Street Scene in Chengdu

John and Paddy

Brothers about to depart all loaded up. Destination Kangding.

Stephan and Patrick

Fellow travelers Stephan Mangaud and Patrick Pfahlert at breakfast in
Chengdu the morning of departure.

Chengdu

It's 6.00am on Tuesday 26 April and we are about to go down for a
hearty breakfast before departing for the big hills.

Yesterday was spent buying oxygen bottles and going to the hospital to
get them filled. Then it was on to Carrafour to do some shopping for
things like wash basins, plates, knives and forks etc.

The other members of the team seem less focused on practical matters
like having something to clean dishes in than yours truly. Nothing
like a good list prepared well in advance! Must have learnt that from
my father on our Okarito expeditions.

The customers of Paddys have been great help driving us around the
city in the new V12 Merc to get all the gear, and let night took us
out to a top restaurant for dinner - generosity beyond the call of
duty in my opinion, but all his Chinese colleagues are the same.

So I am hoping that it will be cooler in the mountains, since we
weren't expecting 30 degrees here.

If you find that occasionally things are repeated it's because I can't
read the blog myself - it is a site blocked from Internet access here
unless you have a virtual private network.

Chengdu

Dined tonight at a fiery Sichuan restaurant as the guest of one of
brother Paddy's customers. Great food but my Mandarin is a bit rusty
so conversation somewhat difficult.

Tomorrow we have to get the oxygen bottles and
water for the trip. The planned route is roughly north east from
Chengdu as follows: Ya'an, Kanding, (also known as Lucheng), Luhud
(Xindu), Manigange, to Yushu, this is all mainly on the 317 national
highway.

From Yushu the route is north west to Xining on the main 214 national
highway. Main towns on the way along that road are Madoi and Gonghe.

Not leaving town till Tuesday morning so if this description is
inadequate please let me know and I'll provide more detail.

Daying - Sichuan Province

Well we are sitting in a small pagoda beside a little river in the
town of Daying while waiting for a customer of Paddys to join us for
lunch.

The lady in the tea shop has just served green tea while we wait.
Another really warm day at about 29 degrees. The sky is as blue as can
be expected given the population.

This morning we have been driving through lovely country with lots of
short steep hills and trees. Everywhere you look is evidence of
habitation and the towns are quite rusticated. Usually dirt streets,
lots of people living, eating and working on the foot paths. In the
villages everyone seems to ride a bike or scooter so there is the
usual traffic mayhem.

This town is well known for it's hot pools, but Paddy and I are not
keen on the standard of expected sanitation.

Having said we are waiting for a friend of Paddys the plan has now
changed - I'm learning to be flexible- and we are meeting him in
Chengdu tonight. So we are now on the final 140km into Chengdu.

Lichuan

Stayed the night in the above town after a 14 hour day on the road.
After we left Yichang we got into really beautiful country with really
steep mountains and the most awesome highway engineering.

Dozens of tunnels up to 9 km long. Again all double tunnels with 2
lanes each way - think the Terrace tunnel going all the way to Lower
Hutt and another along side it.

The trouble with the GPS in the car is that it doesn't show the main
road only the G318 highway which it's diverted us onto on a couple of
occasions.

We intended to stay in Enshi but all the hotels were full. We got lost
trying to get out of the city and then spent two hours literally
driving in circles. The city has a small Eifel Tower and a line of
very nice window shop brothels on the main street - you get the idea!

So we went on to Lichuan and have a very tidy hotel.

One of the diversions onto the 318 took us through some very Romanian
style villages, very agrarian. Then via a construction site where
people and cars just walked and drove between all the trucks and
excavators doing the road.

There is a new railway being built from
Wuhan to Chengdu and we have been following that a good part of the way.
It must be costing billions.

Lichuan is 1053 meters above sea level. Breakfast at the Lichuan
International Hotel consisted of dumplings, eggs, a firey hot bean
salad and other hot dishes I couldn't identify. Very nice though.

So it's now 8.10am and we are back on the road heading for Wanzhou,
Nanchong and then Chengdu. We have 460km to go and have done 1552km to
date.