England to China by bicycle - and back again

The Wind in the West

2008-07-26T11:30:00.002Z

You may have seen Jonathan Watts writing in The Guardian yesterday about the Three Gorges of the Sky.

Here's his opening paragraph:

"In the vast natural wind tunnel that is Dabancheng, the gales that roar between the snow-capped mountain ridges get so strong that trains have been gusted off railway tracks and lorries overturned."

This takes me back 2-and-a-bit years to when I was trying to cycle through that vast natural wind tunnel, on days 158, 159, and 160. On day 158, in particular, coming out of Turpan, the wind was so bad that in six-and-a-half hours on a flat road I only made 47 km - and that was before the wind really started blowing. Once it really kicked up, making any sort of forward progress at all became impossible. I had to lie low in a culvert under the road and sit it out.

Someone told me at a petrol station that trains were blown off the tracks in that sort of wind; I wasn't sure whether he was exaggerating. Apparently, though, it's true. Either that, or Jonathan Watts got his information from the same bloke I did.

By way of a post-script...

2008-05-30T10:48:00.005Z

It will please many of you, I think, to learn that Asmund is not only alive, but apparently also well.

(That link will take you to a page on Rob Thomson's blog - which I heartily recommend. He has some stories to tell.)

Ed

2006-09-15T21:06:00.000Z

Now that's what I call breakfast

--
All photos and text copyright Edward Genochio 2006

2006-09-15T21:00:00.000Z

Hotel sign, Dunhuang, Gansu province, China

--
All photos and text copyright Edward Genochio 2006

2006-09-15T20:54:00.000Z

Camels on the lake shore, Xinjiang, China.

--
All photos and text copyright Edward Genochio 2006

2006-09-15T20:52:00.000Z

Central market, Almaty, Kazakhstan.
All photos and text copyright Edward Genochio 2006

2006-09-14T17:45:00.000Z

Carrying pole, Guizhou, China.
All photos and text copyright Edward Genochio 2006

2006-09-14T17:41:00.000Z

Petrol Station, Guangxi province, China.
Copyright (C) Edward Genochio 2006

2006-09-14T17:38:00.000Z

Musician, Guangxi province, China

2006-09-14T17:29:00.000Z

Vietnam Sunset

Bicycle Bounces Back into Belgium

2006-08-29T10:23:00.000Z

21,542 km from Shanghai, or 42,000 km from Exeter, my bicycle carries me back to Belgium, 29 years and a month or two after having been born there. It's a long way round to getting nowhere.

It has rained a lot in Europe recently, as you have probably noticed.

Ukraine

2006-08-01T12:57:00.000Z

The hot news is:

1. It's hot.
2. I'm in Lvov (aka Lviv), Ukraine, where it is hot.
3. It's hot.

Apologies for lack of blog since China. Will make up for it one day, I promise.

Hot news from Kazakhstan

2006-06-28T10:07:00.000Z

Chaps, I'm in Uralsk.

Asmund will fill you in on the details, I expect.

Edward

Shymkent

2006-06-13T05:06:00.000Z

Shymkent. Hot. Cycling. 14,288 km since Shanghai.

Hope you enjoy the new minimalist blogging style.

Edward

Kazakhstan

2006-06-06T12:21:00.000Z

I apologise for the absence of any photos in the previous post.

Here is some clover, which made a nice soft bed for the night on the way to Almaty.

Almaty calling

2006-06-06T11:23:00.000Z

Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Internet access here ain't what it is in China (where every second building has an internet cafe in the basement or the attic). Updates might not happen for a while.

We need Asmund back. It's going to take a concerted campaign to make him feel loved again, but with enough emails I think we can do it.

Please write to Asmund and say that you miss him and want him back on the 2wheels blog. The setting is perfect. I'm in Almaty, nobody knows where I'm going from here, and there may be no news from me for weeks on end. Asmund would be perfectly in his element, free to speculate wildly about any number of potential catastrophes.

I hesitate to publish his email address directly, but perhaps this will help:

xxxx_xxxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx

The first word is the short form of Asmund's preferred form of transport. It is four letters long and rhymes with hike.

Then there is an underscore (_).

The second word is Asmund's first name, which rhymes with Hasmund and is six letters long.

Then there is an @ sign.

The third word is a well-known email service owned by Microsoft that has nothing to do with frigid females.

Then there is a dot.

The last word is three letters long and if you write it backwards looks like this: moc.

Please write to Asmund and tell him we need him.

Until next time,

Edward

Day 272 - Cycling from Khorgos (China) to the Charyn Canyon, Kazakhstan

2006-06-01T12:29:00.000Z

Start: Khorgos (Huoerguosi), Xinjiang, China
End: Charyn Canyon, Kazakhstan
Distance: 155 km
Time: 7'34"
Avg: 20.5 k/h
Max: 38 k/h
Total: 13,438 km
Total riding days: 175
Riding hours: 0930 - 2110 (Chinese time)

So, farewell then, China.

Across the border, the smell of low-octane petrol says: welcome back to the USSR.

Day 271 - Clock-watching in Khorgos

2006-05-31T11:00:00.000Z

0 km etc.

In 14 hours time they will let me over the border, inshallah. Yesterday I haggled with the borderfolk for a long time. It really wouldn't be such a bad thing to let an honest man into Kazakhstan 2 days before his visa officially starts, would it?

You must wait here, said the borderman. Khorgos (Huoerguosi, the Chinese call it) is a lovely place, said the borderman. Time will fly here, said the borderman.

I am watching the time flying by, on the tips of growing grass.

Meanwhile, there is always the blossom.

Day 270 - Cycling from Sailimu Lake to Khorgos

2006-05-30T11:47:00.000Z

Start: Hillside above Sailimu Hu, Xinjiang, China
End: Khorgos (Huoerguosi), Xinjiang, China
Distance: 90 km
Time: 3'50"
Avg: 23.7 k/h
Max: 48 k/h
Total: 13,283 km
Total riding days: 174
Riding hours: 0930 - 1930

Braked down the hillside from the world's most booooootiful campspot to the main road and went down down down an extraordinary green valley (how long it has been since things have been green and lush) full of Kazakhs chasing livestock around on horseback (the Kazakhs, not the livestock), and selling honey and honey-flavoured kvas, back into the hotlands, the flatlands, the really rather drablands of the Xinjiang semi-desert.

(No, I haven't shaved. That's Andrea, a German cyclist heading for Kyrgyzstan.)

An update, of sorts

2006-05-30T04:34:00.000Z

Sorry, all very quiet here on 2wheels recently, I know. I have been pedalling furiously in a vaguely westerly direction.

I am now sitting in an internet cafe in a place whose name I do not know, not far from the Kazakh border.

More than that I cannot currently tell you. But when I can, you will be the first to know, I promise you.

Hang on in there.

Edward

Cycling around Sailimu Lake - Day 269

2006-05-29T11:54:00.000Z

Start: Sailimu Lake (east end), Xinjiang, China
End: Sailimu Lake (west end), Xinjiang, China
Distance: 25 km
Time: 1'28"
Avg: 17.1 k/h
Max: 46.5 k/h
Total: 13,192 km
Total riding days: 173
Riding hours: 1905 - 2110

For me this has been the most beautiful spot in all of China. They save the best to last.

Green and white mountains, crystal waters, flowers everywhere, sunsets the size of... something pretty big.

Cycling from a sand dune to a lake: somewhere beyond Jing He to Sailimu Hu (day 268)

2006-05-28T12:03:00.000Z

Start: Sand dune, 20 km beyond Jing He, Xinjiang, China
End: Sailimu Lake, Xinjiang, China
Distance: 116 km
Time: 8'27"
Avg: 13.7 k/h
Max: 36 k/h
Total: 13,167 km
Total riding days: 172
Riding hours: 0845 - 2030

Who's been leaving tracks in my desert campsite?

Oh, just a little beetle.

Things were a bit moister 116 km later, with the sun setting over the supposedly salty but in fact fresh enough to swim and cook in Sailimu Lake.

Cycling across the northwestern Xinjiang steppe (day 267)

2006-05-27T12:19:00.000Z

Start: Somewhere outside, Xinjiang, China
End: Sand-dune, beyond Jing He , Xinjiang, China
Distance: 125 km
Time: 8'27"
Avg: 19.9 k/h
Max: 35.5 k/h
Total: 13,051 km
Total riding days: 171
Riding hours: 0905 - 2145

No photos today. Diary a bit sparse too. Must have cycled a bit. Head down, that sort of thing.

Day 266 - Cycling from Kuitun to somewhere in the Xinjiang steppe

2006-05-26T13:13:00.000Z

Start: Before Kuitun, Xinjiang, China
End: Somewhere after Kuitun, Xinjiang, China
Distance: 120 km
Time: 6'37"
Avg: 18.1 k/h
Max: 40 k/h
Total: 12,926 km
Total riding days: 170
Riding hours: 0920 - 2030

Sad news about one of PG's distant cousins:

Nice highways they build out here.

Squatting technique still needs some work.

Day 265 - Cycling Wutaigong to somewhere before Kuitun

2006-05-25T13:08:00.000Z

Start: Near Wutaigong, Xinjiang, China
End: Near Kuitun, Xinjiang, China
Distance: 122 km
Time: 5'28"
Avg: 22.4 k/h
Max: 36.5 k/h
Total: 12,806 km
Total riding days: 169
Riding hours: 0945 - 2015

Fast, flat, easy cycling, powered by plenty of 5-mao ice creams.

Mao himself, meanwhile, has become a petrol pump attendant.