We planned to have a long ride towards Shanshan, some 300km away from Kumul. But it only ended up some 90km. I rode to a small town… dont even know the name of this town and it doesnt show on my map. Waited nearly 2 hours for Nancy here… and i became worried already since my phone doesnt work and i cant call her to ask her where is she and what happened. After nearly 2 hours of waiting suddenly i saw her.. riding very slowly and she looked tired. She stopped few times during the ride, because she suddenly felt so tired. We then decided to take a day rest in this small unknown town.

Its a good thing that we took a rest here. Nancy felt very tired and i felt so lazy to cycle today. Probably the weather, i did nothing except eat and sleep… and yea… they have ice cream here so i ate total of 7 ice cream today hehe. Good thing they have a small supermarket here so i bought some food for camping. We need to camp because after this town, theres nothing for at least another 200km. so we will cycle some 100km tomorrow under the hot sun, camp a night in the desert, and do another 100 before reaching the next town available. It is cloudy the whole day today but during sunset, the sky is so clear and the sky color is amazing. Its heaven for photographers here. I then discuss this with Nancy, we dont know why, but the sunset here in northern china is always… amazing. Its beautiful almost every sunset, and i just cant stop snapping pictures. The place i stayed here is full of lorry drivers. Guess its a rest place for them after a long journey of driving. We are the only cyclists here, the rest are all lorry drivers…

sunset in this unknown town

This time, its Nancy’s turn to be sick. Guess its the weather… its too hot here. She even went to a hospital in Dunhuang for an injection and we had to stay another 3 days before our next ride to Kumul… and that made us stayed for a total of 6 days in Dunhuang. The ride to Kumul from Dunhuang is tough for the both of us. I miscalculated. Our next destination after Dunhuang is Liuyuan, a small town which sits 135km north of Dunhuang. I thought its a flat road. So we dont need to camp and plan to cycle straight for 135km to Liuyuan from Dunhuang. I was wrong. We started cycling at around 8 am from Dunhuang which sits at 1160m altitude. I didnt know that we have to climb to nearly 2000m altitude in Liuyuan. And the wind was so strong blowing against us, which makes it much harder to move forward. There was nothing in between, no place to rest and cycling under the very hot weather made us feel weak. Believe it or not, its our first time to cycle in the dark at night and we reached the town at 1am in the morning! We dont have enough water to camp so we have no other choice but to get to the town. At 9pm it was almost dark and i had no more energy to continue. We took an hour rest in the middle of the desert in the dark before continue our tough ride. The wind never stopped but we had no other choice. When we reached the town i have no appetite to eat anymore because i was so tired. I just had a few cold drinks and went to sleep after we found a guesthouse.

We were so tired so we stayed a day in Liuyuan. The next ride was not so hard because it was a flat road, but still hard to move forward due to strong wind from the north. It is very hot cycling here in the desert, but when the wind blows, it gets very cold. This is because the wind blows from the north, coming from artic blowing through russia, resulting to a unbelievable temperature drop when the wind blows. At 1 time the reading on my meter dropped from 46c down to 12c in less than a minute! We rode 90km to a town called Xingxingxia, 90km northwest of Liuyuan, and we finally reached the last province for me in China, which is Xinjiang. Again, we couldnt help it since we felt very tired, so we took another day rest here. Nothing much in this town, its a mixture of Uighur and Chinese Han people. Water and electricity is a problem here. Its a very small town and lots of lorry drivers here too. Nothing to see in this town so we just took a rest here…

Finally we had an easy ride. We rode some easy 150km here which put us very close to Kumul, a big town where there is a bicycle shop. From 1800m altitude in Xingxinxia, we rode down easily to 860m altitude, camp a night and rode another 60km to Kumul, which was easy. We left our campsite early in the morning, and rode easily along a flatroad and reached Kumul around 12.30 noon. Since Im now in Xinjiang, more and more Uighur people here, and i see less chinese. Well, its too early to come out with a conclusion yet, but for now what i can see uighur people are less friendly compared to the chinese. Theyre not so talkative especially to foreigners compared to the chinese. I remember some few days back, a chinese fruit seller at the side of the road saw me, stopped me because he wanted to talk to me. I stopped there to buy a watermelon since it was so hot. But then the fruit seller gave both me and Nancy 2 watermelon for free because he likes us so much. Hehe. I think it is time now for me to pick up some basic Uighur language, since they dont speak mandarin and Nancy cant understand them either. It sounds a bit like Turkish language, for now i know a few basic words like hello (yah-semoh-sis), bye (hosh) and thank you (rahmat).

cute local girl in Xingxingxia

sexxyyy....

tourists riding camels near the Crescent Moon Lake

Finally i arrived Dunhuang 3 days ago, after a harsh day of cycling some 80km offroad from Aksai Kazakzu. I was really exhausted riding to Dunhuang, firstly because the road was still under construction and secondly of course, the hot weather. The highest of the day was some 45 celcius, it was very hot and i felt so thirsty. While riding, i could imagine a mango juice with ice flowing thru my mouth. I then rode fast to Dunhuang and left Nancy behind hehe. Couldnt take it anymore, i need to get water fast. When i reached Dunhuang, the first thing i look was water… cold water… with ice! Dunhuang, is nothing more than a tourist spot. This town was a very important town to Silk Road Travelers in the past, its an oasis town where it was a major stop for Silk Road Caravans. They have 2 famous tourist spot here which are the Mogao Cave, where its a home of a giant sleeping buddha and a crescent moon lake. So from now on, ill be riding along the infamous ancient Silk Road all the way to the Central Asia border. Actually, the starting point of the Silk Road path on the China part is in Xi’an and it stretches all the way to Ankara in Turkey. So actually i dont miss much on the China side anyway, nothing much in Xi’an except their terracota warriors and also the infamous Hua Shan mountain.

camels waiting to carry tourists

Stayed here 3 days, not because i really like it here, but theres so much to prepare on my cycling journey ahead. Currently im researching the road from Dunhuang to Urumqi in the northwest. Its some 1000km from here and will pass by Turpan, another big town which is some 800km from here. Between that i will pass a few smaller towns, and between those smaller towns… theres nothing, except the desert. Another thing, i need to change my sleeping time. After discussing with Nancy, we agreed to start cycling as early as 6 in the morning, and stop somewhere around 11 am. Its too hot in here, we couldnt take it, cycling at some 45-50 celcius. So we will rest at 11am, and start cycling again somewhere around 5 pm all the way to 9pm. Just that im worried because the distance between town to town is some 120-150km, and we cant take a rest in the middle of the desert, its too hot.