Before we arrived in Chengdu, El Toro had told us of his plans to up the ante to enable him to get to Hanoi for the 23rd December. The new target was a mammoth 100 miles a day, minimum (160km minimum). He wanted to go at it alone, as he knew me and Chris wanted to see some stuff along the way. We knew we wouldn’t be able to keep to this grand tour like quota of miles. However, as we are all best pals now, we decided to help El Toro as much as we could for as long as we could. We managed 108km, 126km, followed by 162km in the 3 days before Chengdu. By all accounts this is great progress, but it wasn’t good enough. We passed through some nice scenery mind…
Upon leaving Chengdu after being discharged from the hospital (thanks for the free bed Dr. Fu Tao!) we set off through this mega city. Not too similar to the whole of China, everyone drives like a moron. But what’s more annoying is, when someone almost kills me, I look at them, and they’re just laughing. Wouldn’t be so funny if I was on the floor in a pool of my own blood would it? On the way through the city we encountered more problems than idiotic motorists. On the wet, bumpy and muddy roads, I had picked up a broken spoke somewhere. Yes, another! As we knew Xavi was on a tight schedule, we felt this was the time to release El Toro back into the wild. As me and Chris knew stopping to fix this this would put a large dint in Xavi’s progress. We didn’t want to hold him back with our crappy wheels, so it was an unexpected parting :(.
After saying our teary goodbyes, I cracked on with fixing yet another spoke.
Once back on the road again, it was just the two of us, it felt weird to begin with. We have cycled with Xavi for just over 2 months in total, and become BFF’s. it’s been great having the extra legs in the peloton, and it helps that he’s a top bloke too. Good luck El Toro! We hope you make it!
The day after leaving Xavi, we set off for Leshan, to see the giant bhudda. And it’s no lie, it’s ginormous!!!
It was built in the 7th century and finished in the 8th. Apparently built by a monk because he thought a nice big statue of bhudda would calm the waters on the river to allow shipping vessels to pass easier. Inadvertently, it did work, as the rock that fell into the river is said to have changed the current of the river and calmed it. Bit of knowledge for you there, not just my mardy ramblings.
The bhudda had quite a nice view of the city too…
After having lunch and getting back on the bikes it had warmed up a bit. And for the first time in China, Chris revealed his bare legs and arms!!
Since we entered the Sichuan province it has been much warmer. By no means sweltering but compared to the -25 temperatures we have been exposed to, it sort of is. It’s much more tropical looking and GREEN around here too. It’s like the colour has suddenly been turned on when we entered Sichuan. It’s still a bit chilly in the mornings, but it gets up to about 20 by the afternoon and doesn’t get too low in the evening. Sound!
We left Qianwei the following day with our stomachs full of rice, mantu, and làjiāo. It was a nice ride, very tropical, bamboo everywhere, quite sunny.
At our first snack stop in Muchuan we were celebs again. Everyone wants a picture with a westerner! One woman wanted me to hold her baby. And of course, everybody wants to help, even if you don’t need it.
After lunch we had to climb over a pretty huge mountain and go all the way down the other side. Some great views, but you have to cycle to the top to see it!
Upon reaching the bottom of this mountain we started cycling through the small villages on the crap roads. All of sudden a car revved up behind me, sped close to me, beeped, and who’s head popped out the window shouting “hey d***head!!”? It was Xavi ‘El Toro’ Narro!! What the?????? They stopped and out he stepped. Chris turned around and saw who it was, the confusion on his face was like that of a young child finding out Santa isn’t real. We were both very bemused as to
1. Why he was in a car?
2. Why was he going the wrong way?
3. Why isn’t he miles ahead of us?
So here it is, I hope you’re sitting comfortably… Xavi had left Xinshen (this village at the bottom of the mountain) the same day we left Qianwei. We arrived at Xinshen at around 15:45 (when Xavi went past us).
Xavi said he had ridden 40km down the road (the 213) to find it was closed. Came back 40km to find the diversion, only to realise the diversion takes you way out west towards a place called Zhaojue/Xincheng. He said he had been cycling up and down this road all day and couldn’t find a way through for love nor money. But mainly love. With a lack of time he was in despair. Luckily a Chinese fella offered him a lift back to Qianwei, then down the highway through Yibin and he was getting dropped off in Zhaotong.
With this new information me and Chris were now also in despair, realising we were 110km along the wrong road. The road we want is closed and the diversion takes us towards Tibet. All the other yellow roads on the map don’t seemingly exist. Even when asking the locals, it seems our only option is to go back to Qianwei. So, we stayed overnight in Xinshen, cycled back over the mountain and the 110km back to Qianwei the following day. We tried to get onto the highway to go down to Yibin, but yet again ‘no bicycles on the highway’. So we were left with, a closed road, a road that doesn’t exist, and a road we’re not allowed onto. And so, unfortunately, and annoyingly, we had to stick our bikes in the back of a Chinese guys van, and get a lift to Yibin, on the only road to Yibin. Yibin looks level with Xinshen and we could get onto the road there. Hopefully this picture should help explain…
We left Yibin early that morning with our route mapped out down to Zhaotong. But we bumped into these 3 other guys cycling down to Zhaotong when we were coming out of Yibin. They took us on a much quicker route! We wouldn’t have even thought to go this way. The way we would have gone would have been a right pain it turns out.
Eventually the road ran out. Or so me and Chris thought. The guys we were with took us through a load of bumpy side roads through a small town until we got onto a muddy embankment next to a river. Me and Chris were a bit confused. It turns out the road goes onto the other side of the road, but there’s no bridge, you have to catch a ferry. This proved quite tough with our heavy fully loaded bikes!!
Not to worry though, we are big strong burly men, an we managed to cross over just fine.
We eventually made it to a place called Pu’erzhen. We went out for some food, and our new Chinese compadres treated us to dinner! Thanks very much guys!
With some local knowledge from our new friends, we took a punt at getting onto the highway. Going through the toll, we set off the alarm. The toll booth man just didn’t even care. They must just not care in Yunnan as much as in Gansu or Sichuan.
It was a very wet, muggy and even muddy start to the day! Also, with lots of dark scary tunnels.
By lunch time it had brightened up and it was pretty warm. A woman stopped on the road to give me some water, I must have looked knackered!
Not long after lunch we started to climb, it went on for a very long time, it was getting gradually steeper too. The climb took us all the way from lunch until the end of the day! I couldn’t help but think up this climb, ‘Xavi, you cheating b*****d!!’.
But it wasn’t over yet, we still had to go through a very long, pitch black tunnel. Armed with my trusty rear bike light I bought from Tk Maxx, we made our way through the darkness with lorries going very closely past us. Needless to say, I was extremely scared. All I could see behind was huge lorries, and in front, nothing. Luckily, a guy on a motorbike could see we were in distress, and rode behind us, protecting us from behind and lighting up in front.
We arrived at a town at what we thought was the top as the sun was beginning to set. Yet again, the whole town came out to see the men with big noses and big blue eyes!
We left this town to carry on climbing, and this time it was REALLY foggy. We couldn’t see more than 10 metres in front of us. But as soon as we stopped climbing and started to go down, the mist instantly vanished. We looked back and it was like a wall of mist, weird.
We finally got down to Zhaotong AKA Cheatalona, and as we got to the other side, there was a brutal headwind!! After all that climbing, no rest!
However, we got to a sign, ’20km descent’.
But the wind was so strong, we were pedalling all the way down it, pushing fairly hard too. If you stopped pedalling down the hill, the wind was strong enough to bring you to a stand still. When we got to the bottom, we had to pedal uphill, into the same gale force headwind for the rest of the day. for about a kilometre stretch we went past a load of roadside lorry cleaning vendors. I think little things like this are a true reflection of the whole of China. Yes, they have one of the fastest growing economies in the world, and an emerging middle class. The government like to remind everyone of this on the news, China is the best! But there’s so much more of the population with jobs like this, living in a make shift tent by the side of the road, often old women just trying to get by.
We were both very tired by the end of this day. Chris has even started to lose his voice from various reasons for shouting: at dogs, over the traffic, over the wind and at me when I do stupid stuff.
We set off from Yichezhen and it was pretty cold. It didn’t take too long for the wind to pick up either. Before we knew it, we were cycling into a furious headwind, going uphill, and crashing into walls. Again. Pretty shattering stuff. Occasionally the wind blew so hard we had to just stop, or fall off the bike in my case. Definitely the strongest headwind since Xinjiang.
We arrived in Huize for lunch quite drained. We could’ve got there in the morning if it wasn’t for this killer headwind. We had some celeb pics again with our fans, scranned some eggs down us and it was off again into the dirty filthy headwind.
Later that afternoon we started to make our way around a big reservoir. Also, it is my pleasure to now say that I have been to ‘the largest earth dam in Asia’. Take that you nay sayer’s!
We stayed in a service station in Daibuzhen, and went up through and over the mountains the following day. We didn’t want to get caught in half way up with nowhere to sleep. We eventually got to the top despite the continuing strong wind, because we are Belper heroes.
We battled through the wind for 120km all the way to Songming. But as it was only 16:40 there was still a lot of light left. So I suggested we push on, Chris reluctantly agreed. It turned out to be a bit of a stinker of a decision as 3km down the road it was gridlock. And with Chinese driver stupidity during traffic jams, we couldn’t use the hard shoulder as it was blocked by cars. We had to make our way through the maze of cars and lorries as far as we could until we found somewhere to get off the motorway and camp. Our first camp in 1 and half months almost!
The next morning we were left with just a little 50km ride into Kunming to get out Vietnamese visa’s
We’ve had some delicious food, and visited some Chinese stuff whilst waiting around.
And hey Mum, if you get bored working in Duffield, it looks like they could do with a dental nurse!
And if you were wondering, Xavi made it to Hanoi in time to meet his love, his life, his lady. Cris. “Love has given me wings”. Fly for her El Toro, my hero.
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