A bed in a yurt at 10300 feet

Day  38      121 km ( 11553 km total)

An inspiring ride up into the mountains for a 'Yurt Experience' and to be close to the chinese border.

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First let me get a few apologies/excuses out of the way.

There was clearly no wifi in the mountains so this and future blogs had to wait until I was in China.  Then of course we have the 'Great Firewall of China'which prevents   access to all things Google, Blogger, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter & many more familiar tools.  Its taken a while to find a way to get through this so I can continue the journal but I think this will work.  I cant check it has of course as I cant see my blog here, so I may be talking to no one .... But hopefully not.

Anyway all this plus slow & unreliable wifi means I am a few days late & also I have to initially seriously cut down on the number of pictures uploaded. (note more photos added when I got home)

Excuses over, back to the blog......

We left out little Oasis of a hotel in Naryn, Kzyrgystan at a  ery resepcatble 11:30am as we estimated it was only 2 hours to the yurt camp in Tash Rabat that we would be staying the night.  This was also to be the meeting point with the other 4 bikers who would cross China with us.

First event of the day was to fill up with petrol, there neing none after Naryn until Kashgar in China, some 390km away.  That presented our first challenge of the day as I became seperated from the other two in the town & then we couldnt find each other.  I hung around for a bit a petrol station waiting for them (they were doing the same thing at another one) then gave up, sent them a satellite message & continued up into the mountains on my own.

Actually had a very enjoyable ride for the next hour when we came together again.  There is something about solitude & wilderness I find strangely relaxing, especially as it was nice & cool and the sun was shining.

The first 20 minutes or so of the ride was one of these sections of road that looks like a series of bomb craters on a construction site, but then it was good road all the way to the turning for Tash Rabat itself.

There were some lovely views as the road climbed steadily from 2000m in Naryn up to about 3200m.

The turning to Tash Rabat changed the road into a basic track which wound its way thourgh the peaks, following a small river up to the Yurt camp we were staying at just a few hundred metres from the old Silk Road Caravanserai itself.

The yurts have been adapted a little for tourists (ie they have basic beds, rather than sleeping on the floor as the locals would) but are otherwise authentic, each having its own heating stove to burn dried yak poo.

The track immediately up to the yurt camp, involved a rocky stream crossing - always a nice challenge to test your skills & nerve.  

Snortly after we arrived it started snowing a little, not enough to settle, but there was soon a covering of ice on the bikes.

In between snow flurries I had a walk up to look at the carananasarai and the views - beautiful!

Food was basic but hearty in a cummunal eating yurt and the night was very cold - so I kept most of my riding gear on all night.  You could also feel the affects of the altitude, particularly when walking up the hills.