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Vietnam: Nha Trang to Da Nhang, coastal gems
July 1st This morning we left the Perfume Grass Inn but not before V gave us some towns and accommodation to look out for along the way. The guys here have been so friendly and helpful, it's been a great 5 days in Nha Trang. It was a short way down the road for one […]
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Vietnam: Saigon to Nha Trang, exotic flavours
June 18th One last breakfast at Kim's before picking up our bikes from the underground parkade and packing them. It was quite direct to get out of the city, we had to follow the Saigon river (Song Sai Gon) for a bit before making our way across it and onto the direction we intended to […]
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Vietnam: Potent Coffee And Tropical Rains
By Richard Clark June 10th: "Good morning Vietnam!" We were on a Singapore Airlines flight and everything was swell – great food, movies and service. It was a few hours stop in Singapore before our connecting flight to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. By this stage we were both shattered because the flight left Delhi at midnight […]
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India: Extream heat and sensory overload
The next morning we made the 4km trip to the border town of Sonali. It was straight forward leaving Nepal and entering India. The first difference we noticed was more dirt and more flies! We decided to take a bus to Gorakhpur since we heard that the road was not so safe to travel on. […]
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Nepal: We Feel Again
We woke up really early the next day, partially from excitement of being free from Tibet and our guides, but mostly from the time zone change – about two hours. Today we knew we had a long day – rumour had it that it took vehicles five hours to drive the 115km road to Kathmandu […]
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Everest: Our Escape From Tibet
You can read about our previous days in Tibet here! Day 7: Numb Fingers and Tears After a hectic day in the wind yesterday I woke up smashed – my face glued to my blow-up pillow. Our guides woke up earlier than usual (think they felt a bit bad about yesterday) as we told them […]
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Pain and Prayer Flags: The Friendship Highway
By Thamar Day 2: To Yamdrok Lake via Kamba-La Pass As I lie in our K-Way tent being battered by the wind while our guides drink beers and play a local Tibetan game called Shoo, shouting “Dzzzup” every time they roll the dice, I have terrible heartburn and a mild headache. This wasn’t from cycling […]
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Cycling the Roof of The World: Hello Tibet
by Thamar After the frenzy of almost three months in China we found ourselves on a plane to Lhasa, Tibet. I say found as we had no idea how we were going to get in initially. If we took a train or tried to cycle in we could be turned back and in any case […]
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We Conquer The Road: Chengdu To Xi'an
By Thamar Having left China to renew our visa in Hong Kong and after being away from the Mainland for a week, we noticed just how different the two places were. Hong Kong was clean, smelt like perfume and people were reasonably courteous. The former British-run and now autonomous region of China, was also really […]
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The Gates of Hell: Yibin To Chengdu
By Thamar We arrived in Yibin just as it was getting dark. The bus ride had been somewhat hair-raising and we’d descended so low into the valley that our ears were blocked. However we’d covered some essential distance of about 200 kilometres to a town on the Yangtze River called Yibin. After seeing the road […]
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Defeated: Huize to Yibin
So I’m sitting here in our hotel room in Yibin after a healthy breakfast for a change - red date rice porridge and tasteless muffins with hot milk. Oh and then I had to do my laundry by hand as dry-cleaning at the hotels here takes three days which we don't have. Richard is sick […]
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Into The Mountains: Kunming to Huize
by Thamar After cycling 700 kilometres in the blistering cold from Beijing up to The Great Wall and then down south to Taiyuan, we decided we'd had enough of the north. The weather was far colder than we could have ever imagined and it just made everything bleak. Then there was the intense pollution - […]
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Heading South To Taiyuan: Our First 700km
by Thamar After our small but rather daunting trip to The Great Wall on our bikes where we covered about 170km we felt a tad more sure of ourselves as we left Beijing the morning of the 10th of February. We realised many things on our first run including, how to deal with traffic on […]
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The mission: Get To The Great Wall
by Richard After our epic and rather arduous cycle adventure (only about 60km) we had a short 20km cycle from Hairou to Miyun yesterday and arrived around lunch time. We battled to find the place we had earmarked earlier - something that's happening more and more - and so we opted for the Home Inn […]
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Rescued By the Highway Patrol
By Thamar We left the comfort of the Drum Tower Hostel at about 9am on the 6th February - our plan was to head out on our bicycles to find The Great Wall - but not before grabbing a street omelette and a McDonald’s coffee. We could have taken a tour to the wall or […]
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Discovering Beijing On A Budget
By Thamar and Richard Our first full day in China Needless to say our first night in Beijing we slept like the dead and awoke to a see that the sun was up but not the temperature - still in the minus (although for a brief moment it may have got into the positive). We […]