This post starts off where the last one ended. On a chilly but beautiful morning by the edge of the Chinese Taklamakan desert. A morning where I finally got my first glimpse of these.
The last bunch of days in the desert I had been longing for them more and more. I knew that in time China would give me more than my fair share of mountains, and that it could be wise to enjoy the easy cycling my days still consisted of. But by then I was kind of done with easy. And definitely done with sand.
Up was a couple of days climb to my first ever Chinese mountain pass. 3600 meter ASL might sound like a lot, and I guess by all means it is. However getting up there was remarkably easy. Coming in from Central Asia – used to climbing the dirt road Kamikaze passes of Tajikistan – surely played a role in what a breeze I experienced the whole thing to be.
‘Does it even count as climbing, with easy gradients, air full of oxygen and smoothly sealed roads like this?’
After a day of slowly gaining altitude I set camp just a couple of hours from the pass. Next day I would for the first time wake up as a 24-year-old, and figured that saving the pass would be a suitable birthday present to myself.
What my first on the road birthday was like? Different! And awesome.
Though however odd the day might have been – I didn’t have to miss out on too many things of what I remember my childhood birthdays at home to have consisted of.
Breakfast in bed (bag)
I’m an October kid – it’s supposed to be cold!
The sun soon brought some nice temperatures…
…and I got to cash in my present with a clear blue sky!
To top the day off, I crossed my first province border, leaving Xinjiang for Qinghai. Finally I really got to feel some sense of progress, and in other words – this was a good day.
Now one might think that things would really be changing from here. But to tell you the truth, they really didn’t. At all. Once up on the mountain plateau (around 3000 meter ASL), I was hit by just the same monotony I had had company for the last weeks. The only real difference being that most of the sand was exchanged by some kind of gravel, and naturally that the temperatures were now considerably lower.
Luckily, the slap-in-the-face camp spots also joined up the plateau.
I guess everyone has a limit where you’ve just had enough. By now I think I was getting closer and closer to mine, and the cycling started feeling more like a chore that anything else.
No matter how many hours I put into it, I could barely see myself moving on the map, and China slowly started to feel just as overwhelming as it’s supposed to do when you’re stupid enough to go at it on a pushbike.
Waiting for tired cyclists to throw in the towel?
Then – just like always when I need that extra push, life heads straight out to give it to me.
Now this sign might not tell you much. But really, this one made all the difference. This was my first real finish line since starting my Chinese ride. This was…
A turn.
The first actual turn since starting off in Kashgar. Weeks – and thousands of kilometers – ago.
Right for Golmud. Gosh.
No matter what logic would tell me – this was all I needed. That the turn itself was something like a one second event, and that the sign clearly stated that I then had another 359 km before anything else would happen, was completely irrelevant. I was in fact making progress, and this another proof of it.
The last few days into Golmud were good ones. Nothing revolutionary happened, but my head was back into appreciating things by default – and I no longer had to make an effort in order to have a good time. I guess at least some of you know what I mean?
I enjoy my own company a lot more when my mind is set like this. When I unconsciously look for the good stuff. They’re always there of course. But it’s so nice to see them also without necessarily be looking for them.
My first proper prayer flags!
Now this is a menu even a foreign cyclist can understand! (It’s a whole wall)
Even the views started to show up again
Daytime temperatures were still comfortable, but as the nights started getting colder and colder, the prospect of camping got less tempting as time went on. What good does the views do if you’re not out to see them?
There was still no civilization to speak of, but as my ‘sleep inside radar’ went on, I ended up having a couple of really weird – and absolutely hilarious – ‘homestays’ with people working at the industrial areas occasionally popping up along the road.
I consider one of my strengths on the road to be communicating with the people I bump into along it. It was long ago since I generally had a language in common with the locals, but it all tends to work pretty well with some basic vocabulary, body language and a lot of will power.
In China however. It’s so difficult. Never before have I had so much trouble with this, and daily I fail miserably with the most basic stuff you could imagine. Nothing works! At times this is obviously frustrating. But it can also be so much fun. With the right people the lack of communication becomes communication in itself, and when everyone just stops bothering with making themselves understood, the good times comes naturally.
These guys spoke Mandarin with me. I spoke Swedish with them. And it was great! Luckily laughter is universal.
Coming into Golmud I was exhausted. Like really, really tired. From home, I had gotten the best birthday present imaginable at the time – money to stay in a fancy hotel.
I mean. The kind where you have your own shower, are treated to a breakfast buffet (the weird Chinese one, but still!) and someone comes to clean your room every day like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Even my bike got it’s own bed, I think that if anything proves that this place was the real deal.
So what do you do? When you finally get inside, after weeks of working for it?
Damaged as I am. I set up the camera…
Me. For the camera.
Me. In reality.
Then, my friends. I spent the upcoming days the only way I knew how.
I spent them resting.
Hard.
Take care,
Fredrika