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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...