Cycling the Old Pu'er road
on Tina's Journal (China), 13/Sep/2009 12:07, 34 days ago
Saturday Morning I rose early at 0530 to get the early bus to Ning'er, in order to cycle the old road back to Simao. Ning'er is formally known as Pu'er, but due to name changes Simao today is actually known as Pu'er, and old Pu'er is now called Ning'er! Lesley and I have been talking about cycling this road for the last few months but we have been waiting for the'right time' to do it, partly due to the rain. However, we decided Saturday would be a good day. Our bikes were easily stowed onto the bus roof rack, and off we went. Ning'er lies to the North of Simao and takes a hour by bus to get there on the main road. We left Ning'er bus station on our bikes at 0845 and headed back to Simao on China National Highway 213, the old road. This highway runs from Gansu province, right down to the south of Yunnan province, nearly 3000km. We were obviously only cycling a stretch of it! After about half an hour out of Ning'er, the rain came down and we were thankful for our rain capes. We stopped for noodles in Tongxin for an early lunch (it was only 1015),but knew there wouldn't be anywhere else to grab lunch from there onwards. The rain had stopped at this point. After our break the next few hours we climbed up, first gear all the way, through lush forest and verdant hills, on a mostly tarmacked road. There were a few rocky, muddy, parts but most of the time it was pretty smooth. We wound up to the ascent and the effort was worth it. We then had the luxury of a downhill descent, rode back into Simao and back to the college at 1530. It was lovely cycling as there was little traffic and we had the road to ourselves. All in all, we cycled about 60km. We also had use of a map drawn by Ali (he cycled the route last weekend) with all the ascents and descents on it. Cleverly, Lesley decided not to show it to me until we were well into out big ascent. I am glad she didn't, as looking at it on paper was worse than the real thing. I think we had luck on our sides too, as an hour after getting home there was an almighty thunder storm with torrential rain which lasted at least 3 hours. We were so happy to miss that! We intend to cycle both ways next time!That evening I was treated to home made stew with mash potatoes, made by Jayne and Andy. The cooking process was interrupted during the storm though as the electricity went off for an hour.