Huh, so our blog is blocked in China. No matter, I think we're sneaky devils and can get around that. Thumbs up mum!

Though it was nice to fatten up in Lhasa for a while hitting the road was great. It's hard to explain how comfortable sleeping on a punctured therm-a-rest in a pile of rocks and how delicious our pretty shoddy meals have become. We're currently writing from Lhatse, a pretty sizable town about 500km west of Lhasa. The road here has been wild, westwards from Lhasa the amount of water drops off steeply while the elevation is almost entirely above 4000m. The variation of the East has been replaced by giant brown hills and wide valleys where farmers stubbornly cultivate rocks for the sheep to eat. After the first day of mostly flat we shot up a pass to Yamdrok lake, around the lake through snow and wind, then had some exquisite dumplings at a workers restaurant which doubled as a disco. A middle aged Tibetan lady tried through some pretty hilarious acting to convince us to stay and dance it up, though terrified of what the altitude and yak skull with colored light bulbs for eyes might do to our minds we declined and continued to our campsite just down the road.

I woke up the next morning to an inch of snow and a mild case of altitude sickness. Nothing too bad, just some nausea, a headache, and no appetite. Without a pressing schedule it didn't really matter, we could hang out at our campsite as long as needed, and the snow would melt within minutes. Only problem was, at just shy of 4600m we were at the low point between two passes, with the only way to a lower elevation being over a 5000+m pass...bummer. Around noon after an endlessly curious goat herder had examined everything from our tent pegs to the video camera we decided to go for it. The pass was only 20km off and the first half went great, second half...not so great. For the last 7km or so I had a raging headache, felt like I was going to spew, and was breathing like mad even though we were averaging 5km/h or so. It was miserable, but not as bad as the descent. I had sort of failed to realize that the symptoms would stick around until we got a fair bit lower. With the shallowest descent yet it took another 2 hours, 40km, and a healthy allotment of swearing to reach the next low point which we hoped was low enough at 4270m. Turned out to be good enough, though it was quite a humbling experience. Honestly I had dismissed the possibility of AMS, after all we were in good shape, had been biking at similar altitudes for weeks, and were camping only 200m higher than our next highest campsite. I guess altitude is a strange beast.

We had heard the West was the hard life. So far, this has not proved to be true. Barring the occasional headwind and Ben's bloated belly its been great. With far fewer checkpoints to worry about we have been able to fully enjoy all the benefits of shops and markets in towns and cities that we previously had to pass through under the cover of darkness. Mostly this means good food, so much of it that our Tibetan ramen tally has increased only 27 to 147 since leaving Lhasa. That quantity of Ramen noodles may sound a bit grim, but Chinese ramen isn't your typical American rubbish. With as many as 4 flavor packets each they are somewhat of a treat. We have even ranked our favorites- the elusive gold and purple, green, red, then spicy purple red, not to mention our "breakfast ramen" creation made with milk powder, yum! I'm pretty sure they're no more nutritious than ramen back home but I keep telling myself otherwise.

From here the road splits, south on 318 to Nepal or Northwest on 219 past Mt. Kailash to Kashgar in Xinjiang. I think we're going northwest on 219. Kashgar is about 2500km from here and we'll see how far we make it before we have to resort to hitching in order to make it to some sort of station, whether it be bus, train, or police in an effort to get back to Shanghai for our flight out in about a month, it'll be interesting I think.

Prayer Flags, Passes, & Police

After three weeks of riding and many wild adventures we rolled into Lhasa, dirty, tired and looking for some food that wasn't Ramen.

The road from Yunnan has been incredibly impressive and diverse. One day we will be grinding over a 5000m pass with yaks, yurts, snow, and not much air, then several hours and a bone shaking descent later we will be swimming in the desert gorge of the Salween or sweating in the Tsangpo valley with leeches and monkeys at 2000m with 7000m peaks towering over our heads.

Conditions are variable, from sun and flying tail winds, to rain, snow, hail and raging headwinds. Like many things in this country the road is in a constant state of construction, it alternates from brand new pavement to some of the worst corrugated roads I have ridden. Some days we will hammer and only go 50 km while others we will easily cover over 100 km. Going up Dungd La (the highest pass east of Lhasa at just under 17,000 ft) we were fighting off fierce bonks, headaches, and headwinds and running low on food. As we dragged ourselves over the top we were mopped by Chinese tourists heading for Lhasa wanting to take photos with a couple of dirty, bonked and cranky riders. It was an interesting scene with Nils swearing up a storm. Headwinds, barking dogs, and biscuits that make you sick are our nemesis but the good days definitely outweigh the tough ones.

From Deqin we have ridden over 13 passes, and under even more police barriers. We are not strictly legal and getting into and staying in Tibet has proved as hard as any of the riding. We miss fired twice before working out the best way in, first being turned away by unrideable back roads then arrested at midnight several hundred miles into Tibet. But we are stubborn and a little sneaky and we persisted. After many 4am mornings, night rides, barking dogs, and close encounters we now have got a pretty good handle on how to get around.


Unfortunately riding many of the larger towns at night doesn't lend itself to getting a good variety of food. Our diet mostly consists of Ramen instant noodles (much better than ones in the States), milk powder (Melamine free we hope), and mystery meat sticks. For nutrition me have started drinking fruit flavored beer which it turns out is surprisingly delicious. It is hard to explain how good the food in Lhasa is after 3 weeks of questionable diet and hard riding. We have been hitting the street vendors pretty hard, our stomachs have paid for it and we have made good use of our first sit toilet in over a month, but it is definitely worth it.

For all of Tibet's physical beauty it is still very much an occupied region. Almost every day army convoys of hundreds of trucks roll by us. Tibet has huge political, and strategic value and enormous amounts of resources, valuable to fuel China's insatiable appetite. The amount of military and police in Lhasa, increased dramatically since last years riots, is hard to image. The Chinese domination is symbolized fairly bluntly by the huge military statue directly across from the Potala Palace.

We are now holed up in Lhasa for a couple days so I can get some rabies shots from an encounter with a dog. It seems I picked a good place to be bitten, at the clinic myself and nine others who had met a similar fate lined up, payed a small fee and got a shot. What a waste to get a $400 rabies vaccination in the States. Lhasa is a bizarre place, with police, pilgrims, and tourists. Although its nice to rest up, wash clothes, and eat real food we are already itching to get back on the road. West Tibet makes the East look like a cake walk. What it lacks in checkpoints it makes up in passes, with about 40, 10 or so of which are over 5000m. Towns and people are few and far between and I am sure there are many more wild adventures ahead before we hit Kashgar.