Day 46 May 25 Fri - SanDaoLing to YiWanQuan

Long and windy climb
Mountain snow starts melting under hot sun
Our double decker beds shared with the restaurant in YiWanQuan

School going children happily having chat and pictures taken with us while we having breakfast
Open-air coal mining in SanDaoLing with a small rial to transport the coal

A lonely dinasour out in the desert
Stop by the strong wing

Today's Distance: 68 km
Average Speed: 9.7 max: 31.0
Time on Bike: 6 hr 58 min
Ave climb: 2% max:10%
Trip altitude: 867m max: 1607m
Today's spending: 37.50 rmb
Total Distance to date: 3208km
Total spending to date:3054.0 rmb

Morning after breakfast met with a bunch of school children,on their way to school ,they stopped by to chat and have photos taken with us. One of the locals strongly recommended a visit to an open-air coal mines 3 km down the road , if we don't then we don't considered to had visited SanDaoLing.So we went and find nothing special.

Today's ride is very very "frustrating" , not to any human soul or the steep hills but to the mother nature - WIND ! We may have the strongest mind and body, eventually both conceded "defeat" . Many times I just stopped by the road side whenever I saw oncoming truck or car overtaking with speed or from the back, you can imagine the scenario, you are riding a bicycle ,going uphill at 5-8kph with your lowest gear under very strong headwind, a 22 wheel overloaded long truck zooms passed from either the front or back , the amount of swirling wind can thrown you off.It is really pointless and is a waste of energy! So what's next? there is no place around here to camp and the next town YiWanQuan is still another 10-15 km to go and the worst thing is we have no idea whether this town does exist although the GPS say Yes! There is just no other choice but to continue pedal dangerously and hope for the best. At about 6.00pm , finally we reached the top elevation 1617m and a downhill to YiWanQuan is just a few shops at the Toll gate.For the first time we slept on a double decker bed which also shared the restaurant. We were tired , real tired not even bothered by the shaking sound of the sliding doors from the powerful wind outside.