pj8332
Registered user
wow fantastic
London Bangkok - Poacher turned gamekeeper
- Thread starter monkeyboy
- Start date
Think the Canadian on your trip will confirm that the tar is good preventative maintenance, in order to minimize the incidence of 'frost heave' under the road surface due to water ingress and subsequent freeze/thaw/freeze/thaw cycle over autumn/winter/spring.....but I agree, you can't fill a massive hole with the stuff!
Tibet. I've wanted visit Tibet for a while now. It's not exactly the easiest place to ride a bike to and through though. Tibet is another layer of complication on the already complicated business of getting the bikes through China. You have to have a whole lot of extra permits, you need an additional Tibetan guide, and, most difficult of all, the roads have to be open. In past years when we've asked for permits this route has been closed because mother nature has spat the dummy and flooded the place, pushed giant landslides across the roads or shaken the place to pieces, generally destroying the roads and making it impassable. This year though we're in luck. Game on.
The one fly in the ointment is that Tibet will not admit Norwegians. They awarded the Dali Lama a Nobel prize some years ago and that wasn't the most popular decision round here so now they wont give them permits to enter. Our poor Norwegian on his Victory is going to have to split from the party and take a route round the province with our guide and meet us later.
We meet our new driver and our Tibetan guide in Gulmud, wave a sad au revoir to our friend and head for the sky. The ride rules are going to be very different now. There is a much heavier concentration of police and plenty of checkpoints on the road. Along with the police, there is a very heavy military presence in this region so we need to stick to the rules. He can only let us off the lead for short periods as we can't go through the checkpoints alone and they get nervous if we sit and wait for the him to turn up. Fine with me. Their country. Their rules.
Gulmud is about 2800m, we'll be going straight up over 5000m today and staying at about 4600m tonight. No messing about. No acclimatization. Just get on with it.
Get out and start heading south. Everything is hiding under a cold grey blanket of cloud. It doesn't look very friendly or inviting and neither does the border/waiting station. Lots and lots of police here, and they don't seem to be of the 'not bothered' variety we've been seeing up to now. They properly look over the bikes for a start. They're very unhappy about the fuel can on the back. "Empty" the guide tells them. He's still not happy but decides it can be someone else's problem and lets me go. The guide tells me we'll have to empty it and hide it in the van later.
The biggest warning you get from the guide is about taking pictures. You must not under any circumstances take any pictures where any military item of any kind is anywhere in it, ever. Ignoring this rule is punishable by being put in a small metal box in a public square with just your balls hanging out... Oh.. I wonder if I will ever have an original thought in my whole life...
So there wont be many pictures for a while. Our visit coincides perfectly with a huge military training operation and the place is absolutely full of hardware. I'm really surprised we've been allowed through at all. Off we go through... off to the sky. Through the clouds and up and up and up.
I thought the whole place would be empty. That there would be just nothing here at all. The Chinese don't stick to the normal rules and they beat the landscape into submission, however difficult or hostile it is. There are poles and pylons and wires running about everywhere for a start. And the train of course. I'm told this is the highest train line in the world. Not just a little funicular railway either. No, its a proper fuck off big style kind of thing that regularly screams across the scenery. It's all a bit weird.
The roads are full with columns of military trucks. There are 100s and 100s of them. Crawling along, scrabbling their way up the long long climb like big green snakes breathing out dense black smoke. This is no fun at all. And the roads are in a seriously bad way too. Forget the troughs in Saratov, these are far more dangerous. Whenever the climb gets steep, big deep slots appear in the road. Tyre width with straight edges and bloody deep and dangerous. Once in, you're in. You're not going anywhere but where the slot takes you. They often go on for 100s of yards and it's like riding a motorcycle high wire. Look down and you're doomed, just keep your head up and try to relax. Add in a low visibility black cloud and you've really got your work cut out. You can overtake but there are a lot of commercial trucks on the route too and they have exactly the same idea so it's slow slow progress. Eventually we get passed the millionth truck and weave our way up to the first peak. It's at just over 5000m. We're heading up and one of the riders suddenly finds out his altitude threshold is at 4980m, gets confused in a rut and just dumps it. He's not 100% with it and needs some help so the guide grabs him and sticks him on some oxygen. It's impossible to know how you're going to react to altitude until you do it. Some of the riders have been high before, but none have come this high. It's wrong to underestimate its effect, especially as you're in charge of a 2 wheeled weapon.
You don't want to spend too long too high up so a few quick pictures then off and down to about 4500m. Yep, that should help. Spend the afternoon traversing indescribably huge high altitude plains. This looks like where they hold the international weather system games. Way way over in the left corner we have the red contestant. Please put your hands together for "Storm". All dark and moody and with water and wind to spare. An real angry looking bastard definitely in the mood for a fight. And in the blue corner, please put your hands together for "Ice". Super tight, super bright clouds swallowing sunlight and illuminating themselves to blinding intensity. All pointy sharp edges. Scary and threatening. Game on. The different systems move around each other and there are big skirmishes wherever they meet. The scale of this place is just rediculous. And, while we are at it, are the roads.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised. We're way up in the mountains and quite a way from the nearest road mending team. One of the biggest problems is the yomps. The tamac just climbs and drops constantly and you're either thrown out the saddle or compressed at about 10g and your tits suddenly hit your toes. It's raining and dull too so you can't see any contrast. A lot of the yomps are diagonal too so you're just thrown towards the trucks/scenery.
Stop for a late lunch at the kind of place you would bring your wife, if you absolutely, positively without a shadow of a doubt wanted an immediate divorce. It's bloody freezing and wet and hostile outside so we all huddle round a heater and guess what will come out from behind the curtain to eat. Go out to the 'toilet'. This is a first for me. The 'toilet' is a platform built directly over the top of a small pond. It's not clear what came first... the toilet or the pond... The whole place is a disgusting dumping ground for everything going in or out of the human body. Anyway.. back to eat.. I'm sure the cooks don't use this toilet. They'll have a private one, all gleaming white and smelling of roses...
Body temperatures back to just over 0 degrees its back out into the murk and cold.
Whenever it gets near the destination everyone speeds up, especially when they're being snowed on or the temperature is only reading 0.5 inches on their dick-thermometer
The road is now just disintegrating too. The trucks are all bunched up crawling over a bridge so we decide to overtake 200 at a time. It's all going so well until my brain very suddenly registers a big tear in the road/bridge continuum just ahead. FUUUUUUUUUKKKKKKK... This is why the trucks are all crawling. They're slowly having to climb through a 2 ft deep V shaped gouge that's formed where the tarmac has collapsed where it meets ... or used to meet. .. the bloody bridge. Jesus Christ Almighty..... Bang on the brakes and slow as much as I can but now it's time to just let go, yank the bars and hope for the best. I feel about 10 years being knocked off the bike as it crashes through and out the other side and on to the bridge. Shit. That was a close call. All my own stupid fault I know as well. My room mate later tells me he hit the gouge so hard and fast that it kicked the back wheel right up in the air and he was riding on the front wheel only for quite a way. Scared himself shitless!
onights destination is Tanggulazhen, another army base but this time with just a couple of shops, petrol stations and a Grotel, a Grotty Hotel below the standard of a torn tent... This is the first full day at altitude and everyone is feeling shit. Headaches are the main problem and we all have them. It's so cold we just run outside and follow our noses to the nearest door with the smell of food and all sit round a small stove trying to keep alive while the owner insists on opening the fridge/outside door to let the smoke out. The clouds have landed outside and they're slowly parading past the door like giant grey ghosts. Jesus it's bleak up here. It's these sorts of moments that make a trip like this for me though. Isolated, cold, sitting under a dull light bulb with friends, eating anything you can find and watching the clouds go by. All wrapped up, and feeling bad I wander back to the Grotel through the mist, blurred Chinese neon signs winking and fizzing in the damp, distant sounds of machines snoring as they tick over to keep their pilots alive. Check the horses and give them all a pat on the way through before a fitful nights sleep. I hope the other riders are all enjoying themselves as much as I am
Get up in the morning to find the clouds are late risers round here. There is ice on the bikes and the temperature is still around freezing. Can't see much. Probably better that way though. The riders don't look well at all. The guide hands out some medication to some of them but they didn't get much sleep by the looks of it either. It's going to be a tough day. The bikes aren't keen to start either, especially the BMWs. My Ktm is fine however, and I'm trying to convince myself that the problem is the key and that it's all fine now... I don't try the old key.. just in case it works and blows my theory..
OK. So everyone (except me it seems...luckily) is feeling shit today and has altitude related problems. What's the plan then? I know, let's go higher. What a fucking great idea It's Tibet, there is one road, what else are you going to? Tunnel your way to Lhasa
The road up here runs between 4500 and 5000m all day long and the beauty and scale just reaches obscene levels. Still loads of wires and shit kicking about though. You have to remind yourself where you are much of the time. You're just riding along big open plains at 5000m, so those snow capped mountains you're looking at, they're proper high. Amazing!
Today will be the highest we go on the trip. We slowly climb and climb and I hit 5240m just as a parade of mountains and a big lake comes into view.
It's not as dramatic as I imagined it would be to be honest. It's just because of the scale though. The whole flippin place is so high up. No big jutting mountains here, just lots and lots of snow capped lumps! The craggy ones are elsewhere. Bloody impressive to be on a 2 lane road being passed by commercial vehicles at over 5200m though.
A quick bit of exercise for the camera and we head back down a bit for some bike and body fuel. Both are using a lot more than usual at this altitude and temperature. Proper proper cold now. Yet another checkpoint and out towards Nagqu through the rain and snow.
The guide lets us off the lead for about 100km at a time between checkpoints. As we approach the next one we quickly swap snow for sunshine and sheep. Tibet is just weird..
Get to Nagqu and it's an absolute shit hole, the likes of which we've not seen so far. It's a really big town, still up avove 4000m, and the whole place is currently under destruction. The roads are all up everywhere.
The place is just destroyed. It's difficult to describe places like this. It really is like they started building the place and decided to move in 2 weeks later. They'll just finish it as they go along.. or not.. You go from tarmac, down a foot deep step into mud and gravel in the centre of town, then on to mud, then back to tarmac. Our hotel seems to be in an area where the army has been practicing urban warfare. Shit loads of shit just everywhere, piled up on the roadside. The hotel foyer is full of oxygen cylinders for the faint hearted as usual. Some of the riders might be taking those to bed with them.
Breakfast is... not worthy of the name. Air bread and eggs. This isn't going to help my digestion at all.
Usually when I come to China my bum turns into my cock and pisses out hot brown wee for weeks on end but this time it's exactly the opposite. I've not had to sit on a bog for weeks now...at all. And my belly has got all swollen up like I'm expecting a food baby. Sure enough, I woke up in the middle of the night having contractions. I sneak slowly into the toilet, clutching my swollen abdomen, trying to remember my birthing classes. My bowel suddenly lets out a long low animal growl. Oh God, my wind has broken, I've gone into labour.. this is awkward.. I breath.. and push... and breath.. and push. The head out but it's just so broad shouldered it isn't moving any further. My screams eventually reach a level when my roomy has to call in the crash team to deliver it by emergency anal cesarian. After a particularly messy delivered it weighs in at 10lb 7oz. Everyone agrees it is the spitting image of it's dad. I've decided to call it Trevor.
Anyway, I leave baby Trevor sleeping soundly in the toilet bowl upstairs and go looking for breakfast alternatives. This place looks like a bloody bomb site. No chance of anything here so I get back to the room. I've got to breast feed Trevor..
I quickly decide there is just no future for me and Trevor so I gently carry him down in the lift and lay him on a huge pile of shit outside in the street. He'll be happy there... with all his mates..
Saddle up, and head south towards Lhasa. Beautiful blue sky, fluffy white clouds, mountains and Yaks as far as the eye can see. It's just sooooooo incredibly beautiful up here.
Lhasa is way down at 3600m and the scenery soon starts to change as you get near. The mountains start going from gray to green and it starts to really warm up. Must be 5 degrees at least...
We get to the outskirts of town and enter some sort of urban vehicle assault course. This is weird. I recognise this place. I'm sure I do. Now where... OH I know. I think this is where they came to make Call of Duty. Bloody place is just a mass of broken buildings and roads. "Ping Ping Ping... " Bollocks. I've been hit. I've taken a sniper bullet to the panniers and a frame weld has broken. These Jesse panniers are lovely but the frames are shit. Every trip I've ever been on where someone has had them, the frames have broken. I've had a few 'ghost' falls when the bike has fallen over but nothing else. We get out of the war zone and I apply a big bugger off cable tie bandage to stop it flapping about. It's just a flesh wound.
We stop for fuel. It's all been going so well the last couple of days but here it's a different story. "I'm sorry sir. It appears that you have not been keeping to your daily wait quota. You cannot leave this petrol station until you're average is up to the 2 hour minimum. Now... if you would just like to wait over there... we will be with you .... sometime in the future." The guide said it would be bad here and he is right. The fuel station not only has all the usual barriers/permits/kettle mallarky, it also has several on duty police outside and inside. They have absolutely no idea what to do about us at all. In Lhasa, as well as all the other stuff, in order to get fuel they want to see Chinese driving licences and Chinese vehicle inspection and insurance cards. They have little cameras that they take photos of the licences on before you can proceed. We have all of the above and we hand it all over. Still doesn't work though. Wait...wait... wait some more... what are we waiting for? I've been waiting so long now I can't remember.. The police cannot make their mind up. They're just staring at each other. They want us to go somewhere else so they can get back to waiting on their own... The riders are getting pissed off now. Nothing is happening, and it doesn't look likely to either. Then suddenly it appears our waiting average has gone back up to the required amount and they just give the OK. WTF! There is no rhyme nor reason to it. Bonkers. 2 hours after we arrive and the first kettle is getting filled. Horah.
Down into the city we go. What a weird place it is too. All squeezed in between the mountains. The ride in is one I'll remember forever, with the mountains like giant walls along the roadside. We come round some buildings and suddenly we're riding past the Potala Palace. A really strange experience. You see it on the screen and there it is, right in front of your eyes. I didn't think they would put a big set of traffic lights in front of it but that's what they've done. Jump off for a quick snap and we're off to the hotel/doctors surgery. Reception is half reception and half surgery. So many people have altitude problems here that they have a proper 24 hour on-site doctor and medical staff. Bloody hell. One of the riders is feeling very very rough. He checks in to the hotel, checks in with the doc, and next minute he's on his back in his bedroom with a drip and an oxygen mask on...
I miss Trevor...
The one fly in the ointment is that Tibet will not admit Norwegians. They awarded the Dali Lama a Nobel prize some years ago and that wasn't the most popular decision round here so now they wont give them permits to enter. Our poor Norwegian on his Victory is going to have to split from the party and take a route round the province with our guide and meet us later.
We meet our new driver and our Tibetan guide in Gulmud, wave a sad au revoir to our friend and head for the sky. The ride rules are going to be very different now. There is a much heavier concentration of police and plenty of checkpoints on the road. Along with the police, there is a very heavy military presence in this region so we need to stick to the rules. He can only let us off the lead for short periods as we can't go through the checkpoints alone and they get nervous if we sit and wait for the him to turn up. Fine with me. Their country. Their rules.
Gulmud is about 2800m, we'll be going straight up over 5000m today and staying at about 4600m tonight. No messing about. No acclimatization. Just get on with it.
Get out and start heading south. Everything is hiding under a cold grey blanket of cloud. It doesn't look very friendly or inviting and neither does the border/waiting station. Lots and lots of police here, and they don't seem to be of the 'not bothered' variety we've been seeing up to now. They properly look over the bikes for a start. They're very unhappy about the fuel can on the back. "Empty" the guide tells them. He's still not happy but decides it can be someone else's problem and lets me go. The guide tells me we'll have to empty it and hide it in the van later.
The biggest warning you get from the guide is about taking pictures. You must not under any circumstances take any pictures where any military item of any kind is anywhere in it, ever. Ignoring this rule is punishable by being put in a small metal box in a public square with just your balls hanging out... Oh.. I wonder if I will ever have an original thought in my whole life...
So there wont be many pictures for a while. Our visit coincides perfectly with a huge military training operation and the place is absolutely full of hardware. I'm really surprised we've been allowed through at all. Off we go through... off to the sky. Through the clouds and up and up and up.
I thought the whole place would be empty. That there would be just nothing here at all. The Chinese don't stick to the normal rules and they beat the landscape into submission, however difficult or hostile it is. There are poles and pylons and wires running about everywhere for a start. And the train of course. I'm told this is the highest train line in the world. Not just a little funicular railway either. No, its a proper fuck off big style kind of thing that regularly screams across the scenery. It's all a bit weird.
The roads are full with columns of military trucks. There are 100s and 100s of them. Crawling along, scrabbling their way up the long long climb like big green snakes breathing out dense black smoke. This is no fun at all. And the roads are in a seriously bad way too. Forget the troughs in Saratov, these are far more dangerous. Whenever the climb gets steep, big deep slots appear in the road. Tyre width with straight edges and bloody deep and dangerous. Once in, you're in. You're not going anywhere but where the slot takes you. They often go on for 100s of yards and it's like riding a motorcycle high wire. Look down and you're doomed, just keep your head up and try to relax. Add in a low visibility black cloud and you've really got your work cut out. You can overtake but there are a lot of commercial trucks on the route too and they have exactly the same idea so it's slow slow progress. Eventually we get passed the millionth truck and weave our way up to the first peak. It's at just over 5000m. We're heading up and one of the riders suddenly finds out his altitude threshold is at 4980m, gets confused in a rut and just dumps it. He's not 100% with it and needs some help so the guide grabs him and sticks him on some oxygen. It's impossible to know how you're going to react to altitude until you do it. Some of the riders have been high before, but none have come this high. It's wrong to underestimate its effect, especially as you're in charge of a 2 wheeled weapon.
You don't want to spend too long too high up so a few quick pictures then off and down to about 4500m. Yep, that should help. Spend the afternoon traversing indescribably huge high altitude plains. This looks like where they hold the international weather system games. Way way over in the left corner we have the red contestant. Please put your hands together for "Storm". All dark and moody and with water and wind to spare. An real angry looking bastard definitely in the mood for a fight. And in the blue corner, please put your hands together for "Ice". Super tight, super bright clouds swallowing sunlight and illuminating themselves to blinding intensity. All pointy sharp edges. Scary and threatening. Game on. The different systems move around each other and there are big skirmishes wherever they meet. The scale of this place is just rediculous. And, while we are at it, are the roads.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised. We're way up in the mountains and quite a way from the nearest road mending team. One of the biggest problems is the yomps. The tamac just climbs and drops constantly and you're either thrown out the saddle or compressed at about 10g and your tits suddenly hit your toes. It's raining and dull too so you can't see any contrast. A lot of the yomps are diagonal too so you're just thrown towards the trucks/scenery.
Stop for a late lunch at the kind of place you would bring your wife, if you absolutely, positively without a shadow of a doubt wanted an immediate divorce. It's bloody freezing and wet and hostile outside so we all huddle round a heater and guess what will come out from behind the curtain to eat. Go out to the 'toilet'. This is a first for me. The 'toilet' is a platform built directly over the top of a small pond. It's not clear what came first... the toilet or the pond... The whole place is a disgusting dumping ground for everything going in or out of the human body. Anyway.. back to eat.. I'm sure the cooks don't use this toilet. They'll have a private one, all gleaming white and smelling of roses...
Body temperatures back to just over 0 degrees its back out into the murk and cold.
Whenever it gets near the destination everyone speeds up, especially when they're being snowed on or the temperature is only reading 0.5 inches on their dick-thermometer
The road is now just disintegrating too. The trucks are all bunched up crawling over a bridge so we decide to overtake 200 at a time. It's all going so well until my brain very suddenly registers a big tear in the road/bridge continuum just ahead. FUUUUUUUUUKKKKKKK... This is why the trucks are all crawling. They're slowly having to climb through a 2 ft deep V shaped gouge that's formed where the tarmac has collapsed where it meets ... or used to meet. .. the bloody bridge. Jesus Christ Almighty..... Bang on the brakes and slow as much as I can but now it's time to just let go, yank the bars and hope for the best. I feel about 10 years being knocked off the bike as it crashes through and out the other side and on to the bridge. Shit. That was a close call. All my own stupid fault I know as well. My room mate later tells me he hit the gouge so hard and fast that it kicked the back wheel right up in the air and he was riding on the front wheel only for quite a way. Scared himself shitless!
onights destination is Tanggulazhen, another army base but this time with just a couple of shops, petrol stations and a Grotel, a Grotty Hotel below the standard of a torn tent... This is the first full day at altitude and everyone is feeling shit. Headaches are the main problem and we all have them. It's so cold we just run outside and follow our noses to the nearest door with the smell of food and all sit round a small stove trying to keep alive while the owner insists on opening the fridge/outside door to let the smoke out. The clouds have landed outside and they're slowly parading past the door like giant grey ghosts. Jesus it's bleak up here. It's these sorts of moments that make a trip like this for me though. Isolated, cold, sitting under a dull light bulb with friends, eating anything you can find and watching the clouds go by. All wrapped up, and feeling bad I wander back to the Grotel through the mist, blurred Chinese neon signs winking and fizzing in the damp, distant sounds of machines snoring as they tick over to keep their pilots alive. Check the horses and give them all a pat on the way through before a fitful nights sleep. I hope the other riders are all enjoying themselves as much as I am
Get up in the morning to find the clouds are late risers round here. There is ice on the bikes and the temperature is still around freezing. Can't see much. Probably better that way though. The riders don't look well at all. The guide hands out some medication to some of them but they didn't get much sleep by the looks of it either. It's going to be a tough day. The bikes aren't keen to start either, especially the BMWs. My Ktm is fine however, and I'm trying to convince myself that the problem is the key and that it's all fine now... I don't try the old key.. just in case it works and blows my theory..
OK. So everyone (except me it seems...luckily) is feeling shit today and has altitude related problems. What's the plan then? I know, let's go higher. What a fucking great idea
It's Tibet, there is one road, what else are you going to? Tunnel your way to LhasaThe road up here runs between 4500 and 5000m all day long and the beauty and scale just reaches obscene levels. Still loads of wires and shit kicking about though. You have to remind yourself where you are much of the time. You're just riding along big open plains at 5000m, so those snow capped mountains you're looking at, they're proper high. Amazing!
Today will be the highest we go on the trip. We slowly climb and climb and I hit 5240m just as a parade of mountains and a big lake comes into view.
It's not as dramatic as I imagined it would be to be honest. It's just because of the scale though. The whole flippin place is so high up. No big jutting mountains here, just lots and lots of snow capped lumps! The craggy ones are elsewhere. Bloody impressive to be on a 2 lane road being passed by commercial vehicles at over 5200m though.
A quick bit of exercise for the camera and we head back down a bit for some bike and body fuel. Both are using a lot more than usual at this altitude and temperature. Proper proper cold now. Yet another checkpoint and out towards Nagqu through the rain and snow.
The guide lets us off the lead for about 100km at a time between checkpoints. As we approach the next one we quickly swap snow for sunshine and sheep. Tibet is just weird..
Get to Nagqu and it's an absolute shit hole, the likes of which we've not seen so far. It's a really big town, still up avove 4000m, and the whole place is currently under destruction. The roads are all up everywhere.
The place is just destroyed. It's difficult to describe places like this. It really is like they started building the place and decided to move in 2 weeks later. They'll just finish it as they go along.. or not.. You go from tarmac, down a foot deep step into mud and gravel in the centre of town, then on to mud, then back to tarmac. Our hotel seems to be in an area where the army has been practicing urban warfare. Shit loads of shit just everywhere, piled up on the roadside. The hotel foyer is full of oxygen cylinders for the faint hearted as usual. Some of the riders might be taking those to bed with them.
Breakfast is... not worthy of the name. Air bread and eggs. This isn't going to help my digestion at all.
Usually when I come to China my bum turns into my cock and pisses out hot brown wee for weeks on end but this time it's exactly the opposite. I've not had to sit on a bog for weeks now...at all. And my belly has got all swollen up like I'm expecting a food baby. Sure enough, I woke up in the middle of the night having contractions. I sneak slowly into the toilet, clutching my swollen abdomen, trying to remember my birthing classes. My bowel suddenly lets out a long low animal growl. Oh God, my wind has broken, I've gone into labour.. this is awkward.. I breath.. and push... and breath.. and push. The head out but it's just so broad shouldered it isn't moving any further. My screams eventually reach a level when my roomy has to call in the crash team to deliver it by emergency anal cesarian. After a particularly messy delivered it weighs in at 10lb 7oz. Everyone agrees it is the spitting image of it's dad. I've decided to call it Trevor.
Anyway, I leave baby Trevor sleeping soundly in the toilet bowl upstairs and go looking for breakfast alternatives. This place looks like a bloody bomb site. No chance of anything here so I get back to the room. I've got to breast feed Trevor..
I quickly decide there is just no future for me and Trevor so I gently carry him down in the lift and lay him on a huge pile of shit outside in the street. He'll be happy there... with all his mates..
Saddle up, and head south towards Lhasa. Beautiful blue sky, fluffy white clouds, mountains and Yaks as far as the eye can see. It's just sooooooo incredibly beautiful up here.
Lhasa is way down at 3600m and the scenery soon starts to change as you get near. The mountains start going from gray to green and it starts to really warm up. Must be 5 degrees at least...
We get to the outskirts of town and enter some sort of urban vehicle assault course. This is weird. I recognise this place. I'm sure I do. Now where... OH I know. I think this is where they came to make Call of Duty. Bloody place is just a mass of broken buildings and roads. "Ping Ping Ping... " Bollocks. I've been hit. I've taken a sniper bullet to the panniers and a frame weld has broken. These Jesse panniers are lovely but the frames are shit. Every trip I've ever been on where someone has had them, the frames have broken. I've had a few 'ghost' falls when the bike has fallen over but nothing else. We get out of the war zone and I apply a big bugger off cable tie bandage to stop it flapping about. It's just a flesh wound.
We stop for fuel. It's all been going so well the last couple of days but here it's a different story. "I'm sorry sir. It appears that you have not been keeping to your daily wait quota. You cannot leave this petrol station until you're average is up to the 2 hour minimum. Now... if you would just like to wait over there... we will be with you .... sometime in the future." The guide said it would be bad here and he is right. The fuel station not only has all the usual barriers/permits/kettle mallarky, it also has several on duty police outside and inside. They have absolutely no idea what to do about us at all. In Lhasa, as well as all the other stuff, in order to get fuel they want to see Chinese driving licences and Chinese vehicle inspection and insurance cards. They have little cameras that they take photos of the licences on before you can proceed. We have all of the above and we hand it all over. Still doesn't work though. Wait...wait... wait some more... what are we waiting for? I've been waiting so long now I can't remember.. The police cannot make their mind up. They're just staring at each other. They want us to go somewhere else so they can get back to waiting on their own... The riders are getting pissed off now. Nothing is happening, and it doesn't look likely to either. Then suddenly it appears our waiting average has gone back up to the required amount and they just give the OK. WTF! There is no rhyme nor reason to it. Bonkers. 2 hours after we arrive and the first kettle is getting filled. Horah.
Down into the city we go. What a weird place it is too. All squeezed in between the mountains. The ride in is one I'll remember forever, with the mountains like giant walls along the roadside. We come round some buildings and suddenly we're riding past the Potala Palace. A really strange experience. You see it on the screen and there it is, right in front of your eyes. I didn't think they would put a big set of traffic lights in front of it but that's what they've done. Jump off for a quick snap and we're off to the hotel/doctors surgery. Reception is half reception and half surgery. So many people have altitude problems here that they have a proper 24 hour on-site doctor and medical staff. Bloody hell. One of the riders is feeling very very rough. He checks in to the hotel, checks in with the doc, and next minute he's on his back in his bedroom with a drip and an oxygen mask on...
I miss Trevor...
Superb
Outstanding. I'm going to miss this when its over.
Deleted account Cooperman
Registered user
Trevor 
"Everyone agrees it is the spitting image of it's dad. I've decided to call it Trevor."....
You bastard... I almost died choking on my coffee..... 
You bastard...
I almost died choking on my coffee..... We're going up to the Pagoda palace later this morning so I'm up early and grab a taxi over to the rough side of town to get my panner frame sorted out. The taxi driver is a very attractive little lady with lovely hands. I like hands. I particularly like the way she strokes and slides and caresses the steering wheel through them. I've been away from home too long.
We arrive at a row of shuttered buildings. One at the end is open and seems to have signs of life so I head that way. I've taken the frame off the bike because I didn't want to give The Bitch any more excuses not to start and I didn't know what era of technology would be used to fix it. The Bitch's electrics are a law unto themselves and using TIG/MIG welding might just send the whole lot into meltdown. Turns out I need not have worried.
A little bloke emerges from the shadows at the back. He takes a look, then wanders back into the darkness. I reckon he knows this is a precision job and if he gets it even a fraction of a millimeter out then the panniers are not going to fit and it's going to be a massive disaster. I reckon he's gone to get his lovely new jig and he's going to spend 30 minutes adjusting it perfectly and then do a seamless fix so you would never even know it had been broken.
Truth is, he's gone back in the dark to kick his missus out of bed and to grab an old pair of rusty pliers. Out she comes, half asleep, rubbing her eyes, clutching the old pliers and trying to stop her tits fall out of her top. Ahh. The glamorous assistant. I put the pieces together and clamp the pliers on, then hand them to the assistant. She just drops the whole lot on the floor, fiddles with her ladybumps and sways on her feet. I do it again, then again... and eventually she seems to get a grip. He lights the acetylene torch and grabs some wire. Looks like he's going to braze it. This isn't going to be pretty... much like his assistant. She's standing there in flip flops and wrapped in highly inflammable blanket. He's brazing with no goggles and bloody straw hat. It's just a burnt boob/hair accident waiting to happen. I wait in the taxi. I don't like the smell of burning flesh.
Job done, £5. Looks shit/well hard though and I doubt that will fail again. Jump back in the taxi to watch the woman's hands all the way back to the hotel.
We all hop on the bus out to the palace. People look very different up here. All short with often with nutty brown skin. Not unattractive though..
They're still fiercely independent and don't generally regard themselves as Chinese at all. They even have their own language and a completely different alphabet too, which I didn't know.
It's fliipin hot today, the palace is up a million steps and we're at 3700m. Sounds like a perfect recipe for a heart attack. It looks lovely as you walk up. This place has evolved over many 100s of years. The 'red keep' came first I think, then the 'white keep' was built up later. It's bloody hard work getting up to it but it's worth it
We wander round the palace for a few hours. These is just so much stuff in there. There are tombs and gold and stuff and more stuff and stuff on top of stuff. "And here we have a 700 year old pile of dust and discarded writings from the 3rd Dalai Lama" I'm sure I can see some KFC receipts in there... It's a mess to be honest. It needs a bloody good clean too. My wife would be appalled at the state of it. What have the monks got to do all day anyway. They're all just sitting round mumbling and lighting josticks. Surely they've got time to run the hoover round now and again. Lazy buggers.
The city has a really lovely atmosphere about it and just I wander about all afternoon watching the world go by. The light up here is delicious too. So clear and piercing. I could easily stay here for a while.
We go out for dinner and eat properly for the first time in a while. Head back to the hotel and one of the riders beckons me over to his room. I walk in and there is another man down. Flat on his back with a drip and oxygen tubes up his nose. The doctor is there and he's got a big box of tricks he's going to use to kick start my man back to life. I hope it works. We're heading out tomorrow, and it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
We're going to take the G318 east. I see a poster showing the topography of our route. It looks a bit hilly...
G318 is is then. Out of Lhasa in the cold clear morning air. The clouds are all caught up on mountains and it looks like it's going to be a good day.
The plan is for there to be an expressway all the way to Lhasa. They're really going to have a job on their hands with that one given the mountains round here. Motorbikes aren't allowed on the expressways either. In other parts of China we would wing it and just ride through the barriers but out here with the police and army everywhere that just isn't an option. This expressway is currently under construction anyway. The problem is that the expressway out here runs parallel to the old road we're on, and the old road is being completely destroyed by all the construction work.
There are miles and miles and miles of roadworks into the mountains. It's all slippery mud and water on steep roads with cars and trucks slithering about. It's a right bastard. We're going up a long steep incline where the 'road' is also tilted down about 30 degrees to the side. The rider in front of me is off and up to his arse in mud. Get the bike up, go a bit further and we're between the crawling trucks when he hits a huge hole and he's off again, about 2 inches in front of a truck. Lifting these things is an arse any day of the week but doing it in mud at high altitude makes the beat of my heart beat echo round the mountains like a huge base drum and my blood scream through my ears. Get through the mess though and up the road to the top of the first pass and its all worth it.
Then its back down into the mud and roadworks. These aren't like normal roadworks either. No effort at all is taken to control the traffic or create a safe way round.
It's getting late in the day and we're chasing the horizon alongside a huge river. The road here is good as we're getting near town and the rider at the front is really in a groove. I'm having trouble keeping up with him and he's going a lot quicker than usual. He suddenly slows down and we nearly pile into him as he just turns to the right and goes into a short tight spiral and goes down. He doesn't even jump off, he just sits and spins and crashes down. I think he's passed out. We get him up and he's sort of awake and coming round again. Altitude does funny things to people for sure. He says his vision just went and he lost his balance and went down. Bloody good job that didn't happen when he was tanking it round the last bend at 70mph.
Get to Bayi just as it's getting dark. We can't find the hotel. some bastard has hidden it. When you're travelling through China you have to stay in particular hotels that have been designated as being able to have foreigners. In some more isolated places, like this, the guide has to wait until we arrive in town then go and ask the local police where we can stay. This is always a right PITA as it can take hours of ... wait for it ... yes, exactly. It's pitch black by the time we have somewhere to put our heads down. After dinner we take a wander through the streets looking to eat other than chicken's heads and mouse balls. This is another place under deconstruction. You have the roads, and the shops that sit about 5m back and 1m up, and you have a random assortment of mud and builders rubble in between. A visit to a shop is like a climbing expedition. You have to rope up and make sure you have crampons and axes with you as you negotiate the piles of wobbly broken paving stones and bricks and try not to fall down into the wet mud below. I hear a few cries in the darkness and think I may well have lost a couple of riders but right now, a snickers bar is the most important thing on my mind.
The surrounding roads are so battered that everywhere has a jet wash machine, including the hotel. I treat The Dirty Bitch to quick bath, careful not to get the jet too close, just in case. She looks lovely, but that only lasts about 10 minutes.
The guide tells us the road gets really bad for a while today. "Really bad? How bad is really bad exactly?" "Well, its one below really really bad". Oh, thanks. That's helpful.. We're only going to try and do 220km today as locals report lots of problems ahead.
Tibet has it's head permanently in the clouds and this morning they just hanging about at street level. It's all a bit mad really.
The road building seems to make absolutely no sense whatever out here. The towns have all new junctions and nice roads then about 1ft outside town they just turn to absolute shit. We're diverted off the road, round some steep little tracks in a village, through a housing estate/deep puddle exhibition and we pop out onto the main road... and wait. There is column of army trucks coming through and they're blocking the road. There are millions and millions of them. They're never ending.. I think they're manufacturing them just round the corner and this production line will just go on forever until we starve and die at the roadside. On and on and on and on they come, crawling through the mud. It must be an hour before they're all through.
Through the mud and slime and we start to climb through the clouds. These roads would be motorcycling navana if only the tarmac didn't suddenly turn to gravel and clay just round a 120 degree corner that you had just committed to at peg bending speed. A few sections of the climb are just beautiful and smooth but these get less and less until it just ends up being one very very long and very very rough loose and slippery road into the sky.
The bike is getting really battered today, poor thing. I 'almost' feel sorry for her. But not quite. It's just shit shit and more shit until suddenly it isn't. For lunch, we're served a lovely big potion of bendy tarmac threaded high up along the side of a very very steep mountainside.
Unfortunately it's mud pie for desert though. The road is getting progressively worse and worse. Long sections of rutty clay and slippery mud with long deep puddles just to keep you on your toes. My arse hasn't relaxed for hours and the stitches I had put in after the birth of Trevor are pulling like a bitch. We're picking our way through a wet track under some trees when we come to the back of a long line of solid traffic. We slowly paddle our way through, sliding and shimmying through all the mess and get to the front. There is a bit of an incline ahead and it looks like people can't get up it. They've decided to dump some sand on it. Christ only knows where the sand came from, but there are 100 year old trucks trying to back into the mess and drop the sand. In a moment of comedy gold, a truck backs up and gets stuck solid right across the road. It's grunting and groaning and it's just digging itself in. After the obligatory wait, they call in a big fuck off bulldozer to try and push the truck out. In it goes, spinning it's tracks and making an almighty hole in the road as it shoves and pushes at the truck. The truck is twisting and buckling with every shove and I'm sure it's going to snap before this is over. The bulldozer just keeps on pushing and shoving and spinning on its arse like a hyperactive dog chasing its own tail sending mud and water everywhere. Eventually the truck is freed and drives away to hide it's head in shame. The bulldozer scoots off into the forest and the end result is a much bigger bloody mess than they started with. Just typical. We're not waiting for more trucks to get stuck so we both just dive in, have a deep cold mud bath and we're on our way in the pouring rain.
More miles of rough river beds and roads of stones and we get to Nyingchi, another small town clinging to life amongst the chaos. Total for the day, 220km, 8 hours hard riding.
This G318 is really difficult. In fact it is proving to be a real bitch. It's battering the bikes and the riders to death and it's regularly scaring the shit out me. But I love this road.
Today we ride out and it decides it's given us enough crap for a little while. It offers us some apologies in the form of some spectacular views. The clouds are keeping the scenery a secret for the first few miles but then they just part and reveal what they've been hiding.
Just takes your breath away, what little you have at this altitude anyway. OK it's not Banff or Yosemite but that's not the point. It's a nice reward for all the trouble of getting here.
Anyway, enough of that, let's get back to more and more and more of this.
The roads are the worse so far. I'm sure they qualify as "really really" bad by now. One long section has been chiselled out of the cliff and it's all just falling down into the valley below. There isn't any other way around these sections and the traffic is gridlocked. We wait under big overhangs and look at the rocks in the road. This whole place is unstable. Just one small mumble from Mother Nature and one of those big fuck off rocks will fall and I will instantly become one dimensional.
I'm riding through another section later and there are deep mud ruts everywhere. There is no barrier, that's probably somewhere down in the valley below. The edge is shored up level with the mud but the long vertical drop is ... not worth thinking about. An on coming car decides he prefers my ruts to his and drives straight down the middle at me, pushing me to within a couple of feet of the drop. Everything goes quiet, everything but the bodily essentials has to shut down and all power is diverted to the brain. Situations like this are life or death. These mad bastards place no value on any human life except their own. They're just completely insane if you give them a steering wheel. I've got no time to think about that now and I just go for the gap on the road, rather than the much bigger gap over the edge. Fuck that was close.
As as quickly as it ended, pure black tarmac suddenly appears again. There is just no logic to this at all. It's like a massive Chinese puzzle. How the hell did they get through all that shit to build this road here? How did they do that? Did they fly it in? Did aliens build this? It makes no sense. Don't question it, just get on and ride. Hard and fast.
We meet up with the guide at a garage. The town is all up...again... and the road signs are .. elsewhere. We've all become complacent, it's just one road and we've all just fallen into following the guide's instructions without question. He points right. "Stop in 100km". Off we all go. Like a pack of dogs being let out the car we all go barking and growling off up the road, chasing about and playing silly buggers. The road is fantastic. Cold and wet but really spectacular. We're up above 5000m again too. I didn't think we were going that high today? Who cares! Then we come to a long long twisting descent through what feels like 1000 bends. This is one of the best rides we've done so far I reckon. Amazing, and no traffic at all...
Someone has stopped up ahead.. He's had a call from the guide. He's been trying everyone but phone reception is, not surprisingly, less than 100% up here. "We've got to meet the guide at the petrol station". "OK, it's not far now". "No, the one we just came from". "Oh" He's got confused in all the diversions, sent us all up the wrong way and none of us noticed. Still. We get to ride the whole lot back in reverse, which was nice. So, if you want to ride one of the best roads in China, check out the S201 That was a public service announcement.
Back to the fuel station to fuel up...again. It's getting a bit late now and it's really really bitingly cold.
Another huge line of traffic. More waiting while they tarmac a random patch of road somewhere in the middle and ignore all the carnage for miles around. I reckon they start each day with a game of bitumen bingo. They put all the road sections numbers on little balls in a black bag, then they sit about drinking chai pulling them out. "All the fours".. section 44. The fact that sections 1 to 43 and 45 to 1000 are all complete dog shit doesn't matter. "44 it is then" and off they go.
Boxai is the smallest town on this route so far. Just a strip of concrete with a few buildings along it. The guide is stuck in traffic at least an hour behind. Captain Scarlet is near death again. He's really suffering badly. He was diagnosed with Bronchitis by a Chinese doctor and the altitude and cold is doing it's utmost best to kill him. He is amazingly resilient and he'll never give in but I'm really worried about him. We're not heading down to sea level any time soon either. The riders all collapse in the foyer of a small hotel while I go looking for our beds. I'm asking about and can't find it. A girl jumps on the bike and points down the road. It's not it though. She speaks to the guide and then we head back up the other way and through a small alley, down and round a corner to a little door. Bingo, it's the right place but it's taken the best part of an hour and the guide is here now too. Recover the riders and lead them all to their rooms/squats for the night. This is all part of the game. Part of the experience. There's no extra charge.
The guide has been told that the next section of the road was closed by a big landslide today so we need to leave early tomorrow and see if we can get through, otherwise we'll have to all sleep in our panniers.
Another shivering night in a hotel right next to a 24hour donkey torturers. I think there must be a lot of very bad donkeys round here as the place was working all night long. I didn't know donkeys could scream so loud. Out at 7 into the mist we go. It's about 220 miles to Mangkang. Sounds straight forward but nothing is straight forward round here. We've also got the road of 99 bends to contend with on Yela Mountain.
A quick chase through a deep gloreous gorge for an hour then we see Yela. The climb begins in a village. Slow and frustrating as the Trucks get in to their crawls and start to spread out a bit. As it climbs it opens out and speeds up. Up and up and round and round it goes. I don't think I've looked at the instruments for ages, I'm always looking over my shoulder at the next bend.
It looks like a lot of fun, and lots of it is, but, much of it is patched with cheap concrete and tarmac with a 5 minute lifespan.
If you get safely to the top there is a little shed where you can go and claim a prize. I chose this one, purely because it came with sturdy motorcycle friendly boots complete with knee protection.
So, how many high passes can we pass in a day? It's just up...
and down
and up above the snow line again
then back down
then up up up
and down all day long. Probably the most spectacular views so far. The guide tells us he has never seen westerners allowed along this road as it's regarded as just too dangerous. I'm not sure that's true though. Surely Globebusters come this way? Anyway, it's not often that I am intimidated by a road but on the final section along the mountain today I'll admit I was having a few problems with my nerves. The road often has no barrier at all. Absolutely nothing. It's paved right up to the edge, then its just space. Looking down is like the view from an aircraft. It's scale the likes of which I don't remember ever seeing before. It's just bloody MAD. So riding along with nothing on one side and some maniacal Chinaman in a lorry coming towards you in the middle of the road round a corner tends to question WTF you're doing there.
But then you come down to earth, see a pretty face, your trousers whisper "just leave this to me son" and you just forget the last 9 hours of hell on wheels.
It's the last night in Tibet tonight. So we thought we'd stay somewhere nice. Then we roll into town. 'Nice' might be pushing it. 'Acceptable' would be good. But the police have other ideas.
We're directed to the centre of town, which seems even worse, and we wait.... for hours... and hours... and probably some more hours too. I think we all just switched off. It was starting to get dark when I work up. "It's just up there, up the street". Street is pushing it. "Special Stage" is more accurate. Oh well...at least nobody will notice if I shit myself. It will blend in perfectly.
Hotel is a very tired collection of basic rooms, threadbare carpets and internet working through a piece of very wet string. We walk down the 'street' to get some dinner. The 'pavement' is a 2ft wide strip of concrete just tacked on to the sides of the shops. There is just a drop down into the mud. You shuffle along and if someone is walking the other way, then you have to go into a shop to let them pass. All very strange.
We are a day behind where we should be because of the bad state of the G318. We've a long way to go today, all the way to Shangri La.
Ok. I've looked in my little bag of words but I just can't find any that I can use to describe the roads today. The views were just outrageous. And the rocks.. I'm riding along high on the mountains and Rob is riding about 50m behind me. I don't see a thing. We stop up the road for some pictures. "Did you see that?" "What?" "That fucking rock that came bouncing down the hill?" "Nope - didn't see anything". "Jesus mate, that could have taken both of us right out"
As we rode by, a big lump of rock about the size of a soccer ball came rolling down the cliff, bounced in the road between us as we rode, then flew off into the valley below. I reckon it's still falling.. Looking over the edge, we're flying an aircraft again, and flying really high.
if you can see it..
Some of the roads are really really beautiful, smooth and fast and empty.
but they do have the occasional pothole..
We get to the Tibet border. We're loosing altitude fast. The bikes are beginning to get back to normal and the riders are too.
I don't want to leave. I just want to turn round and ride the whole lot back in reverse. I've been unbelievably fortunate in life. I've ridden all over the world and seen some incredible things. I've ridden through the Rockies a few times, I've ridden all along the Andes, all through the Atlas. Alaska, Africa, Australia, all over the flippin place but I've never ridden a road like the G318. It's bloody amazing.
We arrive at a row of shuttered buildings. One at the end is open and seems to have signs of life so I head that way. I've taken the frame off the bike because I didn't want to give The Bitch any more excuses not to start and I didn't know what era of technology would be used to fix it. The Bitch's electrics are a law unto themselves and using TIG/MIG welding might just send the whole lot into meltdown. Turns out I need not have worried.
A little bloke emerges from the shadows at the back. He takes a look, then wanders back into the darkness. I reckon he knows this is a precision job and if he gets it even a fraction of a millimeter out then the panniers are not going to fit and it's going to be a massive disaster. I reckon he's gone to get his lovely new jig and he's going to spend 30 minutes adjusting it perfectly and then do a seamless fix so you would never even know it had been broken.
Truth is, he's gone back in the dark to kick his missus out of bed and to grab an old pair of rusty pliers. Out she comes, half asleep, rubbing her eyes, clutching the old pliers and trying to stop her tits fall out of her top. Ahh. The glamorous assistant. I put the pieces together and clamp the pliers on, then hand them to the assistant. She just drops the whole lot on the floor, fiddles with her ladybumps and sways on her feet. I do it again, then again... and eventually she seems to get a grip. He lights the acetylene torch and grabs some wire. Looks like he's going to braze it. This isn't going to be pretty... much like his assistant. She's standing there in flip flops and wrapped in highly inflammable blanket. He's brazing with no goggles and bloody straw hat. It's just a burnt boob/hair accident waiting to happen. I wait in the taxi. I don't like the smell of burning flesh.
Job done, £5. Looks shit/well hard though and I doubt that will fail again. Jump back in the taxi to watch the woman's hands all the way back to the hotel.
We all hop on the bus out to the palace. People look very different up here. All short with often with nutty brown skin. Not unattractive though..
They're still fiercely independent and don't generally regard themselves as Chinese at all. They even have their own language and a completely different alphabet too, which I didn't know.
It's fliipin hot today, the palace is up a million steps and we're at 3700m. Sounds like a perfect recipe for a heart attack. It looks lovely as you walk up. This place has evolved over many 100s of years. The 'red keep' came first I think, then the 'white keep' was built up later. It's bloody hard work getting up to it but it's worth it
We wander round the palace for a few hours. These is just so much stuff in there. There are tombs and gold and stuff and more stuff and stuff on top of stuff. "And here we have a 700 year old pile of dust and discarded writings from the 3rd Dalai Lama" I'm sure I can see some KFC receipts in there... It's a mess to be honest. It needs a bloody good clean too. My wife would be appalled at the state of it. What have the monks got to do all day anyway. They're all just sitting round mumbling and lighting josticks. Surely they've got time to run the hoover round now and again. Lazy buggers.
The city has a really lovely atmosphere about it and just I wander about all afternoon watching the world go by. The light up here is delicious too. So clear and piercing. I could easily stay here for a while.
We go out for dinner and eat properly for the first time in a while. Head back to the hotel and one of the riders beckons me over to his room. I walk in and there is another man down. Flat on his back with a drip and oxygen tubes up his nose. The doctor is there and he's got a big box of tricks he's going to use to kick start my man back to life. I hope it works. We're heading out tomorrow, and it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
We're going to take the G318 east. I see a poster showing the topography of our route. It looks a bit hilly...
G318 is is then. Out of Lhasa in the cold clear morning air. The clouds are all caught up on mountains and it looks like it's going to be a good day.
The plan is for there to be an expressway all the way to Lhasa. They're really going to have a job on their hands with that one given the mountains round here. Motorbikes aren't allowed on the expressways either. In other parts of China we would wing it and just ride through the barriers but out here with the police and army everywhere that just isn't an option. This expressway is currently under construction anyway. The problem is that the expressway out here runs parallel to the old road we're on, and the old road is being completely destroyed by all the construction work.
There are miles and miles and miles of roadworks into the mountains. It's all slippery mud and water on steep roads with cars and trucks slithering about. It's a right bastard. We're going up a long steep incline where the 'road' is also tilted down about 30 degrees to the side. The rider in front of me is off and up to his arse in mud. Get the bike up, go a bit further and we're between the crawling trucks when he hits a huge hole and he's off again, about 2 inches in front of a truck. Lifting these things is an arse any day of the week but doing it in mud at high altitude makes the beat of my heart beat echo round the mountains like a huge base drum and my blood scream through my ears. Get through the mess though and up the road to the top of the first pass and its all worth it.
Then its back down into the mud and roadworks. These aren't like normal roadworks either. No effort at all is taken to control the traffic or create a safe way round.
It's getting late in the day and we're chasing the horizon alongside a huge river. The road here is good as we're getting near town and the rider at the front is really in a groove. I'm having trouble keeping up with him and he's going a lot quicker than usual. He suddenly slows down and we nearly pile into him as he just turns to the right and goes into a short tight spiral and goes down. He doesn't even jump off, he just sits and spins and crashes down. I think he's passed out. We get him up and he's sort of awake and coming round again. Altitude does funny things to people for sure. He says his vision just went and he lost his balance and went down. Bloody good job that didn't happen when he was tanking it round the last bend at 70mph.
Get to Bayi just as it's getting dark. We can't find the hotel. some bastard has hidden it. When you're travelling through China you have to stay in particular hotels that have been designated as being able to have foreigners. In some more isolated places, like this, the guide has to wait until we arrive in town then go and ask the local police where we can stay. This is always a right PITA as it can take hours of ... wait for it ... yes, exactly. It's pitch black by the time we have somewhere to put our heads down. After dinner we take a wander through the streets looking to eat other than chicken's heads and mouse balls. This is another place under deconstruction. You have the roads, and the shops that sit about 5m back and 1m up, and you have a random assortment of mud and builders rubble in between. A visit to a shop is like a climbing expedition. You have to rope up and make sure you have crampons and axes with you as you negotiate the piles of wobbly broken paving stones and bricks and try not to fall down into the wet mud below. I hear a few cries in the darkness and think I may well have lost a couple of riders but right now, a snickers bar is the most important thing on my mind.
The surrounding roads are so battered that everywhere has a jet wash machine, including the hotel. I treat The Dirty Bitch to quick bath, careful not to get the jet too close, just in case. She looks lovely, but that only lasts about 10 minutes.
The guide tells us the road gets really bad for a while today. "Really bad? How bad is really bad exactly?" "Well, its one below really really bad". Oh, thanks. That's helpful.. We're only going to try and do 220km today as locals report lots of problems ahead.
Tibet has it's head permanently in the clouds and this morning they just hanging about at street level. It's all a bit mad really.
The road building seems to make absolutely no sense whatever out here. The towns have all new junctions and nice roads then about 1ft outside town they just turn to absolute shit. We're diverted off the road, round some steep little tracks in a village, through a housing estate/deep puddle exhibition and we pop out onto the main road... and wait. There is column of army trucks coming through and they're blocking the road. There are millions and millions of them. They're never ending.. I think they're manufacturing them just round the corner and this production line will just go on forever until we starve and die at the roadside. On and on and on and on they come, crawling through the mud. It must be an hour before they're all through.
Through the mud and slime and we start to climb through the clouds. These roads would be motorcycling navana if only the tarmac didn't suddenly turn to gravel and clay just round a 120 degree corner that you had just committed to at peg bending speed. A few sections of the climb are just beautiful and smooth but these get less and less until it just ends up being one very very long and very very rough loose and slippery road into the sky.
The bike is getting really battered today, poor thing. I 'almost' feel sorry for her. But not quite. It's just shit shit and more shit until suddenly it isn't. For lunch, we're served a lovely big potion of bendy tarmac threaded high up along the side of a very very steep mountainside.
Unfortunately it's mud pie for desert though. The road is getting progressively worse and worse. Long sections of rutty clay and slippery mud with long deep puddles just to keep you on your toes. My arse hasn't relaxed for hours and the stitches I had put in after the birth of Trevor are pulling like a bitch. We're picking our way through a wet track under some trees when we come to the back of a long line of solid traffic. We slowly paddle our way through, sliding and shimmying through all the mess and get to the front. There is a bit of an incline ahead and it looks like people can't get up it. They've decided to dump some sand on it. Christ only knows where the sand came from, but there are 100 year old trucks trying to back into the mess and drop the sand. In a moment of comedy gold, a truck backs up and gets stuck solid right across the road. It's grunting and groaning and it's just digging itself in. After the obligatory wait, they call in a big fuck off bulldozer to try and push the truck out. In it goes, spinning it's tracks and making an almighty hole in the road as it shoves and pushes at the truck. The truck is twisting and buckling with every shove and I'm sure it's going to snap before this is over. The bulldozer just keeps on pushing and shoving and spinning on its arse like a hyperactive dog chasing its own tail sending mud and water everywhere. Eventually the truck is freed and drives away to hide it's head in shame. The bulldozer scoots off into the forest and the end result is a much bigger bloody mess than they started with. Just typical. We're not waiting for more trucks to get stuck so we both just dive in, have a deep cold mud bath and we're on our way in the pouring rain.
More miles of rough river beds and roads of stones and we get to Nyingchi, another small town clinging to life amongst the chaos. Total for the day, 220km, 8 hours hard riding.
This G318 is really difficult. In fact it is proving to be a real bitch. It's battering the bikes and the riders to death and it's regularly scaring the shit out me. But I love this road.
Today we ride out and it decides it's given us enough crap for a little while. It offers us some apologies in the form of some spectacular views. The clouds are keeping the scenery a secret for the first few miles but then they just part and reveal what they've been hiding.
Just takes your breath away, what little you have at this altitude anyway. OK it's not Banff or Yosemite but that's not the point. It's a nice reward for all the trouble of getting here.
Anyway, enough of that, let's get back to more and more and more of this.
The roads are the worse so far. I'm sure they qualify as "really really" bad by now. One long section has been chiselled out of the cliff and it's all just falling down into the valley below. There isn't any other way around these sections and the traffic is gridlocked. We wait under big overhangs and look at the rocks in the road. This whole place is unstable. Just one small mumble from Mother Nature and one of those big fuck off rocks will fall and I will instantly become one dimensional.
I'm riding through another section later and there are deep mud ruts everywhere. There is no barrier, that's probably somewhere down in the valley below. The edge is shored up level with the mud but the long vertical drop is ... not worth thinking about. An on coming car decides he prefers my ruts to his and drives straight down the middle at me, pushing me to within a couple of feet of the drop. Everything goes quiet, everything but the bodily essentials has to shut down and all power is diverted to the brain. Situations like this are life or death. These mad bastards place no value on any human life except their own. They're just completely insane if you give them a steering wheel. I've got no time to think about that now and I just go for the gap on the road, rather than the much bigger gap over the edge. Fuck that was close.
As as quickly as it ended, pure black tarmac suddenly appears again. There is just no logic to this at all. It's like a massive Chinese puzzle. How the hell did they get through all that shit to build this road here? How did they do that? Did they fly it in? Did aliens build this? It makes no sense. Don't question it, just get on and ride. Hard and fast.
We meet up with the guide at a garage. The town is all up...again... and the road signs are .. elsewhere. We've all become complacent, it's just one road and we've all just fallen into following the guide's instructions without question. He points right. "Stop in 100km". Off we all go. Like a pack of dogs being let out the car we all go barking and growling off up the road, chasing about and playing silly buggers. The road is fantastic. Cold and wet but really spectacular. We're up above 5000m again too. I didn't think we were going that high today? Who cares! Then we come to a long long twisting descent through what feels like 1000 bends. This is one of the best rides we've done so far I reckon. Amazing, and no traffic at all...
Someone has stopped up ahead.. He's had a call from the guide. He's been trying everyone but phone reception is, not surprisingly, less than 100% up here. "We've got to meet the guide at the petrol station". "OK, it's not far now". "No, the one we just came from". "Oh" He's got confused in all the diversions, sent us all up the wrong way and none of us noticed. Still. We get to ride the whole lot back in reverse, which was nice. So, if you want to ride one of the best roads in China, check out the S201
That was a public service announcement.Back to the fuel station to fuel up...again. It's getting a bit late now and it's really really bitingly cold.
Another huge line of traffic. More waiting while they tarmac a random patch of road somewhere in the middle and ignore all the carnage for miles around. I reckon they start each day with a game of bitumen bingo. They put all the road sections numbers on little balls in a black bag, then they sit about drinking chai pulling them out. "All the fours".. section 44. The fact that sections 1 to 43 and 45 to 1000 are all complete dog shit doesn't matter. "44 it is then" and off they go.
Boxai is the smallest town on this route so far. Just a strip of concrete with a few buildings along it. The guide is stuck in traffic at least an hour behind. Captain Scarlet is near death again. He's really suffering badly. He was diagnosed with Bronchitis by a Chinese doctor and the altitude and cold is doing it's utmost best to kill him. He is amazingly resilient and he'll never give in but I'm really worried about him. We're not heading down to sea level any time soon either. The riders all collapse in the foyer of a small hotel while I go looking for our beds. I'm asking about and can't find it. A girl jumps on the bike and points down the road. It's not it though. She speaks to the guide and then we head back up the other way and through a small alley, down and round a corner to a little door. Bingo, it's the right place but it's taken the best part of an hour and the guide is here now too. Recover the riders and lead them all to their rooms/squats for the night. This is all part of the game. Part of the experience. There's no extra charge.
The guide has been told that the next section of the road was closed by a big landslide today so we need to leave early tomorrow and see if we can get through, otherwise we'll have to all sleep in our panniers.
Another shivering night in a hotel right next to a 24hour donkey torturers. I think there must be a lot of very bad donkeys round here as the place was working all night long. I didn't know donkeys could scream so loud. Out at 7 into the mist we go. It's about 220 miles to Mangkang. Sounds straight forward but nothing is straight forward round here. We've also got the road of 99 bends to contend with on Yela Mountain.
A quick chase through a deep gloreous gorge for an hour then we see Yela. The climb begins in a village. Slow and frustrating as the Trucks get in to their crawls and start to spread out a bit. As it climbs it opens out and speeds up. Up and up and round and round it goes. I don't think I've looked at the instruments for ages, I'm always looking over my shoulder at the next bend.
It looks like a lot of fun, and lots of it is, but, much of it is patched with cheap concrete and tarmac with a 5 minute lifespan.
If you get safely to the top there is a little shed where you can go and claim a prize. I chose this one, purely because it came with sturdy motorcycle friendly boots complete with knee protection.
So, how many high passes can we pass in a day? It's just up...
and down
and up above the snow line again
then back down
then up up up
and down all day long. Probably the most spectacular views so far. The guide tells us he has never seen westerners allowed along this road as it's regarded as just too dangerous. I'm not sure that's true though. Surely Globebusters come this way? Anyway, it's not often that I am intimidated by a road but on the final section along the mountain today I'll admit I was having a few problems with my nerves. The road often has no barrier at all. Absolutely nothing. It's paved right up to the edge, then its just space. Looking down is like the view from an aircraft. It's scale the likes of which I don't remember ever seeing before. It's just bloody MAD. So riding along with nothing on one side and some maniacal Chinaman in a lorry coming towards you in the middle of the road round a corner tends to question WTF you're doing there.
But then you come down to earth, see a pretty face, your trousers whisper "just leave this to me son" and you just forget the last 9 hours of hell on wheels.
It's the last night in Tibet tonight. So we thought we'd stay somewhere nice. Then we roll into town. 'Nice' might be pushing it. 'Acceptable' would be good. But the police have other ideas.
We're directed to the centre of town, which seems even worse, and we wait.... for hours... and hours... and probably some more hours too. I think we all just switched off. It was starting to get dark when I work up. "It's just up there, up the street". Street is pushing it. "Special Stage" is more accurate. Oh well...at least nobody will notice if I shit myself. It will blend in perfectly.
Hotel is a very tired collection of basic rooms, threadbare carpets and internet working through a piece of very wet string. We walk down the 'street' to get some dinner. The 'pavement' is a 2ft wide strip of concrete just tacked on to the sides of the shops. There is just a drop down into the mud. You shuffle along and if someone is walking the other way, then you have to go into a shop to let them pass. All very strange.
We are a day behind where we should be because of the bad state of the G318. We've a long way to go today, all the way to Shangri La.
Ok. I've looked in my little bag of words but I just can't find any that I can use to describe the roads today. The views were just outrageous. And the rocks.. I'm riding along high on the mountains and Rob is riding about 50m behind me. I don't see a thing. We stop up the road for some pictures. "Did you see that?" "What?" "That fucking rock that came bouncing down the hill?" "Nope - didn't see anything". "Jesus mate, that could have taken both of us right out"
As we rode by, a big lump of rock about the size of a soccer ball came rolling down the cliff, bounced in the road between us as we rode, then flew off into the valley below. I reckon it's still falling.. Looking over the edge, we're flying an aircraft again, and flying really high.
if you can see it..
Some of the roads are really really beautiful, smooth and fast and empty.
but they do have the occasional pothole..
We get to the Tibet border. We're loosing altitude fast. The bikes are beginning to get back to normal and the riders are too.
I don't want to leave. I just want to turn round and ride the whole lot back in reverse. I've been unbelievably fortunate in life. I've ridden all over the world and seen some incredible things. I've ridden through the Rockies a few times, I've ridden all along the Andes, all through the Atlas. Alaska, Africa, Australia, all over the flippin place but I've never ridden a road like the G318. It's bloody amazing.
Monkeyboy - Stunning, simply stunning.....thanks for sharing these superb images and reflections. A big salute to all of you for your determination.
Wonderful Stuff !
Superb 
One of my neighbours is called Trevor, he looked a bit puzzled today when I started giggling whilst talking to him!
One of my neighbours is called Trevor, he looked a bit puzzled today when I started giggling whilst talking to him!
I cried with laughter twice reading this
Briliant
Thanks
Briliant
Thanks
ride report
brilliant stuff, thanks for the entertainment
brilliant stuff, thanks for the entertainment
thankyou all. It's strange to me to see how people can be entertained by my outpourings of such total nonsense
I'll finish this off soon when I get home.. I'm not looking for sympathy here.. but a friend invited me to swap my life of unemployed two up two down living with a 15 year old pikey wagon on the drive and 2 wankered old shanker bikes in the garage for a week in California riding in the sunshine on restored classic bikes and sleeping on a yacht in San Diego harbour. Very soon this nightmare will be over and I'll be back. Remember. I do these things so you don't have to. Please don't thank me
I'll finish this off soon when I get home.. I'm not looking for sympathy here.. but a friend invited me to swap my life of unemployed two up two down living with a 15 year old pikey wagon on the drive and 2 wankered old shanker bikes in the garage for a week in California riding in the sunshine on restored classic bikes and sleeping on a yacht in San Diego harbour. Very soon this nightmare will be over and I'll be back. Remember. I do these things so you don't have to. Please don't thank me
thankyou all. It's strange to me to see how people can be entertained by my outpourings of such total nonsense
I'll finish this off soon when I get home.. I'm not looking for sympathy here.. but a friend invited me to swap my life of unemployed two up two down living with a 15 year old pikey wagon on the drive and 2 wankered old shanker bikes in the garage for a week in California riding in the sunshine on restored classic bikes and sleeping on a yacht in San Diego harbour. Very soon this nightmare will be over and I'll be back. Remember. I do these things so you don't have to. Please don't thank me
Spawny get!!
Spawny get!!
It's really hard honest. Look I didn't even mention being picked up at Las Vegas in a private plane and being taken to a lakeside house in Havasu, or staying at the loft apartment in Temecula. I honestly didn't think anyone would believe any human could endure this much pleasure without needing a long course of therapy. That's why I neglected to tell my wife. She would only worry. I regard this whole trip as me doing something for charity. I do a lot for charity. I just don't like to mention it... It's a cross I'm willing to bear. I think it's likely I will end up being canonised
Saint Monkey has a good ring to it I think.Funny guy
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