Deep fried Tibetan bread in Xiahe.
Tough old stint down from Tibetan plateau to Xian to make it in time for my visa run to Hong Kong. A short update as I won’t stick to my usual format of a linear run through of the last 8 days as it has been a boring enough to ride, let alone to read, but in summary there have been two 100 mile days, lots of rain, mud, infected wounds and so many car horns tooting that I have begin to lose my grip on sanity…
Well I’ve reached the end of my scenic detour and will now be heading straight down to Xian to do my visa run to Hong Kong. The last few days have been incredible visiting the various monasteries in Qinghai and Southern Gansu which have led to this being a rather photo heavy, and cycling light, post!
Safety first lads.
Short few days since the last post but they’ve been interesting. I went over the best Tibetan pass so far, had some great scenery riding through a canyon with a Buddhist mural, a detour taking me down my own private gorge on an animal track and finally hitting the 9,000 mile marker…
It has been a mammoth two days of cycling over the mountains. Snow storms, a 4,120 metre pass, accidentally riding through a city closed to foreigners and the icing on the cake… a 230km day (144 miles).
My Chinese visa extension, finally!
Well I’m finally back on the road after mine and Stephens visa ordeal in Lanzhou. A typhoon has been twirling its way across the sea to the east of China leading to pretty much non stop rain. Despite this, and a particularly bad run of electronics dying, I have made it up onto the Qinghai-Tibet plateau!
James Finnerty 