Part two, riding from Turpan to Hami
September 1st 2019 — in Turpan
No sooner did I get my pannier rack fixed but my wife started using it as a clothes drying rack. We spent a day in Turpan, not a planned rest day, but both my wife and I wanted to get our racks changed on the bikes. Which we did. And, after a fantastic BBQ in the evening at a street market, she went and got a haircut — her waist length hair is now over the ears — I’m both horrified and amazed it looks good, but I loved her long hair.
September 2nd
Day four is done. And so are we… Well, almost. It was 103km from Turpan to Shanshan. Brutal hills, brutal heat, obnoxious police officers were the bad bits. But, the good bits first. We covered 100k in probably the worst conditions imaginable. For the most part, the roads we’re quite good. We hit the road about 9:30 and travelled the first 15k before stopping for breakfast. It was a really great plate of noodles. We stopped early because, as well as going uphill, we were hitting a strong headwind too. Not as strong as the other day but our average speed was down to about 12 kph. Normally its between 18–20. The weather was hot, very hot. It’s hitting 40+ C every day here, I have a thermometer on my bike and it’s over 40 although our phones tell us its only 38. Only 38!
The flaming mountains are amazing, absolutely beautiful but when we tried to fly the drone to get some stunning views, the wind was whipping around and I aborted after take-off and flying just a few feet. At the base of the mountains we met another lady riding a bike. She had caught a train from Zhejiang to Urumqi and was riding alone so she stuck with us for a while. But we had made the decision to ride 30 minutes, stop a few minutes and then ride on. This didn’t suit her so she headed off on her own after a couple of our stops.
One bad thing did happen during this early phase, Ann got her first ever puncture. Bev and I did the job and fixed it up, a valiant team effort.
After getting going again, there isn’t much to say except it was hard. We climbed all day without a break. There are no convenience stores and no service stations so we had to carry all the water we needed. We filled our Vaude backpack water carrier 1.5 litres there, and filled our bottles another litre each. Before entering the mountains, we filled everything again but it still wasn’t enough. At about the 60k point we stopped because we noticed a small village by the road. I need to point out that a village in Xinjiang isn’t the same as a village anywhere else. There are several homes that can best be described as mud huts and not much else. We were on the main road and the village was the other side of the fence and down a steep embankment which was covered in dust. Ann and I slipped down and entered the yard of a house, met a lovely lady who filled our water bottles from her kettle, which was nice but not enough for 45k more in this intense heat, so we asked if there was a shop nearby, she got her electric truck and took us there, it was about 3km away and her assistance was incredibly welcomed.
On our return back to her house, she showed us the way off the main road and onto her tree lined road for more shade. She also showed us how to get onto the road. We went back to the bikes and Bev, fully loaded with enough water and enough information to get us off the hellish highway and onto the quiet back road to the same destination. Then we stopped at the same shop we had bought the water from and ate a very delicious Hami melon, and met our riding lady friend again. Obviously, as there are no other shops withing 40k so it wasn’t a surprise.
We rode on another 20k and entered a town with a bingguan, a small hotel. The owner said we could stay but needed to register with the police first, she nicely called the police for us but then it got nasty. 6 officers arrived in three different vehicles, they had guns and no sense of humour. Bev tried to take a picture so they took his phone off him and tried to delete it, but couldn’t read anything and handed it back, he hadn’t actually taken a picture anyway. They photographed our passports, visas and even our marriage book. Told us we couldn’t stay in this town, because only Shanshan can accept foreigners, it’s only 20k away- go there! We were then followed out of town by the most officious and obnoxious police officer of them all. He drove his car at 9kph behind us for at least 15k. It wasn’t 20k to Shanshan, it was over 30k and mostly uphill too. Not nice as the sun was setting. We finally arrived in Shanshan, an hour later, totally dark. We stopped at the first hotel we found that would take foreign guests. Paid 298 for a room and have just washed and eaten. Time for bed now. Bear in mind, the sun doesn’t set in this region until at least 10pm, it’s the second time we’ve checked into a hotel after dark in only a few days.
This experience with the police was our first (and, writing later with the benefit of the journey behind us) and only brush with the police that was anything other than very positive. In fact, several of these police were nice guys, they were asking me questions while Ann was negotiating with the obnoxious team leader. I think we were much more of a curiosity than a threat.
Day five was a nice contrast to day four. We were in a good hotel in ShanShan and decided to make the most of it, so we didn’t check out until 2pm. The morning was spent doing a little maintenance to the bikes, posting blogs, or, in Ann’s case, because she seems to have offended the local censors, not posting blogs. She seems to be blocked because she posted a long story about the police rude police officer, but she did so in Chinese, I seem to have gotten away with it. We are now camping again and will be for the next two nights at least. (The block wasn’t a real block, when she wrote something to others, she could then get it posted and share it from their posts) And after a day, there wasn’t any more problems so we aren’t sure if she was actually really blocked or had a phone glitch — mine and Bev’s were ok)
As far as riding is concerned, not a lot to report. We only cycled 40k but all uphill again and into the wind. We stopped early because locals, on our last drink break told us to take care the wind would come up. Sure enough, the slightly strong wind we were hitting into started to build up within an hour and we saw a perfect place to stop, a power station with some abandoned buildings in front. We put up the tents in the shelter of the buildings. Sorted out the bikes and, lo and behold it started raining. So. Here we are on a very short-day riding, still over 35c most of the time, but definitely cooler than yesterday and a nicer road. If we had managed 80k before the wind came up, I would have called it a perfect day. As it was, it was a great day, nice riding, not too hilly but a little windy so, not too fast either, our average speed was only 12.8kph. However, it’s a lot less of a desert and we can often find ourselves riding in the shade.
As soon as we’ve climbed to the top of the Turpan Basin we can start to descend into Hami, but Hami is still 280k away and not a single town on this road between here and there.
Day six has been both and adventure and a test for us. An adventure because we are sleeping on the floor of a roadside truck stop 80 kilometres from Shanshan and 200 kilometres from Hami. We decided to stop here, rather than push on to reach our target of 100k because we had already ridden 80, which, in itself is quite a good day normally, but in this desert, moonscape environment was a real challenge.
The road was undulating, up and down all day, some really steep climbs but none of them long, some nice descents, but again, none of them long enough to really enjoy. The landscape is best described as barren. I would suggest, next time anyone wants to make a Martian movie, or even a moon movie, come to Xinjiang.
While most of our friends are languishing in a humid Zhongshan with torrential rain, here we are with absolutely no humidity at all 35+ degrees and not a tree in sight for the last 70 kilometres. It did rain last night but only for an hour or two and definitely not hard enough to wet the ground today.
Our hosts here tell us that the next 200 kilometres are the same. This is the last road stop on the route to Hami, until we reach the outer suburbs. Other truck drivers tell us there’s another stop like this 70k away.
Having been told that, we asked if we could camp here, or if they had a room we could sleep in. They cleaned out a storeroom for us and we have our bedrolls and bags set up nicely to stay here.
Our justification was that if we leave here, topped up with water and carrying as much as we could, we would end up late tomorrow evening with limited supply. We can only carry so much on the bikes. For example: this morning we topped off all the bike bottles, all the backpack bottles and that meant we were each carrying 2.5 litres of water. Enough for one day, but not enough for this heat. So, I have 2 extra bottles of water each 1.5 litres on my handlebars, this would be enough for me for two days, but then what about the nights? So we are each carrying five kg extra just in water plus one or two kg of food and snacks because, we now know, there isn’t anywhere to buy anything like this. Even if we wanted to carry more water, we simply could not, we have no space in the bags and no more space on the bikes. So leaving here after a good breakfast, fully topped up with water and carrying everything we can for the next two days makes more sense than leaving here this evening, gaining an extra 20–30k but worrying if we have enough food and water to get us to Hami in the evening in two days.
Day Seven, (I wrote this yesterday…) we are not in hell, but you can see it from here. As I write this, we are in an underground culvert sheltering from the sun, but there is no respite from the wind.
120 kilometres ago, we turned right into a road and, as far as I am concerned, that was the entrance to one of the layers of hell! The road was a moonscape, it hasn’t got a tree in sight, there are no hills high enough to give shade from the relentless sun and today, after a night of sleeping on a concrete floor, in what can best be described as a shed, we set out on a slightly cooler, slightly cloudy day. That didn’t last. After about 20k the sun had burnt off the cloud cover, the wind came up and it’s a strong cross wind. When I say strong, I’m sorry to tell you all, that you can’t imagine this, unless you’ve experienced it. We have no way to measure it, but our bikes weigh about 18kg. Our bags are at least 20kg each so we have a minimum 38kg there and this wind will pick it up and take it away. This is not an exaggeration.
So, we expected to be in Hami on Sunday, we think we might still make it, but we had hoped that would be our rest day. Currently, in our windblown concrete bunker it is nearly 2pm and Hami is still 180 kilometers away.
The team spirit is good, the bikes are behaving well, all of us are in good health and strong enough to do this. It’s just going to take a little longer to get through the first week or two than we expected.
Part two, later in the day: We are in a culvert again. We started out slowly from our last stopping place climbed a little more in the strong crosswinds and then luck changed, the gates of hell spat us back out again. The road turned a little so the crosswind was now more or less behind us and the reward for three days of incessant climbing, a long steep descent for about 25 kilometres. We got to a point where our speed was over 50kph and started to hit bad spots in the road, then it happened again… My pannier rack snapped again This was the new one we got from Turpan. The problem was, the style was the same and it was the only pannier they had in stock. It’s just not made to carry all my clothes, wet weather gear, photography equipment and camping gear. It’s made to carry mum’s shopping home from the market. So, we rigged up a repair again, got under way and managed about 5 more kilometres before it snapped finally, it was nearly 7pm when it happened, the total inability to get another repair done on the road and the fact that we are still about 120 kilometres from Hami means we have only one option open to us. We are going to sleep under the road, and tomorrow morning, I’m going to abandon two panniers with all my clothes, camping gear and wet weather equipment in the culvert under the road. Mark the location and we will ride into Hami as early as we can. As soon as we have checked in, we’ll get a taxi back to the spot. If it’s late at night we will make arrangements to do it the next morning. It’s highly unlikely that anyone will use this tunnel under the road in the next 24 hours but it’s a risk we must take.
The landscape is still lunar and the winds are still strong. We hope we can make good time tomorrow because we are each carrying only 2.25 litres of water. If we can’t find a place to get water in the next 50–80 kilometres, we will be in serious trouble. As what we have left won’t be enough. We left this morning under the belief that there was a truck stop between 75–100 kilometres away. We found one at about 67 kilometre mark, but it was closed. We were carrying full backpack bladders, full bike bottles and I had five litres in bottles hanging over my handlebars. So we had a total of 12 litres between us. We settled down for the night with only 6 litres for breakfast and potentially 120k ride. It’s a real worry.
One day later — Sunday 8th September
We are alive! We are in Hami and, in the next instalment, I’ll tell you how we got from the culvert where we left my bags, with limited water, to the city and a nice hotel and how we managed to regain all the equipment.
