The more we cycled West, the rougher it became. Roads, people, landscape, food. We had a lot to cycle to the border to Laos, so we pushed really hard, trying to make at least 90km every day. As always we used our smartphone for navigation, but it quickly turned out that Google did not catch up with China’s quickly changing road system yet. What was supposed to be a nice, paved road turned out to be a stretch of a narrow gravel nightmare.
Not only we had to cycle in dust – the number of punctures increased to sometimes 2 a day, slowing us down dramatically.
Luckily the whole Yunnan province, considered one of the poorest, is developing quite quickly and after a couple of days of bad roads we could enjoy the smooth blackness of Chinese asphalt. Because bicycles are forbidden on highways, very often we had to take longer and much more hilly roads (average daily climbs reaching more than 1000m). On the other hand, they were very interesting – we cycled through villages were foreign tourists could be rarely seen.
December in China is quite cold, and even on the West of the country temperatures could drop to 5C at night. We tried to escape from the cold by going West and South, the locals had no other option than warm themselves up with whatever was at hand.
One of the aspects of travelling by bicycle that we really love is the rare opportunity to wander into places which you would never see if you travel by bus or train. We found villages where people looked at us as if we were ghosts, people that looked like coming straight out of the jungle, sometimes giving us goose bumps. Exploring local markets is one of our favourite activities, and we never stop wondering what people can offer or sell.
Now it is getting interesting…
Too rough? This is the reality. If you live in Europe you do not see those images to often, do you? Here it is a part of the daily life and it only make us more sure, that being vegetarian is the right thing. Animals in Asia are more of material objects, source of food. It is difficult to accept it, when you see how many other options people have all around, with so many different kinds of plants…
Too much for you? You can relax now.
5 Responses to “Wild wild West!”
Ja z Agą też uwielbialiśmy zwiedzać MARKETY. Czytając tego posta czułem się trochę tak jakbyś spisał moje wspomnienia z podróży. MY CHCEMY DO WAS!!!!
Pozdro Aga i Antek
Moi kochanie wyglądacie świetnie zwłaszcza Ania, która nawet brudniutka wygląda jak murzynek wygląda prześlicznie. Co do mięska kochani no niestety nawet tak drastyczne zdjęcia nie są wstanie zmienić mojej wielkiej miłości do schabowego :) które kocham najbardziej ze wszystkich owoców i warzyw na ziemi :)
Ps. Pytanie z zupełnie innej beczki nie ma szansy, że będziecie w Polsce w tym roku ???
Pisanie przez Tel to masakra mam nadzieje ze ogarnieci o co mi chodziło :d
hello how are you whats up are you fine where are you now ı think chına is dirty very much when you come to TURKEY our village see you
Nice memories of South China… and great pictures as always.
Enjoy the slow motion spirit of Laos and the wonderful ride between Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng (keep away from tubing guys!)
Hope to see you again in our European countries.
Stay safe
Kevin and Cloé (met in KZ and now in Belize)