Shock And Awe

Parts 1 and 2

And so, it was time for the next leg of my little journey - time to begin my long traverse across the vast arid lands of central and northwestern China.

If you look at the map, the circle in the middle with the little bike is my location, Lanzhou, which is close to the centre of northern China.

The Kazakhstani border, however, is the big red star, all the way over in the top left corner. And that's where I'm headed.

Looks bloody far doesn't it. Probably because it is.

Ah well, the journey is the destination innit. One pedal at a time.

I must say that after a week of getting around without my bike, I was definitely ready to get back on it.

But on the morning I'd planned to leave Lanzhou I woke up feeling a bit off, with a slightly runny nose and a headache, not sure exactly why. It wasn't ideal.

But I left anyway, and as I pedalled off from the centre of the city, I felt excited, with no idea whatsoever of what mindblowing vagabondal adventures lay in store for me.

All I knew was that whatever was coming would be completely different from anything my mind could possibly conjure up.

Such is the beauty of travel.

Loading Bewdy outside my hotel, behind this guy's unflinchable smile.

As I headed up the Yellow River Valley, upstream, the vast expanse of high rise apartments and residential and shopping developments of the Greater Lanzhou area seemed to last for an eternity. The city of Lanzhou morphed into the city of Qilihe, and then into the city of Anning, and then the city of Xigu. It appeared endless.

The sometimes easy (and sometimes tricky) long long ride through a tamed concrete jungle..

It was really jaw dropping to see the extent of new development in the area.

It took me two whole hours to finally get into the bush.

But my minor roads were still within cooee of the expressway, or railway line, or high-speed rail track. At least for part of the day.

I wouldn't drink from here. Not even after filtering with my portable water filter. The water was a shitty brown, who knows what factories are around.

Only a narrow, stony shoulder for lone cyclists. I stayed on the bitumen, and veered off whenever I needed to. The drivers were pretty good, except occasionally when overtaking other vehicles as they came towards me in the opposite direction. I had to veer off the road sometimes.

I found a cheap hotel in a town called Zhongchuan, and, before I knew it, was staying way up in one of those highrises I've just been complaining about.

The whole area has another name, New Lanzhou, there's a brand new airport, and the area is a centre for the petrochemical industry. I didn't know any of that until I got there.

There was a pussycat with a tomato on its head on my toilet seat. How random.

I'd like to wear this lampshade. Not exactly sure where, but I was thinking maybe on my butt, sorta like a cute bunnytail. Soft and cuddly, but with plenty of space for Chinese dinner leftovers to escape. Are the feathers browner near the middle, or is that just my sicko imagination?

What to do tonight then, if I can't pornograph? Oh well, back to spending hours writing and reading and playing guitar and uploading pics, as usual.

Just as well I love it.

I had a lovely chat with this guy and his wife, and then played with their son for awhile. They were all so cute, and so incredibly curious of me, to the point where they were even videoing me eating my noodles. Go figure. I deliberately slurped loudly as I ate, because that's what they all do, and I really wanted to fit in.

People video me all over the place here. But as a celebrity I'm now quite used to it. Such are the trials and tribulations of fame. People video me in shops just going about my business. Wives or husbands will video me chatting to their spouses using my translation app. Teens will video me as I walk down the street, as they say hello and I say hello back and smile obligingly at their phones.

Or people will video me while they pretend not to.

It's gonna be so hard to be anonymous again.

Well, actually, no it's not.

Sunset over the expressway.

Petrochemicalled

Today was tough. I woke still feeling crap and headchey, but I wanted to ride anyway. I didn't feel like sticking around, somehow, but wanted a long dose of fresh air and some exercise.

So I packed up and left, and immediately found myself riding straight into a cold and hugely powerful headwind.

Great. Just what the doctor didn't order.

And then, to add more joy to my morning, for the next three hours or so I rode through a flat industrial soulless hell realm, on hugely wide empty roads, sometimes leading to nowhere, literally. Massive big roads would just stop, at some wall or barrier, or just in a heap of sand, and I'd be forced to retreat, or find some track heading in the rough direction I wanted to go.

All the while struggling against a strong and unrelenting wind.

I passed huge factories, massive industrial complexes, and the remains of quaint villages that had been partially or fully demolished to make way for more industry, either now, or at some time in the future.

And the weirdest thing was, I hardly saw a living soul in the whole place. Human, animal, or spiritual..

It was all a little hard to take, in my pained state of body.

Company offices

Cold roads, flat fields

The cutest school buses

A still-standing village

Colour coordinated spring blossoms

Nothingness

At least they left the temple standing, on the right.

Pipe art

To add to my so-far beautiful day, a major road that I'd planned on taking tirned out to be permanently closed, and they were building a huge petroleum processing plant where it used to be. Thanks guys. So that meant I had to turn around and take about a 20 km detour to get to another road that was heading to where I wanted to go.

I mean 20 kms is fine on a bike. It's less than an hour's ride when it's all still and flat. But with a brutal cold headwind, and a brutal cold headache, it wasn't exactly what I wanted at that particular moment.

Even the birds have flyed

Then, for Buddha's sake, the detour I'd been forced to take, a four lane road, which Baidu maps had suggested for me, suddenly ended in this.

Again, I had to go back, and then I veered off onto a dirt track, eventually leading me to a real village that, surprisingly, hadn't been ghosted.

Where is everyone?

A small burst of colour! I started to feel better after that.

A banner built by some water company, singing its own praises. Note the flapping flags. After this point I finally, finally!, got to have that beast of a cold wind behind me for awhile.

Things were looking up.

The scenery then became really quite beautiful, and that had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I had the wind behind me, and that my headache had eased a little.

Did it?

And there was still virtually no one on the road to see all that beauty.

Except me.

Storks get around

I was heading down, this guy was heading up. He obviously didn't have a nice low gear like me.

Huge eroded creek

These hills chequered past

That's a farm down there. Don't ask me what happens when it rains.

My first glimpse of my destination, Yongdeng.

I got to a hotel, and was desperate to lie down, after a ride of maybe 80 tough kilometres that felt like 180. It was a Friday. The little boy inside me really hoped that when I entered the lift the next day I'd see Saturday's carpet.

The simple pleasures.

My cheap but super comfy room.

Concrete view.

Temple on the hill.

I died.

And when I resurrected an hour or so later I felt a million times better.

I wandered out to rustle up some tucker.

Home made fried noodles are the go here. They're bloody good.

Doin the dance exercise thing

Downtown Yongdeng

Matcha candies. They were tasty

I bought what I thought was a big custard slice. I brought it home and looked at the bottom.

In fact, it consisted of 3 slices of regular white bread, with a thin layer of custard in between each slice, and a thicker layer on top.

To my surprise, it was actually quite delicious.

Yeah, more good lessons today. Nothing's permanent. The horror of the first few hours of my day had evolved into blissful pleasure by the end of it.

Thank Buddha.

I mean, thanks Buddha, buddy.

Tianzhu

I guess all these town names that mean something to me are quite meaningless to you, they probably go in one eye and get forgotten before they can get out the other.

But one day when you come here the names will feel subconsciously familiar, and you won't know why exactly.

In the morning my dream had come true.

And I can't believe how much better I felt after a good solid sleep.

Heading out of Yongdeng was quite tricky as it was quite trucky.

Beautiful temple on the outskirts of town

Hilltop temple. It was blaring out beautiful traditional music.

Random wall art

As I photographed the art, this guy photographed me, so then I photographed him, and so on .... it could've gone on forever, so I left. He was sweet.

These two places, an incredible temple in Zhangye, and the famous Buddhist grottoes at Dunhuang, are on my route. I'll be there in no time, you'll see.

Another dead village.

I stopped for food along this dusty strip, at a little place run by a lovely Muslim family.

The road was pretty bad today actually, in a lot of places. Heaps of roadworks.

These guys were comedians. They couldn't stop laughing at me, and what I was doing.

Long freight train

Stupa just outa town.

The outskirts of Tianzhu

Lift education. Thought I'd translate it for you so you can get the vibe. The translation apps are really bad sometimes, but consistently hilarious.

The scene above my bed tonight.

This, my friends, is a white gourd, and looks like a ginormous zucchini. I put my large bananas next to it so you could get an idea of the size. It was bigger than a huge watermelon. The fruit and veg lady was selling it by the slice.

Market street in Tianzhu. Or is it Hollywood Boulevard? The paparazzi were out in force, I should start charging for pics.

I had my usual quota of conversations with incredulous locals, wanting to know every detail about me. I had a lotta fun.

Mini mangoes. I bought some, they were sweet and delicious and so small.

Red dates. They're yummy.

Snackattack weapons

Shock And Awful

Wtf!! What a fucking day.

What a bloody fucking fucking day.

I'm finally resting and warm, after being brutalised by a combination of the most intense weather, a hugely long ride, and a climb up a pass with an elevation of 3000m, which, when I got up there, was so cold that my whole body was shocked, and I couldn't stop shaking.

Headin' outa town

A burst of colour on this bleakest of grey  and cold days

It started out fine, as I headed off from Tianzhu. The road was full of trucks for awhile, but then the traffic seemed to ease, and, although cold, it was sorta nice being out there. As I rode on, however, the cold breeze, which I was riding directly into, seemed to get colder and colder, and started to pick up in intensity.

It was quite beautiful riding through these trees, they hugged the road for a long time.

Workin the fields

I stopped for a fruit snack at this spot, and, amazingly, three Chinese cyclists rocked up. They were lovely guys, we chatted for awhile, until the biting cold and the wind sent us on our way. They're all from Sichuan province, and have been riding around China for the past 9 months. They don't have an end date in sight, and suggested that they needed about 5 years to properly see China on their bikes.

I have to agree with them. China is so incredibly huge, and there's so much to see.

They have an online video channel, and that's how they finance their trip.

As we were chatting this little guy came and said hello. I realised straight away that one of the cyclists was travelling with him - he was pulling a little bike trailer, which was set up as a dog mobile home. So cute!

It was so great to meet those guys, I may see them again, as we're generally headed in the same direction, at least for the time being.

See the doggy trailer?

As I set off again, the seriously bitterly cold wind had really picked up, and was still blowing straight into me. It basically stayed like that for almost the whole day. It was brutal.

Mosque

The road started to climb, and just kept going up and up. The wind kept getting stronger, and as I climbed the temperature dropped. Soon I was really struggling up that hill, as a result of the combination of the gradient, the wind and the cold.

My weather app said it was 4 degrees when I finally made it to the pass, but that doesn't take into account the wind chill factor, which wasn't just chilling me, it was killing me.

Temple shrines at the top of the pass. There was no view to be had, visibility was low, and it was snowing in the higher hills around me.

And thenas I descended and picked up speed, the wind, of course, picked up proportionally, and it became torturously freezing. Of course I'd stopped pedalling as well, and without the physical exertion of climbing, which had been keeping an iota of warmth in my body as I chugged up the hill, I began to really freeze, and wondered what on earth I could do about the situation.

My fingers became icicles, to the point where I couldn't properly change gears, and braking was very painful. My feet turned into 2 of those big rectangular blocks of ice that we used to buy in the peak of blistering summer from the ice machine around the corner in Walton Street, when I was a kid in Adelaide in the 60s. You know the ones?

Yes. I literally had become an Icy Pole.

Of course, I tried to rug up on the bike, but being totally unprepared for today's icy snap, my cold weather gear, (which doesn't include woolen gloves, as I'd lost them in Nepal), was packed right at the very bottom of my large panniers, and to access it I'd've needed to stop in that unforgiving tempestuous place, and completely unload my bike, and then totally empty out the panniers. There was no shelter whatsoever from the brutal icy wind, and my things would've flown all over the hellish place.

So it was just impossible to do that, and I realised that if I rode down as quickly as I could, pushed through the pain, it would be warmer about 1000m lower down.

So that's what I did, and the temperature rose a couple of degrees.

But it was all pretty traumatic, particularly as I really hadn't seen it coming. I was shocked at the intensity. My first experience of higher altitude riding in the severe cold was a cracker alright. Now I know.

For the rest of the day it was no longer unbearably freezing, it had warmed to very fucking freezing, even after I'd rugged up as best I could.

Tourist spot

I followed this beautiful river valley for awhile.

Monumental

There was hardly any traffic about as I got further down the hill, except where my back road occasionally met the expressway entrances and exits, and then it was a shitshow of trucks.

There was a little industry about, but not much. Mainly farms and fields.

I stopped at another Muslim place for a very late lunch, and warmed up, temporarily.

And then, when I had about 10 clicks to go till I finally got to a town and got out of the cold, it started to rain, didn't it.

Yep, not content with just being freezing cold, I then got wet. But luckily it didn't really pour down straight away, and I made it to a hotel before getting totally drenched.

They had trouble sorting out the electricity at the hotel, so I just waited in a nice golden vase for awhile, until I could get a room.

Which I eventually did.

And that's where I am now.

Lift education. So bloody hilarious. And it wasn't from my translation app, it was the real thing. It was hard not to strut by the door, I can tell you, especially while I was grilling it.

What!? No slapstick, no beats?!!? What's the world coming to? Luckily I didn't see any tingmen blocking the doorway.

Lift ad.

So I've been out to snack, and the world's a different place. I'm comfortable and warm again. It's amazing how much I'm appreciating it right now.

Yeah, today was one of those big days.

And now it's over.

Ancient Marvels

Tomorrow I'm gonna head off for a couple of hours in another direction, to check out some amazing Buddhist grottoes.

Yeah, this whole province is packed with ancient Buddhist, Mongolian, Islamic and Han sites, including some of the westernmost portions of the Great Wall. And of course, there's the most incredible landscapes around, and some stunning national parks.

Yeah, there's so much here, and I've now learnt, the hard way, to make sure I'm prepared for all of it. Including the sometimes suddenly extremely hostile conditions.

Yeah, out here it can get mean, but I'm still keen❤️

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