Why Are My Eyes Itching

What title to give talk about anything lately lived? Perpetuating

Hello,

11,080 kms, not quite 11 months of travel, 3 months to cross China, we arrived in Kashgar. We are happy! Pleased to be passing from the Han, Hui, and Uyghur.
In addition to its 23 provinces, 2 special regions (Hong Kong and Macau), 4 metropolitan cities, China includes 5 autonomous regions where national minorities are not necessarily a majority in their respective region. One that we hear about is obviously very Tibet, the Chinese have renamed Xizang. Originally, Tibet was territory which is now the province of Qinghai and the region Xizang Autonomous. The border between the two has been traced more or less arbitrarily, nothing distinguishes them apart from a line drawn on a map, one is now a province and one autonomous region. The area of Qinghai is not available everywhere. Some roads are sometimes randomly closed to tourists. Since the founding of the Communist Party in China it was a sort of "Chinese Siberia" with many labor camps and prisons isolated. It is also a "nuclear dustbin" with many "secret bases". It is a province of Tibetan culture (the Dalai Lama is not present in this region), except its capital Xining in the east of the province who is Han. The smallest is the Autonomous Region Ningxia designated area for the Hui, Chinese Muslims. However, there are 80% of the Huis is outside their region and their region consists of a 62% Han. It is a very poor area, one reason that explains the migration of Huis in other provinces. We have many encounters in Gansu Province, and is with them that we have tasted our first lamb kebabs, a delight! Hui are descendants of Arab and Persian merchants who came to China during the Tang Dynasty (618 BC-907apres). Very little distinguishes them from the Han Chinese, except their devotion to Islam. Inner Mongolia, southern Mongolia and Guangxi autonomous regions also 2 others which I do not know much. Finally, last but not least we do not hear enough about is the East Turkestan, Xinjiang renamed by the Chinese, who wants to also say "new frontier" land of the Uighurs we like it! Uighurs make up 45% of the population, the total minority ethnic (Uighur, Kazak, Hui, Kirgiz, Mongolian and others) is 59%. The Han are present at 41% and this number continues to grow ... I can do a single message to him to talk about all this. That's for later!
I leave to the east. We left the Middle Kingdom has Jiayuguan in Gansu. We have seen the end of the Great Wall and the fort, which controlaientt access to them from the west with crosses Turkestan and those arriving from the north of Mongolia. It is from this point we entered the world of caravans, but we have found very little evidence. At Dunhuang, we visited the Mogao Grottoes very impressive. They are open to the public since 1980, only 40 remain open to the public, turnover, ten times, on a set of 492 Buddhist temples. The number of caves carved into the rock remains undetermined. These caves were places of worship of a great importance on the Silk Road. The pigments used to color murals come from everywhere, from Afghanistan for example the blue of lapis lazuli. Their realization took place over long period from the 4th century (Wei Dynasty 386-581) in the 14th century with a peak during the Tang Dynasty (618-907). Around 1900, a small walled cave was discovered by accident and it turned out to contain tens of thousands of documents, statues and other objects, often dating back over 1000 years. Much of these cultural treasures have been purchased by Western explorers, notably Sir Aurel Stein and Paul Pelliot. This leaves more manuscripts in China and the Chinese would like to recover ... Caves, however, were spared the Cultural Revolution in the application of Mao's wife Jiang Qing. These are the murals, if well preserved, which are magnificent. They are mostly religious-themed, but some also trace the lives of monks. Not to be missed if they are not very far from your path! :)
Leaving the Middle Kingdom, we left the Han, even though we've finally found then living in almost all major cities. They move around more ... Here are some characteristics which hans I had not yet speak.
The Han are accustomed to a short meeting of all employees of a restaurant, a shop, a hotel in public. They are all lined up on the sidewalk or in front of the supermarket meat counter and listen for a few supervisors minutes. Hans
Men drink lots of beer. In the countryside, but also in town. They go out in restaurants, drink like holes, returning to hotel completely drunk (this is where we see the before and after), has the opportunity to become angry at the reception. A woman (wife or lover I do not know) is always there to accompany him, pull his arm if he gets angry too, and most importantly, she keeps her quiet! Hans
Women seem to be "afraid" of the sun in the same way that women in Latin America. They think I have a sort of disease when they see my tan. Either they use an umbrella-umbrella to protect themselves from the sun when they are in town, or when working in the fields or travel by bicycle or scooter, they are all covered. They wear a scarf or a hat, cover your mouth with a mask (to protect from dust also may be) and have extensions to their short sleeves. Men do not like it at all. The sun is more dangerous for women than for men?
Throughout our crossing the country, we have noticed that the rivers were dried up enormously, especially here in the west. But in return, much water flows in irrigation canals and useful crops from the villages. Many of these canals were built under Mao and the building had caused a great human catastrophe. The "Great Leap Forward" (1958-1960) was aimed at boosting agricultural production by collectivization. One of the goals was to increase steel production. Each person had a quota to fill. Farmers have melted their tools to meet their quota. They were no longer occupied in it's agricultural production. It is also the steel used to construct the little doors that are found in all channels. Added to this, 1959 was a terrible year for agricultural weather, and in 1960 the Soviets withdrew their aid. The country is entering a famine. These irrigation canals have now on the air to function well. They are dry or filled at certain times. We did not know who controlled the opening of doors. For us all that, they were very helpful cool for us.
Cote equipment. A bag of disjointed but repaired in Xi'an. A tent really waterproof and yet not old, a chance we did not often heavy rain. When that happens, our mats are on a thin cushion of water. Warming of the pump no longer works well. It uses more fuel. It has a reserve of gas cylinders. Rupert has burned his mat through the stove top in trying to cook in the interior. Bravo! A patch and repaired hop! The carpet was not too throne. The rim of the rear wheel of the bike Rupert's crack. He has seen it Xi'an, bought one on the internet and made it send to Lanzhou. He rolls with lightness between these two cities! The derailleur cable otherwise the bike was damaged by Rupert and snack when we took the bus from Dunhuang and Turpan. He rolls with 3 speeds up Kaxgar. Bravo has found a good bike shop who knew how to change it here. We have had several consecutive punctures due to tire wear. AC change in the open desert, great! Oceanne lost his duck-blanket long ago but now has very good AC replaces a piece of cloth! She also lost her sun hat and sandals. All that has fallen from the trailer, by accident or intentionally, and it does not say. Full big climb, Rupert came down to 2 km and rises from 2 kms to find his sandal. Sexy! And
side road, we are well on crosses and crosses the desert. Not so difficult, however. Leaving Turpan, we immediately hit a storm of wind without carrying sand, another time in the west, another time the wind. Impossibility to advance. We boarded a van for 15 miles then the road changes direction. A crosswind which tamed. Then we climbed from sea level up to 1800m in Turpan was 60 kms. It took us two days. We camped in the mountains. It was thought to be alone, it was without a village 60 kms, but ultimately unintentionally (we have not seen, it was in a turn), we stopped a few meters from one kiosk selling watermelons. A couple and a child came to us and we were invited. Boiled eggs and watermelon in the evening boiled eggs and watermelon in the morning. There was also a small water source. We spent some time with the truckers who stopped, nice. The man gave us the money (put in the hands of Oceanne) when we left. Unable to restore it. Really generous. Several times on the road we were offered water, and melon, and watermelon, and melon, and watermelon, and melon, and watermelon. I can not! For the rest of the road, we crossed many cities, which allowed us to stop about every 3 days to one day of rest is the freshness, grocery shopping, walking in the city. There are also numerous villages, all irrigated by water descending from Tian Shan. A single section of 400 km between Aksu and Artux was a little longer. 2 nights camping, 1 night hotel in the village trucker. The nights in the tent were not very pleasant. Very warm with plenty of mosquitoes, we could not open the doors. We also had the right to a third storm of wind, short, but this time transporting sand. We woke with a thin carpet of sand in the tent. Reveille at 6am by the heat, nothing to do but pedal until he makes fresh 18h, we did more than 100kms per day averaged over 4 days. We had a tail wind for 2 days, it helps a lot! But this section of road is very beautiful, the Tian Shan, very colorful, are very close to us. Even if it was on cloudy days (so much better, it was so hot), it was already very beautiful.
Kaxgar We arrived there a week now, although fatigues. Aksu after, it was of course our sole motivation. You know all about this week and what will follow (Kyrgyzstan) in another message, because it is already very long!
you soon. Hugs to all, Dorothee

Difference Between An Ingrown Hair And Herpe

Horizons

Hi there Once Again, We are now

in Kashgar. We DID China and Survived! Particular this town has Become Almost Mythical to us. We Have Come All the Way From The Other Side of This Country, the City of Beijing Being over 4650 km's of pedaling away. Same country so incredibly goal different. Not only did we have to bike through 1800 km's of desert to get here but this historical trading post at the junction of many arms of the silk road is in a totally unique location. The Tian Shan mountains and the border of Kyrgyzstan are just to the north. The Pamir ranges and Tajikistan are to the west and south including our friend, Afghanistan. Pakistan is only 350 km's away to the south along the Karakorum highway which begins in Kashgar. The second highest mountain in the world, K2 is a similar distance away in the same region. Kazakstan is also very close. It feels strange to come all this way in very monotonous landscapes in one single country and then have so much happening in all different directions. I imagine it could be like following a very long tunnel for a very long time and then being let out into a huge valley full of lakes, mountains, glaciers, flowers and all the animals under the sun. We are not there yet however. We must arrange our transport to Kyrgyzstan in the next couple of days as the border over the Torugart pass to Naryn and eventually Bishkek, where we must try and acquire a visa for Uzbekistan, is closed to independent travellers. We must therefore go in some kind of jeep and pay through the nose for the pleasure. Nice.

Leaving Jiayuguan where l last wrote was admittedly a little bit depressing. Over 2000 km's of desert awaited us and along with that we had the uncertainty of maybe or maybe not extending our stay in China which we dearly wanted to even if we were a little daunted by the huge distances of aridness! Our plan was to head to Dunhuang which was a relatively large detour into even more intense desert to see some famous buddhist cave art before continuing on the main route west via Turpan which is below sea level before continuing over the Tian Shan range and then aside it for the long drag to Kashgar. So we set off to Dunhuang, myself in anxious spirits of the job in hand. Tired of the family dynamic it has to be said as well. Oceanne is our ticket to some amazing experiences and this trip would be nothing like it has been without her but and there is a but, we continue to be sometimes exhausted and for me this was one of those times. The added logistics and weight of now having to find and travel with up to 14 litres of water means that when the day is over and we are exhausted, poor Oceanne is on top form and needing to run around and play. It is still very hot at these times in the evening and the want and need to lie down on the ground and maybe put up the tent when your energy returns and then cook supper is very tempting. This is not possible so therefore nerves are often ragged and tensions do occur which is not great but it's difficult to keep a lid on things!

After the last of the autoroute which we took in parts to the very end before the town of Anxi we were within 120 km's of Dunhuang. The autoroute will eventually go all the way to Kashgar but for now China continues to be a country in the process of construction and transition as new autoroutes and high speed rail links are built all around this huge land. We had arrived at 9 p.m the night before after a huge day of 140 km's. Dorothee had suffered mild sunstroke after being exposed to the heat for too long but we were confident that a tailwind would push us the remaining distance to Dunhuang. It started well but then after a few dust devils appearing on my left, the wind turned 180 degrees in an instant and we were in a full blown sand storm with the wind so strong on the nose that it took a huge and l mean huge effort to grind forward at around 8 km/h. I have never felt such a hot strong wind and even drafting wasn't helping the cyclist behind. We were invited into a house and fed the famous 'lahman' which is specially made stretched noodles normally served with stir fried mutton in vegetables. This time it wasn't so elaborate but these people were extremley kind and genuine and of course did not have much. I remember their crunchy green beans in particular as a good memory! We set out again in this fierce wind with myself thinking that l would not be beaten by a bit of wind. Around 12 km's later and totally exhausted and fast running out of water with none available for the next 90 km's to Dunhuang, we gave up while being offered nearly an entire water melon by a truck who had a flat. The amount of water we drank per hour was incredible in that storm. We could have put the tent up and the storm would or should have died down through the night and we could have carried on the next day but nothing was certain and we might not have had enough water for the following day. Not risks you take with a child. Alone, most definetly!! We got a lift almost immediately and arrived in Dunhuang an hour or so later. Forced to pay for the lift before l could offer anything. That is the way in China for hitching. It was the right decision because Oceanne came down with a stomach issue soon after arriving which lasted for a week and she lost a lot of fluids and also weight. She is now recovered but we were of course very worried. Dorothee caught it also in Dunhuang but was bedridden for only a day. I mysteriously got it a week later in Turpan and felt weak for a couple of days.

Dunhuang was definetly worth the detour. The Magao caves are out of this world and the sand dunes or Mingsha mountains that lie 6 km's to the south of the town are those perfectly formed crests that you think only exist in the deepest, darkest Sahara. Some are over 1500 metres high and just too tempting to get away from the crowds of Chinese tourists in their orange flourescent sand boots on camel rides. Burning feet but an incredibly rewarding experience in total silence and very high up, looking down on the oasis towards the north and sand upon sand to the south. We met a German cyclist after leaving Jiayuguan who on mentioning the Magao caves said that caves were not his thing but l can tell you, they're maybe not my thing either but you cannot leave not amazed. The art and sculpture cannot be compared and l don't know how the cyclist could make that comment without even seeing it or even taking the detour to Dunhuang. Nutter. I'm not the judgemental type of course! We tried to extend our visa in town during our sickness period but they were having none of it saying it was too early. We only had a week left and we questioned, well what happens if we are refused as we expected but that didn't seem to make a difference to the PSB or public security bureau as the police are called. Our plan B was to go to Hami by bus which was the next town on our route, to try there. All was going well and we had our ticket and had even showed our entire luggage collection to the bus station so they could realise our situation. The bus was at an early time in the morning but we got there in good time. The driver would not take us though! More frustration. I knew we should have biked instead l muttered to myself! It is true it was not a huge bus but come on, they knew! They said come back tomorrow but l was having none of that. Why should tomorrow be any different. Plan C was to ask about a bus to Turpan, the town after Hami where we knew we had a good chance of a visa extension as a French family had asked there for a third extension and succeeded only two years ago in an exact copy of our current situation. To cut a long story short we were helped, not really great help, to push and sometimes ram our bikes into a small compartment on a sleeper bus to Turpan. All the rest of the large baggage compartment was taken up by huge sacks of grain that were on the bus before it arrived at the bus station. We of course had to pay for our bikes like we had to pay the guy who gave us a lift before Dunhuang. The bus journey was interesting. 14 hours with Oceanne still sick and bumping around trying to change nappies and sleep made it something to forget! I just wished Oceanne would get better at this point and hoped that we would get this extension to make all this effort worth it. Getting off the bus and realising my rear derailleur cable had been damaged meaning l now had only 3 speeds with just the front derailleur made my mood all the more better.

Turpan is the hottest place in China with a record temperature of above 49 degrees mostly due to the fact that it is in a basin that is below sea level and is the second lowest depression on earth after the dead sea. In this month of July which is the hottest, walking slowly and staying cool was very important. That kind of heat makes feeling active virtually impossible. But we got the extension. Yes! I was forced to clean up an accident by Oceanne when the toilet hadn't come quick enough the day before as we picked up our new visa but that was a small price to pay! We visted certain sites in and around Turpan during this time as Oceanne got better including the ingenious underground irrigation system called a Karez. A Karez brings groundwater gradually down a slope from beneath mountains, in this case the Tian Shan keeping it always underground until it reaches the point where it is needed at the bottom of the valley. Kept underground to limit evaporation in the intense heat and to keep it fresh and clean. We could go underground to see a real one which was interesting and great to have a drink as each year there are more of these systems that are abandoned. A bit like an animal going extinct. It is said that only specific people could build a Karez and these men were incredibly valued! I tried to get someone to fix my cable at this time but the simple bike guys who you find in the street had no idea about my integrated shifter and infact were close to destroying it altogether. The best l could do was to jam it in the easiest gear as we had a 60 km climb up to 1800 metres from below sea level soon after Turpan after which l would jam it in a gear better suited to the flat roads to Kashgar as we crossed the eternal desert. It was a long shot but l needed to get to a bigger town for a new cable where maybe l would have a go at changing it but in all honesty l was a bit of a chicken in trying as those integrated shifters are tricky or so l thought. I actually got a cable in Korla 380 km's after Turpan but not being confident enough with cables, ended up not changing it until l found a really good bike shop here in Kashgar hence riding the 1400 km's from Turpan on just the front derailleur. During this cross desert odyssey we also achieved our largest distances, one day doing 153 km's in a long day of seven hours in the saddle and during a period where we did 460 km's in 4 days. I had killer diarrhoea l am afraid to admit during this time so for me l was dying on my bike. It was the worst l have ever felt on a bike and getting to Kashgar felt all the more better for it.

We had more sand storms on the road. One where we were again forced to take a lift but only for 15 km's, this time where instead of battling a head-on storm we were taken to an intersection where we turned and could lean full force into the storm as it now hit us side-on. Hard but at least better than in the face. This time l can say the wind was so strong that l didn't know l could see that type of wind in a desert. I have a video! One night we also had one while camping and the sand was so fine it filtered through even the netting of the tent so everything was covered and l wasn't sure if l was itching from mosquito bites from when we were having supper or the fine sand on my mattress! You would think mosquitoes don't exist in the desert but in this desert they sure did. Oceanne had at least 50 bites at a time even with repellent. They were fierce and Oceanne has pretty bad reactions to them followed by itching for weeks which is not so pleasant for her. Basically we have had trials but we got here and believe me we often had wind in the back as well which was a huge blessing in the long hot straights of the desert.

While we've been here in Kashgar, we took a jeep up the famous Karokorum highway over 4000 metres to Taskurgan which is close to the Pakistan border and we camped for a night on the shores of Karakul lake below two massive peaks that reached up to nearly 7800 metres with huge glaciers coming down their flanks. One of them was the revered Muztagh Ata which at 6 a.m and sunrise was a sight l won't forget as the whole mountain was absolutely clear from where we were camped at 3600 metres.

I would say that, yes, Kashgar has lived up to it's expectation on our parts. The Uighur population is still thriving here even if the Han Chinese are destroying their homes to make way for modernisation and yet more modernisation. The main Bazaar and livestock market are sights that can't be missed. A massive bull is going for around 1000$ or a donkey for 200$ but l coulden't afford it. I bought a nice knife though as that was affordable and every Uighur man carries one so why not. May not be able to get it back to Canada though. We are staying in the old quarter in a hostel housed in an old courtyard house. There are an incredible 15 other travellers by bike at the moment staying in this place as it's a major junction for cyclists going west to central Asia like us, south to Pakistan and east to mainland China with the huge majority going east infact. I think we are the only one's going west!? Gooooooo west...

We are now just awaiting our private jeep on wednesday to Kyrgyzstan where we should, you never know, get on our bikes. Central Asia is waiting for us. I have a new tyre from Kashgar and we are ready to go. I can't get any tubes though. You woulden't believe that we had 10 flats on the road from Turpan to here but we did which means the tubes have an amazing assortment of patches on them and l can't trust them anymore. Hardly any roads are of the asphalt variety in Kyrgyzstan either which should be interesting. Must ask my sister or somebody to send me some. Love to all.

Rupert.

11,161 km's and 28 flats