Laimalusu

You might have guessed so: We are not alone on the road. It's actually quite a big team. Four people doing the tour, our German guide, a tibetian guide and two drivers. A van and a truck.

That may sound a bit too much logistics for four people, but: You are not allowed in Tibet without a local guide. The car is not only a safety feature (imagine someone having problems with the height so he has to go down quickly...) but also needed because there are some parts of the route we cannot cycle. The truck is needed to carry bikes in case of an emergency and also because the bikes cannot go from Tibet to Nepal but have to go back to China. We will get other bikes in Nepal. And the German guide knows the route.

Though our guide speaks Chinese it is actually quite important to have a local guide who can speak tibetian. The more you get to the countryside the less people are speaking Chinese. And it's not always clear where to spend the night. We had one planned hotel that was being renovated, another one was just demolished (sic!). And tonight we went one village further because the guides said the accomodation is better (though it is lacking a toilet..)Read more