Mianchi to Xi’an

Finally we reached Yunnan our last province in China. We crossed two hills to reach Shangri-La and met a fellow cyclist Davide. We also came across a lot of mud. From there it was down and up to Lijiang for a well deserved rest.

After Xiangcheng we followed the river and started to go up. The tarmac finished and we had a 100km section of rough gravel. A very bumpy downhill to where we stayed at the Blue river Bend Hotel.

Leaving the grassland plateau behind we cycled to Sangdui where we turned off and cycled our highest pass to date at 4720 meters. We made it to Xiangchang in the rain.

We stayed in Labrang for some days and we really found the place interesting. The monastery is quite a special experience.

We had left the first few hundred kilometres of China behind us and reached the flat plains of Henan. The road was easy, but filled with traffic and not so interesting. Luckily we had some nice encounters which made our days and we crossed the Yellow river.