28Day-Yunnan(Kunming) to Tibet(Lhasa) Cycling Tour

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The Yunnan-Tibet Highway (road 318) leads through spectacular landscape. There are several high passes with long climbs from hot deserts to snow. Large portions of the road are now paved, but the dirt road parts are still challenging, especially during the rainy season. Be aware that significant stretches of the dirt road in the Parlung Tsangpo valley are subject to frequent landslides.

At Bamda, road 318 meets road 214, which follows the river Yu Chu. We took road 214 from Lhasa to Zuogong,then we tried out a small track following the Yu Chu river. For two-and-a-half days we cycled on this difficult track reaching the village BiTu. There it became clear that the road did not continue, and that there would only be horse trails over the ShuLa pass to the Mekong valley. Due to limited time, we could not go back and thus rode/pushed/carried our bikes on the horse trails. Superb landscape on this stretch, but honestly we do not

recommend to do it with a bicycle...

Something about checkpoints (May 2005): There are many traffic control checkpoints in Tibet. Usually, at these checkpoints nobody cares about foreigners, as they are run by the traffic police (dark green uniforms). Thus, almost every town hase a barrier or some kind of checkpoint at the entrance to town. In East Tibet we found all of the barriers to be open and if at all some offical was present next to it, they did not care about us cycling through. 

Likewise, military does not care about foreign cyclists as long as you don't interfere with their business. Thus, military checkpoints are not to worry about, and military truck convois are a f***ing pain because of the dust, but nothing else.

We cycled through Bayi/Nyingchi at night - it was a recommendation given to us by other cyclists we met in Lhasa (looking back I am not so sure anymore if that would have been necessary). Apart from that, we stopped in all major towns during the day to buy bread, but we never stayed in a hotel.

Our impression: It seems that officially the region is opening up (you see a lot of English road signs etc.) and nobody seems to be systematically looking out for foreigners. We met many, many cyclists on road 318, also Chinese. However, local police may want to earn bribes or fines and thus every now and then pick up on an easy victim. By keeping a low profile, by being persistent and stubborn, and with a portion of luck you'll be o.k.

Be aware that the situation can change any time - be careful anyway.