Our three days of rest in Yangshuo were overshadowed by some pretty grey and rainy weather but it also allowed us to relax and not feel guilty for just hanging out in the hotel for a while. We used a dry afternoon for a cycle around town and visited the famous Moon Hill. From Yangshuo we cycled one more day to the city of Guilin where we got on the train to Kunming, Yunnan, the next day. Checking in our bikes with the freight company China Railway Express turned out to be a bit more complicated than taking the bikes on Thai or Vietnamese trains but once we packed our panniers in some boxes and removed all the moving parts of our bikes, they checked all our gear and we had no hassle with it on our 19h overnight train. Our hard sleeper carriage was comfortable enough and luckily we had a bottom and a middle bed and did not have to climb to the third level bunk. After arriving in Kunming we had to wait for two more hours until we could pick up our bikes and then we made our way to Claire, our Warmshowers host in town. Our time with her was lovely, we had great talks and within the two days we spent with her, we decided to take the bus to the city of Dali the next day to get away from the big city quicker.
Getting our bikes on the bus turned out to be a bit harder than we expected as the luggage compartment under the bus was too small to fit our bikes. After a long back and forth the driver allowed us to take the bikes inside the bus and we stacked them on the last row of seats where they were safe and we could have an eye on them. The 350km to Dali took us 6h and we then cycled to the ancient part of the city that is well known for its old buildings and history. Initially we only wanted to spend one night in Dali and keep going the next day but over Warmshowers we got in contact with Clara, a Swiss cyclist who was planning on heading in the same direction as us. She wanted to go hiking the next day and we decided to join her. We were motivated when we started the hike at 11:30am but soon we realized that we had bitten more than we could chew. From 2000m we were planning to get up to 3800m to visit three lakes in the mountains but at 3000m we encountered an unexpected obstacle: Snow. In the beginning it was just a tiny patch next to the track but at around 3400m the whole track was covered in snow and we had to admit that we would not be able to go any further. The hike still ended up being stunningly beautiful and we had a great time.
The next day we started cycling again and we teamed up with Clara to cycle together. Our next destination was the city of Shaxi that was said to be a lovely anxient city in a valley close to Dali. After our first day of cycling through a beautiful valley we found a lovely spot to camp close to the river and we ended the day with some dinner cooked on the campfire, watching the stars and enjoying our time together. In the morning it was just 7 degrees but once on the bike we were not cold anymore. A pretty long and hilly day of cycling got us all the way to Shaxi where we still had time for a walk around the old town and to have some great dinner in a local restaurant. In the evening we decided not to keep on cycling the next day just yet but to spend another day exploring the area. We found a lovely hike up to a temple in the mountains that took us half the day to complete and even a little bit of rain could not take away from the beauty of the scenery. Traveling with Clara is amazing as we have great conversations and her ability to speak Chinese is just amazingly helpful.
From here we will keep heading North towards the famous Tiger Leaping Gorge to hike some more before we will head off to Shangri-la and the really high mountains (the highest pass will be 4700m, let's see how that will turn out) :-D.
Keep cycling and some good tailwind,
Greetings from China,
Vroni, Droni and Joni
