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Archive for August 31st, 2005

Kashgar old city by night

Posted by Claudio on August 31st, 2005

We had a walk in the old city of Kashgar in the evening. Really a nice atmosphere.

Kashgar

Posted by Claudio on August 31st, 2005

We finnaly made it to Kashgar. Actually, much faster that expected. It’s a pity that in Novosibirsk we lost gprs coverage and here in Kashgar we are not even able to roam in the local gsm network. So, for sometime no more photos. Just a quick update.
Yesterday we flew from Novosibirsk to Urumqi. We arrived in the afternoon at 4 o’clock. During the flight we played with the idea of quickly buying the bikes and flying immediatelly to Kashgar. Just after landed we went straight to the Giant shop in Urumqi. We tried a couple of models and at the end we asked the seller to prepare a couple of customized bikes for us. He told us: in two hours they are ready. Wonderful. This can happen only in China. When we came back at 8pm the bikes were almost ready. Two brand new mountain bikes with Giant frame, Shimano gears, disc brakes, backsit and spare parts. Everything costed a quarter of what we would have paid back in Finland. Our flight was at 23:10. After finishing assembling the bikes, we asked the seller to disassable them againg and to pack them in the orginial boxes. It was almost a race against time but the seller was really experienced!! At 10pm we were on two different taxis running to the airport. We got there some 40 minutes before the flight. We bought a ticket, we made an ultra late check-in with excess luggage and at the end we boarded on time. When we were on the plane we couldn’t believe that we made it.

Today we spent the day in Kashgar trying the bikes and relaxing a bit. Funny, Simone got a puncture after 8 kilometers of biking. This is really promising :-) Tomorrow early in the morning we’ll start the long trip. No posts for sometime. Probably till when we are in Gilgit.

Lunch time :-)

Posted by Claudio on August 31st, 2005

First puncture

Posted by Claudio on August 31st, 2005

First test of the bikes, few kilometers and the first puncture for Simone… really good start