TravellingStrom

Mayan Prophecy Countdown

A bit of a bonus this morning, the view from the hotel window was boring, but it was clear, so it should make for a more enjoyable ride after 2 days of sandstorm as we skirted the desert. I also found a flower on my seat, not sure whether someone likes me or they think I have smelly bum breath?

We all needed fuel, but after seeing the mess once again of the watering can fillers, I left and headed off by myself, I found fuel 40km up the road and they let me fill it myself, what a winner

I had what seemed to be a slow leak in my front tyre and I had no tyre gauge, I had not seen it since lending it out in Naryn. While I was pumping it up and using my boot as a pressure gauge I attracted more attention from the local travellers

Back on the highway and all along here for the next 100km or so I would see peppers being dried in the sun, they are probably the very hot ones 🙂

Quite often there are check points, usually military, sometimes just police. What they do is block off the main driving lanes near a servo entrance, forcing you into this exit, then if they decide to stop you and ask for your passport, or just a squizz and a chat then you stop, or they just wave you on. It is no bother but I still have no idea what the checks are for 🙄

But, while there I did get to see a traditional Mongolian Shrine up on a mound, very Mongol looking with the tridents sticking out

Not long after this we hit the twisties, I happened to be with Iain at the time and we fanged it through here, a buck twenty at times, mind you the speed limit was 60!!! Having two lanes going in the same direction was brilliant, except when a truck is passing another truck around a blind corner, LOL

We ended up meeting some of the others at a servo for some package noodles for lunch before continuing, I snapped Iain and Neil during the ride.

More twisties YEAHHHHHHHH!!!!!

After we cleared the mountain range the road descended quite rapidly and the temperature rose in direct relation to elevation, it was cooking at the bottom!! The weird thing was the roads, very fast smooth and flat, great perfect condition, then there would be a series of speed bumps across the road, disguised and no warning, the first one of each group certainly woke you up!!!! As we continued through the heat we passed Lorraine who had started earlier and rode a bit slower 🙂

Passing a servo we noticed the massive car carriers, double top deck, 40m long and carry 20 cars at a time, back home these would need a pilot escort, but over here, who cares!!!

Not long after this we found an ideal place to stop, the info centre, here was shade and cold drinks, the perfect place to regroup for the ride into the town of Turpan and the Turpan Hotel, which looks a lot better than it actually was, but as foreigners we are limited in our choice of accommodation.

This hotel had a lot of space and seemed to be the place of choice for the desert riders, many had either not arrived yet or were out playing in the dirt.

We had a quick beer up at the local cafe where the tiny kitten was the star, even if it was asleep 🙂

This is where some of the trip problems happened, the wanker had decided not to come to the hotel, and in fact had taken an incorrect road on purpose and decided to camp out for the night, in direct disobedience of the rules and regulations as laid out by the Chinese government and the tour company. The rest of us headed off to town for some food and beer. We ended up at a cook your own joint(no fried rice again). What happens here is the large bowl in the middle has two sections, one with ‘hot’ spicy liquid, the other had ‘mild’ spicy liquid, it was sitting on a burner and started to boil. You then go to the fridge and grab these thin skewers of stuff, which could be vegetables, meat bits, seafood bits or whatever. Some things had a few skewers in them, some had one skewer with a few bits on it, you then stick them in the liquid of choice and cook em. We had no idea how long to cook them for, it was trial and error, it was different and fun 🙂 At the end of the night they count how many skewers you have and charge per skewer. It was a very cheap night, with beer and all the food, about $10 a head, brilliant 🙂

After that, we went and found a night market area again, Benny finally found us and we sat around drinking penguin beer again 🙂

So, another late night in a China town having fun, in the morning we had to be up early to ride to the start of the desert race, so brekky at 8am was called for!

Cheers from Turpan, China
TravellingStrom