To Baxoi (Pasho): Up Dungda La and then truck ride

April 12, 2007

The cold and rain continues all evening. Just to get, and stay warm we go to bed early. With our own sheets, two comforters below and two on top, we sleep well. During the night Patrick goes to the outhouse and checks the weather. The clouds are gone, blue sky and fresh snow on the hills that surround the town.

We decide to go for it!

A lot of our gear is still wet from yesterday's ride. Patrick needs to replace one of Rachel's brake pads that has worn away from the downhill. All our brakes need adjusting, the bikes are a mess after the slushy, muddy downhill yesterday. After breakfast, we set off, it is all uphill from here to Dungda La (La = pass), over 5000 meters the highest pass we have ever done. Our plan is to either get up to about 4300 meters and camp there, or go up and over the pass today...if we can.

After about 7 kms and 350 meters altitude gain, we realize neither of these options is feasible today. The snow level is too low to camp at that altitude, and with the rough road and a 50 truck army convoy that just passed us the road is chewed up even more. We cannot cover that much altitude today. A small tractor stops just as we are taking a break, Patrick offers the Tibetan driver 100 yuan to take us up the pass. He wants 200 yuan. Just as we push to go on, a Chinese Post truck stops, the passenger side window opens and a guy waves at us. The truck is empty and headed towards Lhasa. Together we heave the loaded bikes in the back, the co-driver crawls in back of the seats, and we sit up front. Off we go, chasing after the army fuel convoy.

Quickly we find this was the only option today. First, the road gets muddy, then snow covered and as we get higher a lot of ice makes the going hard. All the fuel trucks and also our ride, stops to put on chains. The long row of trucks only have rear wheel drive and very regularly one of them slips off the road and gets stuck in the ditch. Each time the whole convoy has to stop and the soldiers help each other to get moving again. Our truck also gets in trouble twice by stopping in the wrong spot and then not being able to get going again. Fortunately, there is a whole row of trucks, buses and cars behind us that have to help us out by digging and putting dirt on the ice to give traction.

There is no passing on this road!

We are stuck for a while on the summit waiting for the convoy to crawl down the scary switchbacks on the other side. We meet a Canadian hitchhiker from Victoria BC who is riding with a Chinese family in a minivan. Several snowball fights break out between various parties and the Chinese army.

The downhill to Zogang goes smoother, then another climb. We stop once to help the minivan that has bottomed out and tore the spare tire out of position. The pass is beautiful, wide open valley all snow covered but definitely not cyclable for us today. We have an early dinner in Zogang with our truck drivers and decide to join them for the rest of their day to Baxoi. The valley between here and the next pass is arid and not very scenic according to our notes. The next pass, Gama La is also a high and probably also snow covered.

The restaurant owner warns our drivers about something, they seem concerned. We suspect it's about us. It turns out there are two checkpoints (we did not know about) between here and Pomda where they could get in trouble for transporting (permit-less) foreigners. We expect to be left here; but even though they are worried they decide to take us anyway. We just have to hide in the narrow bed behind the seats. Twice, as we pass the checkpoints we have to lay flat with comforters covering us. There seems to be a "bad" checkpoint right at the Pomda junction that our road notes did not warn us about.

We feel lucky.

Gama La has one long switchback up to about 4700 meters, then a record 70 switchbacks to the Salween River below 2270 meters then back up to about 3200 meters at Baxoi. It's 9pm and dark when we pull in the hotel courtyard. There is also an official looking building and the parking lot is full of police cars. Briefly we are worried we are being turned in...not so. The hotel turns out to be expensive they want 200 yuan a night for a very nice suite with a sitting room, separate bedroom with king size bed and most important....a bathroom with hot shower! Patrick negotiates the price down to 100 yuan for the suite tonight and another 100 yuan for a smaller room tomorrow. We decided we need a rest day.

Patrick pays the drivers 200 yuan as well as also buying them dinner in Zogang, but we never had the impression they were doing it for money. Just two nice guys helping out and even going beyond that by helping us past the checkpoints. They will be on their way to Lhasa tomorrow. The hot showers are great, we spread out our stuff to airdry.

During the night Patrick is awaken several times by knocking on a door...Is this the PSB coming to get us? Patrick wasn't getting out of bed to find out!

We know they are discussing us...we expect to be booted from the truck ride. There is a checkpoint ahead.

Then when we reach a checkpoint, they cover us up. This was a checkpoint we did not know about.

Today's ride: 7 km (4 miles)
Total: 7,822 km (4,857 miles)

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