Startled awake by a voice in broken Mandarin. Squinted eyes. Instant noodles? Reality slowly setting in, the image on our retinas solidifying. We stare right into Sunday’s friendly face as he wishes us good morning, lights the stove and sticks the kettle on. He points the packages of instant noodles with beef flavour and announces with an apologetic gesture that he’s got to go. We gather our stuff and thoughts as he shuffles out. The lawn outside the building is covered in brittle frost. Our breath forms woolly clouds in the morning chill. We munch pensively on our noodles before re-arranging the monk’s living quarters and, failing to find him, buying 100 RMB worth of karma through the monastery’s donation box.
Some times I think we’re doing nothing but climbing. Today is no different. Right at Sangdui’s limits, someone’s bent the road upward and we meekly follow suit. It being the national holiday, traffic is a lot busier here, with SUV after SUV screaming past us. Licence plates from Chongqing, Chengdu, but also Liaoning, Shanghai, Beijing, Jiangxi, Hainan, Xinjiang … the whole country is here, overtaking each other with roaring engines and at irresponsible speeds. Up the road, a few brightly-clad tourists are confusedly standing around their freshly crashed cars. With no-one looking injured, we feel it’s not wrong to feel happy about this. Hopefully it serves as a warning for the drivers behind them.
We reach what feels like a plateau, but a glance at the GPS elevation profile reveals a slow incline. Young women get out of aforementioned SUVs, have their pictures taken in this bewilderingly barren landscape or in front of the tiny mountain tops that stick out behind the horizon. You really are on the roof of the world when all surrounding mountain tops are at eye-level.
Sandy and I also have to make regular stops to feed, gaze, dance, and recover. Here and there, someone’s built a snowman by the side of the road. An SUV filled with little kids even had one on its roof. We reach the summit shortly after lunchtime and are happy to drop to more oxygen-rich lands. Raven escort us on the way down to what turns out to be just a small dip in the climb. At another Daoban, where large chunks of meat are drying in the sun, we attempt to buy some more supplies, but a police man comes out and hastily slams the door behind his back. Gambling noises emerge from inside and while he says there’s no water for sale here, he can offer us a few free bottles from the back of his car. We thank him and continue climbing to what hopefully is the pass.
One hour and barely 5 km later we finally make it, lashed by wind, snow and hail. We quickly commence our descent to more comfortable zones but this time the weather doesn’t let off. We’ll just have to grin and bear it. Despite all this, we’re riding on the best road surface since the beginning and we lose altitude so quickly it makes our heads spin. Shortly before we reach the lowest point (at 3600 m), we’re able to set a personal record of nearly 71 km/h. Any faster and we’d start to lose control over the bikes.
When we reach the Xiongba 雄坝 plain, the hail stops and we’re instead hailed by the sun and a fierce gale that nearly pushes up back up the hill. Surrealistic clouds do unspeakable things over the plains, creating a feast for the eye to see. We painstakingly make our way across the plain and find a small fish restaurant annex lodging, a bit off the main road near the river. Lodging is 30 RMB a person and very basic with no shower and merely a dumping rack for a toilet. The roof and the side wall is mere cardboard and tarpaulin with a few holes in it, but there’s an electric blanket and it’ll have to do anyway.
A delicious fish hotpot and several beers are the delights of two weary cyclists.
