Found a Pint Of Guinness!

Location: Chengdu
Miles: 2550
From Kunming, we have to find the best route we can to Chengdu.  Chengdu is old stomping ground as is the beautiful Mount Emie and its temples and monkeys, some 100 miles south.  We just need to wind our way north there.  We pick up some of the roads that we did in 2009; back then they were a terrible slow going quagmire of road works.  In the intervening period, the smaller national road has been finished and some links of the Expressway are also open, which takes the heavy truck traffic. 

It generally makes for much improved riding conditions, but still, China’s roads are as unpredictable as its drivers.  Perfect new tarmac becomes a broken mess of concrete in a blink of an eye, or a landslide will have already taken half the road out, or one broken down truck causes a two hour jam (but not for us!)

Sections of the Expressway are still being built through some of the most difficult mountain and gorges imaginable.  The engineering required to complete this road building feat is phenomenal – basically linking all the extremities of China to Beijing by a fast dual carriageway toll road (which motorcycles are banned from).  As our Chinese guide described it “China’s new Great Wall” and looking at how this road has been blasted through mountains, curved around cliffs, spanning huge gorges, traversing rivers and lakes, it’s an apt description.

We arrive in Chengdu to some of the worst visibility we have experienced here.  True the weather isn’t that great and it’s raining, but the pollution contributes big time to the thick haze we see from our hotel window and the whole city is shrouded in a cloying smog.   We settle down for a few days, meet with old friends and manage to find a pint of Guinness!