O' Faithfull Old Honey Pot

After sunning ourselves on the beautiful sandy beaches of the Yangtze, we jumped over the ridge and descended down into the Mekong valley. From there we followed the Mekong to Deqing, rising slowly at first and then an abrupt1600m climb into the city. We have developed a new style of riding, one much more suited to the weather here-up at 6ish, ride until noon, then take our so called siesta in the coolest shadiest spot we can find, and resuming riding around 4ish until dusk. Wondering why it took so long to figure this out, the midday sun must have addled our brains or something.

The ride over the ridge between the Yangtze and the Mekong proved to be more than just a hop step and a jump. After 5 hours of climbing with only a pack of ramen and the better part of a jar of honey in our bellies we made it to the top of the pass. From there, bonked out of our minds, we made the 1500m decent over potholed dirt roads until we reached the first town, and in search of food we ran into a wise old sage so impressed with our endeavour that he cooked us an unreal lunch, singing and whistling the whole time. From the pictures on his wall it seemed as though he must have down a lot of singing, and didn't smoke, which is unusual for men in these parts and further leads me to believe that he had made a career out of singing. After eating as much as we could stomach we traded contact info and said goodbye. My only wish is that we could speak better Chinese, if only to thank people, I guess that gives us all the more reason to study up and come back.

From there we continued down to the Mekong, a river seemingly far more wild than the Yangtze. And as we continued northwards following the river, the country only got more and more wild- big mountains, and countless giant gorges feeding the river. It has also been wild to see the change in culture, about 100km out of Deqing we crossed into the TAR and immediately the shift towards Tibetan culture was evident, with prayer flags across gorges, monasteries in the hills, and monks on motorcycles. We knew that we had about 200km to climb 1600m or so along the Mekong into Deqing, not bad at all...until we realized that all the up is in the last 40 km or so.

Shortly after beginning the climb we ran into commune with a group of men practicing archery, we stopped and while watching were invited to dinner. Yet another unbelievable show of hospitality, this time ending in us playing basketball and being called down to the police station by an officer in his early twenties. His English was impressive and he had "drink beers" and "passport" down pat. After following him on his motorcycle to the police station, he proceeded to laugh at our passport photos (Ben does look like a pre-pubescent 12 year old in his) and watch Chinese basketball league over a couple of beers. After a short time he offered us a place to stay, though for unknown reasons (perhaps just wary of police stations in general) we turned him down insisting that we had to ride to Deqing that night. So off we set, feeling a little tipsy into the already setting sun. We made it about 4km that night. Ended up setting up camp about a meter from the road on some pointy rocks and wondering why on Earth we had chosen not to sleep in a nice comfy cell.

From there, we climbed the remaining 1200m this morning. Yet another wild bonk that had us crawling into town and eating yoghurt and Chinese redbull while sitting on the curb looking and smelling like a bunch of bums, whatever. It seems as though we aer either living like kings with more food than we can eat, or struggling to make the next town with only a couple of peanuts and our faithful jar of honey to fuel us. Though really should figure out the big pass deal, it would be unfortunate to crash and burn up every one. From here, we look at our newly acquired Chinese atlas book and find out if the lines are roads and if the triangles are mountains. Its going to get wild from here though, that's for sure.