Posted by After seeing Bernd’s crazy photos of his trip from Munich to China, I knew I wanted to do the same. We booked a tour with Tibetmoto with rental BMWs, driving around 3,000 km through southern China and Tibet and climbing altitudes of up to 4,600 meters. In spring 2019, the time has finally come, the suitcases are packed and we are flying to China.
For someone who likes to write down his travel impressions, it is a great challenge to extract a tour through South China-Tibet into a few minutes of reading. It can only be a sequence of special moments, but the reader will find references to the whole report and the route map at the end.
From the starting point in Dali, we plunge into the winding road leading uphill and test the initial characteristics and cornering behavior of our rental BMWs. At midday we reach Shaxi, an ancient town on the old tea trade route with 500-year-old wooden houses. A hotel with a lovingly decorated courtyard and a high wall to the outside awaits us. None of this helps when you have to carry your suitcase up two storeys, because at an altitude of 3,500 m you’re really panting.
A wonderful morning dawns and we set off in the direction of the Tiger Leap Gorge meeting point. “Free riding” is the order of the day (one of the great advantages of Tibetmoto), which means everyone rides their own thing and we meet at pre-arranged points. From the parking lot of the tourist center at the Tiger Leaping Gorge, we turn right, where a relatively small tunnel blocks the way for the big buses. At the end of the tunnel, the scenery becomes fantastic. The winding road meanders along the mountain flank on the left-hand side above the river and the 5,000-metre peaks rise up vertically on the right – an uplifting sight. Above us the blazing hot sun and below us the Yangtze, whose huge masses of water and roaring waters give an impression of the power that water can generate. The road itself is, shall we say, simple and rustic.
rustic. Crash barriers and the like are not always or only rarely needed on Chinese mountain roads. Instead, we are greeted by a number of child’s head-sized potholes that need to be avoided, preferably when there are no oncoming trucks.
After around 20 km, the valley opens up into a wide plain, which we cross to climb to around 3,700 meters. The barely used road leads through the villages of the Naxi and Lisu and we rarely drive on a straight road that exceeds 100 meters. The winding route takes us to the White Water Terraces, the birthplace of the Dongba religion, which is in danger of disappearing. We continue to Shangri-la, which welcomed us with bitterly cold temperatures. We should not forget that this town, situated at an altitude of 3,000 m, has its own weather. When the sun shines during the day, it is sometimes hot, but as soon as the sun goes down, temperatures plummet.
From Shangri-la, we travel briefly along the Mekong through the grasslands at an altitude of 3,000m and then descend. Well over 1,000m difference in altitude to the Shangri-la plateau and we arrive in the subtropical climate of the Weixi region. On the way, we speed 60 km on a road that quenches all our driving passions. What an unbelievable challenge, which is so fantastic because “here” we might find 10 km to 15 km of such curves in a row.
At the end of the day, we first drive 15 km steeply uphill on a tarmac road, always leaving the Mekong on our left and with impressive views, before turning left onto an off-road track that leads to a small Tibetan mountain village. Now it’s time to keep driving slowly, to lift your bottom up in the bends and turn against the direction of travel and not to be lulled by the fantastic views. The “nature route”, which is quite steep in places, is not really dangerous but requires attention.
As promising as the weather started the next day, it changed abruptly. We first drove further along the valley before climbing a 4,300m pass (Pass of the White Horse) which took us “inside the Himalayas”, so to speak. We were supposed to drive over the pass to one of the spectacular Yangtze loops, but our planned route ended elsewhere as the road was completely blocked by snow. No getting through, absolutely not. A snow slab about 50 m wide but also about 60 cm high showed us our limits. So we had to turn around, drive back a few kilometers and take the newly built tunnel at 4,000m. And then began an amazing descent to the Yangtze Valley.
Bend after bend, a fully developed road, the road captain nowhere to be seen, forgetting the speed limit here and there and indulging in the pleasure of this crazy descent at just over 3,000 meters. At the end of the day, a rather narrow and, above all, hot gorge awaited us and we ended up in the Derong region.
Yes, it’s true, we were warned by our tour guide at the start of the day, as he clearly pointed out that we should put on everything warm that we had. We set off and initially stayed at an altitude of 4,000 m, driving across a seemingly endless high plateau that stretches for more than 100 km. What we simply didn’t realize were the temperatures that prevail at these altitudes. As it was a sunny day, the weather gods granted us a whopping 2° plus.
After 10 minutes my fingers were stiff, after 20 minutes I thought I couldn’t go on any longer, after half an hour we took a break because everyone had the same problem as me and our women in particular couldn’t stop shivering because it was simply freezing cold and the wind was doing the rest. Then another climb and it started to snow. Once we reached the top, we took a nice picture with icicles, threw our prayer cards in the air and wondered whether the huge number of prayer flags had been put up by all those people who had escaped the traffic that makes your hair stand on end.
A very, very long descent followed and it actually got a little warmer – kilometer by kilometer. Our hands relaxed, we could rub our fingers again and our whole body practically soaked up the incoming warmth. Finally, we reached a narrow valley, which gave us another steep and winding descent, albeit on a busy road, and at the end of the stage we reached Yajiang. The descent itself is an event. It is a narrow pass road that leads into an ever-narrowing gorge and ends on the banks of one of the rivers that then flows into Yajiang. The pass road is characterized above all by the fact that anyone who drives one and a half kilometers faster than others overtakes completely painlessly uphill. We continue and initially “ride” through the Tibetan grasslands to “drive” over the pass at an altitude of 4,300 meters to Kangding.
And from there it’s downhill again. Although we still catch a great view of Mt. Gongga on the right, which at over 7,000 m is the highest mountain in the region, it becomes clear during the descent to Moxi that we are in a “different” China. On the one hand, it gets warmer as the altitude drops from meter to meter, the landscape changes and the mountain slopes and valleys are a lush green. We arrive in Moxi in the evening, a town with beautiful wooden facades.
The next day’s destination is Lugu Lake, situated at 2,700m. We check into a hotel on the lake against a fantastic backdrop and have a romp on the beach before dinner. Glaring sunlight woke me up in the morning in my room overlooking the lake. I have to pinch myself to work out whether I’m watching a beautiful video of this high-altitude lake or whether the view is real. It is.
We start early in the morning and drive along the lake on a winding road that is accompanied by Lugu Lake on the right-hand side and slowly climbs, bend by bend, to an altitude of 4,000 meters.
We are approaching the Yangtze River again and another highlight of the tour. The area around the azure blue river was not always so peaceful. To escape such adversity, people built a village high on the rocks above the river. Reaching it was as difficult then as it is now. We take an off-road track to the edge of the village, where the last stop is. There is no longer a road, only narrow and extremely narrow steps. Transportation only by horse, from toilet paper to building materials, but incredible impressions of people’s lives.
The next morning we (unfortunately) head towards our destination. It’s just a short drive to Lijiang, with the fertile dark brown earth accompanying us on both sides of the road. By lunchtime, we reach the old town of Lijiang, which has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is infinitely fortunate that this old town has been preserved for mankind. Infinite misfortune that so many people know about it. The devil is loose here.
One last highlight at the end. One of the wide and good roads with long bends but also tight hairpin bends gave us another taste of the exhilaration of biking and then, yes, it was over. The welcome scene of our road captain Hendrik’s wife and child was followed by farewell scenes of people who had been able to enjoy a great motorcycle tour together, who harmonized well despite all their differences, who showed consideration for each other and were able to laugh with each other as well as at each other. Everyone was different but we were all great together (I’m probably exaggerating a bit now).
You can find the full report and more photos at http://bmw-touren.bike/category/china
