Today met a french old couple and a young german guy, both cycling from
europe. I got lots of useful info about the route thru the Stans and
Iran+Turkey, this gave me some confident to consider crank europe.
The french (in red shirt) in his 60s, still very fits. This clearly proof
that age should not stop one from achieving what the want.
Today I found a pretty solid Swiss made Pletscher bike stand (one of the
best in world) in the junk box used by tourist to dump stuffs they don’t
want. It was actually on my shopping list but dropped out to cut budget but
now it came back to me as free 🙂 yea~~ lucky day.
Yesterday was a tough day. I left the quake town at 9am (sun rise at 9am)
without breakfast, the last meal was 4pm the day before. Right exit the
broken town Mr. Wind & Lady Uphill were greeting me with their biggest
efforts. Soon my pace drop to 10km/hr, by noon can’t tahan anymore, take out
my only & last pack of emergency food, a 100g compressed biscuit 🙂
This gave me some power boost to crank few more hours, about 4pm came to a
tiny truck stop, bought 2 boiled eggs to eat (that’s all they have),
continue to crank until arrived to Artux by 7pm. Since whole day only eat
biscuit & eggs, I felt dizziness (low blood sugar) when get off the bike to
check in guesthouse.
Pictured was the guy sold me the egg, in return I gave his son a lolipop 🙂
I saw this boy when i leaving the town, the background was an old man
looking at the quake damaged houses and a rescue tent.
I was stayed in an quake zone on friday, most of the town was demolished in an earthquake in August recently. The only survived guesthouse raised price sharply to $60 for a lousy half broken room. I didn’t bother, asked another nearby restaurant, the lady boss said that’s the only accommodation in town. I kinda hungry, order a 韭菜炒蛋 with rice, chit chat abit, the boss don’t want my money and make a call to the guesthouse asked the guy give me some discount. Since they were so nice I kinda pai seh if I refuse to take the offer.
I would not thought in a million years I could met Ah Q, he bought a donkey
& a cart in Korla travel to Kashgar! Took him 50 days to reach here (less
than a week by bike).
I saw him on road side with a donkey eating grass, thought he was a local
guy, then i saw he’s listening to an ipod. It turn out he is from Hong Kong,
the conversation switch to cantonese immediately 🙂
He told me he had cycled most of the middle & western part of china, when
arrived to Korla, kinda felt bored cycling and have nothing better to do, so
he came up an idea to tour with donkey. Amazing! After all this 8000km on
the road, finally I met someone with the same destination, speak same
language as me, too bad his donkey only managed to crawl 5km/hr, otherwise i
would have a partner.
When crank thru a small town, this guy waving to me "hello hello" & make the
drinking gesture. I stop by, his wife bring out hot tea & roti naan for me.
today already got a few "invitation", if not in rush, i would definitely
want to spend more time with this friendly folks chit chat a bit.
BikeFoodTravel ☺ 