Good morning, today it’s Lugu Lake to Xichang, while it is only around 250 km, the navigation app predicts a 6 hour drive. Can only mean, small streets and traffic I guess.
Lugu Lake and especially the hotel here is certainly one of those surprising gems. The hotel is for now the candidate or the best hotel in terms of design, facilities, location, comfort and luxury. I could easily stay a week here and explore the surroundings of the lake and interesting communities. Another time.
As the weather is a bit cloudy, I will take the shortest route directly back down to the main road to Xichang, instead of driving around the lake. On top, temperatures are around 15° C, which means I will wear one extra layer and the light rain jacket.
17:10
Arrived in Xichang at the hotel, another nice room.
Today was certainly an interesting driving day and as expected, it is as all on narrow, curvy roads with thick traffic from scooters, three wheeler, cars, SUVs, vans busses and endless slow trucks. In parts, the speed was around 20 km/h and seldom over 60. However, the first part down from Legu Lake was a ride in an unforgettable stunning landscape with deep gorges, steep hills, lush green highland pine tree forests and everything between.
Sadly, that came to an end when I approached and passed parking traffic for ca 12 km only to witness an accident we do not want to see. On one of the many tight bends, with the rock formation obstructing the view into the bend, two trucks crashed into each other at full speed. Both driver houses are completely smashed, window screens shattered on the street, and both engines are crashed. Even when I arrived maybe an hour after the accident, they were still working out how to get at least one truck pulled back so there is a lane where the ca 200 cars could pass through. A sobering reminder that traffic and driving etiquette is , are least to say, different with room for collective improvement and respect towards the others. I quickly got the feeling, that most drivers are demanding respect by sometimes spectacular risky overtaking maneuvers and measured by the size and age of the car, with motorcycles (big or small) at the end of the chain. Or sometimes, I can feel, it must be a special challenge to overtake a big bike, even on the gravel parts, damaging their own undercarriage as it became obvious by the crashing noise when they smashed through the gravel parts only to get in front of me, to slow down to a crawl again.
Well, all part of the education for me. I I see a car approaching from the back, I now signal them to overtake me when the traffic allows it. Gives me a much better feeling, rather a SUV is breathing down my neck 1/2 meter from my rear end.
The remaining half was on a standard national road, some stream traffic that is one long chain for 70 km.
As I have crossed into Sichuan, I cannot use the highways anymore (motorcycles not allowed), so it will be national roads for the next few days until I reach the highlands of Gansu.
I need to find some dinner now, after I was sitting on the bikes for over 6 hours, plus the one hour road blockage.
I planned lunch somewhere in the middle, but the cloudy weather, thick traffic and no idea what else lies ahead, I decided to keep going, as I also had plenty of fuel left in the tank. Need to fill up tomorrow again before it goes back onto those roads further East towards Meigu, a town, nobody knows in China it seems. Will see how that will work out.
The hotel is in a great location, next to a big foody area. The problem is only, they are all catering for big groups sitting around a hot pot or on a table BBQ etc. there is nothing where a single tourist feels comfortable. Settled finally for a road side bbq stand with things on offer I do not know what it is really. Part of the adventure.
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