Tour De China 2011

[Mic]

Wow. THis sounds like it will be a whole lot of fun, pain, adventure, lots of highs and lows.

I really hope that your plan of writing a book turns out the way you imagine it at the moment, I love good travel books.

Try to keep us updated.

[Poz]

I don't know if you have or plan on spending time in Yunnan province but I cannot recommend enough going further east than Kunming (which is a cool city to begin with). It is the road to Tibet and there are some great stops along the way: Lijiang, Tiger Leaping Gorge, Zhongdian (aka, Shangri-la), and a very cool very queit very mountainous Deqin.

Pretty mountainous roads at times so I'm not sure how a single gear will be.

[gotham]

Been hunting around for gizmos to use on my upcoming tour. If you have an Iphone, you could use the "TrackMyTour" app..

Just saying is all..

And $3k or even $500 for 20 minutes of blood, sweat & tears is pretty decent.

[mr_fungle]

Originally Posted by Fast Orange

This is the perfect time too as I don't have a real job right now to speak of. The last couple months I've been playing priest, performing wedding ceremonies for rich people. I've done 5 weddings so far and at 500 bucks a wedding it's a pretty good gig for about 20 minutes of work.

So awesome!

[chupacabra]

Originally Posted by Fast Orange

Remember I'm in China. 500 bucks is more like 3 grand here. Also I was only there for two hours and in the spotlight for less than 20 minutes. When was the last time you made 500 bucks that easily?

You have no idea. Gotham has certain "talents".. from what I hear.

[Fast Orange]

Originally Posted by Poz

I don't know if you have or plan on spending time in Yunnan province but I cannot recommend enough going further east than Kunming (which is a cool city to begin with). It is the road to Tibet and there are some great stops along the way: Lijiang, Tiger Leaping Gorge, Zhongdian (aka, Shangri-la), and a very cool very queit very mountainous Deqin.

Pretty mountainous roads at times so I'm not sure how a single gear will be.

Yeah if I arrive in Kunming earlier than expected I'll def. go further east.

Maybe I could even try and be super ballsy and sneak into Tibet by bike sans tour guide and permit lol. Epic but unlikely.

[tacklebox]

How in the crap did you get into performing marriages?

[Fast Orange]

Originally Posted by Oxymoron

How in the crap did you get into performing marriages?

One of my good friends here works for a photography company that mainly documents weddings. They always work with the same high end wedding planning company and the MC asked them if anyone knew a foreigner who could speak Mandarin to act as a priest. He gave me a call and asked if I was interested.

They were happy with my first performance so they've been asking me to do more. Only crappy part is sometimes there's traveling involved but no biggie.

A few crappy iphone pics from the day before the wedding:

The venue from the outside,

The venue from the inside,

My friend and his colleagues getting their gear ready,

[Poz]

Originally Posted by Fast Orange

Yeah if I arrive in Kunming earlier than expected I'll def. go further east.

Maybe I could even try and be super ballsy and sneak into Tibet by bike sans tour guide and permit lol. Epic but unlikely.

I met a couple guys that tried exactly that actually. They got in a couple Km and then were stopped by the police. Apparently the police were really friendly, if not annoyed, and drove them and their bikes back to the China side.

It is a helluva a road after Zhongdian, narrow and mostly dirt.

There are "guides" that will get everything arranged and even escort you in and then you are free to "lose" them on your own.

[Adam West]

Originally Posted by Poz

I don't know if you have or plan on spending time in Yunnan province but I cannot recommend enough going further east than Kunming (which is a cool city to begin with). It is the road to Tibet and there are some great stops along the way: Lijiang, Tiger Leaping Gorge, Zhongdian (aka, Shangri-la), and a very cool very queit very mountainous Deqin.

Pretty mountainous roads at times so I'm not sure how a single gear will be.

by east do you mean west?
cause im fucking confused

[Joe Dick]

Originally Posted by Poz

It is a helluva a road after Zhongdian, narrow and mostly dirt.

that was the best part of the ride from chengdu. though after a few days over 4000m I was pretty thrashed.

yunnan is pretty cool.

[Fast Orange]

Originally Posted by Joe Dick

that was the best part of the ride from chengdu. though after a few days over 4000m I was pretty thrashed.

yunnan is pretty cool.

What kind of bike were you riding?

I'm hoping to stick to the pavement whenever possible so if the national road turns to dirt maybe I'll just poach the expressway or something.

[Joe Dick]

hummer with a 4" fork and old man mountain racks.

here are two shitty pics. dont know why i like them but I do.





your route looks good for what your after. i'd gone tree planting -> mongolia -> china. I was fucked up the whole last leg of this trip.

[Fast Orange]

Originally Posted by Joe Dick

hummer with a 4" fork and old man mountain racks.

here are too shitty pics. dont know why i like them but I do.

your route looks good for what your after. i'd gone tree planting -> mongolia -> china. I was fucked up the whole last leg of this trip.

Fucking Epic dude.

You're way more loaded down than I'm planning to be but then again I'm not planning on doing any camping outside if I can avoid it.

Autonavi is a pretty awesome iphone app. Full offline map of China complete with hotels and I've looked along my entire route and it seems like I'll never be more than 50 kms away from lodgings.

[Joe Dick]

most of the gear was for mongolia. had to be very self sufficient as there are not a lot of towns there. dead weight for lots of the china leg. though at times I was glad i had it. could have ditched it and curled up in a tarp (Corax et al)