Gyantse

Hi guys,
well I've added some more photos, and was about to add a whole heap more, but then the computer here in Gyantse packed it in.

It's been a pretty amazing two days. We thought we could get to Gyantse in a day, but turns out we were buggered and did it in two instead. Jen's got the comments. I have several comments to make:

1. I love dogs, I do, but I hate baying dogs that won't shut up at night.

2. I think development is good, but the process of creating highways is horribly incovenient for cyclists, i.e. roadworks suck.

3. The bad karaoke on the floor above is giving me the shits right now.

4. Nothing beats a swim in a lake at the end of the day

5. I think that if you have the shits, get on yer bike and let the constant ass-pounding solidify things in there... it worked for me! Who needs Loperamide when you've got a bike?

Love,
m

Here's Jen with the day's report:

hey all!
in gyantse now. yesterday was probably the best day of riding i've ever done! we started out from nagartse. we'd heard rumours from people that the road was closed and everyone was getting turned back cos of road works.... but we rode anyway. and the road was closed... but a tractor was going so we kept going too (with friendly wave from the road workers!) anyway cos road was closed the whole day we saw occasional road work vehicles, two tractors (the one aforementioned and one that was bogged further along the way), and two motorbikes (one of which fell off his motorbike into one of the many massive puddles/streams that frequently crossedthe road)

so we rode up and up...at first gradually but becoming steeper...with fresh snow on the hills and mountins all around us. it was great! after much plugging away we got to the summit of the next pass (at 5050m)... then started the much longed for descent.... but road quality detiorated quite a lot. there was one stretch were the mud was horrendously deep and we had to get off our bikes and push... by the endof the 200m stretch of mud there was more mud than tyre! then we saw the detour route we should have taken!!!

kept riding htere was one stage where i heard something fall out and land on the ground and then realised it was one of our bike tools and there was massive hole in the bag strapped to my rack...so i stopped to fix it...this lady came running up the road saying something to me in mandarin and pointing from where i'd come...i thought she meant there was someone who could fix the bag so said no no i'll be right. then marcus came up. she said the same thing to him. and he said..."they're blowing stuff up, we have to go up the road!" so we did that and there were two very loud bangs. then we continued on our way.

anyway the road was of variable quality the whole way...we had planned to ride all the way to gyantse but the down was much slower going than we'd expected... and we found this great campsite right next to a great big dam and a deserted village ruin, which pretty much made the decision for us! so went swimming and bike washing in the dam. the camp site was perfect except for the dogs which howled the whole night.

today we continued on through to gyantse and were very glad we had not tried to the night before! the road was quite horrendous! we were beginning to feel as marcus put it "sick of these f$#%ing roadworks"....he got a bitgrumpy! anyway just as the road works were finishing (100km of roadworks) god started throwing what i thought were rocks at us, but soon realised was actually hail. so we finished the ride to gyantse in hail, thunder and rain.

finally got to gyantse where there are four lane highways but barely any traffic (chinese development seems to have preceded any population devlopment/ or population with cars anyway) found somewhere to stop for a feed. came back out of the restaurant and realised one side of my pannier rack was no longer attached...and an essential screw had fallen out somewhere...it fortunately had the curtesy not to fall out on all the rough roads in the middle of nowhere we had just been going over but actually chose the smooth roads of gyantse, a sizeable town, to fall out... so it was relatively easy to find a screw that was aclose enough match.

we're living it up tonight...$30 (between us) on a very nice room. plan tomorrow is to ride to shigatse but it's close to 100km, how doable will totally depend on the road quality! we'll see what happens. ok sorry i tend to ramble a bit. anyway done for now!
j