The Long Road Home

Well I’m right back at Chuanzhusi where iwas two days ago.. For two days I’ve been battliing to cross the last 140 or so km up to the grasslands and get over to Zoige,  but I can’t manage it. I’m completely done in, and have had to retrace down to a town and rest.

I knew it would be tough, but I thought I could manage it in three days, and I REALLY wanted to do this last little stretch, because after a week climbing through the mountains of northern sichuan, I’m so VERY close now to the highest point, where the grasslands begin, and from where rivers run to the Yellow River.

Listening to people, it seemed the main problem would be dogs. People told me I would need thick protection on my legs, and a lassoo with metal objects on each end. So in Songpan I went shopping and in no time at all a lovely Muslim ironmonger helped me buy a rope and two chunky 17mil spanners (which will actually double up as cone spanners, which I didn’t bring, so not wasted weight). Then I went to a shop where Tibetan people buy the things they need like saddles and cloaks and oil for prayer lamps, and a nice old chap fitted me with some heavy fur and canvas gaiters with great leather buckles. So I was ready. I’d been quite anxious in the morning, but I felt quite good in my adventurer’s kit. I bought some mini chocolate footballs which didn’t quite fit the image, but thought would be nice.

Well, it turned out dogs were not the main problem. What has defeated me are the terrible track instead of a road, altitude, and rain. I found that the road to Zoige is not even a decent dirt track right now, as it’s being rebuilt. So it’s a total mess of mud and potholes, like those bad roads down in Guangxi. I battled 30km. At the start I was ok. The scenery was stupendous - huge ice-topped black rock mountains, pine forests, turquise river. There were wild horses on the hillsides, goats, massive maoniu black hairy cattle, and huge raptors circling overhead, golden eagles I think but I didn’t look carefully enough at the tail and they might have been black kites. The light was fabulously bright.  People were travelling on horses trotting along wearing trilby cowboy hats. Sometimes you’d see them galloping across the green - horses galloping with Tibetans on their backs is a really exciting thing to see.

I was going to stay at a Tibetan stockade village which folk down in Songpan said would be OK. However when I got there, the road workers on the road near there told me not to. The workers are Han and don’t seem to mix much with the Tibetans. So I camped near a river. Actually a lovely camp, with soft grass and the river close by for washing. I was at 3100m. It gets really cold at night. All my plastic things are really brittle. The ziplocks on plastic bags have fractured, and some plastic clips on my tent won’t open. In the morning I thought it was quite chilly, and when I looked out there was hoar frost over everything, including my cycling shorts and jersey washed the night before. I was a bit surprised by that. But I was still doing ok. I made hot coffee and made up hot milk to have with muesli. So far so good.. I put on my tough gaiters. However I was already breathing really hard just to do small physical efforts. Talking into the pod recorder in recordings lower down, you can already hear me panting eg at a monastery I went in to the day before. I hadn’t realised it till I listened to them just now.

Also it was grey and windy and really cold. And the road was appalling. From the lack of oxygen, I was exhausted even on really tiny slopes, and had to walk pushing the bike slowly up any proper climbs. I could only manage 10kph or less. I got a headache. It started to rain. Now this was a serious problem because I’m wearing almost everything, and knew I’d get cold very quickly if I’m wet, and I don’t have many spare clothes. I put in a (feeble) spurt and managed to reach a roadworkers camp. They invited me in for some food. They live in tents with shack shop selling cigarettes and basic dry food. A Tibetan child was begging for food and the workers nicely were playing with him, picking him up and swinging him. The boy didn’t speak Mandarin. His face was deep red and scabbed from the sun and wind. A huge herd of cattle went through with Tibetan men and women on horses, and huge black dogs. Lots of people gathered round me and everyone asked me where I’d come from. My headache was getting worse and I was tired of saying hong kong and explaining that it was possible, and that it wasn’t xiong. I wanted help now. I tried to hitch a truck to Zoige but none came. Then the rain stopped and the sun came out. So I went on. That was a mistake, but it was now less than 10km little km to the highest point, then I would be on flat grasslands to Zoige, and down to the Yellow River. So tempting to try. But I just couldn’t do it. I was struggling to move. It started to rain again. I stopped and pitched the tent in a clearing, and lay in it. My head was smashing with a headche, and I couldn’t do anything without panting. I was now at over 3500m. I realised I’d got altitude sickness. I knew I now needed to get down at least several hundred metres to stop feeling so ill. It was too late to hitch onwards to Zoige so I decided I’d try and get someone to take me back down to the last town I went through, Chuanzhusi. I left there two days ago, but it’s only about 50km away, I’ve been going so slowly. The rain was pelting down. I got myself up and stood in the rain until a van agreed to take me. I quickly struck the tent, which I’d left up in case no truck appeared, and four young guys in a van helped me put my stuff in the back. We lurched down the road, my head clanging. My lips are cut and bleeding from the dry and wind. My hands are rough and sore. I was not having fun at all. The men threw handfuls of pink spirit money out of the windows as we went past a monastery. At last we reached the town. They dropped me off. I was muddy and cold and still had a headache though much less than higher up. I was really relieved to be safe, but whilst the hotel had oxygen bottles for guests, it had no hot water.

I had to walk into town to get a shower at a public bathhouse. That was nothing, but too many things were too hard. I was then sick all night, and things were not cheerful at all. I guess it was the roadgang’s food. Silly me. Another mistake to eat that.

It’s been a really tough few days, and I see I made quite a lot of bad decisions. Well, I know a few more of my own limits now. I’ve lain in bed all day sleeping today, with a lovely Tibetan lady at this new empty hotel bringing me hot water and orange juice and xifan rice congee. Incredibly tired. I’m going to try and get to Zoige tomorrow by bus. I’m looking forward enormously to meet Rick there, the intrepid husband of Polly Hui from the Equities or ETI team in Hong Kong. He’s joining me for a stint up here in far north Sichuan, into Gansu. The first time I have company since six weeks ago back in Guangdong, and, as you can imagine, for me, company couldn’t arrive at a better time. I’m looking forward to ride safely with Rick DOWNHILL to Lanzhou. Now first going to sleep some more.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 24th, 2006 at 7:46 am and is filed under On the Road. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.