The CCTV team and Xinhua duo join us for breakfast and discuss the plans. They want to film us leaving Naqu and then shoot more footage on the road for a few dozen kilometres.
It's raining cats and dogs, it's cold and the streets are a mess. Traffic is chaotic and we all get separated.
Outside of town we find the two media crews in their jeeps, and the guys on bikes beside them, waiting for us. It's time to let the camera roll.
We start cycling and the CCTV jeep speeds ahead, its camera shooting out the open rear hatch. Atop a hill it parks to let us catch up and cycle by. Jianping, normally the slowest in the group, makes a mad dash for the lead. He wants to be the vanguard of our entourage. This effort and a few more like it leave him seriously spent. The CCTV jeep speeds by again.
When we again catch up to it, stopped in the middle of the road, we're tuckered and in need of a breather. I am losing patience with this. I just want to cycle and concentrate on today's destination. Traffic is stopped with no way through; the two jeeps, their crews and the cyclists are taking up the road.
"Great!" bellows the overweight director. "Now, let's get some footage of you guys in the grasslands, off the road!" He wants us to cycle a few hundred meters into the grasslands, turn around, and back toward the camera. For crying out loud. Enough already. But it seems I am the only sour grape, the rest are willing to do it. So the five of us cycle down into the grasslands, turn around, and start heading back toward the jeep, camera rolling.
As much as he'd like to be the man in front, Gong Jianping has to confront reality. There are no reserves left in him and he struggles to cycle the uphill meters to the road, bringing up the rear.
The director says the equivalent of "that's a wrap!" and we assemble for a big group portrait. The two jeeps drive off and we're once again free to cycle.
Brice and I come across a small group of kids. By now we've learned that this isn't necessarily a good thing. Yet we need to stop at the moment, something needs to be adjusted or dealt with in some way. This virtually guarantees that the kids will come to us. And they do.
Brice and I engage the kids in some banter and joviality. But their idea of a good time is harassment. They begin pulling things from our bikes, then throwing things at us. We mount the cycles just as they are winding up shepherd-style slingshots.
By noon the sun comes out and we can enjoy some good weather. The pair of strong Chinese cyclists--Gao Ceng and Yu Fangkun--are cycling up with Brice. We're getting ready to take on another pass, maybe a small one but there are some difficult kilometers in store all the same.
A couple of Land Cruisers coming from the opposite direction stop next to us and the drivers emerge with something in hand. Gong Jianping sets his bike down and relishes the chance to interact with people. He's an extrovert. That's probably why his profession is sales. He's a regional sales manager for a truck distributor.
I don't know much about Jianping, maybe because I don't spend much time with him. He has been willing to go to all lengths to help us get by the police, for example, by making us honorary members of the Zhejiang Bicycle Racing Association, or agreeing to hatch a fictitious Hangzhou-Denver Friendship Bicycling Association, complete with a stamp and certification. We haven't had to resort to these schemes so far, but the fact that he's hatched them shows his sincerity and kindness. Still, we're chapped because it was a little irresponsible of him to come out here.
We were seriously concerned about his health back in Xidatan, and especially on the pass over the Kunlun mountains when he was doing about 7 kph. That day, hunkered down in a drainage ditch, snow falling, freezing and waiting for Jianping, I turned to Gao Ceng, who was as exasperated as I, and asked what the deal is. I mean, does this guy keep up with you two on training rides back home? I was trying to determine if we have a problem here. If the guy is just out of shape, well, that's one thing.
"Oh he doesn't normally come out with us," Gao Ceng answered. "He cycles maybe once a week. We cycle every day. We get up at 4 am before work. So he's always slower than we are. That's why we don't think he has AMS."
Okay, that means it was irresponsible for him to plan a cycling trip on the highest plateau in the world. He simply wasn't in shape to do this. He no doubt liked the pre-ride attention and publicity, and thought he'd leave the details -- the hard work of cycling -- till later. Now all four of us are paying for it. After his miserable Kunlun pass climb and the day he was forced to rest after it, Jianping needed a way to save his face and our wits. (Saving face means keeping one's pride.)
We noticed his method most plainly on the day of the two Tanggula passes. When we summitted major Tanggula, we found Jianping just below the top on the downhill side, milling about a small pagoda. He and the other two had left Wenquan that morning three hours before us.
We picked Jianping up at the pagoda and he joined us for the descent. By the time we hit the plateau between major and minor Tanggula, we were way ahead of him -- not an intentional decision on our part but more a function of the intensity with which Brice and I cycle and converse.
We often get into a cycling rhythm that is accentuated by conversation. On flat terrain we cycle at the pace which suits whoever is feeling stronger. To put it another way: Imagine yourself cycling side-by-side with a friend. You're cranking and the heart rate is up. The cycling is happening in the background because you're both absorbed in the conversation. Someone -- it doesn't matter who, it's in the background -- flicks a lever and the chain steps down a cog (ie gets harder). The other person matches that ratio to keep the pair moving and the conversation in flight. Throw in a few hills, and all the shifts up and down the cogs, always at maximum effort because the stronger guy's preference carries the day, and before you know it there are no cyclists around but you two. It is in this manner that we lose track of Jianping and often the other two as well.
It was on that plateau that we ran into the second group of ascetic monks, prostrating their way to Lhasa. Since one of them was quite gregarious, we spent time chatting with and photographing him. Here, Gong Jianping caught up to us, exhausted. And yet there was still a pass to go. We last saw Jianping with the monks; even when we stopped for crackers and candy at the foot of minor Tanggula there was no sign of Jianping. Looking back down the pass we never saw him, and we thought to ourselves, "This is a son-of-a-bitch of a pass for us, and we're not going to get over it before dark. How is Jianping going to cope?" The guy is hours behind us and his speed will fall 50% on this pass.
Over the next few hours we hammered it all the way to the dao ban beyond minor Tanggula. Much to our surprise, Gong Jianping lands up just 15 minutes after we do. It was the exact same scenario we'd been through on Fenghuo Pass and many other times. This guy is finding some amazing second winds.
So although I don't know Jianping that well I do know he's a publicity hound and an extrovert. That's why he is heading for the two Land Cruisers right now.
"Xiangdong!" he calls me by my Chinese name. "Call Hongqi!"
Hongqi is the Chinese name these guys know Brice by. We yell and yell at Brice, who is fifty or more meters ahead of us. Hongqi turns around and cycles back to us at the Land Cruisers.
One of the drivers walks over to Brice, an object in his hand. He hands it to Brice, who then sends up a big hoot. These folks were with us atop Kunlun Pass. There, the driver had asked Brice to pose with him for a photo. In the meanwhile, they'd been to Lhasa, had the film developed, and made an extra print for Brice, hoping to pass him on their return trip to Qinghai. Today, the two groups crossed paths.
We climb the next, small pass and find at the top a new weather system--rain. This freezes everybody but subsides.
Here we meet two long-distance cyclists, a husband-wife team from Switzerland. They've cycled from Katmandu in Nepal and have been through Lhasa. The weather is so bad right now that nobody wants to take much time to chat. These people are obviously not having fun. Their expressions reveal true strain, much as ours probably do. The man tries to make the most of it with a little humor: "Well, at least we have rain." They plan to go to Naqu, then turn east and head into Sichuan province. They'd hoped to cycle directly from Lhasa to Sichuan, but the road is underwater. This is the wettest summer in Tibet in some 30 years.
"Did you guys have any trouble with the checkpoint in Naqu?" they ask.
"We never saw one." We in turn ask about the road ahead.
"Well, you can look forward to some passes. We have been quite lucky, it's downhill for us. But you will have a lot of uphill."
Each party wishes the other best of luck and moves on.
The rain has been replaced by a strong head wind, just in time for another pass. This pass is on the map and so it'll be bigger. Climbing a pass into a stiff head wind is just not what we came on vacation to do. And these two weeks into Lhasa are just the warm-up before the major segments in western Tibet, on remote roads with sparser populations.
By seven o'clock all are exhausted and badly in need of a dao ban or somewhere to feed and sleep. But there are none in sight and for some reason haven't been for dozens of kilometers. There is only a derelict compound off to our right, populated by packs of dogs.
Gao Ceng, Brice and I are the first on the scene and we cycle down to it. Maybe there is a dao ban down here.
We arrive and nothing doing. Just dogs, which are checking us out and trotting together in gangs, closing in on us. We circle the wagons a bit as we walk our bikes through the junk, debris and broken glass all over the front of this compound. Again, you do not want to initiate a chase. You cannot win at that.
Yu Fangkun has now descended from the road and is following our tracks. "Hang about," someone says. We can't leave Fangkun to deal with those dogs alone.
We four cycle back up to the road and continue upwards.
It's around 730 pm now. It's cold, and dark will come soon. We continue on up the pass.
Desperate for shelter, we descend to an impoverished Tibetan village. It is tucked underneath some stunning mountains, above which cling a number of cotton-white clouds. It is an amazing scene and I hang back to snap a photo of the three men descending into it.
Arriving at the village, we bark back at dogs and show as much teeth as they do. Some women and children emerge and lead us to the home of an elder. There, a man sitting cross-legged on a kang agrees that we can stay here for 50 yuan. But it seems unavoidable that some will have to sleep on the earthen floor with the rats.
This man is sure there is a dao ban 10 kilometers up the way, so we prefer to do it that way, rather than put these people out. We walk back up to the road with an assemblage of Tibetan children in tow. As usual, the children are obnoxious and hold on to our bicycles, push them, or throw rocks at them. They reach into bags to grab pens, candy or money.
Jianping is at the road and he and the other two set off for the dao ban. It's about 8 pm now and twilight. The mountains behind the village and on either side of this basin or so majestic and forbidding they beg to be photographed. So Brice and I hang back for some pictures. Cold, winter-like clouds are clinging to the tops of these mountains, having a hard time making it past them.
We cycle the remaining bit and reach a Tibetan house near a dao ban and other compounds. Here the men have stopped and they're inside chatting with a friendly group of Tibetans.
The interior is nicely painted and decorated. It's beautiful. We have excellent Tibetan yogurt, sweetened with sugar. Then they ask if anyone will have tsampa, pronounced “tscham-ba”.
Tsampa is barley flour. It is eaten raw from a bowl into which one pours a bit of yak butter tea and some sugar. One uses one's fingers to mix the three and as a utensil. Fangkun, Brice and myself sign up. Jian Ping and Gao Ceng, ever the risk-averse, opt for “convenient noodle.”
With fantastic Brice Minnigh resolve, Brice finishes off his bowl: it's a slow slog to the bottom. Fangkun does likewise. I cannot. It is too vile, too filling. Can you imagine eating raw flour?