A happy, suntanned and fit looking Ben [please click on photos to enlarge] Laura (I miss you at the Kunming Municipal Sports Centre) For anyone wishing to map their ride, here's a little bit of additional information. They have followed the lesser roads running more or less parallel to the freeway, (I'm unclear as to exactly which roads) from Kunming south to the town of Jianshui, followed by an incredible almost 100% uphill climb of 113 kms to Xinjie in the Yuanyang rice terraces area. They have then cycled southwest on the fabled (in its entirety 3200 km long) Yunnan-Tibet highway 214 as far as Jinghong and have then switched to the G213 covering 100 kms yesterday to reach the Lao (Mengla-Boten) border by lunchtime today. According to my rough calculations, Laura and Ben crossed the 800km mark of their journey yesterday or today, perhaps even earlier. Those majestic Michelen tires are serving them well. * Thank you Laura and Ben for the photos * | News update from the road to Cambodia: [click here for more about two cyclists "Leaping Into The Void"] If you've been following these blog notes, you will already know of my English friends Laura and Ben who left Kunming on a sunny autumn morning in late October on a pair of brand new well equipped touring bikes to ride to Cambodia as part of their journey home for Christmas. A phone call today (using up the last of the Shanghai SIM card) confirmed their safe and very happy arrival at the border crossing at Boten in Laos with Laura phoning literally from no-man's land. Straddling the China-Laos border she was able to look back towards what sounded like the usual Chinese-overkill of a border crossing with enormous and officious looking buildings and barriers, and then look ahead (yes!) to Laos.... and a tin shack. Bienvenue au Laos! Laura and Ben have only good things to say about everything to do with the ride so far - all 800 kms of it. Gorgeous, and amazing, referring to the eye watering-ly picturesque region around the Yuanyang rice fields as well as Jinghong and the surrounding rubber, banana and tea growing region of Xishuangbanna and following that, the even more luscious tropical roads south to the China-Laos border, crossing at Mengla on the Chinese side and Boten on the Lao side. The two day do-nothing rest in Jinghong will no doubt have helped to keep spirits and energy high. They are buzzing with the fun of it, enjoying every moment of the ride in spite of some heart breaking hills, tropical heat and the odd stop to help dig tractors out of ditches. They have encountered little traffic apart from sporadic local traffic, surprisingly few cyclists but have been warned by one of the few they have encountered at the border, that they can expect, in comparison, heavy cyclist traffic heading south. So for now it's probably time to dust off the schoolbook French (and the fellow-cyclist social skills). Big Ben (who appears to have grown a foot taller since I saw him off in Kunming 17 day ago) and two grateful owners of a rescued-from-a-ditch tractor. |
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Madly excited by the news that my English mates (and Kunming tennis buddies) Laura and Ben have decided to buy some bikes and ride to Cambodia ("oh just going home for christmas"), I leapt out of bed this morning with the camera readied and raced down to the Daguan bike shops to see them off. The departure had to be marked with at least a little fuss, so I took it upon myself to be press corp and send off commitee. While I've been using the "bite-sized pieces" approach to China and Chinese language study, Laura and Ben have hungrily devoured the language, the country and the endless challenges in monster-sized chunks. I bow deeply in admiration to them for their courage; a few days ago they landed back in Kunming and in that time they have prepared from scratch their first big cycling road trip and have given themselves two months to cycle from Kunming in China down through Laos to Cambodia. So while they attended to final brake cable and pannier tweaking as well as repair kit checks we concocted a cute and vaguely romantic blog note about memorable journeys, leaping-into-voids (and flying of course). A gorgeous sunny Spring City morning - the perfect day for a bit of void leaping. Now sadly I have to say goodbye to them after only a very brief reunion. Waving them off, and choked with not a small dose of adventure-envy, I snapped madly as they disappeared into the early morning diesel fumes. [News from the road 24 hours later: all well and happy] [Mon Oct 29: More good news from the road: a safe arrival in Xinjie after a memorable but huge 7 hour all uphill climb to the capital of the magical Yuanyang rice terraces region. Tired, but again very happy.] |
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