September 21, 2105 Huangyuan to Xiahe

 A beautiful morning greeted the ride out of town, albeit with ever-present pollution that plagues all of China.

 The next town wasn't quite so pleasant.  The morning rush was in full swing. so we were doing and weaving.

 Large trucks bore down on our group, trying to break through our column.

Street sweepers, far from cleaning the streets, just blast the sand and grit into the air.  We saw this type of insane behavior everywhere - people engaged in activities with no discernible purpose.

We found our intended route barred by a pile of dirt across the street.  After asking the locals, we were directed to make a tight u-turn to the next "street" over.  It too was blocked by a pile of dirt, but there was a small area that was passable on a scooter.  We chanced it with our bikes.  Unfortunately, Tom and Mona lost their balance between the dirt pile and a cement ditch.  Luckily, they were not hurt beyond bruises, and after muscling their bike out of the ditch, the rest of the group proceeded through by either removing a pannier for more clearance, or by letting long-legged Mike paddle it through the opening.

We reorganized on the other side of the dirt pile, mounted up.

We were not at all prepared for the overwhelming air pollution in the next city.  We've seen a lot of amazing pollution, but this was the worst. Midmorning visibility on a sunny day was practically non existent.  It was surreal to ride through a what appeared to be fog, but was actually waste products from the nearby industry.  It was isolated to the single city, so we soon emerged on the other side.

About an hour later we did find somewhat cleaner air in the farmlands.

Having gotten a bit of "fresh(er)" air, we tackled the next challenge to our lungs - a 5,560 meter (3.5 mile)long tunnel.  These tunnels are very poorly lit and even more poorly ventilated.  We kept up a good pace to get through as quickly as possible.

Our road fun wasn't over.  The Chinese threw in a loop-the-loop for kicks.

Farmers use every square inch of arable land - including within a highway cloverleaf ramp.  Harvest season is evident everywhere.  They do everything by hand - no animals or equipment.

But the roar of nine BMW motorcycles going by is enough to cause some of them to stop and look.

Prayer flags and monks reminded of our location, still on the Tibetan Plateau.

Typical street scene:

A new local workhorse has made an appearance.  These vehicles are geared so low they can carry an incredible amount of weight.  Islam is the predominant language, along with Buddhism.

John usually keeps us moving at a pretty good clip, and when he pulls over we usually have a good idea what the stop is for.  But this morning was different.  All of a sudden he pulled quickly to the side of the road and had his helmet if off before we all come to a full stop.  We were puzzled until we saw him examining his cheek in his rear view mirror.  Bee sting! Ouch! 

While waiting for John to take care of his bee sting, this elderly couple puttered up in their little cart.  The women got out, and took the key from its hiding place under a rock near the gate.  Some things are the same worldwide. (Yeah, wives are the "garage door openers".

Next,we descended to ride along the Yellow River, then cross over and ride back up the other side.

 Late morning and early afternoon was spent playing in the Kanbula National Park.  The views along the Yellow River were breathtaking.

The road snakes up and down the mountain - great riding, switchback after switchback.

The switchbacks made riding fun.

 We took a few minutes to enjoy the view from the top before...

 ...having even more fun on the way down.

We continued on through the park enjoying the rock formations...

...and asses.

We stopped at a visitor center overlooking a reservoir...

 and dam...

and found a new Buddha shrine in the process of being built overlooking the water.

I made the comment that it was a shame that the shrine would ruin the view.  Dave pointed out that some could probably say the same thing about Mt. Rushmore.  That changes the perspective a bit.

Of course, whenever we stop with the big motorcycles it attracts attention and requests for photographs.  The bikes are quite the conversation starter - even when we don't speak the local language.

As we started down the mountain, the road got worse.

 It looked like whole parts of it might just fall away.  A sign that said "Violent road" gave us fair warning.

Whole pieces of retaining walls had fallen.

 Yep, we were careful of the whole road.

Even the sheep seemed to take care not to be hit by falling rocks.

 We stopped briefly in a small town for snacks.  Alain befriended a young monk and gave him a thrill of a lifetime when he gave him a ride to the other side of the town.

The upgrade to China's infrastructure even reaches out to the Tibetan Plateau.  The 21st century building projects take place with ancient traditional shrines and flags as the background.

We waited for the group to gather in a small Tibetan town.  But when Geoffrey pulled in, he was losing air in his tire.

Mike and John worked on getting it plugged while we goofed around, taking pictures of the locals and making friends with the children.

The two older girls had fun laughing at us and investigating the group.  The youngest, however, ran to her mom and watched from afar.

The sheep headed to market could care less.  The tire repair took longer than usual, and it was beginning to rain.  We knew that we had construction ahead of us - maybe as much as 40km.  Dave decided to continue ahead of the group so that we could take our time through the rough roads and mud.

But before we left the village, we came across an extraordinary Buddhist monastery at the far end.  Wishing we had more time to explore, we snapped a few pictures and continued on.

Little did we know that the rest of the afternoon would be the most harrowing and physically taxing of the entire trip.  The rain picked up in earnest.  While we didn't have 40 km of construction, we did have well over 25km of slick mud.  A lot of it was on up or downhill mountains, with switchbacks and "greasy ruts, mud, and gravel, in pouring rain, sometimes battling heavy truck traffic. We were sliding all over the place, despite going slow, and Dave was very worried about losing control, having the bike go down and having the result be a trip-ending injury.  Our communication batteries ran out, so he had to communicate with me by hand signals.

After what seemed like days, we made it into town - still pouring rain, with muddy roads to the end.  We entered the hotel around 5:30pm - wet and very cold and were definitely not happy to hear that the hotel only had hot water from 6:30 to 10:30pm.  Really!

Poor Green.  She was hoping to alleviate our sad condition by making dinner arrangements earlier than usual.  She asked if we preferred  to meet at 6:30 or 7pm.  I'm afraid I was very curt with her when I said to make it 7:30 because I wasn't going to eat before I had a hot shower.  Ooops.  Not her fault, but I was was shaking with cold.

We did get a hot shower and a warm dinner.  This is surely an adventure, and tomorrow is another day.