Training Log Archive: inuksuk

Xishuāngbǎnnà. Sānchàhé. Bǎnnà yěxiàng gǔ. Elephants and white-cheeked gibbons. A somewhat conflicting experience. A deeply sading and frustrating experience of obnoxious Chinese tourists and kitsch tourism, but inarguably worthwhile seeing one of the last vestiges of the Asian elephant in China. A classic case of Chinese tourism superceding actual nature conservation.

Xishuāngbǎnnà. Jǐnghóng to Měnghǎn, crossed the Láncāng Jiāng (Mekong) on ferry, came back through a series of rubber plantation roads/tracks, odd little villages, and even a few bits of single track. A few remnant forest patches, but mostly great stands of rubber, which is sad. Carried the bikes over one small pass -- the little farmer was visibly perplexed to see us there, but gave great directions. I think my best vocabulary now deals with topography. I still can't read a menu to avoid being served offal, but at least I can understand whether the track on the other side of the saddle is ridable. Hot and dry. I think today Lara and I collectively finished our 10th litre of Mango juice since arriving in Xishuāngbǎnnà. At $0.80NZ/litre I'm wondering if I should take a case of it home....

Dǎluò. Morning run through a strange little town park which kind of dumped us out at a formidable yet-derlelict barbed-wire fence, indicating the Burmese border. There at the end of the track was a pair of concrete pillars, and a similarly derelict sign telling you that you weren't allowed to cross -- which by our brief observations was not only ignored by the locals, but encouraged by the fence-builders, having conveniently placed an open gate slightly larger than a motocycle handle bars right on the track. Its somewhat ironic that with all the passport checking and interrogations that presumably goes on about 500m south of where we stood, this little gate was a busy little 'self-service' border crossing. Perhaps this is one example of Chinese efficiency. I think in future, I'll look for these self-service border crossings more often, then maybe I can avoid having to wash my shoes before going to Oz.

Badá > Mànmài > Mànxī > Dǎluò. Headed down the motorcycle track towards Mànmài with the conflicting information from locals that it 'does' and 'does not' go to Mànmài. Followed the track where the forest was being cleared for firewood and the track deteriorated into a horrible scrappy thicket. Wasted about twenty minutes backtracking and checking out every possible route. Finally, we decided to just suck it up head straight for a gully where we could see a large stand of older-growth forest. After dropping over a cliff and a waterfall with the help of the abundant thorny vines, we reached the gully bottom. Found our way out of the gully and up the slope to Mànmài where we received little descriptive information on the next leg to Mànxī. All we knew was that there is a dirty great big valley with a huge jungle in it and a little bridge. As luck would have it, we found a family gathering wood around the saddle we presumed we had to drop down from. The chirpy little bulang lady happily walked us down through a series of track junctions to this tiny trace of a track on the edge of a tea garden, and pointed us to the valley; and indicated which ridge we should climb back up on the other side. We felt a little bad leaving her with only a bag of sunflower seeds as thanks, knowing she undoubtedly saved us hours of frustrating bashing to find the start of the track. The valley was well worth it -- a beautiful rainforest remnant with a lush verdant understory, a complex forest canopy structure and dripping in epiphytes. Hot and happy, we lounged in the river, while no less than 15 species of fist-sized butterfly flew along the banks. The climb back up to Mànxī came surpisingly easy. And though we thought we had lost the track once, the good directions to keep to the ridge paid off and the trail soon become more convincingly like the old route. Failed to find an interesting way to Dǎluò without following the road, so we settled into a 12km gravel descent into the valley. Leaving at first light, we arrived with about an hour of daylight to spare. Long day.

Xīdìng > Bàbǐng > Zhāngláng cūn > Mànwǎ > Badá. Very cool Bulang villages along this old route. Lots of betel nut black smiles and friendly interactions, bulang architecture, dry tropical forests, little temples, pu'er tea plantations, giant figs, and great views. Kept to the old horse trails and small tracks for most of the day, but couldn't see a way to avoid the gravel road for the last couple hours up to Badá. This finished us off. A really nice day, though long and hot.

Xīdìng. After pulling the pin on another potential trip near Bùlǎngshān in an effort to catch the Sunday market in Mènghùn (which, by the way is a close second to Niagra in terms of disappointments... and witnessing a dog getting de-furred by a blow torch was just unnecessary), we headed to Xīdìng. We only really had the Russian maps to work with and a vague list of villages, so we spent the last minutes of daylight scouting out a route through the first forest to Bàbǐng.

Yako to Bùlǎngshān. Followed a small motorbike track west from Yako to the Burmese border where we followed a larger gravel road to Mànnuò, and on to Bùlǎngshān. Really interesting Bulang villages, good views of Burma, and a fairly remote corner of the populated planet. Track was easy-going, but hot. Fire-stick farming has made much of the area effectively tree-less and covered in an impeneterable 2-3m high grassland. We all too willingly took the villagers advice not to try to find a straight-line route to Bùlǎngshān. The route would make a very nice mountain bike - though you might want to avoid some of the bush-bash.