Getting to Liuku
Industrial chaos
04/05/2019
After a difficult night's sleep, leaving MangKuan was easy. I'm like the third group of learners in the old saying: there are three groups of people: those few who learn from reading, those who can learn from example and the rest of us who have to pee on the electric fence ourselves. I regretfully find myself often in that third group and have to repeatedly pee on that fence. I learn best from experience and quickly forget and then have to painfully relearn. I should know to never take a room that faces the street. I have been there before. The hotel's neon lights were on until late and there was a small rowdy group of late night drinkers partying on the street below.
All the same I got a pretty early start to the day and the first few kilometres out of town were promising with easy riding through a mostly rural environment. But after the first few km things changed as the environment quickly morphed into an industrial nightmare. I had no idea just how big the Liuku region is and just how much bigger the central government is planning for it to become. As the valley opened up, the industrial construction began. There are bridges across the river that are so new they do not show on my OSM maps, and probably not on google satellite photos either. They are in the process of widening and reinforcing the road. All day I listened to them blasting the new high speed rail line into the steep mountainous hillside far above. Most of the flat land in the valley was a mix of vegetable crops, orchards, massive commercial industrial infrastruture development and highrise building development sites under construction. Everything old is either being torn down and replaced with new or left in place as rubble. Of the 50 km of riding from MangKuan to Liuku, I'd guess that 45 of it was carefully spent cautiously picking my way through building sites and heavy traffic. By the end of the day I was covered in dust, dirt and disappointment. This is not the idyllic ride I had signed on for...
It's time for a rethink.
In hindsight, I should have just taken the bus straight from Kunming to Liuku (yes, I now think there is such a bus leaving from the Western Bus Terminal). It seems the entire Yunnan province is the focus of major development for the central government. And perhaps the best way to see this province is to take a big deep breath in Kunming and zip straight through to the area of your interest, bypassing all of the unpleasantness inbetween. I certainly wouldn't repeat yesterday's ride and don't want another one like that in the near future.
So given all of that, what is the plan? Well....
I'm spending a second day here in Liuku. I have a nice quiet room on the 4th floor of a local hotel. My goal today is to find the location of the bus terminal and see if I can catch a bus all the way up to Bingzhongluo. I'll spend a week or so there relaxing and exploring on foot or on the bike where possible. On the ride up I'll assess the terrain for riding back down river. I'll then decide if I even want to do it.
Option A: If the ride down river will be through endless construction sites, then I guess I'll just catch the bus back to Liuku. From Liuku, I'll bus back to Dali and ride around there for a few days before returning to Kunming on the 24th and my flight out on the 26th of May.
Option B: If the road back down river is ridable, then I'll ride it all the way back to Liuku or as far back as I can before the construction begins again. Here to Bingzhongluo is about a 300 km journey, takes about 9 hours by bus and my guess is about 6 to 8 days by bike. Once back in Liuku, I'll bus my way straight back to Kunming in one go.
Given how negative all of the above reads, I should state up front that this is an interesting and challenging ride and I've experienced and learnt a bit on the way. I constantly read about the rapid pace of development and change in China, but now I've experienced it first hand. And it is truly amazing in its scope and intensity. The Nujiang valley is one of the most remote areas in China and until this decade it was probably also one of the least developed. No more. For good or bad, the entire Yunnan province and this once remote and pristine valley in particular are being transformed.
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Just how far up the valley the current development extends, I will soon discover. The future of the upper valley I suspect is still unclear.
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4 years ago