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Neil Bryan
"Three China Cycling Adventures"
Page 1
Copyright © Neil Bryan, 2004.

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China Two: Along the Yangtze River Basin

In spring of 1990 I rode with an English friend, Vince Parr, from Shanghai to Zhengzhou in Henan. We stayed at university campuses in Nanjing and Suzhou, and were treated to multi-course banquets by officials in some small towns. Our luck ran out in Zhengzhou where officials put a stop to our "subversive" unapproved cycle tour of China.

China Three: Across the Tibetan Plateau

After a summer back in Taiwan, I was up for one last attempt to cycle across Tibet. I took the train to the end of line at Golmud, Qinghai, which is on the north side of the Tibetan Plateau. Whereas western Sichuan had been lush and rain-soaked, I found Qinghai in early October to be desolate, dried – out, and wind – swept. A few days in, climbing onto the plateau through the Kunlun Mountains, I had tea with a group of friendly Uyghur nomads.

Finding water proved more difficult than in ’88. I ended up carrying four liters with me. If it came in the form of butter tea, the butter would congeal into lumps by evening.

The wind ( a miserable head wind for 2000 km) never stopped. When riding I had to wear a skiers neck tube over my face. Nights were bloody freezing. I should’ve bought a better sleeping bag but did not get to a proper shop when I was in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

One nice Tibetan trucker gave me two tall bottles of beer. I drank one but the other one was frozen solid in the morning.

The weather deteriorated as I pushed across Qinghai. Two days from the Tibet border it snowed about 10 cm, but the intense sunshine melted it by noon and I could ride again. Qinghai there are some good climbs – a couple of 5000 m passes, but the highlight has to be the Tanggula Shankou (pass) at 5231 m. I had fair weather on top luckily, and coasted down into Tibet.

My days started with noodles and tsampa for breakfast, then packing up and riding; noodles and tsampa for lunch, riding; and then noodles and tsampa for supper, followed by huddling over a candle and writing in the diary and inking in the route so far.

My concerns were simple: how close to the next pass, the weather, the levels of provisions: water, noodles and butter, stove gasoline, and finding a good campsite.

Food was always on my mind. I had mutton soup with pilgrims who were prostrating (praying and sliding down the road) all of the way to Leas. The local Tibetans are much tougher than us high tech travelers who drop in for a short time. The pilgrims had literally been "on the road" for three months. I felt totally energized after having some meat and some butter tea. "Now if I could just have a bath," I thought.

A couple of days later I stopped in a village and asked (in Chinese) if there was a hot spring anywhere around. There was! From the hot spring (which was actually lukewarm but felt great anyway) I had a panoramic view of the valley. The hot spring and some herbal medicine effectively cleared up my lingering chest cold.

I did not see many monasteries from the road on the way to Leas, but I did see some spectacular stupas (Buddhist shrines).

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