The World's Most Boring Post.

As I've recently been informed that we have been miserable failures at updating statistics, route and logistics.  That is because I find all three of those things terribly boring.  What I don't find boring is steampunk, but no one wants to read about that.  Because my mom asked very nicely, I am doing a boring "where are we" update post.  I had meant to let you be able to follow along on the super sweet google map thingy I put on the sidebar, but since blogger is a capitalist running dog invention, and the reds hate running dogs, I have been unable to update it.  So whip out a map, pop some popcorn, stare at a picture of me looking strikingly handsome and get ready to follow along on our travels for the last weekish.

 

We left Golmud by road and headed to the historically important town of Dunhuang.  Dunhuang is famous for all sorts of things.  We did not see those things. Instead we ate 5-7 chocolate shakes a day.  The 4 day ride from Golmud to Dunhuang put us through some of the most intense desert I have ever seen.  It looked like China grated their entire country for miles.  Having seen a fair share of Chinese "public improvement projects" I would it put it past them.  We averaged about 120 kms a day for the four days.  On the last day we woke up to rain and instead of riding in the morning we hopped in a giant dump truck and rode for about 100 kms.  The passenger side door broke midway through and I had to hold it shut for the last hour and half.

 

We knew we were running out of time on our visa's and decided the only way to get done what we wanted to do was jump on a bus.  From Dunhuang we took an overnight bus to Turpan, the second lowest point in the world.  Getting on the bus was a wreck and ended with a standoff. The driver tried to overcharge us for our bikes but not before i got both feet on the bus and refused to budge.  The bus left 30 minutes late, but we weren't charged for our bikes.  Us ransacking bus stations and fighting with giant crowds of people dedicated to ripping us off, was a common theme for the next two days.  This post is even boring me.

 

Turpan was a cool town and after turning the bus station upside down and fighting everyone in it, we got fair price on a ticket and headed towards a town outside of kashgar. The bus took a midnight detour, without our knowledge, and headed through the Taklakaman desert and dropped us off in a town called Hotan.  Another fight ensued and we ended up on a bus to Kashgar for free.  Well not for free.  Our bus driver paid another bus driver for our tickets so he didn't have to deal with us anymore.  10 hours later we were in Kashgar.

 

Kashgar is AWESOME and will be for another 10 to 15 minutes.  Unless you are in China right now, and headed this way, you probably won't get to see  what makes this town so amazing.  The Chinese have an untold dedication to destroying everything and anything that is interesting or worth seeing in their country.  It is astounding to watch 700 year old neighborhoods smashed to dust by back hoes and dump trucks.  Their occupants carted off to concrete projects and hideous strip mall architecture replace everything they hold dear.  I think I'll write more about it later.

 

Tomorrow we head towards the KKH and probably won't be updating the blog for at least a week. Contrary to popular belief, this part of our trip is not some ill-thought out and ill-conceived exercises in naivety.  After months of doing research and writing ex-pats, experts and local guides, we have decided the route does not offer significantly more danger than anything we have done so far.  We just spoke with several people who  finished the exact route we are about to undertake.  We are incredibly excited and hoping we can update this sooner than later.