Unfortunately my camera battery has given out so no photo on this belated report but judging by the himalayan scenery I have already encountered you will be sick of the sight of specacular mountains by the time i reach the plains of India in a few months time. Patience is after all a much sought after virtue!
Kunming reminded me and my trusty 2 wheeled steed of all that we have forsaken on my quest for the holy Dubh Linn. A comfortable city life with a great collection of friends complimented by a not too shabby night life and adding to this the bewildering process of how the Chinese manage to get anything done with such a flipant attitude to deadlines and you may begin to understand how difficult it was to tear myself away. But torn I am in Lijiang safe in the knowledge that I will return to this fascinating country for a concerted time sometime in the not so near future. Now is not a time in my life I care to stagnate so onwards and with the route in mind very much upwards.
"But wait" I hear my cultured reader remark "surely you are in China until you cross in to Nepal", how very astute of you to notice, though indeed I will be in china for a further two months in a poetic and bohemian manner I will from hence forth consider myself in Tibet. I am writing this with with one eye over my shoulder because if the communist party caught wind of the last sentence I could promptly be lying in a Lijiang jail having bamboo trees being grown through my naked torso!. I am nearly sure that does not go on any more but it adds some dramatic affect to this rather mundane paragraph. It is rather hard to keep this free thinking view of a Tibet when every inch of historical cobbled streets are infested with massive camera toteing Beijingites willing to steam roll over any unfortunate soul who gets between him and his flag waving tour guide. Up to now I believed the middle aged french tour group to be the plague on all places of natural and historical beauty but it seemed the devil had another card to play on the unsuspecting traveller.
This town like the last (Dali) are indeed beautiful but they bring to mind that if you got lost between "Thunder Mountain" and "Sea World" you may stumble upon Walt Disney's impression of what Olde China looks like, though I dont think Mao had his wicked way on these towns during the cultural revolution, I am sure they are not in their original state, I have even been told that the women in the indiginous Naxi tribe dress who perform the traditional dances are actually actresses brought from cities to the east. How deliciously irreverent this country is.
Back to the basics of this voyage, though as before mentioned I was dubious to leave Kunming getting back on the bike quickly reinserted the joy of the road in to my soul. I camped my first night last night feasting on home made noodle soup surrounded by fledgeling fir trees and forrested slopes reaching up to the dizzy heights of 4000 metres, an aperitif of whats to come.
A recouperation day tomorow before passing through "Tiger leaping gorge" on the way to Zhongdian where my intrepid cycling companion Vince will have his first run in with the law as he pleads his case for a visa extension. My mind boggles with the thought of crossing check points at night, camping for 2 weeks straight during the monsoon and cycling passes of up to 5200 metres but right now I would not be happier sitting anywhere else in the world.