Do u know whats the magic about traveling by bicycle?? Its that theres always a place to sleep :)

After weeks spending time in the desert, in the remote areas of northwest China, Im finally back to the civilization! Wow.. tall buildings huh? Street lights, shopping complex, good food… mmmm… oh and not to mention… hot… blistering hot.. girls! I dont really find Uighur girls hot.. but Kazakh girls, they really made my jaw drop to the floor. Will take a few day rest here before the final chapter of my ride in China towards the central asia border, which will take maybe less than 2 weeks to the border. So far, heres my stats for now…

Distance cycled: 4430km (at the time of writing this)

Current luggage: +-30kg

Top Speed: 79km/hour

Longest ride of the day: 213km

Shortest ride of the day: 46km

My current condition: Strong like a horse, nasty like a tiger :)

Days since i start pedaling: 94 days (including rest days)

Urumqi, a very big city, i guess its bigger than kl. the locals here still living in fear, after the big riot on last year’s july between the Han Chinese and the Uighur. The uighurs wanted independence from China, start killing the chinese, and Beijing answered back by hanging some 24 Uighurs, blocked all internet access and text message to anywhere outside Xinjiang province as it was used to plan all the attacks. At the time of writing this, internet and international calls are back. There were a bombing yesterday in Aksu where 4 locals died. Well, im heading there in few days anyway… Hope they wont bomb a man with his humble bicycle? :) The locals dont even go out at night here because of fear… but in my case.. its different. I went out for a while last night in search for food but it didnt last long. It was cold last night and i didnt bring my jacket. Hehehe.

Hang out with a fine local Kazakh girl yesterday, she speaks quite good english. She was fascinated about my cycling journey, and saw the pictures i took on my laptop. She gave me her number so that i can call her out today but things went bad. My phone suddenly out of credit, and i cant even received calls and text messages. When i wanted to topup the credit, i learned that i cant top it up here in Xinjiang, since i bought the number in Qinghai. Ouucchh… bad luck. Stayed in a dormitory, and there was a girl from Thailand slept next to my bed. She just came from central asia trip, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. She listened to my cycling stories, and i told her my next destination is Kyrgyzstan, since Pakistan is badly flooded now. She then told me the Kyrgyz are not so friendly to foreigners, they only wants money. Oh no… ahh.. doesnt matter huh. I cant judge a country only by 1 people’s opinion. Will see it for myself. On top of that, Im going Kyrgyzstan for its beautiful mountains anyway, and mountains never ask for money :)

Also met a german guy who stayed in a same room as me too. When he saw me, he asked, “are you a cyclist? are you the one who own the bicycle outside?” When i said yes, he started to tell me his cycling stories. He cycled from Shanghai to Hongkong 2 years ago. He covered 2200km by bicycle and also by train on some parts, for 2 months. And he said he carried less than 10 kg luggage. Ahh.. now i feel better… at least im not as slow. And he was impressed that i cycled 4400km in 3 months with some 30kg luggage. Well, its not about how fast u ride, its about what u get from your journey. If u want to be fast, use a motorbike. Ive read about a guy who cycled 30000km in 300 days, around the world. Well that doesnt really impress me, u cycled so fast that means u really concentrate on the cycling, missing all things u should experience. The slower, the better, means u spend more time on your surroundings.

a group of makciks in Segamat, Johor... eh.. i mean.. Erdaoqiao Bazaar, Urumqi...

mmm very cute kazakh girl... :)

As im going further to the north, i see more and more trees, and its grassland! No more desert for me… well at least for now. Because the route i choose after this is going south again after Urumqi, towards Bayingolin. I have a year China visa, and i only stayed 3 months here so far, hmmm… why not i just cycle aimlessly without  having a deadline? :) Urumqi is not far from Kazakhstan border, only few hundred kilometers away to the west, but suddenly now i decided to turn south :)

The landscape around where i am now is magnificent! It is something new to me after thousands of kilometers riding along the desert, the grassland here makes me feel like im more in Mongolia than China. Only thing is, the population here are mostly Uighurs and Kazakhs, instead of the Mongols. Besides that.. i feel like im now riding along the Mongolian grassland. Passing by countless windmills along my way near Urumqi, with snow mountains (Tian Shan mountain range) in the background… it was simply amazing. It was a good 90km ride to Urumqi, no ruthless wind slowing me down, the ride was peaceful. But i felt quite sad, its the last day of me riding together with Nancy. Her journey will end in Urumqi, then she will go to Beijing for a week to meet her parents then back to Guangzhou. After around 7 weeks riding together with her, facing the good and bad moment together, sure im gonna miss her… like sooo… much!! Uhh… ill be alone again… :(

Im finally in Urumqi while writing this. Will stay here 3 days before heading to Bayingolin. I guess ill ride fast to Bayingolin, which is around 400km away. Ill be riding south, and hopefully this northern wind that slowed me down all these while… will blow me fast towards Bayingolin. From there i might enter the Taklamakan Desert for the second time towards my way to Kashgar, the last town for me in China. From there i will see if the Karakoram Highway is open again. If its still close, then i will pass thru Irkeshtam pass to central asia, and the mountainous central asia adventure will begin :)

The ride to Urumqi was very very toughhh!!!! The terrain is quite flat, its a climb but only around 100m vertically for every 5km, the road is good but the wind… constantly blowing against me. Its like this northern wind doesnt want me to proceed north towards Russia! And it seems like the wind wants me to go to India! Why wind why? I even stopped riding at 1 point and start talking to the wind, “Woi dah dah la tu!”, hoping that the wind understands malay? :)

The ride from Turpan to the next available town is only some 40km away. Without bringing any food and much water, we rode to the town. The unexpected headwind really slowed us down, it took me 10 minutes to cover 1km! The 40km ride that was supposed to take less than 2 hours ended up the whole day, making me didnt eat for the whole day and became so weak. The next day was the same, i only ate a little during breakfast and after whole day fighting the strong wind, i became sick again. Didnt eat proper and ended up losing appetite to eat. When i forced myself to eat… i vomited few times. Once we reached the next town i had no more energy and decided to take another day rest before reaching Urumqi.

At 1 point while i took a rest, i met an engineer doing some work at the roadside. He started to talk to me, he speaks good english. He then started to ask me the usual questions, like where did i start my ride and where am i going bla bla bla. Then he asked me how old am i. I answered 30, well im going to be 30 in 10 days anyway :) He then said that hes 30 too and asked me what is my job. I told him i was a lecturer before, but now im jobless. He got shocked for that, and told me in China, job is very important to a man. When a man loses his job here in China, its like the end of the world. I then told him yea actually its the same everywhere nowadays, but i like to be free like a bird. His face somehow tells me that he really disagree with me and looking down on me. Well hehe thats to be expected. We are at the same age, but hes look much older, like someones father. Uhh.. i guess he must have kids then.

I dont know, after that conversation, while i continue resting and enjoying the scenery, i started to get emotional. Hmm… i have the freedom, free like a bird, but im nothing compared to him. I assume he has a family, probably good salary, a house, car etc. Me… the most expensive thing that i posses now is my bicycle, followed by my camera, tent, sleeping bag, toiletries, clothes and LITTLE money inside my bank account. My friends back home, most have stable jobs, some have kids, uhh… some even have 3 kids already hehe. Some, 3-4 years younger than me, also already have kids, and look much older. Well im not complaining, each soul in this world is unique. I understand that… just that when u choose 1, u will lose another.

A 90km ride to Turpan was supposed to be easy. Because Shanshan is some 700m altitude and Turpan is below sea level. But the last night i was in shanshan, i ate too much. Uighur food is so similar to our malay food… i ate some very delicious rice with chicken curry. Ate too much and it was late at night. The next morning i didnt feel good, but i rode to Turpan anyway. After 50km cycling, i stopped by a shop to have a cold drink. Right after i finished the ice tea, i vomited few times. I didnt feel good then, and the next 40km ride to Turpan was very slow and tough under the hot sun for me. I couldnt stop since there was nothing in between and it was very hot. So i need to get to Turpan fast to get a good rest and shelter from the strong fierce sun.

Turpan…. is a small city which is the second lowest place on earth after the Dead Sea, sitting at 165m below the sea level and is just another tourist spot. Its 1 of the top tourist destination in China. I dont really fancy this. I never consider myself as a tourist. Im more of a traveler. I usually dodge tourist places because its all fake. When I went to Jiaohe Ruins, an ancient city very near Turpan, I saw 2 very beautiful Uighur girls dressed with a unique traditional Uighur costumes. I then asked them if i could snap their photos. They say yes, no problem but i have to pay 10 yuan. I then felt stupid, i should have known that they dressed that for the money. So i started to think, that its just plain fake. All the tourist spots here are flooded with tourists. Theyre rude, dont know how to queue properly, shouting all the time, i then didnt stay long in these places since i dont want to get stucked among them.

I went to a famous Afghan style tower, Emin Minaret, 3km west of Turpan city, also another sad case. They told me i need to pay 300 yuan to get in. Uhh… 300 yuan just for few minutes to be inside that building. Forget it, i rather  go to Afghanistan to see those towers… at least theyre the real ones! So i just spent most of my time in Turpan recovering from my sickness. Eat as much as i can, try to get healthy again before another 200km tough climb to Urumqi. Well, im not fasting now actually. I decided to continue riding because i plan to celebrate Eid Ul-Fitr in Kyrgyzstan, wanna check out how the Kyrgyz muslims celebrate Hari Raya. Will pay back the fast after im done with Russia… maybe ill do it during winter in Kyrgyzstan.

sunset in Uighur village near Turpan city

another sunset view in Uighur village

mmm black powerrrrr.....

me fighting the fierce headwind

Our ride to Shanshan was tough for the first day. Some downhill and some uphill, but constantly getting a strong headwind, slowing us down by a lot. We had a very strong headwind almost the whole day of our ride, making us riding only 80km before reaching a campsite. Nancy told me she cant take it anymore and need a rest. We then found a very nice spot to camp. It was almost sunset so we camped in the desert. Very nice view, surrounded by mountains but very strong wind, making it hard to camp. We had no other choice and it was very hard to setup the tent… wind was so strong. We were at the highest point since we reached Xinjiang province few days ago, its some 1600m altitute here at our campsite. Climbed some 500m altitute today, while fighting the strong headwind, gonna be a good rest tonight….

its getting darker. The ghost is approaching!

A few minutes after we done setting up our tent, some chinese tourists came to our campsite. They talked to me and found out that im a foreigner who doesnt speak good mandarin, so they talk to Nancy instead. As usual… they thought both of us are heroes, cycling for thousands of kilometers. They were very kind to us and gave us a few mineral water, some redbull, some nescafe and 3 large size nan! Ohhh… we had more food than we could eat! Nice… i dont need to cook. That night i couldnt sleep early, so i decided to watch prison break on my laptop. Hehe. Suddenly Nancy shouted at me from her camp… she told me she was afraid… because she heard a young girl screaming a few times already. I then asked her to move her tent very near mine. Few minutes later i heard it too! Twice! Kinda scary… first i heard a young girl screaming so loud from far. A few minutes later… it was the same scream but nearer to our campsite. Im not so afraid of these things anyway, so i told Nancy to take it easy, while i continue watching prison break. Well, a friend of mine (Ismail) heard a girl crying in the middle of a desert in Dunhuang, some 5 years ago when he traveled China. He was camping too in the middle of the desert that time. It cant be the wind… impossible! It was really a girl shouting….

uhh... theyre soo.... massive!!!

Without thinking too much of the ghost, i went to sleep right after finish watching prison break. I was too tired to think about any ghost. I slept so well and woke up some 7 am the next morning. As usual i wanna watch the morning view and have my coffee. When i came out from my tent, i was like “Wow!”, our campsite was surrounded by camels… so many of them! I feel like im in a field of Africa, except that this time im surrounded by camels, not zebra or lions. I then went back to my tent, grabbed my camera and start…. snapping!!!! It was at least 100 of them. Maybe they surrounded our tent because they were looking for food. Then Nancy came out from her tent… and she was screaming, exciting when she saw those camels. The camels then started to move away from us.

Qiketai at sunset

We were lazy today, and we packed our stuff very slowly. After done with breakfast and packing, we started to ride at around 10. The first 50km is tough. Its flatland, but still, fighting the strong headwind again!… made the ride so hard. Took us 4 hours to complete the 50km! I then cycled at my own speed and left Nancy behind. Stopped at some point and waited an hour for her. When she arrived, she told me that shes very tired. So i said okay, we cycle some 20km more then we camp again. So i told her to take a rest for a while and i continue to cycle another 20km. After only a few meters of cycling, suddenly the road is going down, and magically, a fine tailwind started to blow me, pushing me fast! After an hour of cycling, i covered easily 40km, and the altitude is down to 900m from 1600m. Ohhh… this is so good. I kept on cycling another hour, and covered easily another 30km. 70km in 2 hours mmm… then i think we might just as well catch the next town, Qiketai, its only 10km away. I then waited for Nancy 10km before the town. We then took dinner and cycled another 10km before reaching a guesthouse in Qiketai. We rode 130km today and it was easy for the last 80km thanks to the tailwind and the fine downhill. We are now sitting as low as 600m altitude in Qiketai.

taking a rest here after a tough 50km of cycling, waiting for Nancy