Assy pig

Small travel bubble

So after Kangding we arrived to the beautiful town of Litang wich had a majority of tibetian people. Population of 50,000 with Tibetian architecture and cuisine was great and I liked it the very moment we got there. We both were kind of fed up with China so it was the needed break from chinese culture :) The view around the city was breath taking. Literally coz of the altitude of 4000 metres :P Needed to cacth our breath after few steps. The next morning we planned to go around the city by ourselves but we met this guy Renchin. Tibetian english teacher who was self educated in India for few years and of Nomand heritage. It was splendid experience to talk with a LOCAL guy. ( Caps lock coz people seem allways make weight to that word when travelling :D) "I was with the locals/ So me and my local friends" At this point its funy coz we've heard it so much lately from other travellers.. We tasted some delicious tibetian dumplings with butter tea. Yeap u read it right. Butter tea. It was good for your lips and health and tibetians drink it all the time.

We accomodated in Potala Inn where we met some facinating people! Especially Karen from South Africa and Erik from Norway. They had quite an influence to us. They we're much older than us ( Karen and Erik, if u reading this: Ure not that old but compared to us :) still have lots to see and places to go) and it was so joyful to hear them speak with much more experience of life and especially traveling. But thats why we liked them. Both around their forties and excited about traveling like a child in a candy store :) Both said that they feel alive when on the road, that was their reason for this mysterious way of life. We both but Miki especially got some new energy hearing about their travels. Erik told exiting stories about shipwrecking in the ocean near some random island and in conclusion the way that he think about life was just perfect. "99percent of the time traveling u are safe, but if ure afraid of the one percent, that u get mugged, gun pointed, drugd etc. (which all had happened to him) JUST STAY HOME!" 

The slogan of sports brand Nike would be appropriate for this: "Just do it!"

Life is not about fearing, its the experiences u value most cos in the end isn't life just a sum of them all?

Maybe some wheels

After the twelve hour minibus ride to litang we got fed up with public transportation and the thought of buying motorcycles had been racing in our heads long engough!

We made quite spontanous decision in two days that we're gonna buy them in Litang. Where else, coz the tales told that the route to Yunnan province (backdoor) was facinating. We'd got more out of it when setting the pace ourselves. Not in the back of some crambed minibus.. But we could not have done it without the help of Renchin. He contacted the nomands that owned some used but well shape bikes. Took care of the registration etc. We bargained the price to 6500 Yens ( 650 Euros ) so 325 E each is not much comparing to prices in Finland! We had actually bought some warm clothes for driving like shirts jackets cloves before we had the bikes so Miki said to me that now we're actually gonna buy the bikes with the widest smile ever. Can't even describe how pleased and excited we were when holding the keys on our hands. Just wanted to get on the road immideatly!

About the bikes: 2x Jiapeng 150cc ~7000km driven. Now we've learned that chinese made is not sooo good :D My bike had already a flat tire and the chains continuously hopped of the gears in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately one mechanic drive past and helped us fixin the whole thing.

 Best part is yet to come: I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO EXPERIENCE OF DRIVING MOTORCYCLE!!! Miki has only little :P So probably u could call us lunatics but so be it. What was the Nike's slogan again?

We had to learn driving the hard way. Especially me: The first four time I drive, I fell four times :D The first ones was not so bad but the other two, WOW it could gotten pretty bad. To times I drove too fast and out of the road straight to the rocky sides. Busted my monitor and head light. Luckily survived with merely bruises and I have to thank Erik and Karen convincin us buying the helmets coz my face would be much uglier than it already is. Renchin gave us some scrafs for bringing good like according to the tibetian culture. The road from Litang to Zhongdian was definetly not the best for beginners.. 

The statiscist of crashing our bikes is 1 to 4 in favour of Miki. In Finland we call it "pannut" :D

Sky burial

We saw the tibetian way of disposing the body of a human being. I'd say much more terryfying than the western way. If interested more u can read the info about it from the link, but we didn't take any pictures in honour of the dead. But in few words its about the souls journey to heaven and that the body is fed to the vultures to continue the circle of life "From dust to dust, from ashes to ashes" As they say.

We saw the red bones and intestines of the body being ripped of by the vultures and slowly but thoroughly the huge birds ate everything and there was no marks of a dead body when they had finished.

It was definetly one of the most extreme things I've seen in my life so far and reminded that human body is just like any animals. We are the dominant species in our world but still so perishalbe as a fly. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial

Yunnan province

We've been traveling with our bikes for 4 days and 400kilometers. Made few stops. One in Xiangcheng and another some place which was not even on the map the smallest village I've seen containing like 10 houses along the beautiful river. Headed out to south and Yunnan province seems like very interesting place altough Shangri-la was not the kind of city we had expected. So we again are feeling the urge to move. Next stop is gonna be Dali and we have high hopes for it laid back atmosphere. I've actually planning and had some thoughts in my head about Laos but firstly we should find out if we can get the bikes across the border :D If not, we probably sell them in China..

Can't wait to get to the tropic with my cold beer, book and laidback attitude in my hammock ..

Mat