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I'm currently holed up in another sprawling and traffic congested Chinese city, Mianyang to be exact, after one hell of a ride from Lanzhou. My legs are thoroughly worn out from the endless mountains, my head is still spinning from the complete and utter madness that is this country and my eyes are just beginning to comprehend the amazing beauty and diversity of the landscapes and its people. I should explain. Having been here once before six years ago backpacking in Beijing

I left bright and early as I knew I had a huge day ahead of me. After about 10km’s, and having stopped for a whopping great big bowl of porridge, banana and a huge splattering of honey, I began. I cycled through these quaint little villages with lots of traditional architecture gracing many of the facades. I got a few thumbs up from the locals here too, which in my view at least, is never a good sign. It usually means something meaty is about to rear its head. And so it began

Leaving Lanzhou Having somehow found my through the midday traffic of Lanzhou, getting lost numerous times beneath the flyovers and twelve lane roads in the process, I faced exactly what I had been led to believe – an endless uphill slog that went on for the rest of the day but which culminated in a long tunnel at the top of the pass. It felt strange to be traveling through China, a nation so thoroughly populated and bustling with activity as to make the previous months seem

8th November ​ I arrived safe and well in the city of Lanzhou having survived my 42 hour train journey. In the end everything went well on the train apart from a woman whom joined the train after 6 hours and slept opposite me. She had the most annoying habits like eating little bits of chicken and dropping about half of what she picked up on the floor. Pretty filthy if you ask me. She’d also eat with her mouth open and she became irritatingly loud, so loud in fact that I put

Having escaped the border crossing, I found my way to the expressway which indicated 110 km’s to Kashgar. I couldn’t wait. With the only things on my mind being a big modern city and all the comforts that went with it, I cycled on with much gusto and energy. Being down to such a relatively low altitude now, the heat was pretty intense and so I stopped for a while to reduce my layers and to take off my silly but warm Russian hat and of course to eat some porridge. Cycle tourin

Becoming a little stuck in Sary-Tash, Kyrgyzstan. How on earth do I cycle to China? I woke up the following morning to a village covered in a fresh, thick layer of snow and a road that seemed impassable. Both Brecht and the other guy wanted to leave straightaway and head to Bishkek, the capital some 800 km’s away but by the looks of it, they were in for a long wait too. To their great credit, they got the bikes out of the shed and spent half an hour chipping away at huge chun

Currently in Longnan, China. This is very late but up until now I have been thoroughly disconnected from the wider world due to the compromising firewall that prevails here. Thankfully, I now seem to have found a way around it. This post was written some time ago as I was leaving Kashgar behind. I have only posted up to Murghab back in Tajikistan in the past week. I’ve had electricity. I’ve had surprisingly fast internet and I’ve certainly had enough time so what are my excus