The ride along the Tian Shan mountains was simply… marvelous. Uhh.. i couldnt think of any better word to describe the ride. Sorry i couldnt share the experience with u guys, the best i could do is to share it in form of writing and photos. The road was bad and dangerous, so theres almost no vehicles passing by this road we were riding. The road was ours for the whole day, quiet, we only heard the sound of nature, water from the river, the cold siberian wind and birds. Riding under the clear blue sky, sunny day with the tailwind blowing from the north made our ride pleasant. We rode fast because it was mostly downhill and we felt like flying with our bikes, the eagles led us, enjoying the view, listening to our favourite music once in a while, taking a good nap by the river… feels like heaven! Tian Shan ride is definitely better than Tibet, in my opinion.

just a little.. urmm.. tired…

It was late at night when we reached this town and we had hard time seeking shelter. We were tired, sleepy and had little energy to pedal. It was another problem finding accomodation here, most guesthouse here dont accept foreigners. We kept finding and it was tough, none of us speak chinese and most of these people are not used to foreigners, so they dont even know how to read our passport. After few times trying, we tried just 1 last guesthouse, if it doesnt allow us in, we will find somewhere quiet and camp. Lucky us, this last guesthouse allowed us in. At least we could smile a bit, a tired smile. The next morning while walking around town, another group of police came to us, and same thing happened!! They told us no, we couldnt stay in this town, its forbidden for foreigners! Again!!! Where was the warning hah? Whats up with all these not allowing foreigners in? Do u have some kind of a nuclear weapon here or what??? And told us to move to Baluntai right now! I then explained to the police with my little mandarin, that the police in Baluntai said that foreigners are allowed here and they sent us here! These Henjing police then told me that maybe that Baluntai police doesnt know that even Henjing doesnt allow foreigners. And they told us to ride back to Baluntai and stay a night there. They said that Baluntai isnt a problem, they accept foreigners. Oh wow.. sweet! You china police are so consistent! Baluntai police sent us to Henjing, then Henjing police wanna send us to Baluntai. Whats wrong with all of you, boys in blue???

Sorry for being rude with my words, but i think i should express my feelings now at the time of writing this. Those police are heartless, wearing that blue uniform really turned them arrogant. Bunch of animals in uniforms! When they smiled at us, its a fake smile. Theyre giving us problems but without solutions. They were rude, and they think wearing that blue uniform and holding the police identity card makes them untouchables. Bastards! We already explained to them what happened, but theyre so arrogant to understand us. Heartless people… useless… brainless… I dont see the difference between people who have no brain and animals. Same categories. Now, i really dont have the mood to continue my ride here in China. Im sorry to all of you cyclists out there who are reading this, but now, finally, i will hitchhike. Im hiding here in my guesthouse the whole day  today for the necessary rest, and early tomorrow morning we will ride in the wild again.. and for me… i will seek help from lorry drivers, or trucks to send me close to the border… then will only ride again once i passed Kazakhstan soil. For Pascal, he will try to hitchhike to Turpan or Dunhuang or Urumqi, whichever easier for him, and he will get to Holland embassy to complain about these police. He even took the police ID card number so that he could do something about it once he reach big city. As for me, i will try to email Hu Jintao. Hehe.. maybe its hujintao@gmail.com? or h.jintao@gmail.com? or hujintao@yahoo.com? or maybe hujintao@qq.com… whatever.. i will try :) My first plan is now to hitchhike all the way to the border, if i couldnt do it, then i will sneak through the mountains, escaping those nasty boys in blue. Now, i rather face wolves rather than cops. Wolves are better, theyre sexier, at least theyre not wearing those horrible uniforms. So if you guys dont hear anything from me for the next few days, dont worry, because up there in the mountains, and unlike Tibet, internet connection is hard to get in Tian Shan mountains. This might be my last post about biking in China. My next post will likely be, a new adventure… hitch hiking in China! :) Again, im sorry for my rude words in this post… Salam and ciao! :)

sejuk dowh…

It was weird today. At first it was sunny, then the evil looking clouds started coming in. It is the end of summer now but it was snowing! It was actually a heavy snowstorm when we were climbing, which makes it harder to climb to the top. We were freezing at about -5 celcius. We didnt expect this and Pascal was wearing short pants haha. Pascal was so afraid at 1 point and said this snowstorm could be very dangerous but i calmed him down. We rode to the top successfully anyway. It was around 6 pm when we reached the top but we didnt stay long, since it was way too cold for the both of us. After done snapping photos with some other chinese tourists at the top, we quickly rode down.

some unknown town, they have a guesthouse here so i slept here for a night

I expected the ride down would be marvelous but the first 15 minutes was horrible! My hand were freezing i actually thought i caught a frostbite on my fingers. It was so painful, didnt know what to do but to continue the ride down from the peak since i need to get to the lower altitude fast. I never felt this kind of pain my whole life. After about 1/2 hour riding down, i managed to get as low as 3400m altitude and the pain was gone, the ride became marvelous. The sunlight and the blue sky finally appeared again and i felt warmed again. The ride was really good, i went fast from 4280m altitude down to some 2000m altitude in around 2 hours. Passed by so many beautiful views of mountains and small kazakh villages under the blue sky and the beautiful sunset. I finally stopped at a small unknown town (never exist on my chinese map) and waited for Pascal, then stayed a night here. We were the only tourists here, most people who stayed here are lorry drivers so the locals here were very curious at us.

beautiful kazakh village along the tianshan mountains

Nancy, if ure reading this, im sorry i couldnt reply ur sms. My phone is barred again, weird, i rarely use it. Just to let u know im doing well here and will enter Kazakhstan from Korgas. U should have joined me, riding along the beautiful Tian Shan mountains now all the way to the border. But it is so cold up here yaiks! Hope ure doing well in Guangzhou, but dont dwell too long in the city. Your place is here on the mountains and u should be with us cyclists :) Hope u will be back on the road someday…

it was snowing n pascal was wearing short pants haha

the scary clouds approaching!!

kazakh mother and son preparing food

at the top of the mountain pass

us backpackers… our last moment in urumqi…

After 2 weeks stucked here in Urumqi city, I finally got my Kazakhstan visa. It is time, to be back on the road again! After days and days staying here in a city, I finally can hit the road again, back to the place that I should be, the mountains! When i was in the embassy to pick up my visa, many curious kazakhs people came and tried to talk to me. I realized theyre not speaking chinese to me. I concentrated to listen to them and finally i got it… theyre speaking russian! Heck, i know nothing about the language, so i spent most of my free time learning russian on the internet. First i learned about the alphabets, and its Cyrillic… which consists of 33 letters, some borrowed from Greek n Hebrew. Gosh… gonna be a hard time learning russian, with my malay tounge. But i like the challenge :)

taking a rest between rides

I felt quite sad to leave this place, met so many travelers here. Met another Israeli traveler here, very friendly woman. She even invited me to cycle in Israel and she said could host me. I was tempted to show her my passport, that we cant enter Israel but… that might not be a very good idea. Hehe. Pascal is with me now, riding with me for some distance, before we separate on our own ways. Our first day of ride wasnt so pleasant. The first 20km was boring, took us quite a while to leave the city, then slowly, less and less vehicles along our way. The terrain was quite flat at first but it was mostly gravels. The second day, we started to climb, from 900m altitude to some 3000m altitude. Tough ride, we were climbing all the way. The locals here were so nice to us, provided us shelter. We havent camp so far, because the curious local people here wanted to host us. We didnt do much, probably some 50km daily now, since we were climbing all the way. And yes, the climb here is much tougher than our Cameron Highlands road. It was steep, riding at very high altitude, and the temperature?… It was 4 celcius at 1 time.

Stayed in a very warm Kazakh family today. We were riding through the mountains, tired of endless climb, and at some point, we found a Kazakh yurt. Went in search of water, they finally asked us if we wanna stay a night in their place. We agreed and they cook delicious food for us. It was a very nice experience living with this warm Kazakh family, the experience that i will only get when travel with bicycle. Im so glad im cycling, most of these experiences that i had, i can never get it if i book a travel tour and travel by group with other tourists. Me and Pascal spent most of our time playing with their 3 yrs old lovely but aggressvie kid. It is cold here at some 3000m altitude. We are expecting tough ride to the mountain pass tomorrow, getting ready for subzero temperature!!

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

Salma’s future is revealed!!! lol…

I was lazy in Urumqi. Stayed here longer than i planned. I hang out with other foreigners in my hostel… including 2 german cyclists who cycled here from germany! They have a blog too and u can check it out, http://www.aufudavon.de/ Well its written in germans, but try to use google translator to convert it to English. It worked on my lappie. They cycled around the same distance and time as me too. The funny part was, they cycled some 4000km of distance, and been to so many countries. Me… i cycled some 4000km of distance too.. but i cover not even 1/2 of China! :p Now i realized how big China is, if i cycle in europe, i would have cover so many countries by now… But 1 thing i realized, even tho i only cycled quarter of China, i experienced so many cultures already. I experienced the Han chinese, then slowly it changes to the tibetans, then to the Hui’s, then the Uighur and also the Kazakhs. Not to mention the landscape, from the very high altitute snow mountains to the second lowest place on earth in the desert, they have it all :) It is so interesting and i strongly recommend Western China if u guys are into outdoors, nature lovers, have a strong interest on experiencing these unique cultures… and… dont mind the toilet. :) Ive been to the worst toilet my whole life.. also here in western china. What an experience… huh??? :))

chilling with salma and asli

Hannah the german girl

I feel so good to meet all these backpackers around the world. U know im jobless now and i quit everything in kl to do this, but here i feel so good. We hangout together and all of us in the group are jobless. Yeap… jobless guys and girls from different nations hanging out together. Some germans, irish, turkish, israeli, dutch… all over the globe.  When asked, all of us gave the same answer, we all hate the routine life… U know whats fun to watch? i wish to see 2 backpackers, 1 from israel and 1 from iran… sitting together in a same table enjoying coffee. must be fun to watch them talk huh? ehehehe.

Xinjiang Autonomous Region? or Turkistan?? :)

I hangout mostly with 2 Turkish girls who stayed in a same room of mine. We went to a people’s park very near our hostel. We met a local Uighur girl, Vinira, and she showed us around town. Ive learned that the Uighur people here are actually Turkish people! They speak almost the same language, ermm.. probably like Malay and Indonesian? The Uighurs can understand them when they speak Turkish, and when we were walking around the park, some Uighur community here were listening to Turkish songs and dancing! These 2 Turkish girls, Salma and Asli, joined them! They told me its so similar to Turkish traditional dance and were so impressed, because after traveling more than 5000km from their homesoil, they met a community who speaks almost the same language as theirs, dance like them, dress like them and also eat the same food as them! They even refer Xinjiang as Turkistan! Oh and i dont know why, is it because im homesick?.. but some of these Uighur girls look a lot like us Malays…