By Andy
Note: With Alexis having moved on to do his own thing, there’s now no one keeping a diary of daily events, in English, French or any other language. I’m going to attempt to pick up some of that task, but being as unreasonably wordy as I am and only having so many hours in the day, I’m going to have to limit it to some of my more memorable riding days. This is one such day.
We set out from Lancang late in the morning as has been our habit lately after two days of rest and a woefully low-budget celebration of Devi and my four years together. In the dreary city of Lancang we’re unable to find even a restaurant with four walls. Fortunately, my mom has sent over a bottle of Cuvaison 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon for my birthday, and after finding a couple wine glasses at the local supermarket, we manage to make a memorable evening out of it at a Sichuan restaurant down the street from our hotel.
We hear from numerous people that the road from Lancang to Lincang is torn up and under construction for the entire 267km. The willingness of the government here to inconvenience people on that sort of scale continues to amaze us. I just try to imagine heading onto the road from Harrisburg to Philadelphia back home and seeing a sign that says, “Construction next 100 miles.” But in China, there’s no sign, no detour markers, and the road is under construction for 165 miles. Having gone nearly insane a few weeks previously on a similar, 60km stretch of under-construction national road through the mountains a couple weeks previously, we decide to take a radical route through the mountains, even though the thought of the switchbacks on Google Maps make our stomachs curl.
The road starts out pleasantly enough as we move out of the rather miserable county seat of Lancang and past about a dozen fish farms selling tilapia fry (there are also shops in town selling expensive fishing gear for those who want to go dangle a line in one of the small ponds). We hit the first construction just as the sky begins to turn an ominous dark gray and the wind picks up worrying notch, and we seek shelter under a gas station that has been converted into a rebar-welding depot for the construction work. After 15 minutes or so there’s still no rain in sight, and we continue on our merry way.
It turns out the road is not nearly as bad as we imagine, as most of the construction of the new highway is being done high above on the mountain while we crank along on the old two-lane road far below. I start thinking, “If it’s going to be like this the whole way, we might as well just keep going and skip the crazy mountain route.” But not wanting to jinx things I keep my mouth shut. (more…)
