2-wheels 1-world 0-money RTW

[Open-Explorers]

I got up early in the morning. My travel companions and I haven't yet talked about when to cross the border, but I didn't wanna start off by holding them back. The air was clear and the border-town streets were more lively than when I arrived, although not by much. The iron gate to China was still closed, but some of the trucks had their engine already running and queued up in anticipation. I packed everything on my bike and I had a quick breakfast while keeping an eye out for my new friends.

"You have to wait until 11am before you can cross" said the Nepalese customs officer. The others groaned. "How can this be? 5 hours to kill… Is there no other way?" My traveller friends were not happy. Admittedly, we had a tight schedule in Tibet. Along the route, we were supposed to report on all checkpoints on certain dates. If we were late, we would get into trouble. This could mean hefty fines. But I thought 5 hours won't make the difference. If I had known what obstacles would lie ahead and how they would set us back, maybe I wouldn't have been so relaxed about it. I invited the the Nepalese customs officer for a cup of coffee and talked to him about the weather for a while. He was very friendly. And I don't know why, but suddenly he let us pass the border without the wait. Maybe the coffee was so bad, he didn't want to get offered another one. My traveller friends were happy about this and congratulated me on my strategy. I never told them that this wasn't a strategy, I just wanted to share a cuppa with the guy.







Our joy about not having wasted time lasted not very long. At the Chinese side, we were told to wait again. "Technical Problems" they explained. We spend almost the entire day in no-mans-land between Nepal and China. Five in the afternoon the Chinese guide was let through to us and we could get the border crossing sorted. Yeah, we are in Tibet! We covered about 30km and the sun was about to set when we came to a road barrier. "Road constructions". This time we got no explanation by anyone. The workers played some board game in their shed and used their hands to mime us "Chill out, wait an indefinite amount of time and use it to do what you like." It must have been past midnight until the first trucks came through from the others side. By then I had already gone for a wander to see what's going on. The road construction must have caused a landslide and a bulldozer was trying to clear it. They only managed one lane in the 'shortness' of time. It took a long time until the train of trucks coming from the other side trickled out and we were allowed to go. The first day of our Tibet expedition started early, lasted way past midnight, included a whole lot of waiting and brought us not farther than 50km in total. Ok, this needed to improve, otherwise we'd get in a lot of trouble.

[Open-Explorers]

For a long time I hadn't had to be concerned about time or deal with a concrete schedule. But when travelling through Tibet with your own vehicle, the money you pay to the Chinese government for permits and all, determines how much time you get to play with. Apart from falling behind in our schedule we had another problem. We would be travelling at high altitude for a while. And to prevent altitude sickness, which is not something you should take too lightly, we were supposed to adjust slowly. Going up maybe 1500 - 2000 meters in a few hours and then going down again wasn't so much a problem. But if you spend a few hours up at these heights, or even spend the night, this can kill you. I think there is a rule of thumb. I'm not entirely sure, but it's something like: "Don't sleep more than 800 meters higher than the night before." Obviously this only applies above 3500m / 11500feet. No problem if you sleep at the beach and then go up 1500m / 5000feet.











Due to our setback in time, we couldn't make the stops as planned. Some days we would cross a number of high mountain passes and when stopping at the peak, taking pictures for a few minutes made us realize pretty quickly you start to feel light-headed and soon start to feel sick. It's like when your whole body hates you. The a quick descent into the next valley would immeditately help. We knew however, that further East of Lhasa, we wouldn't have opportunity of going down again for a while. We would be riding / driving at 14000 feet and higher for over a week with no way down. And this is when I got food poisoning from something I ate…

[Eldon]

This is the first "Ride Report" that I've been hooded into reading. Great write up and pictures. I can't wait to hear more!!!

[slide]

Originally Posted by Eldon

This is the first "Ride Report" that I've been hooded into reading. Great write up and pictures. I can't wait to hear more!!!

I got hatted myself.

[vintagespeed]

great report!

[ValuePack]

Now *that's* a journey.

I'm in.

[Reidy008]

having traveled alot and been in some good and bad situations I am so in for this. Are you doing the movie in two halfs?

[oalvarez]

intense....following along....thank you for the amazing story and pics thus far.

[Open-Explorers]

Hi guys, thanks for your encouraging feedback. I'm sorry I've been absent for a while –*I went to Milan to attend the EICMA. I helped out friends at MOTOinfinito and represented the Ted Simon Foundation. It's been great, but exhausting too.

@Reidy008: Yep, I'm going to do it in two parts.

STORY CONTINUES
Our guide was a very nice and kind young man. He tried everything he could to make this part of our journeys as enjoyable as possible for us. I never found out how he got to the Nepali border to meet us and I don't know how he got to wherever he had to go after he wished us farewell at the border of Laos at the end. He just appeared and disappeared. And in between, he had this smile on his face. He either ride in the camper-van or the truck. All he had for luggage was a small daypack and a sleeping bag tied on top of it.

The larger the group, the bigger the chances of someone having some troubles with something. Over 12.000 feet, the camper-van's injection pump was playing up wildly. In the cold, the truck's diesel filter would clog from the lousy fuel that we got in Nepal. After the cold nights, my bike would only start after the camping stove warmed up the engine block for half an hour. In addition, we poured boiling water over the cylinders. Some of us would suffer from altitude sickness more than others, but we all agreed, most challenging was getting good food in these remote areas. We always had to go into the kitchen and point at things. Not only because of the language barrier, but also because we wanted to avoid eating rat.



Sometimes we wouldn't make the checkpoint. This one day, the camper-van stopped working altogether and we had to fix it. This also meant spending the night in between places. It might not look it, but the 4-wheelers are pretty crammed with equipment for their long journeys. So there was just enough space for me to fit in the truck with the others for the night. Our guide however, didn't pull out a 2 square-meter heated, survival capsule out of his daypack. We explained to him, that we are stuck and we don't know where he can spend the night.










I don't really know how he did it. But he stayed cool until way after dark. At some stage he just jumped onto this one military truck that came by (the only other vehicle we had seen the second half of that day) and waved at us. I'm not sure where they let him sleep, but he was back the next morning before we were all ready to drive on. And he still had this smile on his face. Amazing guy. Amazing Tibetan guy.

[on2wheels52]

Wow
Jim

[gallinastrips]

Wild

[hendikaf]

It will be nice to have some more details info about the trip , road taken , where did you work , budget spent along the road... or do we have to wait for the film

[Big Daddy D]

Yes!

[DestinationUnknown]

Originally Posted by hendikaf

it will be nice to have some more details info about the trip , road taken , where did you work , budget spent along the road... Or do we have to wait for the film

+1000

[hendikaf]

NO news yet I will have hope for some more news but I guess now that the "sponsoring "is finished it will take time ?. I was so curious to see how one can work in underdevelopped countries and make enough money to travel , I went around the world and cannot imagine working in a rice patty or as a laborer and make enough money to fill up my bike , eat and sleep somehwere. I must not be smart enough . I went to the site and no info there , just 5 to 10 lines per countries which is a bit sad too .I was not expecting a perfect tread like "Jammin " or "estonia" or many others but after such a great adventure we should have more to see .....