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March - April 2013 China - From the rice paddies to Eastern Tibet
I leave you at the border, I'll take care of you on August 31.
I don't know what to say. It's hard for me too to separate like that but...
- Same for us. - OK OK... It's only a beginning, we will meet again.
The first roads of China are quite dangerous, the tunnels are quite dangerous
We arrived in Kunming after riding 800 km in the mountains of Yunnan,
we are forced to take a train to reach Chengdu.
It is there that we can deal with administrative formalities :
renew our fully stamped passports after 2 years on the road
and also process visa extensions because until now we only had
30 days to ride the 5,000 km across China.
In Chengdu, the adminstrative struggle really starts.
We have to wait for 10 days to get our passports back from the French consulate,
while our old passports are waiting new visas at the administration office.
And then, surprise ! We learn that it's formally forbidden to leave town without passport.
It's a mess, it's such a mess ! This country is so annoying regarding administration...
It's a pity because people are really nice, everything's great but that...
Well now it's really boring. We're Chengdu, we just got the paper,
saying we cannot leave town. We had to discuss what we will do now.
What are we going to do ? Staying here for 10 days
waiting for papers, we don't really fancy so much...
We left Chengdu anyway, even if it's forbidden
Today we cycled 145km and, like everyday, we are looking for a place to wash.
A place where people can't see our butt. I think this place over there is not bad
The red house, it has a small wall just the height of our belly button, perfect !
There's water here, and we'll be hidden from the town just there
And do you think this guy will look at us ?
- He's wondering what we're doing - The problem with showering in town is we don't know where to go...
- Or we could go overthere no ?
I will go in the corner overthere.
And I hope this guy will be afraid when he sees me naked and will run away.
It's frozen man !
It must be 15°C outside, it's not so bad but this water
comes from the mountain, let's not forget that !
F*** !
You're gonna suffer guys !
Erh... Do you know where we can eat tonight (in French) ? What's the word for eating already ?
- (Eating) ? - No...
No ? We cannot eat ? Well let's see about that because I'm starving !
- What did you order ? - I don't know. The same as these people here.
Which is rice and a lot of things in it.
It looks like that was a good choice finally...
We finished it all, so we'll leave and find a place to sleep.
So we've been riding for a few kilometers to find a place to set up camp
but we still haven't found anything...
- Can you see something overthere ? - Yeah, there are some houses it's crap...
Because houses mean dogs, and dogs bark all night when they smell us
so they're *** us off, we could get caught...
Morgan went overthere to check. And we all go different places to check
if it's flat, if people can see us, if there's place for our bikes...
Our researches have brought nothing, there was not enough space.
We were at the end of that field overthere, we can't see well from here but in reality either.
It's complicated. Morgan hasn't come back yet, I hope it's positive.
Is it fine ?
- So, is it fine ?
Discretion : 18/20 ; Accessibility : 12/20 ; Comfort : 6/20.
So... I'm not sure we will go there finally guys.
OK well, we have to keep going, it's going to be late. Let's go ?
We've been going in circles for 15 minutes, Brian went to see another place.
- So, verdict ? - Well, it's hard to access because we'll have to go down a steep slope.
There's a car, shut off your light.
When there are cars like now, we shut off our headlamps and then we go again.
The purpose is to be discreet so that people don't know where we sleep.
And right now... it's a bit tricky, we knew it.
The moment I've been waiting since dinner :
laying down in my nice sheet, in my nice sleeping bag, playing some nice music
and putting myself in my nice bubble. Have a good night.
We've been riding for 5 days without our passports,
so we'd rather not be controlled by the police.
And today we crossed a check point and were very lucky :
the 2 military guards were watching TV so we waited a few seconds,
they didn't turn back so we passed under the barrier and there we left !
We climbed a lot today, we are at more than 3,000 m high.
Tonight we have nothing to eat, so we'll have peanuts,
dry meat and fish...
OK guys so tomorrow we'll go through the pass at 4,000 m high,
then we'll go down like mad men and eat like crazy in the next town !
Well, I just hope the pass is not covered in snow so we can go through...
It's 3°C in the tent. Not bad ! We're warming up the inside.
It's warm in the tent !
Now we're staying dressed because we're eating and reading,
- But later... - Eating some fish !
We'll take off our clothes, keeping one base layer maybe
then go in the sleeping bags and sleep perfectly.
- Where is your Teddy bear ? - My Teddy bear ?
- Don't you have one ? - You rob it to me again.
- No, it's not me it's Brian who took it.
We folded the tent back
We're going towards the road, because we cannot walk
in the snow for too long with our ridiculous sneakers.
Here we are at almost 4,000 m high. Finally, after several days climbing.
Now, let's go down that mountain towards Chengdu, it should take 3 or 4 days.
Then we'll get our new passports and our
visa extensions to get to Central Asia. Let's go !