Tour de Tibet - Part 1
Trip Start
Aug 25, 2003
1
42
55
Trip End
Jul 18, 2004
Lhasa,
China
Friday, April 30, 2004
So we got an early start to our bike trip - 7 A.M. breakfast and the we're off. Breakfast was great but we could hardly eat anything as we were anxious about the ride today and the many passes ahead of us in the next two weeks. Biking out of Lhasa was not so fun, traffic seemed heavy for us so when in doubt we biked with a rickshaw through intersections - they seem to know what they're doing. We ended up biking only to the small town of Chusul which is only 51 km out of town. Our guide, Gompo, seemed happy with our speed getting there so that made me a little less anxious about the next day. But only a little since day two is one of the hardest passes of the whole trip PLUS the "normal" pass is under road construction so we have to go a bit out of our way to climb this less used pass. Add to that the fact that we wouldn't be seeing a paved road for awhile and my anxiety was really starting to get me
Gyantse Kumbum
. So with these thoughts in mind we hit the town of Chusul and did our point-at-food-in-the-kitchen routine at one of the local restaurants.Day 2 Chusul to Nangartse
Big day. The pass we had to make it over was Chorong La. This was what you might imagine mountain passes in Tibet to be like, roughly 1000 meter gain up a mountain face that has easily 40 switch-backs. Looks like we were right to be worried. At first the road followed a stony dried our river bed that seemed like it could hold the Ganges. Our guide told us that in summer when the rains come this road is flooded and impossible to drive. We biked what we could and pushed the rest - this pass was steep. About a third of the way up a lone cyclist caught us and slowed to talk a little. His name was Marcus. He had full paniers and had that gaunt look of someone with way too little body fat. After a brief conversation he flew past us. This also made us worried. Luckily we ran into him a few days later and found out he used to be a professional mountain biker so we didn't feel too bad. So up and up we went. Part of going so slow was not bad, we got to see marmots and eagles and other wildlife we may no have noticed otherwise. I was still glad to make it to the top and see that downhill, however brief, to Yamdruk Tso.
Yadruk Tso is one of the most beautiful lakes I have ever seen. It was almost perfectly calm and looked an incredible blue. As we biked along it and took tons of photos and were just amazed by it. We biked on until the construction from the "normal" pass met with our road. From the until Nangartse the road was ripped up. We had already biked for 7 hrs and 20 minutes (not counting stops!) and didn't feel like riding through construction
Kyichu River (Leaving Lhasa)
. That and the fact that we had another big pass the next day made it east to jump into our sag wagon.Day 3 Nangartse to Gyantse
Or mountain biking guidebook warned us of "soul-crushing head-winds" this day and boy was it right. They started only a few kilometers outside of town and continued all day. Not little head-winds, head-winds that would stop us on gradual down-hills. Karo La was the pass this day and all I can say is at least it was gradual. It wasn't like the day before, this pass wound around mountains and we could never see where the top was. The wind blowing down on us was cold, according to our guide the pass goes between two glaciers which is why it is so windy. It was only a 500 meter climb but that took us to an altitude of 4960 meters - not an altitude we were used to at all. So we cycled. Both Sarah's and my toes were numb from cold. Sarah's fingers were going numb and she eventually decided to get into the sag wagon. I thought it was a good decision, I didn't want to explain to her parents why she was missing fingers when she got home. So for the last 8k to the top I was solo. When I got to the top Sarah and I shared a coughing fit and a snickers in the jeep and then we headed down.
Down wasn't all the fun it should've been
Sarah and Yak
. After a few kilometers the down wasn't that steep and we still were facing headwinds which made our down seem like an up. We were set on making it to Lungma Village where we though we were staying so we perservered through the wind. It got so bad that gravel blew in our faces a few times and I actually got pushed completely sideways while biking. We made it to Lungma Village in one piece and found out that there was no accomadation there. This was a point of irritation with the company we had booked our biking through. They supposedly had a place for us to stay between the pass and our next town, Gyantse. But when we asked our guide he knew of nothing and thought we were going all the way to Gyantse even though the itenerary we were given said otherwise. So after all that work (7 hours of biking not including breaks) we had to put our bikes up on the jeep and head for Gyantse. 
