Delinqa

(another post added by Mum!)

I am cycling into Delinqa. It looks like a pretty interesting place. It has a large Mongolian and Tibetan population. On the road in I have seen several groups of people prostrating themselves (a Buddhist form of dedication) climbing the road up to the mountains. The town is surrounded by wheat fields too (I think) the first I have seen in China.
I ask at the first hotel if they accept foreigners. Technically we are only allowed to stay at 3 star and above which kind of blows my budget a bit. I get a very definite NO. I walk out, try a few more, to no avail. The chances of my first shower in two weeks are diminishing each time I get rejected. What kind of town is this???

I notice a police car is following me. Here we go I say to myself, and sure enough I get pulled over. This differs from the usual passport shenanigans however as I am hauled off to the station. I am informed in no uncertain terms that I must leave, by bus, now!
"I can't just ride out of town and have you forget about the crazy Australian on a bicycle???"
" We could lock you up and fine you, or you could get on the bus"
"OK, bus it is then............."

Now I am in Xining, having missed much of the province I wanted to see but hoping to try some Yak cheese tomorrow! The following perhaps may explain the paranoia of the police......

from Wikipedia
Delingha (Tibetan:??????????) is the capital of Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai, China approximately 200km southeast of Da Qaidam. It is closed off to foreigners due to nuclear testing. It is the missile headquarter for Qinghai , and houses DF-4s with four associated launch sites. Delingha is one of five locations where anywhere between 10 and 20 DF-4's were deployed in 1998. The facility is the headquarters for one of launch brigades.

From here I will either head to Lanshau in Gansu or back of the mountains to Sehcuan and onto Chengdu. I hope, however, to find a map here in English as translating from the Russian one I have has not been going so well........

Welcome to Qinghai

(typed by Mum - Emrys can't access his blog in China - it is blocked)

It is late in the afternoon and I have just crossed the border in Qinqhai province in the far west of China. I have had a pretty good run with a tail wind for a good part of the afternoon. I am thinking about pushing on a bit to take advantage when the wind swings around. I am now riding into a dusty headwind with spots of rain............blow this.
I start to look for a campsite. It has been pretty desolate with very little cover for much of the afternoon. I am passing a lake off in the distance and I spy some pretty tall looking reeds on the lake shore. I hurl Igor down the slop off the edge of the road and head off down the embankment.
It is about 700m by the time I get there and the reeds are a good 3 meters tall and thick. I clean the grit from the gear using a pepsi bottle with petrol, make my bed an snuggle down.

Bang!

It seems the wicked witch of the west that I was protected from hast just had a house land on her. Glinda is back with a vengeance!!

I sit in my tent and listen in the dark and the wind accelerates. Sleep becomes impossible so for the next four hours I try to stop the tent from disintegrating around me. To her credit she holds up remarkably well, unlike my nerves. At about 1 I finally drift off, waking periodically as the gusts thump against the fly. Dust storm number two, welcome to Qinhai!

The Road To Osh is paved with good intentions....

Farewell to Bishkek

I am running late as per usual and by the time i arrive in front of the post office there is a posse of people waiting. Tim, Margreete and Laura are putting on a brave face after the previous nights drinking and dancing session went to 6 a.m. I had wisely or not declined the invitation!

The Bishkek posse: L/R Tim, Laura, Margreet, Berhardte, Ragula and Veronica

Also there are fellow cyclists Veronica and Mathius who are heading the other way and have given me a heads up on the road. Lastly there are my traveling companions, Berhardtte and Ragula. Swiss, they have put there respective maths and computer carreres on hold for a year and headed out around the world on a mean looking tandem they have called Sprinter.

An hour later we are lost on the way to the airport......things can only go up from here.

Later that evening we are invited to stay with a nice family. All is going well until the guy wants to borrow my bikу to go and buy vodka and cigaretes. While i am more than happy to let people ride my bike i am not so keen on the idea of someone ridding it in thee dark after several shots of vodka. He instead sits on the frame while i ride, safer i'm not sure but at least i will know where my bike goes this way!

Weightlifting, Kyhrgz style.

The Climb begins.

We are back on the road again after the midnight vodka run. The climb start somewhat gentlly in rather idelic conditions. Alas, "fool" say the gods of hills and weather.....

Accent number 1

Does altitude affect atibiotics?

When we left Bishkek i had still been getting over a rather nasty chest infection that i couldn't shake. It may have been from the half course of antibiotics i tried ( it was all i had, not coz i got better and stopped!). I now have some more hardcore stuff. As we climb my chest is still hurting though, i try vzaugly to recall at what height altitude sickness kicks in. I really don't fancy going back down the wrong side of the hill so we push on. Thankfully it doesnt get any worse and we soon hit the dreaded tunnel at the top of the hill.

We stop and cook dinner in the ambulance driver's house. His name is Gengis, a Kyrgz Christian from Karabalata. He has a facinaticing story to tell i think if i could only speak better Russian. We bid him farewell and I done one of Berhardtes surigcal masks as we hit the unveintilated tunnel. I dont tell Ragula about the deaths the previous year from when a car broke down мешдд after we are through...

100 meters from the end my bike begins to shake. This can either mean a broken фчуд or broken drawbar on the trailer. Either way its not the best place to stop. I managaged to haul Igor out of the tunnel eventaully to find it was simple the quick realse had worked loose.

The Decent:

Rugging up for the decent.

As we emerge from the the tunnel we look out over the Sussmeyer valley. It is a crystal clear day and from 3200m we look out over a white alpine valley. Due to the meters of snow we decide that the ski resort just below the pass is a good option.

The next day this doesn't seem like such a good idea. An blacnket of snow covers the bike and we spend 45m pushing the bikes uphill to the main road. The decent that, yesterday, seem so easy now becomes an arse brusing 3 hr slog to cover the 7 km to the bottom. Later Berhardte attempts to use tea to unfreeze his derailer. The water however, sets inside the mechanism soon after and he is reduced to 3 gears! I manage to bald Igor's back tire as the snow freezes inside the mudgaurd.

Trying not to fall on my arse again!!!

I am now however in the spring city of Osh. A days rest and will once again head to moutains. This time to Sary tash and then to the Chinese border. All before the 25th of March.

The Waiting Game

The sun is shining and it finally feels like springs may be on the way here in Bishkek. The temperature has cracked above the zero mark and the two weeks of accumalated ice and snow are melting fast.

My case of near pnuomonia is likewise clearling with the weather ( and a good dose of antobiotics). The waiting game is now on.....

Waiting for another kyrgz extension. Done! Have another month to go.

Waiting on Chinese visa. This goes on till next week after the end of Chinese new year and the emabassy reopens

Waiting on the weather to clear. It seems this may be on the way. Though we have had at least one false spring in Janurary where i was walking aorund in a Tshirt in anticipation only to get blasted by a week of snow and ice.

Waiting on a few bike parts from Holland.

Waiting to get back on the road. It has been nearly three months and the feet are starting to get rather itchy!

Where do ants sleep and other useless facts....

It’s the big night. I have decided to hang my limp reputation on the line and try to get the Alpine Fund kitty looking a little less battered. My choice for such an event, well what else does a guy with a mind for useless information (and not much) else do……. A quiz night of course!

Frieder, the master of Bishkek’s social networks and pseudo boss of the Alpine fund has been busy emailing for the last week. Richard the owner of the Metro Bar who is hosting us has likewise been harassing his clientele. Now it’s just a waiting game to see if anyone turns up.

Tim, my slightly crazy (former) housemate and I do a final check of each other questions. He is convinced that my music questions are impossible and I am likewise skeptical of anyone’s ability to compute his maths and engineering head-wreckers. Master Judge, Magreet ( who is in fact a judge in real life), puts on her sternest face and prepares to do battle with anyone that challenges her authority. The judge’s decision will defiantly be final!

Richard and Frieder have clearly done a good job of harassing anyone and everyone as the turn out is great!

Round 1 begins……… then it stops………then it begins again…then it stops…….Finally we coax the rather temperamental microphone into life and its game on.

There if good sport between all the teams with Team Canada drawing to an early lead.

There is a challenge to one of my questions. The successor to Julius Cesar as head of the Roman Empire? I concede and accept any of Octavian’s plethora of pseudonyms. Everyone is fallible even my Wikipedia source material!

After 9 rounds the scores are incredibly close. It the end it is a lack of knowledge of anatomy- name the body parts- that loose Team Canada the crown.

I kick back for a rather expensive beer afterwards- the metro bar is the main expat hangout in Bishkek and it therefore usually out of my price range. I savour the one beer i can afford before heading home for a good sleep!

Itchy feet

Emrys has now been in Bishkek for two months. He has been enjoying the trips to the mountains as welll as the teaching and generally making a nusisence of himself. 

He was however sittting at the kitchen table in his shed of a house the other day and noticed Igor sitting rather forelornly in the corner- his tires flat and a growing layer of dust from the festy coal fire growing over his once shiny gear changes. His companion, Bob, is likewise growing rust of welds as she waits paitently to recconect with the road. 

His body is now well and truly rested and he has even put on a kilo or two. It is very definatley getting time for him to be moving again! Alas the snow will once more decend on bishkek this fine day and he shall resume the waiting game. 

He has been stuying his new maps of China in close detail ( well as close you can at 1 to 6 million scale) and doing his darndest to find someone else stupid enough to cycle with him for some of it. 

The Itchy feet might just been the tiniea as a result of infrequent showering...... 

Surviving Almaty

I have just been to the national musem of Kazak instrument in Almaty. I am here to chase visas so figured i would make the most of it an see some sights while i was here. I emerge from the warm building and step back into the snow. Across the way is the war second world war memorial. It is a stricking momument with all off the nations of the former USSR represented. Set someway in front of this is an eternal flame. I take a rather arty picture of the monument through the flame and then decide to take a walk through the park behind....

I here a voice call out and see a policeman beckoning me over. This will be the second passport check in two days as he asks for my papers. My visa is in order so i dont really anticipate any trouble. He keeps my visa and motions for me to walk with him. He takes me back to where i had just taken the photo. Apparently there is a porblem because i put my foot on the base of the monument to take the photo. I appoligise profusly for my mistake but he wont buy it. He wants to take me to the police station. Now i start to drag my heals.

He takes me and points to a CCTV camera implying that he has evidence. The camera points the wrong way i and i severley doubt it still has the ability to rotate to have filmed me accidently placing one foot on the monument. He wants me to walk with him but i want to keep this in the open. He asks me if i am carry narcotics or a rifle. I smile and say no. He wants me to open my bag. Now i sense that he really has nothing and that he is just fishing. I hold my ground, saying i cant give him the money now starts demanding as i dont have any.

I am starting to shiver now from standing around in the cold. The same questions, the same answers. He has nothing on me and he knows that i know this. Its rather like a poker game- whose is going to call bluff.

Eventaully he tires of my bad Russian and decides i am not worth his effort. I somewhat cheekily offer to shake his hand as he lets me go. Crooked cop nil Emrys one!