That’s it I’m out!

It took a while to get out of China. Seven weeks for the 4000 km from Chengdu to Kazakhstan. The provinces Sichuan and Gansu were very mountainous. Sichuan is green and fertile. Once rolling over the mountain pass into Gansu, it got much dryer and dusty.

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Right at the first day I met Frances from the Bahamas. She was on her first long cycling trip from Hong Kong to Mongolia. We cycled 4 days together and had a good time. Her grandmother spends 24h in church every day praying for her save passage, so she will be fine for sure.

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On the pictures (above) you can see Gansu countryside and its people. Many people are Muslims, you find a mosque in every small town. The agricultural work is done like in the old days with plough and an ox.

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On the pictures above you can see the fortress of Jayuguan. This place marks the beginning (or is it the end) of the “Great Wall of China”. The Hexi corridor, the area between the northern edge of the Tibetan plateau and the Gobi desert (Gansu province), has always been an important trade route known as the “Silkroad”. Jayuguan fortress is built at a narrow bottleneck defending the ancient Chinese empire to the west and north.

In Xinjiang the real desert starts. It was pretty hot and windy sometimes. I am already a bit late to go back to Europe, but May was still the perfect time to cycle North-West China. Unfortunately my good camera died and the desert pictures are taken with my phone only. So the quality is not the best.

I met a few chinese cyclists and we travelled together. That was really nice!

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The last few pictures could have been taken in the Alps of Austria. The landscape is green and mountainous. It’s the north westernmost tip of China, where the Altai Kazak people live.