What an interesting and sensational area Yunnan is!  Clean air, good pavement, careful motorists sharing the roads with everything else. It’s an economy moved by trucking whether gravel, bricks, fuel, or produce, huge trucks like twenty wheelers grinding up steep hills with water dripping onto the wheel hubs for cooling and making the pavement wet … Continue reading C stands for China. →

Second last ride day.  Nice 500 meter descent out of overcast Pu’er. Many groups of teenage students were walking down the road at 09:15 – a good choice for exercise, allowing some socializing before starting classes. Bernie engaged them and had some fun. There were many tree nurseries where even seemingly ancient trees had brick … Continue reading Pu’er to Dadugang, a small village – March 8 – 74 kms →

The beds were like planks again but not everyone noticed. Pork or vegetable steamed buns and noodles were eaten at low street tables next to school kids wearing backpacks and having their noodles for breakfast. Lots of photos were taken by delighted locals and us.  It’s been interesting to see the changes in the women’s … Continue reading Daheishan today to Jiangcheng →

More climbing today, 95 kms and over 940 meters ascent ahead. Misty out of MiLe.  We stopped for oranges. The vans are kept stocked with fruits and snacks.  This fieldwork continues forever. Never gets boring. We say Ni hao and they say Hello to people walking along the road or standing at a shop watching … Continue reading Day four, MiLe to Tonghai →

Due to rain we elected to take the vans a little further before starting the ride, and the roads were dry. These highways are remarkable. Six lanes are separated by a  thirty foot wide landscaped median, bordered by equally wide landscaped parkways. Watering is done with hoses by many gardeners. 

75 km cycle from Shizong to Luoping with the highlight being the vast Karst rapeseed fields. 

We drove out of Kunming and found the karst area hugely popular and wonderful, with great infrastructure and people moving.  Onto our bikes for 50 kms. We make a crowd, with 22 riders and three cycling guides, two support vans and one bike truck. That’s leader Larry Adamson filling us in.  Farming covers the countryside. … Continue reading First cycling day and visiting the UNESCO Stone Forest of Shilin →

Some call it Culture Shock. Leader Larry, and English speaking guides Wen Chun and Yang Yang explain what they can to 22 people who are rarely facing the same way or can’t always hear.  It is another novelty to have a westerner speaking fluent Chinese. We are functionally illiterate and unable to communicate anything at … Continue reading Culture familiarization 101 →