shops, and the sun is just coming up...

Tired, confused and drinking coffee in the middle of the night... The flight here was quiet so i got 3 seats to myself, still it was not easy to sleep since it was only afternoon in stockholm when i left. Another hour before the plain leaves for Chengdu.

My plan right now is to start with a warm up biking of about a week to get from Chengdu to Lijang where I was last year. From there i have 3 options:

1. make arrangements to ride my bike to Lhasa
2. fly across to Golmud to ride my bike from there to Lhasa
3. ride my bike in the mountains that are not restricted areas

Right now i don't know, But I already feel like i am on holiday and that feels good!

almost ready to leave

everything is packed now and based on what i have used and not used on previous travels, i have only packed the essentials. My packing is surprisingly light this time.

preparations

Today I am packing my stuff... trying to find the best combinations and the lightest parts to pack. My bike is ready, but the rest of the gear is just a big mess in my bedroom.

My packlist:

basics:
Tent: vaude hogan ultralight
Sleeping bag: mountain equipment
Mattrass: inflatable Exped in kids size
Cooker: Jetboil

clothes:

medics:

bike repair:

books and maps: