Sunday 25th July 2010

Today was the best driving day!

The mountains spectacular, the road challenging, the weather great. Wow!

Already the houses are having a Tibetan influence as we climb higher into these incredible mountains.

It just gets better as we climb.

The bitumen ended only 5kms after leaving the gorge and the mountain trail was mostly one way for many sections.

Constant visual is maintained on the road ahead as it zig zags endlessly up these huge mountains.

Those air horns are used on many a blind corner as the road doubles back on itself.

In places the road is very muddy and slippery; there are no side protection barriers to keep you from the 1,000meters below.

Every corner gave a new mountain view.

Just wow!

More Wow!

And in places very slippery so hang on!

As we neared the top, trucks are also using this road because the main road to the west is closed due to construction and one has become bogged in the middle and everything is stopped. Finally the truck behind decides to pull it backwards and we all give a hand to rebuild the road with large sheets of shale.

The highest point of the road is 4380meters, unfortunately we cannot stop. Firstly there is no space and secondly we are only two trucks in front from an open road ahead. If we stop we will have 15 or so very slow trucks to follow downhill.

The storm clouds start to blow in and soon the road was more interesting with a wet surface.

The Tibetan houses are now dominant  the area and are ornately designed. They are 3 or 4 story in compacted white painted mud bricks. The ground floor is used for storage and for the animals. The second and maybe 3rd floor for living, and the top floor is for the Budda.

At Xiangcheng we found camp in a car wash area for Y10 /vehicle. As we are now in Sichuan province, which is Andy’s home state, the food is usually very spicy and thus dinner was, however it was also very good.

We retired quite early it had been a great day but an exhausting one.

Camp 51: Xiangcheng Town Square Camp -2900 meters

N28* 56.352  E99* 47.872

Max Altitude Today: 4380 meters

Distance Today: 118 Kms     Total Distance: 9100 Kms

Date: Monday 26th July 2010

After a good night’s sleep we took advantage of the car wash area to hose out the breaks and radiators of all the road grime they had acquired.

With our destination of Lintang being at 4,000m we all took the start of our altitude tablets, ½ last night and ½ this morning.

The road is good bitumen and a reasonable width, yet still carved out of the mountain side.

As we climb those prayer flags appear on the blind corners.

Four children give us the young pioneer salute. They work hard in school to earn this title and are awarded with a red scarf.

Yaks are now the dominant domestic stock.

At Mount Kuluke we cross our highest pass to date at 4708m.

Down the other side we plateau out at 3,900 and these three cute children are rewarded with a Koala each and are all smiles.

They run to Michaels and Sarah’s truck for some colouring in pencil rewards.

Following down the hill this tractor truck we are carrying on a hand signal conversation. They are laughing because our steering wheel is on the wrong side!

Lintang at 4700m is our highest camp to date. It is a strange town – very country.

Old men walk the town carrying their prayer wheel and chant as they walk.

Our vegetable seller.

                                                And our Butcher in a suit!

Little bottoms EXPOSED!

A great place, full of interesting sites and people

Camp 52: Lintang Suburb Camp -4014 meters

N29* 59.030  E100* 17.450

Max Altitude Today: 4708 meters

Distance Today: 211 Kms    

Total Distance: 9311 Kms