24/6/25
Now a familiar noise, we woke at 7:30am to somebody deliberately coughing their guts up. While eating a little bit of fruit with brown sugar buns, and drinking coffee, we met Miguel and Chloe. They’d been travelling for about a year. Overland on foot, from Spain, and tried to minimise their use of flights. They were heading to Lijiang. We’d considered going ourselves but it had ended up not being the right choice for us. They’d only arrived the night before and were leaving already. We thought that was a shame. Kunming had been a haven for us.
We left at 10am, our lofty goal of 8am was a nonsense. It took far too long to get all our bags down from the seventh floor. We were fortunate enough to ride one road 11km north, feeling sluggish after four rest days. Probably a little too long to stop riding, but we quickly fell back into cycling life and the flashing surveillance cameras. Longquan Road led us to the S101. Leaving Kunming would require us to climb.
Turning out to be an easier than expected climb, we soon hit 2300m before we rushed down the other side into a valley. From here we went up and down. Passing through some nice quiet towns. We saw a lovely market with at least a dozen types of delicious mushrooms for sale. Yunnan is renowned for its fungi. We bought some bayberries from a small stall and stood by the side of the road to eat them while a tame rain cloud blew overhead. Then we continued downhill.
We hit the bottom at Aziying. From here it would all be uphill again. When the Sun came out, it was scorching hot. Definitely more summer than spring. We stopped for a break before our second big climb of the day. We munched some soy based snacks and an ice cream. The available accidentally vegan brand was always gelatinous rice based. The climb began gently and wound through a little gap in the hills above terraced fields and their workers. It was a beautiful day. Sunny, with a a cool breeze.
At the top we looked out over the most magnificent view of the mountains yet. We were up at 2300m again. Then we began our ridiculous descent. We spiralled down through the mountain for several kilometres. At the bottom a small 50m climb sucked the life out of our legs. We passed through a farming settlement. It’s funny how much more beautiful agricultural looked than at home. Maybe it was the more condensed use of land.
Another descent and we were lower down than when we’d started the day. Kedu was a 5km detour from our route but the only nearby place with a hotel. The road was a slightly uphill slog. The woman who owned the hotel wouldn’t stop giggling like a little girl. Jonathan found it so frustrating. She also refused to let us use our phones to translate, and continued to speak and speak regardless. Eventually, after Jonathan translated an apology that we couldn’t understand anything, she started speaking to our phone. She also began typing on her phone in mandarin, which we had to photograph to translate. Our bikes went in her grain store, our room was two floors up. Simple, but very clean.
We went out to a restaurant across the road. It was the first time a Chinese restaurant didn’t have any tofu. The man was helpful and we ended up with a bowl of noodles with a few green leafs. Lashings of pickles went on top. The man was keen to take photos with us and even added us to WeChat. Our first ‘friend’. He didn’t understand why we didn’t have anyone else on WeChat. Some young people arrived too and we chatted to them briefly. They were all different ages, 15 to 20. The eldest boy said he wanted to be “the boss” when he grew up. He had no idea what of.
We walked around the quiet town, much to the locals amusement. Inexplicably wide streets made it impossible to hide. In the supermarket we bought some cheap soya snacks for the next day. Frankie found some vegan malteser lookalikes too. Back in our room we watched Forever and Amandaland. Frankie wasn’t impressed by her ‘choco balls’. Edible but not quite the chocolate biscuity dream.
Surly They Won't Make It 