China Part 3: Dunhaung to Delingha

After the night market gorging session, we went back to the hotel after getting refused entry to 3 internet cafes, foreigners aren't allowed online in this city. The next morning we headed to the amazing Mogau caves. There are over 200 Buddhist caves, with paintings, statues and sculptures. It's one of the best examples of Buddhist art in the world apparently. It was really impressive. We saw a massive Buddha statue, the 3rd biggest in China. There was also the library cave with a hidden chamber that has only recently been uncovered. The monks hid loads of books in there to protect them from being destroyed. We got back to Dunhuang, had delicious noodles in the market, got ripped of in a few shops for rice and things like that, then left the city and camped among some trees next to the ancient site of Dunhuang. There is still a walled town there, which was really impressive at sunset. I was woken up the next morning by a toad on my pillow. I'd only slept under a mosquito net that night and it must have climbed in somehow! We carried on to a ridiculous town at the foothills of a large mountain range, leading up to the Tibetan Plateau. It was a modern manufactured town, spotlessly clean, with fake trees and covered walkways and a huge mosque. There weren't many inhabitants - not sure why it was there or what it was for but it had an ok cafe where we had lunch and shops where we ate ice creams and bought supplies. We left in the warly evening and began the massive climb to Qinhai Province. Qinhai is basically Tibet. It's on a high altitude plateau, it's full of Buddhist monastries and Tibetans and has the same culture. We climbed a few hundred metres through some ace sand dunes then camped behind a slag heap on a building site for a new road. The next day we continued up the excellent brand new road. There were amazing switchbacks and it was fantastic cycling, the best in China so far. It would have been road biking heaven! Sweets fueled us up to the top of the pass at 3,665 m. It took us 4 hours to climb 1.5 vertical km, pretty good! We had a great descent down to a desert plain, which we whizzed accross with the help of a strong tailwind. We felt sorry for the Chinese cyclists heading in the opposite direction. After a while we arrived at a town, which looked like a bombsite but there was a well hidden restaurant where we got a cheap dinner and then a second cheap dinner noodles then egg fried rice. The next morning we woke up in a road tunnel and cycled 15 miles through barren desert on a completely straight road. Seriously boring riding. Eventually we reached a CORNER! the corner took us up a great climb through desert mountains, to the top of one of the best descents of the trip so far. Pamir-like scenery, with huge stoney mountains, some with snow on the peaks. The road went down steeply through more dunes to a short climb where we stopped for lunch. We climbed out of a bowl, through more great desert scenery to the town of Iqe. We were expecting a bit more from our map than a half finished toll gate, but the road workers gave us bread dumplings and water. 10 miles later we were in another tunnel under the road! It was a cold night but sleeping bag still working well so I was warm. Phil only has a thin one though so he was wearing everything he had and was inside my survival bag! Had a small breakfast in the tunnel then got going. We were pulled over by a couple of very unprofessional soldiers in an army truck who shouted no photos and demanded to look through the ones on Phil's camera. There was a massive convoy of army trucks heading east, 100s of them. The morning was pretty uneventful other than that until we reached a decent town. Got lunch, stocked up, Phil bought a balaclava, then headed out into a fantastic tailwind, which blew us 60km uphill! We climbed to 3,700m and stayed in another great tunnel. Very clean and totally hidden. I took a picture of Phil as a Basque seperatist in his new balaclava. We sorted through our food the next morning. Shopping in China is always a bit of a gamble because the pictures of the food on the packaging have absolutely nothing to do with what is inside the packets. We therefore acquired loads of terrible biscuits and other snacks which we had a great time disposing of by lobbing them down the tunnel. We also experimented with putting ginger in our tea, which was delicious. The next morning we had a short 3 mile climb then, 17 miles downhill against a freezing headwind to a poor town where we got some delicious port. After an uneventful afternoon we arrived in our first big city for a long time, Delingha. It was odd as soon as we got there! We tried checking into loads of cheap hotels but no-one wanted us there, they all pointed us to the same big official, expensive looking tourist hotel. In the end we went to see how much just in case we could afford it. It wsa cheaper than we expected, about 7 quid each which is well over budget but OK for a single night. We had to wait in the lobby for about an hour until the police showed up. It turned out that Deingha is closed to foreigners. Not quite sure why, something to do with a nearby army base I think. Anyway, the whole city was closed and we were only allowed to stay in this hotel, and not allowed out without a police escort - excellent!! We had an hilarious evening! After a wash we met tweedledum and tweedledee, two young policemen who had been given the exciting job of taking 2 foreigners around for the evening. Useful use of their time and resources! Anyway, we were driven around in an electric milk float style police car. It was so funny, they could speak OK English and they soon forgot their orders to take us to the nearest shop and restaurant and took us on a grand tour of Delingha. It was big and a nice place, we went to two great restaurants, didn't get ripped off at all with two police escorts! They had been given orders not to let us go to an internet cafe, but one of them let me use his phone to try to check my emails! He then showed us his pistol and took the magazine out in a full restaurant! We got them to put the siren on and eventually we ended up back at the police station, waiting in a minibus for them to come out to go out for a beer! We were taken to a dance club thing in a hotel and sat down on the top floor with some beers we'd bought from a shop. They wouldn't serve us at the bar! We were drinking with them, one wouldn't drink on duty, the other drank only 1 shot of beer, actually about 10! Then their boss turned up. He was off duty, they weren't. We did a runner and I reckon they probably got into big trouble the next day! They took us back to the hotel and a maid saw us to our room to make sure we were safely in our room! Excellent but unbelievable night!