I got stucked here in Urumqi city for days and days.. and days. Selma and Asli, the turkish girls left to Xi’an some few days back. Elinor, the aussie girl left to Kashgar. The 2 german cyclists left to Tibet, Bruno, the french dude left yesterday to Shanghai. Only few of us left in Urumqi. Selma and Asli, if ure reading this, i wanna tell u, im bored here after u guys left but i managed to get pascal on a bike! :) Its getting colder and colder here in urumqi… yerrk! Be safe n have fun especially when u guys are in my country and make sure u try the beriani rice in a bangsar if u guys are in kl! try using ur right hand to eat rice just like us malays :) Hope to ride together with u guys nxt yr in turkey (Pascal might join us!) if everything goes well for me in kyrgyzstan…

After some time staying here in Urumqi, i saw so many “boys in blue” (police) walking around, and even army! Especially southern part of the city, where most Uighur ppl are. I guess its the consequence after the riot last year… i think… Every shopping mall u go, theres a guy in uniform will check your bag. Sometimes i get annoyed, there was once where i was quite moody, the security stopped me from entering a supermarket to check my bag. I was like, ” Hey boy theres a brand new AK47 inside my small bag, and a bomb. Wanna check it out?”. The security guy ignored me completely, checked my bag and let me go… Well.. i felt kinda disturbed because so many websites cant be accessed here, it gets annoying sometimes…

Im stucked here in the city for almost 2 weeks already i guess, while waiting for my Kazakhstan visa. Uhh.. took them a week to get my visa done… blehhh… Hopefully will get it by tomorrow and on tuesday i can start riding again to the mountains, away from civilization! Been spending most of my time with pascal and bruno these last few days, pascal treated me for dinner on my birthday :) Well, the most interesting thing happened lately? was that i managed to convince pascal to cycle!! At first, it was just a normal conversation, i was telling him my cycling stories, he got inspired, looking at my blog, and suddenly he told me.. why dont he do the same. The next day, he then asked me to company him to a bikeshop near our hostel. And the next day, he decided to get one! Hmmm… 3 days to convinced him to get on bike. Now, he decided to ride from Urumqi to Xi’an, take train to Kunming in downsouth, then cycle again to vietnam, then cambodia, laos, thailand and malaysia! Hehe… he is now my 2nd apprentice, after Nancy :) Taught him many things about traveling by bike, what to take and what not to take and so on. Told him dont worry about not getting the most expensive bike from the shelves, since i met a crazy italian guy riding from beijing to lhasa with a single speed bike! He then bought a quite good giant bike, 2600 yuan (similar to our 1300 ringgit) and all the necessary equipment, and soon will be ready to rock the road, just like me :)

Pascal, the dutch guy posing with his brand new giant bike, ready to rock!

As for me, i hope to get my visa tomorrow! I hope there wont be any problem with the kazakh embassy in urumqi. If everything goes well, i will start packing tomorrow and will be back on the road on tuesday! I will ride with Pascal for the first 2 days heading south through the moutains of TianShan. Then pascal will turn east towards Turpan, i will head west towards the border. There wont be any towns and villages available for me for at least 400km, before Nilke, so im gonna pack tons of food and water. Ill be riding alone, so i will ride as fast as a horse towards the border (i hope).

the path of the 2 cyclists… heading to our own destiny