Shanghai'd

Yesterday was an emotionally draining and stressful day, full of decision-tree flowcharts and risk assessments of our options (hey, we are engineers here). It was so draining, in fact, that when it was announced at 6:45 last night that the group visas were being approved and we would be going to Lhasa and continuing with the original, planned itinerary that we all signed up for months ago, there was hardly a resounding cheer.

Was this for real? Where are the visas? Show me the visa! I think we are still at a 99.9% confidence rate.

The guide went on to explain about the workings of the flight today and the whole trip. We sat and asked questions about the next thing on our to-be-stressed-about list: riding our bikes in Tibet! More on that later :)

Tim and I are still screwed and may be going back to (non-Tibet) China today for a stamp to get back into Lhasa, but we will first go to Lhasa with the group and try to finagle our way out of the airport, with our bikes. We'll see how it goes. This little breach of immigration is definitely the next thing on our to-be-stressed-about list. On a good note, things are working out as best as they possibly can, given the situation we were in yesterday. Something definitely to be thankful for!

Turns out things are worse than I even knew. Not only is the entire group visa in jeopardy, but Laurel and I are in an even worse lot than the rest. For some incomprehensible reason, it is forbidden to enter Tibet from Kathmandu with a Chinese work permit, like Laurel and I currently possess. Where does this leave us? Infuriatingly, our only options are:

1) Cancel our work permits and get issued a temporary tourist visa to enter Tibet. This is unacceptable since there is no guarantee we could regain our work permission status at a later date without significant time and financial loss.

2) Return to Chengdu (where we started 2 days ago as you may remember), re-apply for a separate Tibet travel permit, and re-enter Lhasa from Chengdu with our work permits.

As absurd as it sounds, option 2 is looking like our only hope. It would be like putting our life on rewind 2 days, backtracking several thousand miles and starting over. TIC. This Is China.

To add to the complexity of the situation, we still have no indication of the visa status of the rest of the group. We may all fly to Lhasa tomorrow as planned (Laurel and I sidetrip to Chengdu and meet up with the group in a few days). We also may not obtain the rest of the group's China visa until Oct. 10!

Bottow line: our Tibet trip is in serious jeopardy (double jeopardy?). We should know more at our group meeting in 20 minutes. Wish us luck, as we could really use some good news about now.

Most of the 11 person group has now arrived in Kathmandu and we are only missing one bike. The goup dynamic seem pretty good so far - much more on that later, I am sure. It would be nice to have some more fewer Y chromosomes, but I guess cycling across the worlds highest plateau doesn't appeal to your average hockey mom.

The crisis of the moment is the Chinese visa situation. Things are tense these days at the Chinese embassy in Kathmandu. As there are lots of ethnic Tibetan refugees in Nepal, there have been daily protests about freeing the people of a certain western Chinese automomous region. What was once a slam dunk 1-day visa application process has now turned into a 5-day guessing game of Chinese diplomacy. On top of that, the embassy is rumored to shut for several days starting tomorrow in celebration of the Chinese national day holiday. Today is our window to try to miraculously pull off a rush visa for the group and make our scheduled Tuesday morning flight. Miss this opportunity, and it will be days (if not weeks) before we have another chance (if at all). I haven't been sleeping well.

I can't even describe the anxiety/frustration/anger at seeing literally months of prepartion, hours of training and thousands of dollars slipping out of my control and into the hands of a Chinese paper-pushing bureaucrat. We should know one way or the other later today ...

I wanted to add to Tim's post a bit.


One exciting thing he forgot to mention is that we flew over Everest on the way from Lhasa to Kathmandu! The flight attendants announced that Oomalangma Feng (Chinese for Everest) was visible on the right side of the plane. Immediately everyone jumped out of their seats and into the laps of those on the right side. I could see this being a weight-balance challenge for the pilots, so as I was on my way to the bathroom, I chose the one on the left. Tim got some pictures of the massively tall peak coming out of the clouds, and I got a glimpse of it after my bathroom break. Really beautiful. We get to make the trip past it at least once, possibly 3 more times (pending the visa!) this trip.

The guys on the tour seem really nice. All either from the UK or Australia, I know I will be using words like "loo" and "mossies", "fantastic" and "literally" way too much by the end of this thing, and last night I almost tried to get someone's attention with an "Oy!" which I haven't done since my days in blue-collar Wollongong. I don't know if I mentioned that I am the only woman on the trip (unless some of the sherpas are female... not likely). Instead of being intimidated, Tim has assured me that I will be the princess. So I am on my best behavior to get that treatment. But then, probably everyone is on their best behaviour (see - those Brits are getting to me!), so we'll see how "cool" everyone is at 5000m altitude...

Visa update later by Tim. I am really trying to stay out of this one. :-/

We have arrived safely in Kathmandu, where the power goes off intermittently throughout the day. Makes you appreciate the Chinese infrastructure. First impression is that Kathmandu is much closer to India (culturally as well as geographically) than China. The narrow, unmarked streets are lined with kashmir scarf shops, trekking companies and backpacker cafes.

The trip so far has, as expected, not been without it's ... shall we say, challenges? First, the taxi van that was supposed to take us and our bikes to the Shanghai airport didn't show. We hurridly stuff our bike boxes in the trunk of two regular cabs and were on our way. Since you cannot fly from Shanghai directly to Nepal, our route took us first to an overnight in Chengdu than morning flight to Lhasa, Tibet, and finally Kathmandu.

Troubling trip update: our local guide team is less than confident about our prospects of securing China visa for the rest of the group. Laurel and I all obviously already covered, but they dont' seem to understand that. In addition, there is worrying news that the Chinese embassy in Nepal may be closed for the October holiday. Best case, we head to Tibet as planned on Tuesday. Worst case, our Tibetan adventure turns into a Nepalese one. Fingers crossed for now. Hopefully more to come soon.

Tibet.

Tonight, after months of planning, training, and stressing (over flights to Nepal, over changes in itinerary, over what bikes to bring), we will be on our way to Xizang. If all goes according to plan (Plan C now ... or is it Plan D???) we will hopefully be riding our bikes over 1000 kms of gorgeous Himalayan vistas; Lhasa to Kathmandu, including an approach to Everest base camp.

I hope to post some updates to Twitter but who knows what China Mobile access will be like at 5000 m elevation. Plenty of photos to come soon, but for now, signing off for a while.

Finally, you may be wondering what one brings on such a trip. Wonder no longer:

Bike Equipment
Bike
Bike boxes
Bike pedals
Tires
Spare tires
Spare tubes
Multi tool
Chain lube
Tire levers
Pump
Spokes (5 x 256mm/260mm)
Spare breakpads
Spare chain links
Spare break/shifter cables
Helmet
Camelback
Bike Computer

Clothes
Jacket
Fleece top
Fleece pants
Warm hat
Warm gloves
Cycling gloves
Cycling shorts
Cycling pants
Cycling shoes
Crocs / sandals
Hiking boots
Long sleeve thermal tops
Bike jersey
T-shirt
Shorts
Lightweight travel pants
Socks
Underwear
Bandana

Miscellaneous
Backpacks
Thermarest
Sleeping bag
Sunglasses
Sun screen
Lip balm
Travel towel
Eye drops
Extra contacts
Soap, hand sanitizer
Ziplocs / zipties
First aid kit
Leatherman knife
Headlamp
Camera (SLR and point and shoot)
2 spare camera batteries
9 GB compact flash
Watch/altimeter?/GPS?
Compass
Passport photos
ID and photocopies
Airline tickets
Credit cards, ATM cards, USD
Journal and pencil
Water bottles
Clif bars
Small cable lock / padlock

Incidentally, Google docs rocks for tracking this stuff, along with training plans.

Mountain. Hill.

Today, Tim and I headed out early for another training ride before work. The wind was coming from the east, which is good for several reasons:

1. As we always ride east, it means a tailwind on the way back :)
2. The air is cleaner with easterlies blowing through. Must be that the air over the (highly polluted) East China sea is actually cleaner than the air coming from the (highly polluting) factories in the north, west and south of Shanghai.

Thanks to those easterlies, we set of to high puffy clouds with blue sky in between. Where to ride? Tim asked, "Where is the biggest shān in Shanghai?" Naturally, that would be the overpass. We rode it 8 times, up and back. By the last one, I was feeling a little burn. Did I mention there was no need to downshift going up this hill?

Ah, well. A good morning none the less. This weekend we really have a chance for some hills. We are heading to Moganshan for a mountain triathlon with a local triathlon group. The race is Saturday, and we hope for the energy and time to get more hills in on Sunday before coming back to Shanghai. It should be fun, I'll write all about it after the weekend. Our life right now is a lot of biking, preparing for Tibet and getting really really excited!

Today's ride stats (Tim reminded me we are not done yet - we still need to ride home from work!): 26.5km, avg. 23.4 km/h, elevation change: 10m.

No, not the game you play at frat parties...

Yesterday, I joined the metric century club on my bicycle when we rode 143 km! At ~90 miles, it was the longest ride I had ever done (I think my second runner up was about 55 miles, also in China). It was a long day, but we finished strong and feel we are as prepared as possible for our Tibet Adventure.

We left the house yesterday around 8:30, rode through some serious mud out past the airport, then hopped on a N-S "highway" (a gorgeous road, lined on both sides by tall skinny pines, no traffic and no stoplights) to the tip of Shanghai where they are building a uber-urban planned city called Luchao Harbor, slated to open 2020. That was our destination, and soon after catching sight of the lake, huge raindrops started falling so we turned around and headed home, with no rain the rest of the ride. We made 2 pitstops for food - one at a tiny restaurant where we had delicious spicy tofu and "pure energy" chicken soup; and the second at our friends' barbeque where we had to clean up in the kiddy pool and change shirts before sitting at their table (I told you - the mud!).

The highlight of the ride for me was when the sun blasted down for about 10 minutes around 35km into the ride and Tim said, "I would really like some watermelon." About 2 minutes later, on a desolate road near the airport, a man pulling a cart of personal sized watermelons rolled by. We zoomed past him, looked at each other, stopped and simultaneously started yelling the Chinese for watermelon: Xigua, xigua! He stopped and we each ate half a 2RMB (30 cents) sun-warmed watermelon right on the side of the road. I wish I had had a camera to show yesterday's clear skies and Tim with a quarter watermelon in each hand, his mouth full, and the juice running down his chin.

It was a good day, and I am not even sore today :)

Stats: 143km, avg 21.6 km/hr, odo: 1830km

Thursday morning I had to be reminded of why we decided to go home. Friday morning provided the reminder. It was raining, and we struggled to find a taxi to work in morning rush hour. We finally got in a light blue Da Zhong taxi, which should have been a good thing.

See, Shanghai has many cab companies and they are further recognizable by the color of the car. Light blue, yellow, white and light green are in the top half, meaning generally clean with careful, non-smoking drivers. They have rules posted on the stabber cage around the driver (rules such as "The driver has the right to refuse to accept service to drunks and schizophrenics), they almost always take the transportation card, and most cars have all 4 hubcaps. The bottom half of the companies drive dark blue or red cabs. The rules seem to be a bit more lax, and these are the guys who will rip you off, not take the card, and who may decide to take the sidewalk at 10pm, jumping a curb at 35 miles an hour to get up there while you are in the back seat with your pregnant friend and no seatbelts. No cabs have seatbelts. If you see a red cab with no hubcaps, run in the other direction and look for another cab. It's not worth it. Unless of course it is a Friday morning, its raining, rush hour and you both have 8:30 conference calls.

So, you can imagine how lucky we felt to score a light blue cab. But then, a cab driver is a cab driver, there are still no seatbelts, and the guy yesterday decided to test our patience by driving like an a**hole on the way to work yesterday. I will spare you the details of accellerating into the stoplights, crossing the double yellow in a construction zone to make a pass on the left, and vying with a large white van about who can have the line spot at every red light, regardless of where we started to stop (7 cars back, just go around on the left!). Tim put it well when he said: "Let's take a cab every day for our last month in China, just so we are thoroughly convinced we are ready to go home." With my plans to sell my bike in Nepal at the end of our Tibet trip, that just might happen.

Note: All this talk of going home, I bet you are wondering... we have almost set a date. We'll be home before December 1. Going back to Austin.

This morning.

I thought it might be interesting for all you folks at home to hear about our jīntiān de zǎoshɑng.

We are in the thick of training for Tibet, as we are leaving in 3.5 weeks. Yikes! One part of our training regimen is to get in some kms (kms, we are on the metric scale here. FYI 1mile=1.6km) early in the morning before work. The sun comes up around 5:30, and we try to be up at 6 and out the door around 6:15. We were a bit late today, and Tim had to get to work a bit early for his busy morning (this is how I am spending my busy morning), so we had about 90 minutes to ride.

Out the door we headed east. We always head east. Away from the city, on a route that takes you back 20 years every 5km. We jumped on a "no motor vehicles" path along the river that we normally take to work. The same path leads all the way out to the East China Sea (aka Pacific Ocean) about 20km east. Foot, bike and motorcycle (and yes, motor vehicle) traffic can be thick at times, but the atmosphere along the river is generally quiet and relaxed. We followed this path out under the highway and got on what will one day be a 6 lane thoroughfare, but is now blocked to all but construction vehicle traffic. Here we can take the center lane and really put the hammer down. We ride past groups of workers sweeping this street, shoveling up the mud left by the construction vehicles, in what seems to us a pointlessly endless task. But this is their danwei (government posted position). Next we drop into the main street of a tiny town. Main street store front is full of industrial supply and chain grocery stores, while the road has a mix of dump trucks with air horns, cement mixers, and heavy construction equipment. In Shanghai, there is construction everywhere. Heading through the narrow back alleys, we find the quiet river again. After a few more kilometers, we aren't sure of the way (should we turn left at the cactus farm?) and end up around the back of some industrial plant. Even though the buildings are spewing smoke and producing some kind of "necessity" of modern life, just beyond the whitewashed wall, a farmer is working the tiny strip of land between the factory drive and yet another river (we are so close to the ocean, canals crisscross most areas). Almost all green space is used for growing food, there is very little decorative landscape. Front yards are rice paddies, and the tall green stalks look a lot better than the brown lawns of Austin! Time to turn around, we end up back on the main highway and cut back through the closed off 6 laner (still sweeping...), back onto the river path, past the outdoor pool table and the hangers drying 10 ft (that's 3 meter, if you are still on the metric scale) noodle strands, to a baozi shop we found the other morning to grab some breakfast. Baozi are basically large dumplings with a thicker bread-like skin. We each ordered 2 (7 cents USD each) - 1 red bean, 1 cabbage, and 2 spicy rice noodle filled. The guy behind the counter wanted to know how much baozi are in the US. We told him there are no baozi in the US. He stared back, astonished! At this point, I realize there are no baozi in the US. And yet we are planning to come home. On nice mornings like today, we sometimes have to remind ourselves why. We pedaled into work in time to clean up, cool down and have our baozi before starting another day.

Today's ride stats: 31.9 km, avg. 23.3 km/hr (and broke 1500 km on my odo, which I installed in June)