Goodbye China - Some facts and figures

China has been a great place for cycling and very different from the countries we cycled before. And because I like numbers, here some facts and figures of our time here:

• 50 days spent in China - the country we have been the longest so far
• 0 (!) nights in the tent, but 50 nights in mostly nice and cheap hotels. Camping was literally impossible.
• This also meant: 1 shower per day! Which makes China the country that has seen us cleanest and best smelling so far :)
• 1253 km cycled.
• 10696 m positive altitude difference. Yes, there are few mountains in Yunnan province ;-)
• Biggest climb in one day: 1338 meters positive altitude difference, or a 26 km long climb.
• 33 'Yu Xiang Jiezi' ('Like Fish smelling eggplant') eaten. This is an approximation but we must have eaten it in 2 of 3 days at least, definitely our favourite Chinese dish.
• 2 train and 3 bus rides. The worst time we spent in these 50 days.

Crossing the Chinese-Lao border

Chinese immigration

50 days in China, it was time to cross the Chinese-Lao border in Mohan/Boten. We slept the night before on the Chinese side in one of Mohan's many hotels. That night we declared the end of Chinese food. We felt like having something different, something more spicy and fresh. Time for Thai food! What a taste, what a difference to the Chinese taste! And more good food was to come just across the border.

Before we continued to the border we had rice noodle soup for breakfast. Baozi are no longer available, people eat rice noodle soups in this part of China. The Chinese immigration office was just a few hundred meters away at the end of the road. Buses from Kunming or Mengla on their way to Luang Prabang lined up, waiting for the passengers to get through immigration procedures. As we were not allowed to bring the bicycles into the immigration building, we went in one after the other to get our stamp-out. The immigration building is a top modern building with latest electronic devices. To speed-up the process there was a computer that scanned our passports and printed the pre-filled departure cards. Generally speaking, a fantastic idea but the machine failed. The computer was unable to recognise our first names or passport numbers. After the first official had tried with the computer, another official tried his luck as well. Same result. They must have lost their confidence in that poor machine.

Outside Chinese tourists made their typical "victory" pose by the pole with the Chinese flag and took photographs. You could see the laid-back attitude of the officials here, nobody intervened. Anywhere else in China it would be impossible to take photographs at an official check-point or border crossing.

The chinese part was done and it was very easy. We cycled some hundred meters further and arrived at the Lao immigration building. The difference was jaw-dropping! While the Chinese have a multi-level, top-modern building, the Lao people have nothing more than a small and old building. Their electronic equipment wasn't the best either. It reminded us of the Kazakh-Chinese border in Korgas.

Laos immigration on the left

At the border we filled in a visa form that required our "pass sport number", one passport photo, 270 Yuan per person and we got our visa-on-arrival right away without any problems. One counter further our passports were stamped. Strangely many Asian people put money into their passports. A French couple and us didn't imitate them but we got our stamp-in anyway. Zai Jian China! Sabai-Dee Laos! You are country number 7!

Xishuangbanna

Total distance: 5600 km
Mengman - Menghai - Jinghong - Menglun - Mengla - Mohan

Yunnan's southern part is a special one. It's different to what we have seen so far and the name already sounds strange: Xishuangbanna. Sorry what? I simply refer to it as the Banana Republic and nomen est omen there are even more banana plantations than anywhere else in Yunnan. We rode through so many wide banana plantations that you couldn't see anything else.

2 cycling days before Jinghong, the capital of the Xishuangbanna prefecture, we were welcomed by a gate that didn't look Chinese any more but rather Thai style. Besides the Chinese signs and English letters a third language - is it Thai? - appear on road signs, shop signs etc. The buildings are more and more wooden houses built on stilts. Every now and then monks in the orange robes whiz by on their scooters.

Our next stop was in Jinghong where the Mekong flows through. After we checked into the International Youth Hostel we went out looking for food. And Hallelujah, people here use fish sauce! Fantastic! It feels like home. We had cold rice noodles and fresh papaya salad. Apart from "exotic" food Jinghong's architecture and streets are "exotic" too. The big buildings look absolutely Southeast-Asian. Streets are full of palm trees like in Cannes or Nice but there is a significant difference. Here in Jinghong you have to watch out for coconuts!

Jinghong

We stayed in Jinghong for 4 days, relaxing and enjoying the benefits of the last big Chinese city on our trip. On our last day there were suddenly two bicycles besides ours. Hmm, they looked very familiar. Surprise, surprise, the cyclists' world is so small, they belonged to Regula and Reto, two Swiss cyclist who we had met some weeks ago on our way from Chengdu to Leshan. Their plan is to cycle to Laos as well. So it's certain that we'll meet them again, probably in Luang Prabang.

When we left Jinghong it was a nice ride along the Mekong river. Since we have entered Xishuangbanna we can truly say that we are in the jungle. It's hot again and we can hardly believe that it is winter in France and Germany when we speak with our families and friends. Cold? Winter jacket? Impossible! At least on this year's tour! Did we mention bananas? On the way from Jinghong to the Lao border there are even more banana plantations. If not bananas, you find pineapples or rubber trees.

In Menglun we had to squeeze in an emergency pause. No idea what was wrong with our dinner or water but the night was horrible and dinner ended up in the toilet. That was the start for my distaste for Chinese food. Don't get me wrong, Chinese food was delicious, but after 50 days in China and that dinner in the toilet I was glad that our days in China were coming to an end.

Yunnan said good-bye with some serious stretches of climbs. While in the North of Yunnan we moved between 1000 m and 2400 m above sea level, Xishuangbanna ranges between 500 m and 1200 m. It sounds like only downhill all the way? That's far from it! There were countless mountains in between and we climbed and climbed and climbed... well, we had some pretty awesome downhill parts as well :)

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Chinese celebration

On our way from Lancang to Mengman we were suddenly in the middle of a Chinese celebration. Two groups in their traditional costumes were playing music and were singing. It was so interesting that we stopped cycling for a while and kept looking what was going on. Unfortunately and due to our lousy Chinese we still have no clue what this celebration was about.

However the people were lovely! They tried to explain what was going on, they gave each of us a bottle of water and we even got straw hats, because they figured that we aren't used to the strong midday sun :)

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Muddy hell

Total distance: 5201 km
Lincang - Mengku - Shuangjiang - Shangyun - Lancang

When we left Lincang the hotel receptionist mentioned that the road to Shuangjiang on highway 214 would be bad. Well, we thought that she must have been mistaken and meant highway 323 that branches off the 214. We knew that highway 323 to Pu'er was under construction and in bad conditions because Xavier, with whom we had cycled from Chengdu to Leshan, gave us his first-hand information. Smooth asphalt on the way out of Lincang confirmed our assumption ... for a while. Some kilometers later we realised that the receptionist was right. The smooth asphalt stopped abruptly and muddy dirt road began. Heavy construction machinery and many people hammering on stones with their bare hands were everywhere. Poor workers! The lucky ones with a rock-hammer did not wear any ear protection (remember the vicious circle?).

After 10 km riding on dirt road Sarah asked me whether or not we should hitchhike but I didn't want to. 1 km later she cursed me. We rode through deep mud, too deep so that we had to go off the bicycles involuntarily. Our shoes sank into the mud ... argh! Mud got stuck under the fenders and the tyres stopped rolling. Breaking felt like pushing sand paper against the rims. It hurt! We tried to wash away the mud from the rims but it was useless. We went through mud again and again.

At the junction where the 323 branches off the 214 we breathed a sigh of relief when we saw that construction continued on the 323. Highway 214 was impeccable but a long and painful climb began immediately after the junction. We reached the top, exhausted but happy that we made it. The descent was a long one and normally enjoyable if there wasn't ... construction again! Ohh, muddy hell! We pushed and pushed our bicycles and tried to get rid of the mud. It was so tiring! At the end of the day we spent some 90 km on mud roads. We were fed up and decided to hop on a bus as soon as possible. The next day was a short 30 km on mud road again to Shuangjiang.

From Shuangjiang the bus was supposed to take us 160 km to Lancang in a couple of hours. Before we left we had to pull up the bicycles onto the bus' roof. The bus driver did not have anything to fasten our bicycles to the rooftop rack. The only thing that we could get hold of was cheap, thin, unreliable plastic strap. We didn't trust this plastic strap at all but in the end it made its job. Hallelujah! Our bicycles did not fall off the roof on the bumpy road.

The bus ride was longer than expected: 160 km in two (!) days! The road was hell! All vehicles in front of us and behind us got stuck in mud again and again. On a 300 meter stretch we got stuck three times. 3 hours later and thanks to many pushing people we could continue. The weather wasn't helpful either and it poured down several times. Accordingly the road became worse and we got stuck even more. Have a look at the photos!

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