Portrait of an LBX

By Evan

Now, after over ten months of munching away the dry bottom layers, we have finally arrived at the icing on the cake of our adventure: Qinghai. This, the fourth largest territorial unit in the empire and birthplace of the current Dalai Lama, embodies nearly every reason we undertook this colossal ride: pristine natural beauty, life highly unadulterated by the worst parts of modernity, and for once, healthy resistance to mainstream ideology. The green, spacious province was also the intended target for my China ride in 2007. Thankfully, however, a grocery store clerk and hobby cyclist outside of Chengdu managed to convince me that my friend and I were unfit and underprepared for biking of that order.

Truly in 2007 I was in no way ready for this territory on my folding Dahon without camping supplies, warm clothes, or bike tools (I didn’t even carry any chain oil!), and so I probably owe my life to that grocery store clerk I found riding outside of Chengdu. This time around, however, we’ve built the entire trip — endurance, equipment, etc. — around our eventual arrival here in the northeastern corner of the Tibetan plateau, the challenges of which we have met in stride. This, of course, flies in the face of nearly every Han we told of our eventual arrival here. The vast majority was convinced we’d meet with something between certain doom and probable vexation in the territory of the rowdy, lawless Tibetans. In the end, they were right about the trouble, but completely off base on where it would come from. (more…)

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By Evan

I said we’d go looking for Tibetan shenanigans in that last post, and boy, did we find them! We’ve seen and done so much in the last few days, I’ll do my best to redact and break up details. By the way, all the Tibetan names below have been changed and no pictures are included… just in case.

So out of Shuajingsi (刷經寺), we climbed and climbed all morning until we hit 4345 m (14,255 feet) and descended miraculously into the wide open grassland. Immediately we came across herds of yaks, nomadic tent clusters, and huge mastiffs — sure signs that we had entered the Tibetan regions. If the yaks weren’t enough to confirm this, the massive military presence sealed the deal. Behind the tourist trap tent city where we had our first real Tibetan meal was an encampment of hundreds of military tents, dozens of howitzers stationed on the road, and all other manner of malevolent machinery.

Thankfully though we were too lost in the scenery to care much about politics for awhile. These landscapes up in northern Sichuan are like something from another world, endless rolling hills of green sprinkled with yellow and purple flowers like the world’s biggest king cake, skies bluer than the deep ocean, and more clouds in every direction than I could even see in a dream. The place makes Yellowstone look like the Jersey Turnpike! It has also been refreshing, to say the least, to take in deep cycling breaths in some of the world’s cleanest (if thin) air, all the more striking due its proximity to some of the world’s dirtiest air. (more…)

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