After being in Pakistan this is the most space we have had for months

Like a kid on christmas morning

Loud music woke us up on our first morning in China. Looking out our window we saw the local school children dressed as everythign from soldiers to chickens. This would continue for three days

And so we started riding in the desert

Turns out it’s pretty big

The only shelter we could find was the odd telephone mast

And vast oasis cities built by the chinese

Howdy partner

Hugo ‘ What is it, a dust storm or just haze?’ Andre ” I don’t know but it’s getting closer’

I’m going in!!

Really??

We’re neever going to see him again

Baby Bactrian Camels

Ohh what’s over there?

Not much going on in the desert

Pretty much this view in everydirection for a week

Dad are the same the world over. ‘No this is how you do it’

It’s a bad sign when the milestones are the most interestuing things you pass

Somewhat less important then our joint birthdate but still notable

Smile everyone

No muslim dress in the bazaar

But east asian fashions shows are encouraged

Setting off from Qiemo for about a week crossing a where we think there will be a road

After weeks in the desert we were nearly in the mountains

Our expedition starts

the tarmac ends

and the washboards begin.

Hopefully this wasn’t an omen

Roads climbing this steep are usually fine. When they do it over sandcovered switchbacks, progress gets slow

Slow and steady

A wild swedish cowboy in his natural habitat

Fleeing the dust

This was the complex which turned us back. They claimed it was a national park ahead and we needed a permit from Beijing. I don’t know why a national park would need such a large army barracks but we didn’t stick around to find out.

Walking to our campsite

Hard work riding in the desert

Dogs in tibet are big

Dragging our bikes back to the road after camping

Today wasn’t bad, we only needed to push our bikes for 1 hour over this hill

Riding with camals through a gorge is pretty fun

The camels are suprisingly fast

Glad to be out of the desert.