Mr. R's latest post to his blog regarding our trip
Post #5
Dateline: Friday, May 31, 7 p.m.
Welcome to the “Shangri-La Here We Come” Blog.
Present location: Kunming, capital city of Yunnan Province.
Yesterday’s riding distance: 276 kms.
Driving (moving) time): 4:14
Moving average: 65 kph.
Tomorrow destination: Dali
Approximate distance: 340 kms
Guesstimate driving time: 5.5 hours
Below is a screen shot of our total gps track to date.
Each color represents a different day’s ride.
Total kms ridden so far: 1,260
GPS track – Chiang Mai to Kunming
Phil Gibbins is taking a ton of photos, way more than me. He is posting them online. You can view them at the following url:
http://www.rideasia.net/motorcycle-...-karpo-6-740-meters-22-113-a-2.html#post29354
Now on to the blog:
Hello interested parties,
We’ll we made it to Kunming.
It’s another world here in this big city of 6.5 million people.
Kunming Street Corner
Kunming is the largest city in Yunnan Province and it will be our base for future tours to this region. Their major international airport has connections to most other Asian capitals and it is only a 1.5 hour flight from Chiang Mai.
Kunming is known as the City of Eternal Spring because their weather is always pleasant; never too hot and humid and never too cold. Outside right now as I type, it couldn’t be any nicer: 26c, sunny, zero humidity.
Yesterday’s ride can be broken down into 3 parts on the same great highway I loved so much yesterday.
Segment 1: We awoke to heavy rain and decided to wait it out. Around 11, when the precipitation seemed to be tapering off, we departed the hotel, but immediately caught up to the rain again. We rode for two hours in a rain of constantly changing intensity. We kept the speedo at around 80 kph and had no problems dealing with the weather or the road. The design of the F800 kept me surprisingly dry.
One hundred and fifty ks later, we turned off the highway for lunch and had to wait for Pae in the 4×4 and our back-up crew of ground handlers driving a beat-up Chinese-made pickup to catch up; we seem to be driving at nearly double their speed and it was a long wait. Pae is an excellent driver and was complaining he is falling asleep because he has to follow our slow-poke ground handlers.
By the time we finished another excellent meal the rain stopped and the sun was beaming brightly down upon us.
Segment #2: Our post-lunch ride was as wonderful as yesterday’s and I am relishing every kilometer of riding. We topped out at over 2000 meters at the highest point of the roadway. For the last half of the ride we didn’t descend below 1,600 meters. The terrain remained steep and craggy but another couple of dozen tunnels bored right through the impeding land masses and allowed the road to curve sweetly and gently on and on and on.
After exiting one tunnel a sign announced we were going down a 27 km descent.
Segment #3: An hour after lunch we entered the outskirts of another major Chinese city, Yuxi, pop. 2.5 million. (There are 147 Chinese cities with a population of over one million! 147!) South of Yuxi the traffic started getting heavier as one would expect of a city of that size, and it got even heavier in the section heading to Kunming (pop. 6.5 million). Nothing terrible, but we were constantly changing lanes to skirt the slow-moving lorries and the slower private cars that started appearing in large numbers.
One pleasant surprise is the driving skills of the Chinese. I have heard they drive terribly, (just like all the local drivers do in Southeast Asia, generally). But the lorry drivers here are courteous and handle their vehicles safely and with skill, and most of the private cars gave us no trouble at all.
Around 25 ks south of Kunming we had to wait for our back-up crew again because mcs are not allowed on the last piece of highway into Kunming so we had to follow their pickups through heavy local congestion to our hotel in the city center. Every time we came to stop next to a bus, which was frequently, and had to wait out the long red lights, all the passengers would cram over to our side to gawk at us: our F800′s all decked out for touring is an exotic sight. China seems to have more than their fair share of exotic cars, but I haven’t seen any large-capacity mcs yet.
All in all a nice day in the saddle.
Today is a rest day in Kunming. Phil and I did some sightseeing, and our favorite place was Green Lake Park. Great place for people watching and Phil and I became sightseeing objects for the locals in the park. Here is one photo:
Green Lake Park
George Migliorelli, the third member of our riding group, will be flying in this evening. Tomorrow he will ride a 250cc Chinese-brand off-road bike and accompany our tour for ten days. At the end of 10 days George, wherever we are, will fly back to Kunming where he will catch his flight back to HK and one of the ground handlers will ride his mc back to Kunming.
TIME
On a mc tour the pace is generally hectic, so the subject of this blog is: TIME, or rather the lack of it, especially when you are trying to produce a a blog about a journey that is both entertaining and informative.
As I mentioned in post #1, this is my first attempt at writing a blog and I’ve never even read a blog from anyone else before either. I had no idea how time consuming it is to produce what you are reading at this moment.
On a mc tour, we usually arrive at our hotel late afternoon, maybe 4-5 p.m. Immediately we crack open a couple of ice cold beers from the cooler and try to catch our breaths after a fatiguing ride. It feels so wonderful to finally stop moving.
Then we have to unpack the mcs and the 4×4, register and check into our rooms, unpack our belongings, wash some clothes, clean my helmet face shield and riding glasses, shower, and change for dinner. This requires at least an hour with no moments wasted.
We also try to fit in a bit of sightseeing wherever our intended destination is, or, when in Thailand, go for a massage.
Next activity is finding a restaurant, get there, order, eat, return back to the hotel, and by this time it is in the neighborhood of 9 p.m. After riding a mc all day, one is generally bone-tired, and my bed is looking awfully inviting. Need a bit of time to unwind before Mr. Sandman visits. And for those who dabble with the local lasses or enjoy a massage, this seriously eats into your sleep time.
An early departure on a tour of this length is a necessity, and in order to have our asses on the bike, key in the ignition at 7:30, we need to arise at 6 and rapidly do the triple ‘s’ (shit, shower, shave), pack, eat, settle with the hotel, check out, and pack the mcs. Whew.
But wait! These days there is myriad of electronic equipment to deal with, and new must-have gizmos become available weekly.
When I get into my hotel room, before I even jump into a shower, I have to start to recharge all my stuff, and many times there is only a single electrical outlet to handle it all! Two if I am lucky. So I have a charging queue going nearly all the time. And all the devices’ batteries require different charging durations.
Here is a list of what needs to be charged in my kit:
My helmet – it has a blue tooth communication system.
Go Pro VDO cameras – I use two, with battery packs, and each one eats two batteries in the morning and two in the afternoon. That often makes 8 batteries that need charging at night. I do have spare batteries and can skip a day of charging if needed.
Each GoPro also uses up a 32 gb memory card in the a.m. and one in the p.m., and these memory cards need to be downloaded to my computer and then erased. That’s 4 memory cards per day. I do have spares and can skip a day if needed, but sooner rather than later I need to go through the above drill.
My Canon Eos digital camera battery needs to be recharged daily and memory card downloaded
Cell phone needs to be recharged daily and photos downloaded as well.
I use 3 gps devices and every day each gps device needs to be recharged. My Zumo 660 goes through three batteries per day and they recharge extremely slow.
And every day I need to download the saved gps tracks and waypoints to the map program in my computer.
Yes, I know I do not have to do all this downloading daily, but I have to play it safe because if any one of the devices fails I have lost a ton of precious and irreplaceable date.
Then when I do download the tracks and waypoints I have to rename them, give them a meaningful title.
Then there’s my laptop – the brains behind everything. This has to be recharged daily and to write this blog I am using the following programs: Word, Map Source, Photoshop, Lightroom, Chrome, WordPress, and VideoPress.
In addition to doing all the above, and write the blog, and process, resize, and crop photos, and saving them for the web, I have to catch up on my emails, answer all incoming queries about my tours, do banking, and run a business from a remote location.
Then finally I MUST check out how the Yankees are doing, look at the latest box scores, and keep abreast of the NBA playoffs.
I often I have to waste 10 to 15 precious minutes just trying to hook up to the internet with the wifi and/or LAN connections, and quite frequently I have to deal with shoddy, intermittant internet connections on top of everything.
Try fitting in all the above in single day. It ain’t easy, believe me. No wonder I sleep for two solid days when I return home after a tour. Takes out some of the fun of motorcycle touring, doesn’t it?
I swear on a stack of bibles I will never buy another electronic device again, no matter what it does, unless it can take the place of at least three of the current devices I am using.
So readers, if I miss a day or two of blogging, I beg your forgiveness. It’s not that I am not trying or being lazy. There just ain’t enough hours in my days.
Until tomorrow, Bye bye.
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