Last summer the chief photographer of a magazine and I set out from Xi'an to Tibet via Qinghai Province along the Qinghai-Tibet Highway. We planned to enter Ngari Prefecture in the Tibet Autonomous Region to shoot the majestic Kangrinboqe Mountain and the beautiful Mapam Yumco Lake and then go to Xinjiang Province along the highway.
After arriving in Ngari, however, we learned that southern Xinjiang had been hit by floods and that the highway had been blocked for two months.
After 20 days in Ngari, the chief photographer decided to go to Lhasa. If the road to Xinjiang was not accessible, he would go home and return next year. Since it was my first visit to Tibet, I wouldn't leave so easily. My friend Xiao He from Guangdong Province and I decided to continue our tour of Tibet on bicycle.
At 4:20 am on September 2, when it was still dark and the moon shone in the east, we set out from Ngari. Several large dogs accompanied us for the first dozen miles.
The first day was not lucky. We lost our way, and finally, at midnight, when we could not go another step, a passing car gave us a lift. After arriving at Rutog County, the northwestern tip of the Ngari area, we rested for two days and repaired the bikes.
We understood that we had been foolish, trying to cover 100 kilometers a day. Five kilometers an hour was the limit for riding on the sandy land 4,000 meters above sea level. Even if we rode ten hours a day, we could only make 50 kilometers. To make things worse, we found on our map that there were nearly 300 kilometers of journey on a land 6,000 meters above sea level. The whole trip would cover 1,100 kilometers, all on mountains. We rode over a mountain between Tibet and Xinjiang Province.
During the daytime, we rode, and in the evening we slept at nearby sentry posts or in our sleeping bags in the open. I kept a diary and photographed whatever caught my fancy.
I felt deeply stirred by the magnificent scenery. Sometimes I shouted out from an unrestrainable passion surging through me. Sometimes tears welled up in my eyes. The changeable sky and earth were like a wonderland. This was my Tibet.
I don't know what pushed me to go through all the hardships and finish my trip. When I staggered into Xinjiang 26 days later with the nearly broken bike, an idea came to me: I would ride my bike through Sichuan and Yunnan, two provinces near Tibet.
(China Pictorial February 13, 2003)
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