One of the more endearing things about Tibetans is their way of indicating something. Instead of raising a bony finger and pointing at the object, they simply purse their lips and shoot it a kiss. It’s a thing I’ve seen often in Vietnam but never before in China. It takes some time to realise that they mean nothing intimate.

Holy mountain with monastery
Holy mountain with monastery

We’ve wolfed down a bunch of noodles and commence or third showerless day. The road is flat for a while and surprisingly calm. Perhaps the Chinese tourists are heading home. Every now and then, a bright pink or yellow anorak is on display, on the hood of a Jeep or the roof of an SUV, with a backdrop of mountains for the friends at home to drool over, but mainly the road is empty.

We pass a few villages with cultural points of interest clearly indicated on granite stones: rainbow clan, 500 m that way. We give all this tourism a miss and continue on our little 40 km ride to Litang. As bad luck would have it, Sandy’s knee really starts playing up before a hill and he decides to hitch a ride. While we’re waiting for a suitable vehicle to pass, a solitary Chinese woman cycles past us and gives us a wave, and a little later two battered westerners pull up. They’ve each ridden from different places in Europe and teamed up somewhere along the way. We exchange some information about the road and they seem to be dying to arrive in Dali, a paradise in the mind of many a long-distance cyclist in this area.

Grazing yak in quintessential Tibetan scenery
Grazing yak in quintessential Tibetan scenery

When they’re gone, I leave Sandy behind as I want to try to beat his time getting to Litang. I climb the fairly boring slope to just before the holy mountain annex monastery. Somewhere near the summit, a thumbs up from a passing car signals that Sandy’s going to win the race. I don’t bother to stop with the rest of the tourists to inspect the monastery, and the rest is just a repetition of yesterday: a fairly smooth downhill and a long, windy plain to cross before entering Litang.

I find Sandy in the recommended Summer hostel and we head out for food and shenanigans. Unsurprisingly, Litang is a bit of a dump, the contrast with its splendid surroundings further adding to that perception. Upon closer inspection, however, it seems this is more than a relay hub for tourists. It is indeed the beginning of what the Chinese dub their “Wild West”. Nomads with large daggers (more like sabres) attached to their belt dart through the streets on motorbikes. People walking the streets look a lot more grim than elsewhere and we half expect to see a stand-off between duellists while we’re munching on a yak burger. Whistling the theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, we start making plans for the next days.

Kids
Kids

With Sandy’s knee beyond repair, we need to abandon our plan of riding to Kangding or Chengdu and have to come up with a different return strategy. Chinese national day traffic would probably complicate things so after a relatively short debate, we conceive of the rash plan of sending our bicycles home and buying a motorbike to return.

Our luggage and bicycles go back to Kunming for merely 800 RMB through Shentong Express, a courier. The next step is to find a cheap yet suitable motorbike. The very friendly people at our hotel take us for a walk past the many motorbike shops in town. Options include a brand-new but brand-unknown chopper-like machine for 3400 RMB, a seemingly new Wuyang-Honda for 4000, a Jialing for 2000 or a rusty old Wuyang for 1300. We very wisely opt to ride the latter. The mechanic cannot warrant that it will last all the way to Kunming, but said there is a chance.

Contraption of doom
Contraption of doom

Riding it is a little more difficult than we thought, mostly because neither of us has ridden a similar motorbike in the last few years, but in the end, Sandy gets the old beast to work. We get new gloves and helmets, fill up the tank and ignore the smirk on the mechanic’s face as we sputter out of the garage. We’re brimming with childish excitement at the prospect of riding a motorbike back to Kunming, even though the mechanic couldn’t warrant it would last that far.

That night we find what apparently is the only Tibetan restaurant. Worrying volumes of laughter emerge from the kitchen, intermittently followed by an uncomfortable looking person, reeling between the tables and muttering excuses as he walks out. The staff is audibly and visibly drunk, the food just so-so. A portion of frozen yak carpaccio does taste great but is way too big for its price. When we get ready to go, the extremely flirty owner wishes us zhaxidele while holding up my coat like a lackey at a five-star hotel.

We spend the rest of our night playing Rummy at the hostel and getting ready for the big day.

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