万事开头难 。All things are difficult at the start

There’s a certain amount of anxiety about travelling in China. The language barrier, the firewall, the payments apps (China is both cashless and cardless) all cause us pre-arrival stress. Initially, most of the things we worry about evaporate. We’re scooped up at the airport by someone offering us transport for a fair price. Alipay works to pay him, and works at all subsequent places. Our VPNs work without issue.

The drive into Kunming is astonishing. It is just so big, both sprawled out in all directions and towering into the sky. This is a provincial capital, and not in the populous part of the country, and yet it’s a mega city. The scale of everything in China is hard to get used to. The world has begun to feel small, and less exciting for it: We can just fly into places, do some cycling and then move on to the next country. China brings the enormity of the world back into perspective.

We take a long walk around Kunming to acclimatise ourselves. The weather is amazing. It’s sunny and warm enough in the day, and pleasantly cool at night. Kunming is called the city of eternal spring for this climate, which is basically the same all year, and it’s my ideal.

We’re doing reconnaissance. We intend to either ride north, and then get the train back here, or get a train north and ride back here, for a flight out before the carnage of Chinese New Year. Our mission for today is to find the luggage consignment depot for the train station, so we can find out how things work and where we’ll need to go. No one seems all that interested in helping us, and I’m losing a bit of faith in translation apps.

We meet two students, who at first walk past us, but keep turning back and hesitating. When we approach them for help, they seem delighted. The one who speaks better English keeps telling us that they are so happy to meet us and want to help us. They spend the next forty minutes or so walking round asking everyone where we need to go, and chatting to us along the way. Things are a bit lost in translation, because we end up at a bus station, and then with them trying to negotiate a van to take us north. They just won’t quit. They seem genuinely unhappy that in the end we can’t find what we’re looking for, but they invite us to come with them to a market, and they want lots of photos.

We’ve got a specific menu translate app for China, and it’s amazing, whereas the standard translation apps we try are terrible for Chinese. It means we’re able to go to some traditional restaurants and not make fools or nuisances of ourselves. The food here is incredible. Richard awards a rare 9/10 (there’s never been a 10) to a spicy beef dish and a kind of potato rosti.

The following day we find the entrance to the luggage depot, which is at the exact spot where we first met the students. But with a break for Christmas and some faffing around with the bikes, we are itching to get going, so we’re going to cycle out of here and see where we get to.

There are fenced off lanes for bikes and the ubiquitous scooters, so even though it’s a busy city it’s not too bad to get out of, and then we quickly find a small road and a hill to sweep away the cobwebs on. On the downhill we join up with a more major road, which is busy, badly maintained, narrow and dangerous. This isn’t even one of the main arteries out of here, and we’re worried that all the roads will be hectic like this.

It is freezing at the start of the next day and the roads are more of the same. There are constant lorries, constant fumes and a wasteland of quarrying and factories, with all the dust that brings. However once we pass the series of factories, things get quieter. We have a massive climb, but it’s not too bad until it becomes very sharp for the last mile. I’m ready to stop and rest for a bit, but on the opposite side of the road is an old woman with a basket full of corn strapped to her head, heaving the weight up the hill, and then I pass an old man with a walking stick shuffling up this ridiculously steep hill. I have an easy life really.

The views from the top are incredible. We haven’t climbed this high in ages, and it’s tough but worth it. I was hoping to enjoy the downhill, but there’s a diesel spill on the descent and quite a few lorries passing us, both of which makes it unpleasant and precarious.

We’re both feeling good at how well we managed the climb, especially considering we’d had about two weeks off the bikes. Then there are a couple of small but hard inclines at the end of the day, and they completely wipe us out.

We’re staying in the “Ancient Town” of Lufeng. It’s hard to find much information on it, but it seems to be a re-creation of an ancient Chinese town, rather than an actual one. It is still beautiful to us, even though not authentic. It is weirdly dead though. Most shops are shut, there’s a huge fairground nearby which is closed down, and the streets are empty. The time of year probably accounts for it, but in a country where tourist attractions are always rammed, it feels very strange.

There are very few places open to eat, but we find a stall down an alley where whole jacket potatoes are frying in a wok. I’ve been in the midst of a roast dinner craving for a few days, so while these are very much not roast potatoes, they will have to do. We ask for two, but are given four, they are diced up and served with a tub of spice mix and another tub of an amazing fresh dipping sauce, for the princely sum of 60p plus having our photo taken with the family serving them.

We’ve another big ascent the following day, but it’s a gradual climb through a lovely canyon. The traffic has died down a lot, but with a couple of narrow tunnels coming up we’re a bit apprehensive. When we enter the first one, Richard realises that his front light isn’t on and there are no lights in the tunnel, so it’s pitch black for him. He screeches to a halt and I almost crash into him, but fortunately nothing else is coming. The tunnels are one lane, which is worrying if they don’t have lights, but we soon realise that the road is one way, with the opposite lane running on the other side of the river.

Up and out of the canyon, we continue climbing through rural land of corn, frost and small lumber mills. It’s mid winter, so all the harvesting has long since been done, but there are bushels of drying corn everywhere and still work to be done. It’s a dull and overcast day, with us weaving around and under the railway which goes through tunnels while we don’t. It’s up and over for us.

It’s a generalisation, but so far most Chinese have been stoic and non demonstrative. We are stared at, but there are no greetings and little warmth. Even the kids are non responsive. But I should have learned by now that you get what you give. Through a village near the top of our ascent, an elderly lady watches us stonily by the side of the road. I grin manically and wave. She cracks the tinniest of smiles but gives a proper wave. Still it’s about 50/50 on a response to this approach.

The main descent is more pleasant today. We’ve left the major road and are on a very rural route, with no oil spills and little traffic. Once again though, there’s a little final hill at the end of the day that completely finishes us.

We arrive at the only hotel in town that will accept foreigners. It’s old, filthy and it stinks. It is very normal here for people to smoke inside hotels, so in old hotels the stale smell has built up over decades and it’s minging.

There’s a Chinese faux Tesco in town. I always enjoy wandering round food shops in foreign places to see what is different. China is a goldmine. There are shelves of local yoghurt, a speciality here. Packets of various preserved things: Small eggs, fish, chicken feet, dried meat, and a cornucopia of unidentified things. There are tanks with live fish, bugs and insects (not alive) endless varieties of dried mushrooms (another local product) and countless things I have no idea about. I am followed around almost instantly. I feel like a teenager under suspicion of shoplifting, but I don’t think that’s the intent. I try to lose the followers by weaving amongst the shelves, but there are too many of them. They are interested in and talk amongst themselves about every item I pick up. I end up buying a bottle of water and a bar of chocolate, which I’m sure is a terrible and boring disappointment to all those who witnessed it.

In spite of the smell of the hotel, we’re so tired that we get a good night’s sleep.

We continue climbing. It’s been a string of monumental ascents and steep hills, and we’ve never done anything like it this consistently. I genuinely feel like I could fall asleep on the bike at the end of each day.

At the top of one climb is the point that Richard has had enough. The endless pain and the frustrations of China have ground him down. It wears on on me too. I am less bothered by the climbing, although am finding it really hard, but it is mentally draining in baffling ways. As an example, we try ordering two kebabs at a stall. The stall sells nothing else. There is no queue. There are loads of kebabs ready and cooked. I point to them and say “two please” in Chinese. No comprehension at all. I hold up two fingers (politely,) point some more, say “two” in Chinese and English, mime eating kebabs. He seems to not have a single clue what I want. Someone else has to come over and count out two kebabs, point to them, point to me and finally I get two kebabs. I don’t know why it is complicated, I can’t understand what on earth else I could be thought to have wanted, but almost every tiny interaction is like this.

We make it to Dali modern city. We’re so tired we can’t go on any further, despite the ancient town only being an easy 20km further on.

On the bright side, that gives us a welcome late start the following day and a short ride around Lake Erhai, a rift lake famous for the fishing methods traditionally used here by the Bai people. They train cormorants to catch the fish and bring them to the fishermen. Calling themselves fishermen when someone else does the work seems like a stretch, though it’s the kind of job I want.

Erhai lake is a bit of a revelation. It’s the first time we’ve really seen people at leisure in China. It’s a Sunday, and there are lots of joggers, cyclists and skaters out and about on the dedicated non-vehicle roads round the lake.

There is heavy snow on the top of the Yunling mountain range, which makes the approach to Dali old town very special. We are staying in a small inn, hard to find in the maze of tiny cobbled back alleys criss-crossing the town. It’s a traditional building with a courtyard, which is great for us because we can stay in the middle of the old town and have somewhere for the bikes. In other countries it might be labelled a homestay, and our host greets us warmly. It more-or-less marks the half way point of what we intend to do in China, and is a good opportunity for a well-earned rest.

A playlist for the ride: