In Lanzhou, we left our bikes at the apartment of a Peace Corps volunteer, Jared, and were forced to do something we hadn’t done since we left San Francisco: board a plane. We had to leave the country because our visa, although valid for one year, gives us only 30 days in the country at a time. We had almost used up our 30 days, and to stay any longer in China, we’d have to leave the country and come back. (We had thought we’d be able to extend the visa without leaving, but we then learned this could take a week, be an enormous hassle, and cost well over $100 per person.)

We had an amazing few days in Hong Kong — I have a longer post about it coming soon. The short version is this: After crossing Central Asia and western China, where we subsisted off of Nescafe and yak products, it was fantastic to visit a modern, wealthy city where we could 1) buy high quality replacements for our some of our equipment, and 2) drink a latte every day. We also met with a number of experts about environmental issues in the city, and spoke with pro-democracy protestors, who said many interesting things, but which I won’t post while we’re still in China — it’s a bit controversial here on the mainland. I’ll post our blog about Hong Kong after we leave China (I know this self-censorship is a bit silly, as I doubt any Chinese government officials are reading this blog — if you are, hello! I hope you enjoy these stories about biking across your country. We’ve had a really great time here. We especially like your food. It is delicious. Feel free to send me your email, and I’ll add you to our list so that you can get updates, and not have to troll through this blog for anything negative that we might say about China.)

So, Hong Kong was great.

We returned to Lanzhou, where Jared again let us crash in his apartment, giving us his room while he slept in the common room. Like all Peace Corps volunteers in China (where the program is called the “China-America Friendship Project,” not Peace Corps), Jared teaches English. Like the teachers in Zhangye, he invited us to speak to his students about our journey. In Zhangye, though, the teachers had asked us not to talk about climate change. They worried that a student might report that the class was talking about issues that could make China look bad, which could in turn get them in trouble. The university in Lanzhou, though, seemed to be somewhat more free, and it was apparently fine for us to talk about climate change. “Freedom,” however you define it, seems to be something that varies considerably across this nation, with stricter laws and regulations in some regions than in others. In Lanzhou, we showed the students a slideshow of our journey, which included a short video about climate change in Chinese.

We planned to leave the next day, but I fell sick with a bad cold and couldn’t get out of bed. That is, I could not leave Jared’s bed, as he slept on the couch in the living room while I recovered. His room would be a hazmat zone for the next two days. I don’t really remember much of what happened during these two days, except that when you get sick on a bike tour, it is really, really, really great to have someone to stay with. Jared was an excellent host, and I don’t know what we would have done without his help.

The third day, feeling mostly recovered, we started biking east in the early afternoon. Unfortunately, Lindsey was starting to feel sick, but she felt well enough to ride. Our plan was to bike to the outskirts of Lanzhou and then hitchhike to Baotou, a city about one week of biking away from Beijing.

The air (or “fog,” as Jared said people called it) in Lanzhou was horrible. We biked along the north side of the Yellow River (more brown than yellow), and the buildings rising up on the far side were air brushed grey by the smog. As we cycled out of town, we saw the ubiquitous new construction typical of city outskirts. We also saw bulldozers cutting away a hill — we’ve heard that Lanzhou is flattening a few hundred ‘mountains’ to make way for more city.

If there isn’t a housing bubble in China, I’ll be surprised. We haven’t seen many people living in the countryside — it looks as if most people have already moved to cities. But in the cities there are many empty tall new buildings, and new ones are being built almost everywhere. More than once we saw what appeared to be an entire city under construction. Jared told us that buildings are sometimes demolished after only a few years because codes change and buildings are no longer “up to code” — and may not have been even at the time they were built — so maybe some of the building is in fact “necessary.” It’s also possible that some of the billion people in eastern China will move west, filling these buildings, but it still doesn’t seem economically sustainable. Seeing so many empty structures and new ones under construction definitely makes me worried. Someone out there must be losing a lot of money.

We ended up only needing three rides to cover the 900 kilometers between Lanzhou to Baotou. Hitchhiking is an adventure, and when you pull over and stick your thumb out (or wave your hand, as seems to be the signal here), you have no idea how long you’ll have to wait. It could be a few minutes or many hours. I love this uncertainty. Lindsey does not. (In the past, we’ve resolved this conflict by not talking about it until we are in a hurry, and then having Lindsey express how much she doesn’t like hitchhiking, and me pointing out we don’t have time to do much else — and then we hitchhike. I’m sure we have many years of happy marriage ahead of us.)

Our strategy this time was to bike to the entrance of the expressway — where bikes are not allowed, and find a ride using a note a Chinese cyclist had written for us. It worked the first time, when a man in a small truck stopped after about 30 minutes and drove us about an hour and a half along our route to a town called Bayin. Our driver told us (we think) that we had to bike to another entrance to the freeway if we wanted to continue north. We spent a while trying to communicate, but our Chinese is very limited, and Google Translate on my phone, which worked great in Tajikistan, rarely works very well even though I have a local sim card (this is China’s, fault, not Google’s — China prevents foreign iPhones from using the 3g network, so my phone is slow, and then it’s slowed down further because I have to use a VPN to get around China’s firewall because China blocks all Google websites and services (Google VPN if you don’t know what it is)(hope you’re not in China!)).

The driver wrote us a new note, which we think he told us to show it to the tollbooth operator, who would then help us get a ride. But we don’t know. It was written in Chinese, and we read even less than we speak. We tried to bike across town, which first involved riding by a number of high rises under construction, but we failed to reach the far side before the sunset. We don’t hitchhike in the dark because you can’t see someone’s face, making it difficult to assess whether we should trust the driver or not. So we got what might be the nicest hotel room I have ever seen for $20 (although we never figured out how to turn on the HD television).

Our next ride ended up being a bus — the tollbooth operator told us that very few trucks go north from town, so we decided to pay for a ride when a bus came through the tollbooth. Four hours and four hundred kilometers later, all following the Yellow River, we arrived in Yinchuan, in Ningxia province. After eating a late lunch, we cycled to the freeway toll gate and showed the sheet that our first driver had given us —altered to show our next destination — to one of the tollbooth operators. We were in luck: The operator, Mitchell, spoke some English(Chinese people who speak English usually have an “English name,” perhaps because English speakers like ourselves have no hope of pronouncing, let alone remembering, their Chinese names). Mitchell proceeded to wave down every truck, often sprinting out of his station to stop vehicles that might be driving to one of the other tollbooths. After about half an hour, an 18-wheel China Post truck pulled over, the driver spoke briefly with Mitchell, and then waved us in. The back of his truck was only one third full, leaving plenty of space for two bicycles. The cab had one extra seat and one bed behind the two seats; Lindsey took the bed, I the seat, and we began driving toward Baotou.

At first, we thought our China Post driver didn’t want us in the truck and that he had only accepted us because the tollbooth operator made him. With a shaved head and two missing front teeth, he seemed mostly intent on driving, not talking. We tried to chat in our (very) limited Chinese, and he broke a smile or two.We asked him how many people were in is family, if he had a son or a daughter, and his age — he is in his early fifties, and has one son in his twenties. His home was in Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia. He was driving all the way to this city, which was well past our Baotou, our destination. He said he could drop us off in Baotou, but that it would take a day and a half, and he’d be spending the night in Wuhai, a town on the way. We agreed that we would get a hotel in Wuhai that night, and then continue on with him the following day.

We arrived in Wuhai, a city of about half a million residents, where our driver tried to help us find a hotel. Most hotels in China, especially the cheaper ones, are not allowed to accept foreigners — only hotels that are three stars or higher (and generally more expensive) are licensed to do so. Our China Post driver parked the tractor trailer in front of a hotel, ran in, and then ran out, surprised to learn that we couldn’t stay there.

We drove to another end of town, and found that another hotel wouldn’t take us. A third hotel, which could accept foreigners, had no rooms. Having been irritated by these hotel rules in our earlier travels, it was somewhat enjoyable to watch a local get increasingly frustrated by China’s rules for foreingers. He finally told us that there was a room at the Post Office we could use. This sounded much more fun — and cheaper — than a hotel, and we readily agreed. Our friend, who had warmed up to us considerably, then took us to dinner, refused to let us pay, and drove us across town to a China Post building. On the second floor of the Wuhai post office, we found a room with bunk beds and thin mattresses beneath a florescent light. It was perfect.

In the morning, we got to watch as five China Post employees unloaded our friend’s truck and proceeded to sort the boxes. This was accomplished through a combination of throwing and kicking. It almost seemed as if they were performing a parody of how not to handle boxes. I made a mental note never to send any fragile items via China Post. On the other hand, Lindsey and I, along with our bikes, were effectively being shipped by China Post, and we found it to be both comfortable and economical.

Our last day was relatively uneventful. We stopped for lunch, where, like nearly every restaurant we’ve visited, everyone wanted to take a picture with the foreigners. At about 3pm, after exchanging WeChat information and snapping a few pictures, we said goodbye at the exit ramp to Baotou and started biking into town, where a warmshowers.org host waited for us.

Xining is described in the Lonely Planet as a “delightful provincial capital” and I envisioned old wooden buildings with graceful eaves lining tranquil streets. I was wrong. While not a huge city, Xining was the largest, busiest place we’d been since crossing the Caspian. The main street is at least four lanes wide, and crossing it was a challenge – the traffic lights turn green for all traffic on one axis all at once, including left and right turns. So when the light changes, all of the cars move at once – those turning left veer across the paths of cars, bikes, and pedestrians going straight, racing to complete their turn before the others get through the intersection. We got used to the system but it still baffles me that this sort of driving is not due to the lack of signals, but is in fact sanctioned by them.

In Xining, we visited with a friend of David’s from college who has been living in the region for years. She is studying Tibetan medicine and is fluent in the Tibetan language of Amdo (this is the friend we called for translation help earlier in the week). We bombarded her with questions about life in this part of China and enjoyed a visit to a temple and the Buddhist market. Again, my vision of what this would be like was way off – the guidebook mentions rows of stalls selling fabric and clothing, but months before our visit the old Tibetan market was razed, and vendors were moved to what can only be called a mall. So we visited a 4-story shopping mall, motionless prayer flags hanging limply above the escalators, and browsed through shop after shop selling everything from monks’ robes to yak butter (for offering candles) to Buddha statues. An assortment of people were in the market – mostly monks and Tibetans buying clothing, art, and incense, and a few tourists like us. It was definitely different from what I’d imagined, and while there was a bit of soullessness to the location, the buyers and sellers lent an air of authenticity. We also enjoyed some western comforts in Xining – good coffee and baked goods – before gearing up for the next leg of our trip.

We got a late start out of Xining because we decided to swing by the Great Mosque and see everybody assembling for the Eid al-Adha holiday, which honors Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac. What stood out to me, as people streamed to the mosque and set up their prayer mats on the sidewalk and street outside the mosque, was (a) they were all men; and (b) the police had blocked off the street to traffic. At first this looked like a nice service, keeping cars out so Xining’s Muslim citizens could celebrate the holiday even when the mosque was overflowing. Then we realized that there were rows of armored vehicles parked up the street, and some of the police had automatic weapons; they were clearly prepared for more than just crowd control, and it felt a bit heavy-handed. The street was too crowded to bike through, so we took turns ditching our bikes and wandering through the crowd to the front of the mosque. I thought I was used to being the only woman – as I often was at meals and events in the many Muslim countries we’d biked across – but I felt really out of place here.

We got back on our bikes and rode out of town, biking through entire brand new cities under construction. There were roads that didn’t exist on our map, lined with pictures of what was to come – large industrial parks, residential neighborhoods, everything, all being built at once. The pace and scale of construction was hard to wrap our heads around. Once we got out of Xining’s growing suburbs, we biked through several towns where, at house after house, the scene was the same: people standing over a freshly slaughtered sheep, butchering it on site for the holiday. Outside of these towns, we passed some pasture areas where people were butchering yaks. We stopped for awhile to talk, and just in the short time we were there we saw several yaks go from living, standing animals to their various components. After their throats were slit and bled (it took about 5 minutes for movement to completely stop – are they still conscious, or is it just involuntary convulsions?), their heads were cut off, along with the forelegs, and then the skin was removed, requiring up to four men and the blunt side of an axe. Organs were removed, the stomach was emptied (piles of steaming half-digested grass told us how many animals had already been killed), and sections of ribs were cut up.

It was fascinating to watch, but also distressing. The actual killing seemed fairly quick and clean, but one yak was tied up to watch as two others were slaughtered, and she was clearly afraid. I read that allowing animals to watch others being killed is actually against Islam’s instructions, and I wish those instructions had been followed. I don’t think she knew exactly what was going on, but she was panting quickly and occasionally running in circles, trampling a recently killed yak in the process. I’m sure she was next but we didn’t stay to watch. The yaks were also distressed as they were separated from the herd and wrestled to the ground. I am no expert on the holiday or laws about slaughtering animals, but I found this article informative. Strangely, it didn’t really affect how I feel about eating meat (that is, conflicted – see previous post on Kashgar). I’ve been pondering the ethics of it, as well as the environmental and health angles, since I was a kid; this just added a more tangible experience of what it’s all about.

That night, we asked a family if we could camp in their yard. I was told the Muslim communities in the area speak a different language, but fortunately the father of this family could read our note, and they kindly showed us where to camp and brought us a pitcher of hot water. In the morning, their kids and some of the neighbors gathered around, staring and giggling at us before we rode on. For most of the second day, we followed the Yellow River as well as a section of a new expressway that was still under construction. We were both in awe at how quickly this enormous new road was going up; there were few villages along this stretch of the river, just construction camps. It seems workers move to the sites full-time; even though it was Golden Week and the rest of the nation was on holiday, construction workers and engineers were hard at work building the road, roped to pylons high above the river.

In the afternoon, mosques gave way to stupas, and in the evening we found ourselves riding through a Tibetan village near the Rebkong, or Tongren monastery. We asked to camp at a temple that was under construction – the workers had tents outside, so we thought it might be simple to pitch our tent alongside – but either we weren’t understood or they said no, so we carried on. Just as we were about to give up and make our way through the fields to the river, David met a boy outside of his house. The family’s Chinese was sufficient for us to communicate with our very limited language skills, and they invited us inside. While the outer walls of the house were made of mud bricks, the inside was made of pine and tiles, with rooms arranged around a large courtyard with a few trees and an incense burner in the middle. The whole family was having dinner around the wood stove, and they invited us to join. They piled a plate high with delicious, freshly steamed dumplings full of meat, onions, and carrots. Later, they showed us to a spare room, complete with a sleeping platform and mats.

We spent a very comfortable night there, although there was an awkward moment when we asked about a bathroom. They led us to another room off the courtyard, where a shallow pit between raised footrests was connected to a larger, equally shallow pit with what appeared to be a mix of ash and – I can only assume – composted waste. There was no smell whatsoever and it was comfortable and clean, but we’d heard you were only supposed to go #2 in composting toilets. David braved the embarrassing question about #1, and they all laughed and indicated that one should do everything in the toilet. I’m still not sure how it works, but hopefully we didn’t mess up its functioning during our stay.

The next day we met a couple on a three-year trip from Catalonia to New Zealand. We shared tips on the road ahead and offloaded some of the pears that several Tibetan ladies had generously given us the day before. We went through several more Tibetan villages that day; in one, we met a monk who spoke a bit of English and invited us to visit his monastery. We walked with him to the sprawling monastery down the street, and he told us about his life as a monk – his favorite thing is studying logic. We weren’t allowed to go inside, but he took us to a hillside above where we could look in and see the buildings. The best part, though, was bumping into groups of his monk friends, all of whom were excited to take our picture.

That night, we stayed with another family. There was plenty of language confusion – we thought they had already eaten and we made our instant noodles, only to then be served delicious bowls of homemade noodle soup. However, we really needed to step up the communication effort when one of the bikes fell over and broke a window pane. The entire front of the house was glass windows, and del Fuego fell over and cracked one. We felt terrible. They didn’t really react – there was no anger, but also no reassurance, and we tried everything from hand motions of remorse to taking out money to indicate that we wanted to pay to fix it. We couldn’t reach our friend to translate, but I was able to find the words for “sorry” and “how much does it cost” in the Lonely Planet. They seemed to understand the written Classical Tibetan, even though they speak a different dialect, and they motioned to a pane of glass lying outside, indicating that they could fix it themselves. Shortly after, a well-dressed man appeared out of nowhere and took control of the situation. He rubbed his fingers together under David’s nose, indicating money, and we said yes! How much? Instead of giving us a number, he asked how much we wanted to pay. We got out a 100 RMB note (about $20) and he said no, so we got out the phone for him to indicate the amount on the calculator. I honestly have no idea what the going rate for window repair in San Francisco is, let alone Gansu Province, China, so I was happy to pay the amount he typed in – 50 RMB. After that, everything was resolved, and he made picture-taking motions and got everybody to pose for a photo. This was especially amusing, as the family had declined to be photographed earlier. Apparently breaking a window, being super remorseful, and paying for the damage is a good way to break the ice!

The next morning, the family’s son and a friend rode my bike around the yard and we all had a nice laugh when David tried to fix the brakes on his bike, only to discover that a piece was missing. They also made us the most delicious tsampa we had on the plateau – a perfect combination of barley, yak butter, and sugar, and a great biking breakfast. We rode to Xiahe and spent the afternoon visiting the Labrang Monastery, one of the largest outside of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. We were lucky to arrive on the last day of the national holiday – there were a few small tour groups, but mostly it was just us and the monks. A young monk who barely speaks English gave us a tour of the major buildings, including one that houses a bunch of yak butter sculptures, which looked nothing like what I imagined, but did lend a somewhat rancid smell to the place. We also walked the kora around the monastery, joining the hundreds of Tibetan pilgrims who do this as part of their religious practice.

I know very little about Tibetan Buddhism, so I’ll keep this brief (and open to correction) – Buddhists walk around sacred places such as monasteries and chortens (stupas), turning the prayer wheels that line the path. The prayer wheels are full of tightly rolled paper on which prayers are written, and when the prayer wheels are turned, it is as if the prayers are repeated. People are very serious about the kora. They make pilgrimages to places like Labrang, and once they are walking the kora they don’t dawdle. Most of the walkers were older women, and beneath their traditional robes they were wearing brightly colored running shoes. I found myself getting lapped because I was taking in my surroundings and trying to turn every wheel, while the Tibetan ladies were charging down the line, spinning the wheels with a practiced, well-placed swipe of a single gloved hand.

In Xiahe, we also purchased a couple of thangkas, which are paintings depicting scenes of various buddhas and other images. Rebkong, a nearby monastery that we didn’t have time to visit, is the center of thangka painting, but there were artists here, too. We were in a rush because we wanted to continue riding, but finally we settled on one with the Buddha of Wisdom. He is holding a sword above his head to cut through ignorance and hate. We also were eyeing another painting, but the handmade thangkas are quite pricey and we didn’t want to go over our budget. Amazingly, on our third trip back to one shop, a painter there said that if we really loved the painting we’d been looking at, their teacher wanted to give it to us. “Oh, thanks!” we said. “How much?” “No,” she said, “for free – a gift. He loves American people.” We were incredibly touched – the artist had spent time in Santa Fe and had a soft spot for the U.S. This has happened a couple of times, where people have been outrageously kind to us because they love our country. We feel so undeserving and only hope that we are furthering the good reputation the U.S. has with those individuals, and perhaps countering negative reputations it may have with others.

We camped in a pasture above a river that night, and because we had a long way to go we got up and started biking before sunrise. It was actually fun biking in the dark – there was almost no traffic, it was downhill, and we got to watch day break in the villages we rode through. We could tell people were up and starting their day when the air became thick with the smell of burning juniper, one of the common offerings. There were a number of tunnels in our route, complete with ‘no bike’ signs, but fortunately there were side routes so we could go around all of them. The third detour went through a lovely Tibetan village, and we stopped at a temple that was beautifully framed against a hillside of turning leaves. There were a few people walking the kora around it, and when we went inside we found the usual shoes scattered about (shoes must be removed before entering the inner areas). In this temple, though, most of the shoes were tiny, and many had cartoon animals on them. We stood still, looking at the murals on the wall, and I heard a low chanting coming from inside. Suddenly the chanting stopped and was replaced with a sudden rush of footsteps. Running monks? Something didn’t quite fit. The door burst open and out streamed about ten little boys, all in dark red robes. They slipped into their shoes and ran outside, laughing and playing together. There was something charming about the combination of the chanting, the exuberant sound of footsteps, one kid holding his teacher’s hand; it was such a normal scene in such a – to us – exotic setting. One of the monks spoke some English and he invited us to tea. He made us tsampa and showed us a coin collection – later we traded some of our Tajik coins for some coins from – um, a dynasty that sounded like a really long time ago (I think we got the better deal).

We made a snap decision to take a shortcut that would involve a ferry across a reservoir on the Yellow River. The route led us through a peaceful corn-growing village where everybody waved and said hi as they went about the harvest. The village was situated on cliffs that fingered out above the reservoir, and we misread the map and ended up at road’s end on one of these fingers. Lucky for us, there was a small footpath that twisted down the cliffside, and we got a bit of single-track riding in before making it to the water. There, we discovered that despite what Google Maps had indicated, there was no ferry at that site – instead, we were told to ride partway around the reservoir where there were ferries. We didn’t think this would be possible, as our map indicated no road on that side of the reservoir. Well, in China, a map can only be good for a few months, the pace of road-building is so intense. The sun was about to set, though, and we didn’t know how far the road went so we negotiated a lift across the reservoir to our original destination. Our private ‘ferry’ was overpriced, but we were rewarded with a view of the lunar eclipse above the Yellow River, and then a full moon to ride under once we got across. There was actually less of a road on that side – it was under construction, and we accidentally rode through some freshly poured concrete before the workers started yelling at us. (Sorry, guys!) Eventually we found a spot to camp right on the shore of the reservoir and called it a day.

Our shortcut meant that we only had about 90km to cover the following day, so we didn’t rush. However, we realized we were near Bingling Si, a collection of caves with Buddhist statues farther along the reservoir. At the last minute we hopped on a boat in Luijiaxiazhen and forfeited about four hours to visit the site. While the art was interesting and situated in a beautiful setting, we both were slightly underwhelmed and somewhat regretted taking such a detour. However, we sprinted the remaining 65km, starting at 3:30 PM, and managed to make it to Lanzhou that evening.

The first part of the ride included 600m of elevation gain over about 20km, but then we were rewarded with an uninterrupted downhill all the way to Lanzhou. Entering the city was chaotic – as we’ve found all over China, the highway was under construction and clogged with traffic. We managed to slip past the idling cars and trucks, though, and found a more pleasant route on a walkway following the Yellow River. It was lined with factories spewing smoke, and the hills on the other side were criss-crossed with what looked like mini terraces to prevent erosion.

Lanzhou is on the edge of the Loess Plateau, a huge area along the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River. It gets its name from the windblown sediment (loess) that dominates this area. The loess is many meters thick and surprisingly good for agriculture, but is also highly susceptible to erosion. Years of deforestation and farming have resulted in extensive erosion, and the Yellow River gets its name from the silt it carries from the plateau. A number of reforestation projects are underway, with varying results. Once in Lanzhou, we navigated to the apartment of a Peace Corps volunteer we met through our friends in Zhangye and were treated to a luxurious shower, spaghetti dinner, and Yellow River Black Beer, the most acceptable beer we’ve yet encountered in China.

After the bikes decided they’d had enough of independent travel and showed up in Zhangye (see our last entry on waiting for our bikes to arrive), we enjoyed a last evening with our friends and left town the next morning. Soon we were in a rural area where the street was lined with cornfields ready for harvest. For most of the day we followed the Liyuan River, and every half hour or so we passed a run of the river hydroelectric facility. I don’t think I’d ever seen such a hard working river. In between there were stretches that seemed free flowing, but then we’d encounter a small reservoir or pipe carrying water down from higher elevations. I’d like to learn more about this technology. It’s not new, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in the U.S. I’m curious about the environmental impact and cost per unit of energy generated, because at first glance it seems much less disruptive than the large dams and reservoirs I’m used to seeing.

In the afternoon, we started passing signs for the ‘Chinese Yugur Amorous Corridor’ (We assumed they meant ‘autonomous’ and not ‘amorous,’ although we were ready to be proved wrong). Paintings, statues, and banners along the road indicated that we were in a unique part of China. Shortly before sunset we found ourselves in the town of Sunan and decided to treat ourselves to a hotel, where we did some reading and learned that the Yugur people, rather than being particularly amorous, are in fact an ethnic group with their own autonomous county. According to Wikipedia, the Yugurs are descended from a group of Uyghurs (the most prevalent ethnic group in Xinjiang) that fled from Mongolia after the Uyghur Empire collapsed. The community around Sunan is Buddhist and speak a Turkic language. Sunan was a pleasant surprise – the Liyuan River runs through the town, and a riverside park is full of statues, people strolling in the evening, and neon lights illuminating the bridges after dark. We splurged on a hotel room for $20.

The next morning, just a few kilometers out of Sunan, the road turned to dirt and started climbing to the first pass of this leg of the journey. As we climbed, it got colder and we started encountering herds of yaks. Tibetan yaks are slightly different from the ones we saw in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan – slightly shaggier and, in my opinion, a little bit cuter. We were grateful for the extra clothes we’d bought at the night market in Zhangye. A while before sunset we came upon a series of what we think were mining camps. A Chinese cyclist we’d met in Kyrgyzstan had written a note in Chinese asking for a place to camp, and we showed it to a woman at one of the camps. She knew exactly what we needed, but instead of having us pitch our tent, they let us sleep in one of the small pre-fab buildings that lined the roads. They also made us dinner; at that point we had just learned how to say ‘want’ (‘yao’) and ‘have’ (‘you’) and we got them mixed up. Luckily, our language difficulties meant that one of the women cheerfully whipped up some egg and onion and we ate that with rice – much better than the instant noodles on the menu. We hung out with them all evening and practiced our Putonghua, and they taught us to count to 10. These were the first Chinese people we had actually spent time with since arriving in the country, and as I’ve noticed each time I cross a border, that first experience helps me feel a bit more welcome and at home in a country.

When we woke up, a light snow was falling and our new friends were worried about us, but we figured we could make it to the pass and get down to a lower elevation where it would be more comfortable. We were right, but the descent was extremely cold and our hands and feet kept freezing and we had to stop and do jumping jacks to warm ourselves up. On the other side, we found ourselves back in a Muslim town, and we stopped at a noodle shop for lunch. Everybody in the restaurant was curious about us and greeted us warmly before finishing their lunches and leaving. We ordered lunch, with the help of an app that screens characters and translates them, and we took pictures with the cheerful owners. However, before our food even arrived, two police officers came into the restaurant and sat down at our table. They didn’t speak much English, so one left and returned with the town’s English teacher. She delivered the bad news: we were in an area forbidden to foreigners and we must leave right away. They were quite nice about it, and we nodded our heads agreeably, scarfed our lunches, and left. We had asked them where exactly the ‘forbidden’ area was, but even with a map we couldn’t get a clear answer. So we decided to lay low as much as we could, meaning no attempts to stay in hotels or eat at restaurants, and a rushed trip into the next grocery store we encountered in order to stock up on food for the next few days. We also wore our buffs pulled up over our faces so nobody would guess we were foreigners. (We totally blended in.)

We rode out of town and into a canyon along the Heihe River, a tributary to the Yellow River. Leaves were starting to turn and yellow trees lined the river. Canyons are difficult to camp in, especially when you’re trying to hide, but eventually we found a spot, right before sunset, where we were hidden from the road. As we biked out of the river canyon the next day, we passed farms where people were cutting hay and stacking it in neat pyramids to dry. There must have been wild mint growing amid the hay, because the whole valley smelled fresh and delicious. It’s interesting to see how different places go about their farm work; in most of eastern Europe, hay was tossed onto a sharp stake sticking out of the ground, making Van Gogh-like haystacks. In the U.S., we bale it. In Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan we saw it tossed onto roofs. In this part of China, it was gathered into bundles the width of a telephone pole, tied with another handful of hay, and propped up against another bundle in an upside down V. These V’s are arranged in rows supporting each other so the fields are dotted with what look like pup tents made out of hay.

We passed through Qilian in the late morning, wearing our ‘disguises’ and racing through the town in case we were still forbidden. In the middle of town we turned right, heading towards the mountain range we’d been paralleling all day. The road went up and up in a series of glorious switchbacks. We’d been climbing steadily since the day before, but it was well-graded and we made good progress. We reached the pass in the late afternoon and that was when we knew we were in Tibet. Prayer flags fluttered in rows up to a Chorten (stupa), and bundles of arrows (piercing through ignorance, I think) were plunged into the ground, with more prayer flags stretched between them. Incense was burning and prayer paper littered the ground. Groups of tourists, having been driven to the top, were posing next to a sign made in astroturf with the pass’s elevation – 4120m. We took the obligatory pictures and enjoyed the view, then headed down the other side.

Shortly before sunset we started looking for a place to camp but ran into a bit of a problem: In China, we’ve encountered a lot of barbed wire fencing, something we really haven’t seen anywhere else on this trip. We’ve been told and read that the government has been requiring the Tibetan nomads to settle, and in exchange for giving up their traditional lifestyle, the government provides a house and plot of land where they are expected to graze their animals. So it was difficult to find an accessible place to pitch our tent, and eventually we turned onto a side road and asked people we encountered if we could camp. This time, the note didn’t work at all – these people were Tibetan and spoke Amdo; like us, they couldn’t read Mandarin. So we resorted to hand signals, and a lovely couple in a tent that doubled as a store motioned to the land outside their tent where a flock of sheep were bedding down for the night. Before we even opened our panniers, though, they motioned for us to follow them across the road, where they unlocked one of the standard government houses and ushered us inside. From what we could tell, this was their house but they prefer the tent. It had three rooms and they let us stay in the main room where there was a wood stove and a kang, or raised platform where mats are rolled out in the evening for sleeping. They started a fire and gave us water to make dinner. In another room, there was what looked like a shrine, along with a sound system with big speakers (we’ve since seen this in all the Tibetan homes in the area) and a photo of Mao. Interesting.

We stayed with another family the following night, although under slightly different circumstances. We had crossed another, lower pass, and as we descended we noticed that we weren’t crossing any streams – the ground was wet and boggy, with muddy pools and no running water. It seemed to all seep into the ground as it ran down from the mountains. It was getting late, so we stopped to ask for water at a house off the road where an old Tibetan lady was standing outside. She smiled and invited us inside, where she and her daughter served us tea and fried bread. We thanked them and asked for water to cook with, and they offered hot water from a kettle – as we’ve since discovered, cold water isn’t really a thing in China (people are surprised that we want to drink cold water). At this point it was getting late enough that we needed to find a place to sleep soon, so we tried asking if we could camp. The note written in Chinese didn’t work, so we showed them a picture of our tent. They seemed to understand but we couldn’t quite tell if they’d given the OK, and then things got confusing. We went outside for a moment, and suddenly the older woman followed us out with the few items we’d brought inside, dumped them on the ground next to our bikes, and motioned for us to leave.

We’re not sure what was going on – the phone had rung a couple times while we were there, and a neighbor had come over, and we think somebody told them not to associate with us. We don’t know if we were still ‘forbidden’ there, but it’s possible that if they had been found with us in their house, they could have gotten in trouble. We felt awful for possibly putting them in that position, but also confused because they’d been so welcoming at first and invited us in when all we wanted was water. We were now in quite a bind because the sun had just set and we had no water and nowhere to sleep and didn’t feel like we should ask other people in the area for help. Plus, a storm was coming up behind us. So we rode on, hoping to find water and a spare patch of ground before the rain started. We’d biked about 15 minutes when a car pulled over just ahead of us. We stopped and when the man opened his door we asked about water. Without hesitation he poured the contents of his thermos into David’s water bottle. Half a liter of tea was nice but it wouldn’t get us very far… He was clearly worried about us and told us the next town was 40km away and that we should tie our bikes to the roof and get a ride with him. We thanked him but it would have been impossible, and we explained in our best Putonghua that we had a tent and just needed water. He thought for a minute and then pointed to a house down the road and motioned for us to follow him. He sped off and we almost lost him, but were able to follow him down a side road. By the time we got there he had a thermos in hand and was talking to the family.

Since we had a friendly translator, we showed him the note and he asked the family if we could camp there – we hoped that if it was risky for them they would say no. Instead, they readily agreed, and then we were able to have them talk to our friend on the phone, who told them that we had food and a tent and just needed cold water for cooking and a place to camp. After everything was fairly clear, our translator-friend left and the family invited us to sit down next to the fire. They served us a variation of tsampa (barley flour mixed with yak butter) and gave us hot water for our instant noodles. Then, they led us outside to their ‘guest yurt’ – a small canvas tent in the pasture, with a raised sleeping platform in the middle. As it was cold and gusty and still threatening rain, we were grateful to not have to set our tent up.

We woke up to snow and took our time getting ready, hoping it would let up. It showed no signs of stopping, thought, so eventually we forced ourselves to get up, say goodbye to our hosts, and ride into the snow. It kept up for a couple of hours, turning into rain as we descended to lower elevations, and all in all it was among the more miserable biking of the trip. Shortly before noon, though, the rain stopped and we were biking under blue skies. That afternoon, we passed by several coal mining or processing operations – trucks full of coal were coming and going and we could see some machinery, but most sites had tall blue fencing around them blocking a full view. In the afternoon, we were faced with a decision: continue on the same road, which was getting busier as we got closer to Xining, or take a slightly longer route on back roads past Qinghai Lake, the largest saltwater lake in China. You can probably guess which route we chose.

The back road was quiet, with only the occasional passing car, and before long we could see the lake on our right. We decided to be proper tourists and visit the Sand Island Scenic Area. We were pleasantly surprised – they let us ride our bikes out through the dunes to the lake, on paths lined with large sculptures made as part of an art festival hosted there. The lake itself was gorgeous – deep blue with a backdrop of snowcapped mountains reminiscent of Zorkul in Tajikistan – but the real highlight was the dune diving. We walked to the top of a dune and did our best to defy gravity. I think we’ve finally gotten all the sand out of our hair, ears and pockets… Of course we lingered too long, and by the time we left the park it was approaching sunset and another storm was brewing. We biked just a short distance until we came upon a cluster of abandoned buildings between the road and railroad tracks. They were surprisingly clean, and we enjoyed another night where we could cook under a roof and not have to set up the tent.

The next day was clear, and we focused on the remaining 130 km to Xining. It turned out to be a lovely ride, since a new expressway meant we could ride on the old highway with relatively little car traffic. First, we encountered dozens of Chinese tourists biking a circuit around Qinghai Lake. It was the first day of Golden Week, the national holiday, and everybody was on vacation. Then we continued on, following a river downstream nearly all the way. After a week at elevation, we were back in a milder climate and the beginning of fall. The hillsides on either side of the river were dotted with yellows, orange and red, and we could see pagodas on some of the hilltops. I felt like we were biking through a Chinese version of Vermont and it made me both homesick and content to be just where I was at that moment.

As we approached Xining, the road went through a series of industrial towns and the riding got less enjoyable. The air was full of dust and the roads were suddenly choked with large trucks, honking incessantly. We have a number of theories about honking behavior in China – are drivers taught to honk as a safety measure whenever other people or vehicles (or bikes) are around, just so we know they’re there? Did they not learn that they need to share the road, and they’re warning us to get out of their way? Trucks rarely slow down in populated areas – they just lean on the horn and barrel through. After awhile, the industrial towns gave way to what looked like entire brand new cities being built on the outskirts of Xining. Clusters of identical skyscrapers lined both sides of the roads, with cranes hovering above them, building away. According to one of the city’s residents, Xining’s population has quadrupled in the last decade, yet the new buildings don’t have tenants – they’re just standing empty. It was an odd feeling to so abruptly transition from grasslands and Tibetan nomads, to chaotic industrial towns, to empty tower blocks, and finally to Xining itself.