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.