Crash, Bang, Wallop.... What a Holiday!

We left Yingchuan early in the morning planning to camp somewhere on the border of Ningxia and Gansu provinces. In the way, however, lay the Tengger Desert, which would be our first taste of desert riding, something we will mhave to get very used to when we get to Xinjiang.

The drive through the desert was spectacular. Miles and miles of sun and sand and rock, and a dead straight road through the middle. The road was flanked by the odd tiny hamlet but otherwise the whole area, as one might expect from a desert, was deserted.

We did, however, need lunch and there was no Little Chef or Welcome Break in sight. So we stopped in a tiny hamlet next to a building with a sign that said 'shop' outside it. At least we might be able to get some biscuits and a drink.

When we walked in, as soon as the boss had had overcome her utter shock at seeing our faces, she immediately offered us a meal. 'We are just about to have lunch, won't you join us?' We almost bit her hand off. So we sat down with grandma, grandpa and their three grandchildren for lunch. True, it was no Michelin Star restaurant, but it was truly "vaut le détour", as the French guide might say. I know it is a cliche, but the generosity of those that have nothing is sometimes truly astounding.

We camped that night in some truly spectacular surroundings about 2000m up in the hills between Gansu and Ningxia. We managed to find a place to pitch camp in some ruins, either of an old settlement or a fort from Imperial times. The fort hypothesis in many ways seems more likely as the view afforded from the spot was unparalleled and the that area was very much on the old border of imperial China. Either way, we felt truly priveleged to be afforeded the opportunity to camp in such an imposing place.

Thw view was no less spectacular when we got up, and it was a real wrench to leave. We did, however, have a schedule to keep to.

The morning's drive was beautiful, if uneventiful, and we made good time before stopping for lunch. After lunch, however, my bike would not start. We simply could not work out why as it had been running perfectly before lunch. The battery was fine, there was enough petrol and the spark plug was pristine. We tried kick starting it, we tried pop starting it, but nothing worked. So we weeled it across the road to the motorbike workshop but the mechanic's wife said he wasn't in, and when asked when he might be back looked more than a little pissed off and shrugged her shoulders. Some things are culturally universal.

So we asked the lorry mechanics next door, who were playing drinking games at 1 o'clock in the afternoon. They had a brief look but couldn't work it out either.

At this stage Pryd had a thought. Could it be something to do with my alarm? At which point it suddenly occured to me to volunteer the information that the alarm button on my key ring had jammed briefly while I was getting something off the bike. We disconnected the alarm, and the bike roared into life, it turns out the alarm was also fitted with an immobiliser in case of tampering. Elation and shame. I felt like one of those patients in House who has prevented him from coming to the right diagnosis by not telling him a crucial part of their medical history. Everybody lies.

After this mino hiccough, however, we arrived in Lanzhou, provincial capital of Gansu. In the 1990s Lanzhou had briefly attained the dubious honour of the world's most polluted city. Since then, however, it has really turned itself around. It seemed clean (for China), and the people were astonishingly friendly. Being a mini celebrity never gets old, even if explaining your route a thousand times sometimes does. We even mangaged to become semi adopted by a motorcycle shop/club, which sorted out a few problem we were having with the bikes for free, as well as giving us an oil change and some helpful advice. It turns out the biker network even exists in China.

After one night in Lanzhou we had a rather long drive into the depths of Gansu province where we had planned to stop at Xiahe, a small village with an enormous Tibetan Monastery.

The day was going to be long anyway, so the last thing we needed was to get lost. Which of course we did. The first few hours were uneventful enough, and the scenery was beautiful as we wound our way through the 'Yellow River Three Gorges', which were not as awe-inspiring as the original Three Gorges on the Yangzi, but imposing nonetheless.

The sign posting, however, left a little to be desired, so we followed the locals' instructions. The route they picked out was not exactly that which we had planned, and involved winding mountain roads, a great view of an enormous lake and a ferryride. All this would have been much more pleasant had we known that we were eventually going to arrive in the right palce. Which we did, in the end.

However, having got off the ferry and continuing on roads with some fairly precipitous turns, Pryd seems to have forgotten that we was not riding his 600cc Kawasaki racer from home, but was in fact riding a 150cc "Made in China" cruiser. He slightly overcooked a turn, braked, straightened a bit, hit some gravel, braked again and went sliding off the road into a concrete ditch. My heart stopped.

Thankfully Pryd was essentially ok, although is still carrying a rather painful knee injury. The bike, however, seemed to be in rather a bad way. Lots of bent and scraped parts and, far more importantly, it wouldn't start.

After discussing what to do we eventually decided that Pryd would at least coast it down the hill and try to pop start it. By a phenomenal stroke of luck on the second try the engine roared (or more accurately spluttered) into life. At this stage, had I been in Pryd's position with a bashed up bike an incredibly painful knee, I would have been very keen to call it a day there. Pryd, however, with determination worthy of extreme admiration decided that he wanted to continue on to our intended destination, another 130km away.

Time, was by now at a bit of a premium, so once again we got lost. No signs on the road, and where we were seemed to bear no resmblance to what our map was telling us. This at least afforded us a good look at linxia which was an intriguing majority Muslim town. At last, however, with a lot of local help we found the right road and began heading up into the lush green of the Himalayan foothills, with hillsides dotted with nomadic Tibetan camps and sheep. The scenery was fantastic but our enjoyment was slightly dampened by the ever strengthening rain. My call not to put ponchos on as we were 'only thirty kilometres away' proved to be an error, and we froze in our light weigt summer kit as we climbed the mountains.

Then, Pryd was once again felled, this time by a goat that inexplicably ran out in front of him. Luckily neither Pryd nor the goat were hurt, and Pryd also had the honour of being picked up and dusted down by a Tibetan monk who also gave his bike the once over. The bike was, by now, looking distinctly worse-for-wear, but it started and we continued.

Finally cold, wet and a little bashed up we reached Xiahe. About time.

Xiahe itself is a fascinating place. Even more so considering that in the space of one day's drive we went from Han, to Muslim, to Tibetan, three very different cultures all with their own intricacies and complexities.

In Xiahe we had decided to have a much-earned day off and visit the monastery, among other things. The monastery, the monks, and the smell of yak butter and incense took us both straight back to previous travels in Tibet, and it was great to have the opportunity to see something which I wasn't sure I would necessarily see again. We are all the more lucky in that Xiahe has only been reopened for the last three weeks after being closed for one and a half years after the Tibetan riots of 2008.

Tomorrow it is onwards and upwards to Qinghai lake, China's largest lake.

Steppeing on Sand

Well, as far as I can see Inner Monglia consists of the steppe, some stunning scenery and road works.

We set off from Datong after our day off feeling pretty fresh. I had actually already begun to miss sitting on the bike and seeing white centre lines rushing (or crawling) past me. To be honest so much has happened since then it's hard to remember even s far back as a few days. One thing that is impossible to forget though is the road we took out of Datong and in to Inner Mongolia. It was, quite simply, stunning. It wound itself precariously through some of the most stunning natural and man made scenery I have ever seen. Rolling hills and craggy peaks, dotted around with some of the oldest pieces of the Great Wall still in existence. Needless to say, Pryd and I got very, very excited. We were giggling like schoolboys who had not only been given double maths off because their teacher was ill, but at the same time found out that not only was the teacher ill, he had Gonorrhea.

Hohot itself, however, was a fairly unremarkable town. We stayed the night and left early the next morning.

The next day was characterised by soaring highs and crashing lows. Highs brought about the scenery, which was still breathtaking. The Mongolian grasslands at this time of year truly are a fantastic sight. Lows were brought about by road works, tons of roadworks. Sand, mud, gravel, stones, sand, mud on gravel, and sand. It really was very tough going and we made painfully slow progress. As has been pointed out to me, we may have felt like Genghis Kahn but we probably made slower progress than he did across Inner Mongolia that day. The denouement of this odyssey of road works was a puddle of muddy water about a foot deep under a bridge. We emerged with bikes and gear covered in mud. Our beautiful chrome finish which glinted so stylishly in the sun was well and truly gone.

These trials and tribulations were more than made up for, however, by the place we decided tp camp for the night. The middle of the Mongolian grasslands is a great place to pitch camp. Even the fact that I couldn't stand up to put my trousers on in the morning did not detract from it. A truly memorable night.

The rest of our time in Inner Mongolia has consisted of more road works and some incredibly heavy industry. The whole of Inner Mongolia after where we camped was grey from smog and dust. The problem in Inner Mongolia is that it is never meant to have been farmed, it is meant to be pasture, as it has been for thousands of years. Now, however, it is being farmed by sedantry Han Chinese which means that the thin topsoil, ater it has been cultivated for a few seasons and exhausted of its nutrients, is simply left to blow away. When this is added to the severe pollution in some areas the whole place is cloaked in a concrete grey smog which rarely lifts. It is a tragedy, as Inner Mongolia has the potential to be one of the world's truly beautiful places.

So, as it happens, we were quite happy to be out of Inner Mongolia, as I write this we are in Yingchuan, capital of Ningxia province, and will hopefully make it into Gansu province tomorrow.

The first few days of this mammouth trip have been quite something. Baking hot sun and pouring rain, flat roads and mudbaths, industrial hell-holes and cultural relics.

The amount of admin that had to be done before departure was quite staggering, all sorts of purchases to make and adjustments to be made to the bike, like boxes for extra fuel canisters and water tanks and the like.

The journey thus far has been somewhat frustrating, as one disadvantage of buying a brand new bike is that it has to be broken in. This means travelling relatively large distances at incredibly slow speeds. So the whole of the first day was spent at 40km/h (25mph) which is, by any stretch of the imagination, slow. Therefore, as you can imagine, the first day of 230km felt painfully slow. At the same time, however, it was the first time we were riding the bikes for real and so excitement more than outweighed frustration, even when maniacs in smart cars (as in posh cars, not as in little two seater jobbies, they haven't reached China yet) are flashing past your ears.

We had planned to spend the first night in Zhangjiakou, which we reached... eventually. The problem with China is that it is a country underconstruction. This means alot of roadworks. As such the road we were planning to take into town was closed. We therefore got lost. Luckily, however, we came across an incredibly friendly Chinese guy on a beutiful BMW cruiser, who took aliking to us. He decided that he would take us to Zhangjiakou. This was a god-send, as I'm not sure we would have found it without him. The way in did involve some interesting driving over mud roads with large stones in them, so a bit of off road practice, which would be needed for the next day. Not only did this Chinese fairy-godfather guide to our destination but he also found us a place to stay with a lockable underground carpark. Perfect.

The next day we had pencilled in to head to Datong. Datong is an interesting place, it produces 1/3 of all of China's coal, which seeing the vast majority of China's powerstations are coal fired is a vast amount. As such it has a more than industrial air. It also, however, has some extremely interesting cultural sights just outside it, so it seemed a logical place to stop.

The main problem was that when we woke up it was raining, which on a motorcycle can be more than a little miserable. We got extremely wet. We did, however, make relatively good progress, as after an oil change we could both travel at 50km/h, which after 40km/h actually felt quite fast. The scenery for much of the way was also really quite attractive.

Disaster struck, however, as we approached Datong. Once agin the road was closed. However, unlike before, there had been a large gap left open through which the vast majority of vehicles from coaches to trucks to motorbikes seemed to be passing, so we decided to follow them. As we turned a corner, however, we were confronted with one of the biggest building sights I have ever seen, through which these various vehicles were picking their way like ants. What is more, the rain had turned the site into a mud bath, a nightmare of liquid mud, stones, sand, gravel and construction equipment.

Driving through such an area was a challenge to say the least. Luckily our bikes performed extremely well, even loaded with all our heavy gear, as we would not have made it through otherwise. I, being less experienced than Pryd, manged to drop the bike. I simply used too much front brake and the bike just disappeared underneath me. So there I was in a mudbath in the industrial heart land of China standing with a striken bike between my legs.

But... the show must go on, and by now we had found another helpful Chinese bod, in a car this time, to take us to the train station which was near where we wanted to stay that night. So we picked up the bike and picked our way out of the bog.... into a flooded city centre.

Needles to say, when we eventually found our hotel we were tired and more than a little wet, but somhow still smiling. It was amazing that we still amnaged to have fun that day, and it is certianly an experience never to be forgotten, and one that I am sure has made us both better riders.

Waking up in Datong with a day off was a great feeling. Thinking that both the bikes and us needed a brake we took a bus tour of the two main sights Datong has to offer, the Hanging Monastery and the Yungong caves.

The Hanging temple was built in 8th century and is perched precariously on a rock fifty metres up a cliff. A great spectacle, but maybe not quite as spectacular as we expected.

The Yungong Caves, however, far exceeded expectations. They were stunning. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Buddhas carved into the rock some huge, some miniscule. It truly was breathtaking.

Next it is on to Inner Mongolia where the Mongolian Steppe awaits.....