Day: May 18, 2006

Wind that drives us crazy – a fall which hurts – an anniversary: we started 5 months ago.

China is one big building site, which means that year after year China is increasing its network of roads and the cities are full of cranes and new buildings.  From one year to the next it is difficult to find ones bearings.  It was the case for us as we left Toksun: the old highway 314 has been abandoned for the new road which goes around Toksun.  We will meet highway 312 by taking road number 301.

At 7H00 as we ate breakfast we saw through the window that there was wind.  We had no way of imagining to what point that wind would be violent, blowing in gusts.

The departure was at 8H00.  Serge walked or rather he fought the wind and tried to advance.  We estimated that the gusts, which kept us from standing in one place, came at more than 100 km/hr.  Even walking became mission impossible.  It was acrobatics.  At 3km/hr. bent over, Serge made progress but stopped when cars went by, sometimes he even went backwards 2 to 3 steps: the wind was stronger than he was.  The camper was swaying so much that we weren’t very reassured.  All we needed was to have it tip over.

At kilometer 26 and about six hours later we were heading due east on highway 312 and the wind became favorable.  Serge was literally pushed ahead and hit a peak speed of 11km/hr.  He took a few minutes to talk with an Englishman who left London on his bike two years ago and who was headed for Kazakhstan.

Serge took off again on route 312, a good four lane highway but with no emergency stopping place and no clearing zone so he was sharing the asphalt with the vehicles.  It was very dangerous but he had no choice.  A truck went by as a car passed it so it couldn’t move out to give room to Serge, who was caught by the blast of air.  Serge reacted by rushing to the right and going down the slope all new roads have for water run off. The time it took to shout he had already fallen.  It was a more violent fall than the one of last Saturday and Serge was prostrated with pain.  The same right knee is cut and this time the kneecap is swollen, his shoulder is all scraped and it’s impossible to touch the sore rib area on the left.  Serge had tears in his eyes and the worst luck of all, the wind turned, less violent but head on.

The end of this stage was one of the most difficult and it lead us to Turpan, a city known for its extreme temperatures and violent winds.  We aren’t disappointed.