Day 5 - Ba Shui He - 4th December 2008

Started off this morning at 8.30, through the city and like yesterday we were suddenly in rural China riding past the village of Su He and stopping for a shopping stop at Baisha where quite a few purchases were made. Usually bought at less than half the original asking price. Then a short ride out to our morning tea stop at a temple but none of us felt inclined to go in as we only had 15 minutes. Then the serious riding began. A 5km climb which got the heart racing, a rest stop (thank God) and then an enjoyable downhill before hitting the plains where we were challenged with our first real off-road biking, actually it was more like a dried creek bed, I'm sure it was. Having never done this type of riding before I wasn't confident about staying on after yesterdays mishaps, but some good tips from Kim helped a lot and I managed to complete the ride unscathed.

Then lunch before our longest ascent for the day, 9kms along a good sealed road with some spectacular valley views but it wasn't easy. The top of this climb was actually the second highest point that we will reach on this journey at 3,200 metres above sea level. So we rose 700 metres in altitude today. The high altitude had me quite short of breathe and most us have to do the type of breathing that women do when delivering a baby, well at least that's what it reminded of. Surprisingly my heart rate was OK and only got to a maximum of about 140 but it felt like it was a lot faster than that so maybe the HRM is a bit wonky. Even though it felt like really hard going at the time, I still felt OK after a short rest so that is at least encouraging because we have even harder challenges ahead tomorrow.

The day finished with an exhilarating downhill ride into the valley of Ba Shui He with a unique terraced waterfall down the bottom with Yaks and crystal clear blue water. As no-one is allowed now to stay in the park we had to then transfer back to Lijiang, but will be driven back to Ba Shui He to continue our journey to Tiger Leaping Gorge in the morming.