[The map above is subdivided into
smaller maps: click on the shaded area
corresponding to the section of interest to get a map and description
of that section of the ride.]
Synopsis
I left
on a tour of Tibet on August 2, 2004 from San
Francisco, California, mostly because a job is an uninteresting
way to pass the time. A flight to Beijing, and a train ride to Lanzhou
put me near the Tibetan border, ready to cycle for the next six months.
In Lanzhou, I met up with Martin, a Dane that I had met in Kashgar in
the summer of 1999. His interest was primarily in a crossing of the
northwestern corner of the Changtang Plateau, near the Xinjiang
provincial border in the far northwest of Tibeton the outer orbit of
the Tibetan cultural domain. The lead-up to that crossing was to take
us slightly more than 2 months, taking us through rarely cycled routes
in the northeastern corner of Amdo and across the southern fringe of
the Changtang. En route, we crossed over the Gangdise Range on a
previously uncycled route, and then circumabulated both Mapam Yumtso
(Lake Manasarovar) and Kangrinboche (Mount Kailas). After an abortive
attempt to cross what was rumored to be the highest road pass in the
world (the Bogo La, at 5900m), we managed to cross the Changtang
unsupported in 21 days, crossing approximately 500km of wilderness
before touching down in the Yulungkax fault formation and the northern
flank of the Kunlun Shan opening out onto the southern edge of the
Taklamakan desert in Xinjiang.
Martin and I parted ways in Niya (Chinese: Minfeng)
in Xinjiang, where he returned to Denmark, and I carried on to the
east, returning to Tibet via the Golmud-Lhasa highway after crossing
the Arjinshan mountains and the Qaidam basin. After reaching Lhasa on
New Year's Eve, I headed for the Nepali border (my original plan for
exiting Tibet to the east were scotched by visa difficulties), reaching
Kathmandu after 12 days in the saddle and a run-in with the Chinese
military at Gala, south of Gyantse. The situation in Nepal was rapidly
deteriorating when I arrived, with sporadic Maoist attacks on the road
to India and nationwide protests sparked by the lifting of government
fuel subsidies. Days of protests and bandhs
(general strikes) followed, and the day after I flew out (February 1),
the king dismissed the government and took over the security forces in
a coup, severing transportation and communication links to the outside
world for two weeks.
On January 21, the Nepalese
government closed both the Tibet Refugee Welfare Office and the Office
of
Tibet - the representation of the Tibetan government in exile (based in
Dharmsala, India):