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| 17103 km |
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| We decided to skip Lijiang. We didn't really like the touristy Dali, and Lijiang is supposed to be worse. We wanted to see some white mountains! And already at the second day we got exactly what we wanted, although the views weren't perfect because of rain. In three beautiful days we cycled to the 'Tiger Leaping Gorge', a huge gorge with the Yangtze on a level of 1800 and the highest mountains of 3900 metres. And we were cycling in between! We felt so tiny. It was an amazingly beautiful ride. |
| But after that, finally the real stuff began. In two days we climbed from 1800 m. to the highest pass of 3675 m!! It was tough, but we felt great and our legs were in shape. The only thing we noticed of the altitude was a bad night's sleep. We celebrated our climb with a sip of rice wine and a well deserved Snickers. |
| The descend that followed was bizarre. We raced down between the beautiful trees in their autumn colours, some bright red. And then all of a sudden we were in Tibet! Officially we weren't there yet, but all the signs marked that we were close! A group of Yaks, gompas with Tibetan flags and the houses were totally different. We saw many people in traditional clothes and monks with their beautiful red robes. |
| Our next stop was Shangri-La, called after the book Lost Horizon. The city lies on an altitude of 3250 metres and has an old centre and a pretty monastery. There were Tibetan people, shops and guesthouses. The new part of town on the other hand was totally Chinese. We had to arrange a lot of stuff before going into Tibet, so we took our time. |
| In the distance you could see Tibet. It was like an enormous wall of huge mountains. And we had to go through there! We were really excited. It was good that we already met a couple of cyclists that came from there and didn't have any problems. The ride is illegal; officially you cannot enter Tibet as an individual traveller. But they don't seem to be bothered by cyclists, although we have to cross some check posts in the night. |
| The ride after Shangri-La was downhill the whole way, back to 2000 metres again. And then off course we had to climb again. It was going to be a really tough one, climbing 2200 metres in altitude. It took us two hard, long days and we camped halfway under a billion stars. The climb was really hard and we could feel the altitude. After every 100 metres climb we had stop and catch our breath. But as usual you get the reward after the suffering. The top of the pass gave us a beautiful view of glaciers and snow topped mountains. A bus full of Chinese tourists told us we were amazing and we were extremely proud. There are no words in the world to describe this great feeling. |
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