So today when Bing said we would go through a longer but main road instead of the mountain cliff pass road due to the rainy season and safety concerns of landslide, we all just agreed but did not think much on it.
The day started nice and easy and I lagged behind the crew when I saw a beautiful monastry that was too pictursquare to pass up. Just a few turns ahead I catch up with the moped crew all stopped in the middle of the road as they took pictures of snow capped mountain. Yep we saw snowcapped mountain without paying and it was awesome.
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| A Monastry Near Yading |
It was cold as hell and I was about to stop for a wee and some sneakers bar boosters as my whole body was chattering inside. What we would find out later was that it was nearly 2 degrees and we were so high up, nearly 4500m elevation and thats why we could see the snowcaps.
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| Riding Along the Snowline |
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| Snowcap Peaks |
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| Snowcap Peaks |
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| Melting Snow but still .... We Malaysian go so Crazy with Snow .. |
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| The Last 3 Riders ... the Slowpokes |
Few hundred meter in front and another stop for photos. Riding along the snow line ... it was an experience even I had not expected in this trip. Continuing on the journey, I blared my horn to Bing in front. We were losing the snowcap view so we had to double back to take more photos. I could not pass up when we ride and seeing melting snow on the ground that we could pick up. More photos, amazing view .... a great smoking stop and it was time to move on downhill.
We came across this arcade like circuit with a view point from above. I could not reisist and asked Bing to help us take a video as we ride down the circuit. Initially I though we could go as fast as possible to make the video amazing, but as Azu and I started the decent, it was impossible to go fast as it was sooooo cold. We could only go soooo slow else the wind chill bite through all 5 layers of my clothings to numb and kill any nerve left available for control of the bike.
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| Windy Road Downhill |
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| Windy Road Downhill |
So cold and so slow it was going down. The video still came out amazing.
Downhill after the circuit and just out of the clouds, were the only altitude marker we had seen in the whole trip. 3995M altitude, hence the approxiated 4500m elevation that we were riding along the snow line.
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| Altitude Marker 3995m Above Sea Level |
Downhill downhill and the scenary changed to those like barren hills which I view them like the dessert mountian road in chile and Peru. So beautiful but then we reached low enaugh to ride beside the emerald river waters. I really dunnu how to explain beautiful 10 times but it was the feeling at every turn. It cant get better than this ... and boom ... another stunning view.
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| A little Village in the Mountains |
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| Jade Coloured River |
At the first rest stop we saw going down from Yading, we found another Nomad Van selling coffee. This time it was a guy travelling solo across China and he has been on the road for 2 years. His setup was amazing, having a full coffee barista setup with even an aiscream softcone maker.
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| Reststop |
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| Coffee Is the Alchohol of the Daytime ... The Van's Motto |
We were running late now after all the stops and the distance to the next stop was huge with little sunlight left. Bing rode into the fog, rain, overtaking bus, trucks and everything climbing through another mountain pass for all that downhill we went through and finally around 3pm he relented and made a stop at the side of the road once we were out of the rain and fog.
The moped crew immediately jumped on the opportunity to cook lunch!! ... I for once also cooked lunch and instant noodle never tasted so good. I was about to cook for Bing as well but he just walked into someones house and bought a cup noodle from them.
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| Leaving the Mountain Peaks and back into the Valleys |
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| Cooking Lunch Somewhere along the way |
Main road but still national road makes it very chaotic to follow people. Somewhere along the way I saw Azu stopped at the junction , I gave him a beep and overtake him while Bing overtake me to lead the way. On my mirror I saw azu follow for a few meters then stop and made a u-turn to turn right to the other junction. Blaring my horn at Bing we stopped and when Azu did not surface after a few minutes we decided to make a turn to find him.
Weather was foggy and also raining, me and Bing went for a hunt looking for Azu till we ran out of road. There was a few forks and we tried all of them but no Azu. Pray I told bing ... we go ... and once out of this fog hopefully we will see them at the first petrol station. An hour later me and Bing were at the petrol station and no sight of the moped gang.
Live GPS position put Wan and Jazz in front of us but Azu did not on his gps. He and me was always together at the back and we never bothered with GPS as it drain the battery. Many frantic calls were made to no answer. Later we found out Azu batt was flats and gone. By chance I made a few calls to Wan and Jazz as well. Wan finally picked up after an hour and confirmed that Azu was with thim in front. How in the world that happen .... guess it must be all that time me and Bing finding Azu in the wrong road that he must have made it back to the right one to continue on.
Bing and me lost much time but I was just releived that everyone was ok. We rode late into the night through the rain to reach our hotel at hu-tiao-xia town. Once it was darkfall, I became even slower with the rain with almost no visibliity due to fogged up windshield and foged up glasses. We arrived late, drench, exhausted but glad everything went well that day.
Still in a dazed from the ride down from Yading .
Traveled on: Jun 2023
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