Mid-October: An Unfinished Cycling Trip

In mid-October, some classmates organized a cycling trip. With no prior experience to draw from, we just hit the road. In the end, underestimating the terrain, we turned back when we were still over twenty kilometers from Gesala. After the previous evening’s five or six hours of pure mountain climbing, no one was eager to push on to the Gesala scenic area at over three thousand meters elevation, much as we regretted it. The bikes were rented together—twenty yuan a day, and pretty heavy.

Setting Off

From the mountain top on the way down, note the altitude and time. It took everyone five hours to reach the summit of this mountain. I’d eaten through all my food, exhausted and thirsty, desperately wanting to collapse into the dry ditch by the roadside and sleep before continuing. But my companion, Brother Liao, stayed with me the whole way—I’m deeply grateful to him. On this journey I discovered for the first time the virtues of cigarettes: a piece of candy and a smoke, and all the fatigue vanished until we reached the top.

They camped in the rear while four of us pushed ahead to Qinghe Waterfall. From there it was still 26 kilometers to Gesala, with a 1,700-meter elevation difference. The stream and waterfall were modest, but the canyons on either side were extremely steep, with loose rocks scattered along the path. I kept worrying a falling stone might hit me—otherwise the classmates who came with us would face a real tragedy. I felt I’d gained some kind of realization here, something about life. Thank God, thank the Buddha for protection.

We camped on a riverbank for the night. I was anxious about flash floods, but an old man eventually came by and put my worries to rest.

On the third day we headed back, passing through Yumen Town, part of the Ertan Reservoir area. The environment and climate here already felt completely different from the city—moist and comfortable, very much like the climate of the Sichuan Basin.

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