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Our last days in China and our first days in Mongolia are the textbook definition for contrast. Although neighbors, these two countries share little in common other than a border. The last week for us has been highly eventful to say the least.

Driving in the desert with a young guy from China lends time for many questions. The fork in the road heading North to Mongolia is the start of the heavily industrialized Northeast of China. As we approached this fork in the road, the air started to get more and more dense with smoke. Factories lined the highway spewing smoke so thick that it is surprising the air is even breathable. Jason informed me that this most polluted area of China.  After our time in Xian it is hard to believe that it could get any worse.  This area of China is so polluted that when satellites fly over the images are simply white smoke.

The border of the Inner Mongolia province in China is where the South of the Gobi desert begins.  Here many changes are present. It is the only province that China allowed to keep their roots when Mao took over in the 50s. Road signs, homes and villages are in great contrast to the rest of China. Instead of houses many of the communities have yurts.  The factories get thinner and thinner and the wind picks up. Relief on the horizon changes from hills and mountains to plains and finally just endless miles of sand and barren desert. Characters in the old style Mongolian alphabet look like a new form of Arabic turned on its side. We like to call it fire writing.

Eventually, all of this new information led me to some questions with our guide Jason. I asked, "Why is Inner Mongolia part of China and not a part of Mongolia?"

"Inner Mongolia was actually liberated and this year is the 60th anniversary."

In my head I am thinking, liberated from whom? So many times since the start of this journey the history lessons make me feel ever so stupid.

Jason carried on, "When The Peoples Democratic Republic of China was formed in the 40s by Mao, they were the last nation that China liberated."

I thought in my head about good old Chairman Mao. I though more about Tibet. Liberated is a very interesting term, in my past I have always associated it with something being held captive against their will.  IThe Inner Mongolians were liberated from their inferior government, just like the Dalai Lama and the Tibetans were "liberated" from their lack of communism.  Others may see things differently, but the Dalai Lama is a pretty easy choice over Mao and communism any day of the week. It is unfortunate that great guys like our guide Jason have spent their whole life being lied to by their government. He knows no better, according to the history books and anything that you can access in China, all of the nations China invaded were liberated. A simple search on the Internet will give the rest of the world the facts about what happened in these places, but any site with something adverse to say about the situation in Tibet or Inner Mongolia is blocked in China. In fact, all images in an image search for Inner Mongolia was blocked when searching while in Beijing, like for instance this satellite photo of the pollution over NE China (all of the gray is smoke from the factories, click the photo to check out the hi-def version).

Luckily enough, our turn was to the left taking us North to Mongolia. The writing on the signs changes, the weather changes, but most importantly the smoke begins to fade. It is amazing how much better you feel when the air quality is not threatening your health on a daily basis. We had our first glimpse of blue skies in over three weeks. It certainly put a smile across both of our faces. Wide open nothingness was just what the doctor ordered. Well built highways with hardly another car in sight was certainly a great way to ease our way into the next few hours of the usual Chinese border madness.

As we approached the border a rainbow bridge spanned the road leading to the last of our time in China. I asked Jason if it was the Mongolians or the Chinese that like rainbows; he informed me that it was in fact the Mongolians. How could things get better? We were leaving the cloud of pollution under a rainbow entering a country full of people that like rainbows. After jumping through all of the Chinese hoops we finally said goodbye to Jason and made our way through the last two Chinese checkpoints (there were three total to leave).

Moments later we arrived at the Mongolian border. This is not a place that I would recommend anyone visit unless they have a great deal of patience. It did not take us long to get through, but finding out how to get through is the hard part. After finishing at immigration and making our way through the hoards of drunken Mongols, the radio conversations between the two of us wen something like this:

"Okay so what now?"

"Let’s go down that line."

"I think that old bus is broken down at the end of it."

"Do we need paperwork to get through."

"I don’t know."

"Let’s just go for it."

"But how the road is totally blocked."

"I think we can go the wrong way on the other side of the road and get around this."

This went on for another 5 minutes or so, until we found a place to park the trucks and milled around asking questions.  We did notice that when people left the final checkpoint at the border they were giving the guard a piece of paper.  It seemed in our best interests to obtain one of these slips before trying to get through.

After a couple laps around the inspection yard I managed to track down a customs officer dealing with some more drunk Mongolians. This led the two of us into the customs building that was equally chaotic. At every turn a though pops up in this building…what is that smell. Well my friends, that is the smell of alcohol on everyone’s breath, drivers included. $4 later we had our handwritten note from customs saying that we could go.

At this point the sun was going down and we were on our way into the heart of the Gobi desert with nothing more than some binoculars and a compass. The common question people ask before you leave on "roads" in Mongolia is, "Do you have a GPS?" Our immediate answer is, "Heck no, that takes all the fun out of it." Clearly we did not know what we were getting ourselves into.

We drove for about 30 min on what we thought was the highway, only to decide that it did not seem right so then drove 15 mins through the open desert in hopes of finding a better road. Go North, Go West. Eventually you have to in Ulaanbaatar, just follow the railroad tracks, or at least that is what we kept telling ourselves. By now it was getting dark so we pulled off the track and watched the sun set.

We passed out that night and woke up to find ourselves covered in sand with the wind blowing.  Our rig that we set with the tarp to block wind did a good job, but it was just no match for the Gobi winds. After brushing off all the sand and packing up, we hit the "road" again.

Never in my life did I expect to be a the top of a hill in the desert using binoculars to find my way. Never did I expect to use piles of alcohol bottles as markers to find my way. Never did I expect to think of camels at a gas station as the usual. This is Mongolia and this is the Gobi, and it has never been so apparent since we left just how far away from home we have managed to get.

That is the thing about roads, if you take the right one you will end up in a country full of people that like rainbows and ride camels; if you take the wrong one you might just end up in a place were satellite photos are just fuzzy tones of gray. I will take the rainbow lovers any day of the week, those commies down south can take their paperwork and smog and put it where the sun don’t shine and rainbows don’t exist.

A little navigation.

Mongolian National Highway

This eagle was trying to hide. 

Gas, Camels, We’ve got it all.

After 3 days navigating the Gobi Marco Polo style, it was nice to get back to the pavement.

Since our main mode of transportation around the world is by truck, we are always looking for interesting, scenic, and sometimes dangerous roads to drive our Toyotas down. We are constantly on the lookout for something amazing or out of the ordinary because you just never know when you will be driving your own vehicle in that part of the world again. Good locations and photos also help to keep some of our sponsors happy!

We came across one such location in China and came across it totally by accident. I was at a hostel in Xi An explaining our trip to a woman from France. This woman was thoroughly excited about what we were doing and was asking a lot of questions, particularly about the route and the dangers we may encounter while driving our own vehicles. One topic led to another until finally we started talking about "the most dangerous road in the world." There is a road outside of La Paz, Bolivia that typically holds the title as being the most dangerous road in the world among travelers and thrill seekers and we both concluded it was quite dangerous. 

After our discussion, I searched for a few photos of the road in Bolivia and I happened across an obscure blog about another dangerous road. The weblog was actually defending the title of the road in Bolivia against another road which happened to be somewhere in China. The blog did not contain many details about where this road was located, but it did have some pretty crazy photos and it was enough for Steve and I to determine that we had to drive the Thundra and Little Pepe on it. The only information the blog gave was the name of the village the road leads to and a bit of history about why it was built. The road was actually carved into the cliffs by the villagers themselves over the course of many years upon learning that the government would not build a road to make it easier for them to get to the next town down the valley to trade for and purchase supplies. Driving the road in China itself is not necessarily that dangerous (hence the blog defending the road in Bolivia), however, it certainly was dangerous to build and a false move or a bad decision could ruin your day and those to come for sure.

Finding exactly where the road was and if we would come near it on our journey through China proved to be a fairly difficult mission to accomplish. None of the guidebooks mentioned how to find the village and it was not on any of our maps… not on our western maps or on our guide Jasons Chinese maps. Still determined to find out where this road was, we began to reveal more clues as to the location of this village and the road using creative web searches and having Jason speak with locals about it. To make our task more difficult, the blog either intentionally or unintentionally placed the road in the incorrect Chinese province. After three days of research and Jason spending many hours talking with locals and hitting the streets, we finally found what we thought was the location of this road, but we could not be 100 percent certain unless we got closer. Getting closer entailed driving about 300 kilometers and many hours out of our way on backcountry provincial roads. It was a gamble, but it certainly paid off as we found the location of the village and the road.

Interestingly enough, the place is actually fairly popular as a local tourist spot… enough so that they charge an admission fee to walk the road and another fee to drive on it. However, it was still pretty far off any tourist path and people were actually pretty amazed that we had managed to find it. One couple was totally surprised that westerners with their own cars had actually found the village. The road was so amazing, the views from the top so breathtaking, and the history behind the village so interesting, we were surprised that Lonely Planet or any other guidebook publisher had yet to identify or include it in their books. It is a pretty difficult place to get to, is not really close to any major cities and is not conveniently served by any form of public transportation, so that may be why it is still somewhat of a secret spot. In any regard, it is there if you put in the work to find it. At this point, all we are going to do is reveal a little bit of information about this place. The village is located just outside the town of XinXiang in Henan province and starts with a G and some people refer to the road as the village’s tunnel. With some creative research and local assistance, you too can experience the road and all that it has to offer if you ever find yourself in this part of China. Until then you will just have to enjoy some of our photos of definitely one of the craziest roads in the world. 

The road winds its way up from the valley floor below

The road was completely carved into the face of the cliff

A lot of work went into the construction of this road

Most people come to walk the road

Others come to drive their Tundra on it

The road can get pretty narrow

Especially with oncoming traffic

Bouey is a professional and no Thundra’s were hurt in the making of this photo

Bouey wondering if he just knocked a Chinese tourist off the cliff

The glowing eyes of the Thundra are a formidable sight for anyone coming the other way

We are in China, so there has to be a traffic jam somewhere

It is truly amazing how much work went into building the road

The view is well worth the effort in getting here

Quite spectacular

This spot near the village seems to be popular among Chinese art students

Now I know why the government didn’t want to build a road here

Since we have been on the road, we have had countless people approach us and give us support and words of encouragement for what we are doing. I think part of it is definitely the fact that we have some pretty flash trucks. (Yes I am incorporating some of the slang from the various countries we have traveled though) As Shoppman wrote before,it is like driving a spaceship around and there is no question that the Sequoia and especially the Tundra turn more heads than a one man traveling band. Whether it is an Aussie speeding down a dusty outback highway in his Hilux to get a better look at the Tundra or a Chinese driver speeding up in downtown Beijing to flash us a exuberant thumbs up, the cars definitely attract a lot of attention and so far, all of it has been extremely positive. Actually, the only negative comments have been from a few Americans we overheard chit-chatting in the background about how obnoxious we are to be driving big American, V8 SUV’s. Ultimately, even if we were to stop the expedition tomorrow, I truly feel that the Thundra represents the most famous and most photographed Toyota Tundra in the world. With that distinction, maybe we can get a few more bucks from Toyota

Obviously since Shoppman and I are both extremely modest guys, we have no problems with the Toyotas taking the spotlight. However, people here in China seem to be taking an equal interest in the two tall, unshaven, semi-dirty American boys behind the wheel of these fascinating machines. Whether we park the cars at Tiger Leaping Gorge or the Shaolin Temple, people first start looking at the trucks and when they find out we are the ones driving them the cameras come flying out. People actually form a line to get their photo taken with the two crazy Americans driving around the world. It would be interesting to know how many times Steve and I pop up in a Chinese photo album because the shutters have been firing away since we entered the country.  Whether it is a business man from Shanghai, a couple of university students from Xi An, or a newly wed couple from Xixiang the Chinese can’t seem to get enough of us. O.K., I will let my ego cool off a bit, but it is nice being popular and the subject of so much positive attention in a strange and foreign land.

The map on the hood is an easy way to explain what we are doing in any language

Pimpin’ ain’t easy

TWBR and the boys from the tire shop

No I don’t want any herbs but I’ll give you an autograph

Look at ya… just look at ya

A moment frozen in time

Say "Peking Duck…"

Newlyweds…. sure come on down

Getting into China was quite an undertaking for TWBR and we were excited to get finally get in. However, given the shear size of China and the amount of time we had been granted to get through it, we knew we were in for some long days on the road. As expected, driving in China has been an interesting experience and after about two weeks here, Steve and I are really feeling fatigued.

On top of having to cover a lot of miles, the road conditions in China further inject a healthy dose of frustration into the daily drive and basically ensure that you are not going to get anywhere fast. China is in the process of a massive highway building campaign and plans to have a majority of the major provincial capitals linked by expressways in time for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. This is good news for Chinese motorists, and when you do find yourself on completed sections of the expressway, you are treated to some of the best roads anywhere in the world. However, because China is spending so much money and energy on these new expressways, they are letting all of the other "non-essential" roads fall apart. As a result, the current main roads linking cities and provinces are downright deplorable. In fact, I can say with complete confidence that pound for pound, China has the worst roads we have driven on during this expedition thus far and if it isn’t the lack of road maintenance that will leave your vehicle needing some maintenance of its own, mother nature seems to have a real knack for wreaking havoc on Chinese roads.

On the road again…

Sounds like a bad place to park

They were not kidding

When you do find yourself on the roads, and in many cases calling them roads is a generous moniker, China manages to jam the knife in your back a little bit deeper by charging tolls. Driving on pretty much every "improved" road in China comes at a cost and in some cases, toll booths may be as close together as one kilometer… that’s right, we recently drove a grand total of three minutes between toll gates on one stretch of road in Henan province. Given how bad some of the roads were, they should have been paying us for the wear and tear on the Toyotas… already two flat tires… but alas, we have already spent about 2,000 Yuan ($300) on road tolls and have another 1,500 miles or so to go.

At this point it seemed like we had been through 229 toll booths

Quite the growing collection of toll receipts

For write-off purposes if they can understand it

I am usually not into supporting cultural stereotypes, but to make matters worse, Chinese drivers are the worst. Driving in other countries in SE Asia proved to challenging at times, but China has completely honed in my defensive driving skills as it is downright dangerous here. Drivers in China are generally unaware of anyone or anything else on the road besides themselves and typically pull out onto a major road from a side street or alleyway without even a glance to see if doing so might include them in the 400 or so people who die on Chinese roads each day. Traffic laws are rarely followed even in front of traffic cops who are more likely to issue you a parking ticket rather than one for speeding or reckless driving. In China, drivers feel it is necessary to have their bright lights on when approaching oncoming traffic on a two-lane road at night even in a well lit urban area and the striping on the road seems to only be there for aesthetic purposes as no one really maintains their lane and purposefully seem to put their own life and the lives of a minivan full of young Chinese female gymnasts in peril.

Don’t even ask

I said don’t ask

Better him than me I guess

There do come to pass from time to time points when you think you have achieved a degree of solace by reaching a completed expressway, however, the victory is short-lived as truck drivers ignore laws prohibiting them from occupying the fast lane and collude with trucks in the slow lane to equally drive about 25 kmh side by side in a 120kmh zone. Back home we call this move a "Chinese Roadblock…" I guess you just call it a roadblock here. We also recently acquired a nice new $1,000 dent on the Thundra thanks to a guy on a moped who thought it would be appropriate to make a left hand turn directly into the passenger door of the truck. 

You should see the other guy’s ride

Even when you make it to the expressway, they decide to close it sometimes

These guys ensure the expressway is anything but

As you can see, there are just a few variables preventing us from making it across China in a safe and efficient manner. Since crossing the border from Laos, we have covered a little over 2,400 miles (3,800 kilometers) and it has taken us about 65 hours of actual drive time behind the wheel to do so. That works out to an average speed of 37 mph (59 kmh) and we are only about 2/3 of the way through. Since most of the driving here in China is white knuckle driving, I am looking forward to the vast open stretches of nothing we can look forward to in Mongolia.  Even if the roads are bad, which will probably be the case, there will definitely be a lot less people on them. Don’t get me wrong, the people here are amazing, but since we spend a lot of time behind the wheel, you tend to get a somewhat jaded view of that aspect of China.

Over the last few days the ground beneath the trucks has been flying by.  After finally getting all of our paperwork straight and all of the “inspections” done, we made our way to Kunming, a day later we raced off to Dali, Li Shaing followed by Tiger Leaping Gorge and now we are hours away from Chengdu. (Excuse me if some of these spellings are wrong)

What does all this mean?

It means that we have travelled over 1,300 miles in the last week or so.  The thing is though…we have been measuring it in the old metric system, so we have actually been “knockin off the k’s” as we have been putting it lately.  We have gone from the tropics in some of the hottest weather to date all the way up to some mountain passes over 9,000 ft with temperatures like fall in Colorado.

Most of the most recent days have consisted of driving 10-14 hour days.  These days seem long I am sure, especially considering that with that amount of driving we should have gone double the distance.  As you have heard us say before, roads just are not the same here.  China is particularly bad and yesterday our average speed over a 10 hour day of driving was only 30 mph, and that includes over an hour on a 4 lane expressway to help out the average.  With the windy roads, giant pot holes, insane Chinese drivers, pollution so think you cannot see 30 ft in front of you and countless passes and canyons, it will be a welcome change to get into the Gobi desert. There we should have some wide open roads that don’t leave you feeling like you just ran a marathon after just a simple day of driving.

Oh…sorry for the lack of photos, we have just been moving so much lately and Internet is a little more difficult in China.  Soon though, I promise.