A tour through China with no guide

[KTMphil]

A few photo's Som took with her Canon S95

 

[KTMphil]

One more of the Stone Forest in Shilin, China - 120km south east of Kunming.

 

[yempaul]

One more of the Stone Forest in Shilin, China - 120km south east of Kunming.



[attachment=0:2z59xujc]stone forest.jpg[/attachment:2z59xujc]

The Stone Forest was magic eh?

 

[Steve Canyon]

That's amazing!!!, how did they get there?

Stonehenge stuff.....

 

[activechina]

Very nice pictures of Yunnan! You've survived China, Phil. We Kunming riders are planning short trip to some small villages in Wuliang Mountains during the Worker's Day holiday(First week of May) with our new Jialing 600 motorcycles. I will post some pix if they are nice.

 

[Steve Canyon]

Phil, would you be allowed to ride your Chinese bike through Laos into Thailand? :?:

 

[KTMphil]

Phil, would you be allowed to ride your Chinese bike through Laos into Thailand? :?:

if you can get it out of China under your name yes ... Robert did it a few years back

 

[Franki]

The police check points are every bigger village. You may get by one but you can't get by all. As for midnight passing, Rob can give you his side of the story.

If you want to see how Tibetan lives and their culture, there are planty of them in Yunnan, Szechuan & Qinghai. Why do you need to go to Tibet?

Would like to get through to the Everest base camp

I have passed through the turn off to Everest Base Camp several times and not bothered to go in to have a look. It is not that Mt. Everest is not beautiful, it is the multi level of charges/entrance fees demanded on me that is unreasonable. So I went into Nepal and look at Mt. Everest from the south. Believe me Phil, It look much nicer from the Nepal side. :RO

 

[KTMphil]

Are there daily permit fees for Nepal? I'm told Bhutan is now open to motorcycles and the daily permit fee is USD$ 250.

The police check points are every bigger village. You may get by one but you can't get by all. As for midnight passing, Rob can give you his side of the story.

If you want to see how Tibetan lives and their culture, there are planty of them in Yunnan, Szechuan & Qinghai. Why do you need to go to Tibet?

Would like to get through to the Everest base camp

I have passed through the turn off to Everest Base Camp several times and not bothered to go in to have a look. It is not that Mt. Everest is not beautiful, it is the multi level of charges/entrance fees demanded on me that is unreasonable. So I went into Nepal and look at Mt. Everest from the south. Believe me Phil, It look much nicer from the Nepal side. :RO

 

[bigntall]

Great job Phil, looks like you enjoyed yourselves.

 

[Frank Smith690]

A tour through China with no guide


China has to be of the most fascinating regions to motorcycle tour, with it's mountainous terrain, expanse, traditional way of life & huge population.

With a bit of effort, Som & I managed to arrange 2 bikes and were able to tour through China alone with no guide.

Below gives you an idea of the beauty thats available in China

One of the HUGE problems with China, is public toilets, for most western people it's a huge shock - no doors or walls for the number-2-room, this was the toilet next to the shop that provided us with the bikes.

[/quot

Looked like a great ride Phill, yes the old hong narm looks like they need some up grades in china...

 

[Franki]

Are there daily permit fees for Nepal? I'm told Bhutan is now open to motorcycles and the daily permit fee is USD$ 250.



I know there are permit fees when you enter National Parks in Nepal. Other than that, there are about 3000km of dirt road just opened for private vehicles (no trucks allowed) Katmando (KTM ) is about 1200m and Mt. Everest is about 8888m, so the drastic change made great views. By the way, Nepalees are very friendly and things are dirt cheap.


Forget Bhutan, they only aim for highend tourists. The country is so small that they need to maximize their PE ratio by taking only highend spenders.

 

[Lone Rider]

Yeah, agree with Franki that Bhutan is aiming for the high-end tourists as you are asked to pay 250 USD per day even when you don't move around and stay in a cheap hotel. Worked there for about 3 month in the early 90's (at that time the tourist rate per day was 200 USD) and although it is a beautiful country , at that time travelling was not easy - basically only 1 road (partly paved) going from east to west with all other roads being unpaved (and often blocked by landslides) and often not more than goat tracks once you got a bit more to the north. It was often faster to head south from Thimphu (the capital) to India, then head east in India and further on head north again to enter Bhutan to the place where you had to be.

 

[rhiekel]

Phil, would you be allowed to ride your Chinese bike through Laos into Thailand? :?:

if you can get it out of China under your name yes ... Robert did it a few years back

Correct. The first time I brought my Chinese plated bike from China into Laos, it was no problem. The second time I brought it the same way, for some reason the immigration people told me I could leave, but the bike would have to stay in China. I smiled and said that that night the bike and I would both be in Laos...... :-) A small chat back with the customs people who said there was no problem, and then immigration relented and let both the bike and I to go into Laos. No idea what the change was. A bit silly now, as northern Laos is now full of Chinese guys on Chinese plated bikes touring around, so clearly not a real issue.... Just be sure that when you buy the Chinese bike, that you have an official looking bill of sale from the Chinese owner of record that clearly says he sold the bike to you, thus giving you the power to leave China with the bike.

 

[KTMphil]

Rob -did you re-enter China with the Chinese registered bike, I can't remember?

Phil, would you be allowed to ride your Chinese bike through Laos into Thailand? :?:

if you can get it out of China under your name yes ... Robert did it a few years back

Correct. The first time I brought my Chinese plated bike from China into Laos, it was no problem. The second time I brought it the same way, for some reason the immigration people told me I could leave, but the bike would have to stay in China. I smiled and said that that night the bike and I would both be in Laos...... :-) A small chat back with the customs people who said there was no problem, and then immigration relented and let both the bike and I to go into Laos. No idea what the change was. A bit silly now, as northern Laos is now full of Chinese guys on Chinese plated bikes touring around, so clearly not a real issue.... Just be sure that when you buy the Chinese bike, that you have an official looking bill of sale from the Chinese owner of record that clearly says he sold the bike to you, thus giving you the power to leave China with the bike.

 

[KTMphil]

..

 

[rhiekel]

I was able to re-enter China at the Laos border with the Qingqi 200 bike. By then the tags were expired , but that did not seem to matter to the customs officials. Nor was insurance an issue, as that was expired as well. They spent the most time looking at the document that was in essence the bill of sale transferring the bike to me. This was done by an agent at the dealer when I bought the bike new.
The check point at the southern most border entry into Tibet in fact closes about midnight. But as Franki indicated , there are many more checkpoints in small towns, and everyone knows you are not supposed to be in Tibet, there so it would be an instant stop for any police man who sees you. I spent the night at this checkpoint, and was sent packing the next morning back the way I came. Which was about a 100 kilometers of a bad dirt road... :-(

At least the way back was scenic.... :-) This river is interesting as it is the beginning of the mighty Mekong River.

 

[esspressolungo]

Truly amazing report with very nice pictures..what an adventure...hope I will be able to do the same thing one day

 

[KTMphil]

Truly amazing report with very nice pictures..what an adventure...hope I will be able to do the same thing one day

Can't wait to get back there Rudi

 

[Ally]

Very nice pictures of Yunnan! You've survived China, Phil. We Kunming riders are planning short trip to some small villages in Wuliang Mountains during the Worker's Day holiday(First week of May) with our new Jialing 600 motorcycles. I will post some pix if they are nice.

Hi there Activechina, hope you were able to capture more images of the Wuliang Mountain area, I am sure everyone on this forum is keen to see them.

Cheers

Ally

 

[KTMphil]

Great photo of Frankie Yang, who helped with the organization and routing of our China ride.

 

[Captain_Slash]

A Varadero, I had one of these splendid underrated bikes in the UK a few years back, probably the best bike I have ever owned

 

[activechina]

Hello everyone, like I said I would post some pictures of our short trip during the workers day holidays. We've bought two new Jialing 600 bikes so it was a running in trip for the Chinese made 600cc enduro bikes. We didn't take the trails as the bikes are too big for the mountain trails.

 

[activechina]

We were a team of 8 bikes, 2 Jh600, 1 DRZ, 1 Transalp 600, 2 Jialing 250, 1 Yamaha Serow, 1 RX125. So a stange team of all kinds of bikes.

 

[activechina]

We had a mixture of paved and dirt so a good chance to test my new Jialing 600 on two types of road surfaces.

 

[activechina]

After eating some dust, it's time to take a cool bath in the river.

 

[activechina]

Time to move on, we played death on the road.

 

[activechina]

Rolled on, we stopped again to visit an old bridge. And lots of posing productions.

 

[KTMphil]

Fantastic report and photo's of the Labor Day Jah - really appreciate you sharing them, thank you! Hope to see you soon ..


How many CC's is the Honda RX?

 

[activechina]

The other day was some challenging dirt track riding for 40KM. We planned to ride to the top of the mountain and have some fun with a huge reservoir. So the small bikes left us in dust and gone without looking back.
Over all, I was satisfied with JH600 on both paved and dirt, the track was stony and trenched but JH600 handled well.

 

[activechina]

It's very disappointing wehn we finally reached the top. The reservoir was empty, waster was drained to irrigate the terraced fields that we saw. It's the time for the farmers to plant the paddy.

 

[activechina]

Happy times fly, gotta go home. We are looking forward to another longer ride maybe in June.

 

[activechina]

Fantastic report and photo's of the Labor Day Jah - really appreciate you sharing them, thank you! Hope to see you soon ..


How many CC's is the Honda RX?

The RX was made in Korea, it's 125cc.

 

[activechina]

Great photo of Frankie Yang, who helped with the organization and routing of our China ride.


[attachment=0:369xj7fw]Frankie Yang.jpg[/attachment:369xj7fw]

That's a really good pic of brother Young!

 

[rhiekel]

Great pictures by activechina showing fun on the road. I liked the stone balls in the river picture. This reinforced something I learned from my trip in China. I went there expecting the Chinese to be sort of staid and conservative. Instead I was delighted to find that in many ways they are even wackier than we are ! :

 

[KTMphil]

If you're looking to book direct flights from Chiang Mai, Thailand to Kunming, China, the 2 travel agencies below can usually beat internet flight prices & can add value as to when the promotion fares will be happening, well worth giving them a try:


Charol Travel: 053 252 050

P & P Travel: 053 272 545

 

[nikhuzlan]

Just fantastic guys.

 

[Just Bob]

That's it. I'm done. Best thread and pics I've ever read on the internerd. I'm blown away. Bravo!

And thank you. A lot.

 

[burnjr]

nice ride ..

 

[KTMphil]

The Camillia Hotel in Kunming has been demolished in the passed few months, it was a great value, budget hotel smack in the middle of Kunming, a real shame.

With the economy thriving, interesting to see which high end foreign companies want to commit capital in Kunming

The flashy Telecommunications Hotel on the left

For value for money and location, the Camillia Hotel is hard to beat - room rates are around 180 Yuan a night/ 900 Thai Bht

https://foursquare.com/v/%E8%8C%B6%E8%8 ... 74ac6a8f82


They do have a dorm section as well which will be much much cheaper

You've got Aomai's Kitchen restaurant that does ok western food 300 meters to the west