Slipping in to the Forbidden Land of the Gods
Day 11 of climb; Unmapped border area of Kashmir; GPS blinks – I’m at the start of ‘the‘ valley
It’s 5,100m, dark and super cold. I’m into the second week of a tough climb; pulling, pushing and throwing my bike on ice – a lot of ice – a dirty great glacier. I’m looking for [...]
“You won’t find Shambhala on any map”
And so I set off to find more clues on my quest to learn more about Shambhala. I ride north west from Lijiang and make my way to the beautiful Lugu lake before crossing over to Sichuan province. After two days riding in heavy rain I find a sign which says “Welcome to Shangri-La”! I [...]
Arrived in Lijiang – time to go!
It seems that no sooner I have arrived, it’s time to go again – that’s life on the road I guess.
Lijiang is a total shock to the senses. Busy alley ways, hoards of Chinese tourists buying everything from cowboy hats to Yak meat and all manner of trinkets. Just finding my way through the old [...]
A hidden valley – but for how long?
It’s not often I feel sad to leave a place when riding my bike. Usually I’m super excited to get cracking but last week I left a beautiful tea horse road node village and felt, well, sad.
I intend to go back in 5 weeks and will write more about it then. I was lucky enough [...]
How do we get across those mountains then?
Tim was worried that if we were left out here for the night, we would surely perish, Andy was pretty quiet and I began to really feel the cold. 45 minutes went by and still nothing. I was starting to shiver now and I was beginning to come around to Tim’s thinking.
