This is what the Chinese countryside is like 🇨🇳

Welcome back everybody and welcome to episode 2 of Cycling China. I'm currently in the city of Lufeng in the Yunnan province which has a reputation among bike tourists as one of the nicest regions in China. So I'm here to find out if that's true and I'm currently heading into the direction of the Tibetan plateau which should be a really interesting area. So let's go. It's a pretty overcast day but the temperature is pretty nice like 19 degrees or so and no headwind today which is a relief. Beautiful scenery, some really picturesque villages here. First tunnel here in China. The Chinese definitely love to build tunnels more so than the Swiss and Japanese. Whoa there's like no light here. Sheet. Can barely see anything. All right. Usually you have better lighting. Guess this was a short one. Okay this tunnel is better but there's barely any traffic here anyways. And we got a bit of rain which wasn't forecasted but I'm not made out of sugar as we say in Germany. This road definitely sees quite a few landslides as you can see here. So let's hope that the rain won't get much worse than this. Time for a shortcut on this unpaved road so it will probably take me longer in the end. Proper off the beaten path villages right here. Just some farming. Other than that not much going on here. Oh look who we have here. Finally a friendly dog. So excited to see me. What an awesome road right here with a beautiful lake view. God damn these roads are so steep here. Welcome to Yunnan. I believe it's probably the most mountainous province in all of China. Let's go. Downhill we go. And I made it to the city of Guangdong. I'm gonna try to find something to eat here. Can I have this one? Okay I wasn't entirely sure what I was gonna get because of the language barrier but it looks like I got some sort of Chinese tortellini. Nice because it's nice and warm as the temperature is actually a lot cooler than forecasted. It was supposed to be like 18 degrees in the afternoon but now it's only 11 and feels like temperature is only 6. So this will warm me up a little bit. Okay bye-bye. That was good. 9 yuan which is I believe less than a dollar fifty. And because I think I'm gonna camp tonight I'm gonna buy some supplies, some water. Here's a big supermarket. Man I love these colors. Would be even more beautiful if it was sunny out though. All right it's gonna get dark soon. So the cameras now have an LED light on me and yeah I slowly need to find a campsite which is gonna be easier said than done in this mountainous terrain. All right I think this is gonna be my campsite on top of a hill in the forest. Man I haven't wild camped in like two months or so. Last time was in Oman but I'm looking forward to it. All righty all set up. It was a fun day. Just wish we had a bit of sunshine but maybe tomorrow which is when I'll see you. Good night. Good morning. I did not sleep too well. Gotta get used to sleeping in a tent again. We had a bit more rain last night but the weather today should be a bit better so let's continue. All righty starting the day off with a nice downhill towards the city of Muding. Okay I made it to Muding. Doesn't strike me as a very interesting city but let's try to find something to eat here. Can I have this one? You can ask her. A nice little buddhist temple. So far I haven't come across many cultural sites. That's a big water reserve right here. The Chinese also like building dams to generate electricity that way. Man I love these super empty roads right by the main highway. As you can see they really deserve the name highway by how high they are. And yeah I guess these roads maybe are the old roads or the roads that they used to construct the expressways. But there's literally no cars at all on here. So it's awesome for cycling and the scenery is absolutely beautiful here. Got a wedding escort right here. Nice little roadside town here. Let's see if they have a restaurant because I'm getting hungry again. I can eat something? Sorry only English. Ah okay. Time for more noodles. How much? One dollar noodles were very good. Let's continue. So this is the highway but there are no cars either here. I thought China has more than a billion people. That's a bit odd. Alrighty I made it to another water reserve right here and the sun is setting soon so I'll see if I can maybe camp around here. Alright this trail literally leads right into the water so I think I'm just gonna pitch my tent here. Yeah I'm gonna go a bit further up because you generally don't want to camp right next to the water. You're gonna get a lot more condensation. It's also gonna be a little bit cooler there but up here it should be nice. All set up and another lovely day comes to an end. People and directions have been rather low. I guess Chinese people are not the most outgoing and neither am I and of course the language barrier is a big problem but I'm having fun regardless so I'm gonna head to bed soon and see you tomorrow. Good night. Good morning. I had an undisturbed night here. Well undisturbed by people because two dogs having a barking competition all night. Anyways another nice day so let's pack up and continue. Alright the goats decided to pay me a visit here in the morning. Look at all these solar panels covering the hills over there. Crazy. And I made it to the city of Dayao which will be the last bigger cities with a bigger city with hotels for a while. Because of that I'm gonna get myself a hotel room here so that I can recharge my batteries, work on some videos and catch up on some sleep. Alright my hotel should be right around here and I'm checking into my hotel room and it's a pretty classy interior right here. Also we got a washroom with a view overlooking the city of Dayao. The cost for the room was 18 dollars I believe including breakfast. So yeah today was a nice but short day and yeah see you tomorrow. Good morning. It is time to leave the city of Dayao behind in order to head deeper into the mountains of Yunnan. Let's go. Big fan of these city gates here. And time for a nice little downhill. It's pretty cold again today. The weather here is not very consistent. Okay I made it to the town of Xijiang and according to my Chinese maps there is some tourist attraction here. Not exactly sure what but looks like some historical buildings or so. So let's check it out. Here we have a statue of some kind. We do have a nice old town here with some historical buildings. Very picturesque. And here we seem to have a big plaza. Let's see if I can find some information about what is this all about somewhere. So here we seem to have some sort of mural and here's some information but it's only in Chinese. Or is it? No it's also in English. Fireproof conventions. It's just some regulatory information. Civilized behavior convention for tourism. Also just some rules but no real information about what this place actually is about. I think over here. Here we go. The Xijiang Confucian Temple started to be built in the first year of the Hongwu Ming dynasty. 1368 AD. Okay you can pause the video and read everything if you want. So we have a really nice old town right here. I'm not sure where exactly the temple actually is. Maybe this is it. Alright I found the temple up here. Let's have a look. Sorry do you speak English? No? I can go? Or I don't know. I need to pay. How much? Okay one person. Alright you gotta pay like two dollars of an entrance fee. Generally I'm not a fan of religious sites like charging an entrance fee but I can't change it. There also seems to be some construction going on. Let's have a look. I hope you can hear me with the generator running over there. Well not sure if this is worth the money with this noise. Let's see maybe here is better. Be careful not to fall into the water. Alright this looks more promising. Oh wow yeah. Very beautiful here and peaceful. Here we got some statues. Some very interesting looking blokes. Probably scholars. And this seem to be some historical weapons. Probably reproductions. And a big axe can do some damage with that. Here we got another statue. And this is the biggest statue here. And I believe it is the main man Confucius himself. Alright that was the temple. I believe it was worth it in the end. It's very interesting and very pretty. And now let's continue cycling. And here we have some really interesting old huts or houses. Let's have a look. And we have some information in English. That's great. Salt extracting awning. Never heard the word awning before. Also known as a branch shelf. It's a device for filtering brine and impurities. The biggest bamboo awning in China. It features So apparently this is very unique to this part of China. Wow. Fascinating. It's actually in pretty decent condition considering the age and the materials used. Very interesting. I've never seen anything like it. Alrighty. Very interesting place. Xiyang or Xijiang. I can recommend it if you're ever in the area. Man what a terrain. Made it to the next small town. Let's see if I can find some lunch. Okay how much? No no it's okay. You can put. No no no it's okay. I do. 10? It's okay. No you sure? Okay thank you so much. Okay bye bye. Wow look at the hospitality here in China. That kind lady didn't let me pay for my lunch. Incredible. Alrighty I think I'm gonna call it a because I just spotted this nice grassy riverbank right here which is gonna make a great place to pitch my tent. Wow beautiful. All set up and that's gonna be it for today. Tomorrow is gonna be a big day. I gotta climb over those mountains right there. 2500 meters of elevation over the span of 50 kilometers. That's gonna be tough but I think that's gonna be happening in the next video before this one gets too long. So I'm gonna see you in the next video. Thanks for watching. Don't forget to subscribe and I'll see you soon. Goodbye.