Cyclists' heaven and hell

Total distance: 5092 km
Dali - Weishan - Gonglang - Yu Xian - Lincang

Cyling from Dali to Lincang was tough but fantastic with stunning views. We cycled through hell and heaven along the highway 214.

Hell! Every morning a very long climb, between 15 and 26 km, awaited us.

Heaven! Once we made it to the top there was cyclist's paradise: very long descents! The longest descent we had was 30 km on perfect roads. We just let the bicycles roll and enjoyed the stunning landscape. We were surrounded by green mountains. People cultivated the mountains in forms of rice terraces.

Looooong descents!

Hell! Tunnels! Some of them were long and not well lit. Now we do know why we carry the additional weight in form of front and rear lights with us.

Weishan old town

Heaven! We stopped in Weishan and Gonglang on our way to Lincang. Although Weishan is mentioned in guidebooks like Lonely Planet we were surprised to be the only tourists in the city. We strolled in the old streets and we actually liked it more than Dali. Weishan has still old traditional buildings, nothing renovated and things are still authentic. Gonglang isn't a tourist spot at all. Probably locals in this little town never ever see any foreigners. It was very interesting to see this "isolated" and real Chinese town.

Hell! The hard beds. Although sleeping in a hotel every night has one big advantage, that is one shower per day, it also has its disadvantage, that is the hard beds. Sometimes we wish back the nights on our comfortable inflatable air mattresses in the tent.

Our camping mattresses are needed!

Heaven! Yunnan is home to more than 700 minorities. Whenever we came downhill from a mountain pass and rolled into a new town or village, we saw different people with different traditional costumes etc. In the valley between Dali and Weishan there are many Muslim Chinese. Shops have descriptions in Chinese and Arabic like in Xinjiang province and many women wear headscarfs. One mountain pass later there are no more Muslim Chinese. It is surprising how mountains must have isolated people in the past.

Hell! Our poor ears were suffering. Not only from the constant honking on the roads, but in one hotel below us was a KTV bar - oh, the Chinese love singing - and we almost became deaf. We can't imagine how it must have been inside the bar. Dear Chinese Health Minister, please do your people a favour and introduce a volume limit! For both KTV and horns!

Heaven! We still enjoy the Chinese food. It's so yummy and cheap. One thing that we have noticed is that the further south we travel the more the taste and quality of noodle soups changes. While we had self-made fresh noodles in spicy soups in Xinjiang province, people here in Yunnan province use the dry and boring noodles. Also the closer we come to Southeast Asia the more rice noodles are offered. Anyway, we had our best noodle soups in Korgas, just behind the Kazakh-Chinese border: Xinjiang the noodle soup paradise! On the other hand the rice quality gets better and better here in Yunnan. People get rice fresh off the ubiquitous rice terraces.

Hell! Well, you'd better get your Hepatitis A vaccination if you want to try the local street food restaurants!

Hygiene? We ate here anyhow.

Heaven! Vegetation is changing! Banana trees, banana trees! The little bananas are thousand times better than the bananas we get back home.

Hell! It must be the rainiest October in Yunnan's history. We actually expected the dry season in October but it rains a lot! Luckily it is not permanent rain but it still means that we have to put on our rain gear. By the way, we have entered the summer region again, cycling in shorts and T-shirts most of the time!

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Dali impressions

Three Pagodas

We spent four days in Dali, a bit longer than we wanted but we had to wait until I got better. Unfortunately I had caught a cold on the way from Lijiang to Dali. The highlight in Dali were the famous three pagodas and temples, but everything very touristic of course.

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Finally the China we longed to find

Total distance: 4781 km
Lijiang - Jianchuan - Eryuan - Dali

During the last three days we cycled from Lijiang to Dali. The day before we left Lijiang, it was raining hard all afternoon, so we were afraid that it would continue like that. However we were woken by sunshine on the morning we left. After such a long time off the bike, we were really happy to be rolling again.

The trip started with a nice climb up to 2600m. At the top there was a view point, from where we saw the Yangtze deep down winding between the mountains. In the background there were the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and Haba Shan, both over 5000m high. Really nice view, even though the peaks were hidden in the clouds, but definitely worth the climb. In this part of China most people seem to live on farming, they are mostly growing rice and corn. At this time of the year everybody was busy harvesting the rice. When the sun came out, the rice fields were glowing golden, a beautiful contrast to the lush green grass and trees growing everywhere. People were very friendly, they were all shouting 'Hellos' as soon as the spotted us. One man greeted us with 'Okaaay!!', apparently the only English word that he knew :) In the evening we found a great - and very cheap - room in a hotel in one of the towns on the way. Had the morning started with sunshine, clouds were coming back towards evening and were threateningly towering above us, so we were happy to be safe and warm under a roof. A nice meal completed this perfect day and we happily fell asleep.

The next day was similar. After a breakfast that consisted of Baozi - Chinese dumplings - that we ate on a schoolyard, observed by children from the distance, we faced another steep, 15km-long climb. Luckily a good noodle-soup awaited us at the end of the descent. And in the afternoon we arrived just in time at another nice hotel, before the rain started to pour down. Peter wasn't feeling very well this day and feared to get a cold, so we were happy that there were only 60 km left for the next day.

For a change there was no climb this day, but we rode through a beautiful gorge and finally came to the large Erhai Lake. Dali, our destination lies at the shore of this lake. So we followed the shore for the rest of the day. On the way we passed by a colorful market, where the minorities of the region sold everything from rubber boots to spices to meat. You could even get a haircut here. In the afternoon we saw the three pagodas for which Dali is famous appear in the background and soon after we arrived. Happily we took a shower in the guesthouse and relaxed at a nice dinner.

Talking about these 3 days, we agreed that they were the nicest days of our whole time in China so far.

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