It has been a while since my last China trip. I certainly had an interesting time, but I was a bit disappointed I did not make it to Lhasa. So I woke up one morning, and decided it was time for one more effort to get there. So Chiang Mai, Thailand to Lhasa, Tibet, here I come. This trip I am going to try to cut down my accidents as well. But there are a few obstacles in the way..........
1. It is a hell of a long way. Solution ? Lots of riding .
2.The city of Chiang Mai has been seizing bikes that have foreign plates. So for the last few months my Chinese bike has been cowering in my shop. Solution? Leave at 6 in the morning when the police are sleeping.
3. I smuggled the bike into the country with no import papers. Solution? Try to quickly board the ferry across the Mekong before the customs guy sees me. If he accosts me, plan is to look very sorry and slip him a medium sized bribe.
4. The Chinese registration on the bike has expired. Solution? At the Chinese - Laos border when they are carefully
examining every document, try to look befuddled and hopeful at the same time.
5. No foreigner is allowed to enter Tibet without a special travel permit, and you are certainly not allowed to travel alone. By Chinese law you must book a tour through a travel agent. Solution? Cross the border into Tibet at 5 in the morning when it is not manned. If spotted, keep my visor down, and hunch down to try to look like a Chinese rider.
So that is what I am facing. Plus extreme altitude, bad roads, snow, cold rain, ice, etc.....
No need to waste time worrying, just go !!! But all trips should have a certain amount of preparation . For high altitude training, I rode today to the highest point in Thailand, 2565 meters. A bit lower than the passes in the Himalayas....:rofl
A Thai girl I was riding with, in front of the sign to prove the extreme altitude.
The bike.....A Qing Qi 200, with 14 snarling Chinese horses on tap waiting to be unleashed. I have spent a fair amount of time prepping this bike out. If you go to China to buy one it will not look like this one....
Side view.
Back view.
Cockpit view.
The front ....
And a finally a picture with a friend to keep you guys interested.
Tomorrow morning I hit the road, bound for Laos the first day, then onto China. Am pretty sure this should be an interesting trip..........
An early morning departure out of Chiang Mai, and a smooth uneventful trip to the border of Laos at the city of Chiang Kong. I had to get the bike out on the sly, as I did not have any import papers for the bike when I brought it in. The trick is to follow a truck down the ramp to the ferry, and quickly get on board before the customs guy sees you. I zoom down but miss the ferry by seconds. So had to pull the bike around the river bank out of view of customs and wait for the next ferry. 20 minutes later I was aboard and headed to Laos.
Another smooth segment with a bit of rain coming into Luang Nam Tha, which is a town in Laos near the Chinese border. There I met up with my long term friend David Unkovich for dinner. He is the owner of the Africa Twin in the picture.
Up to the border in the morning, a pretty short trip. Here is the greeting sign just before you cross.
I was asked first if I was sick , or had been near any pigs.....
Then at immigration I presented my passport, while dressed in biking gear. He then sort of fearfully asked where my bike was from. He was stunned to see I had all the proper paperwork for a Chinese bike. Big smiles, a couple of stamps on the paperwork, a couple questions as to why the bike had been gone for two years, and then I was in !!!
Rolling the perfect brand new toll road leading north.
Sights along the way headed north. Did you ever wonder where the tea in the cup you are holding comes from? Wonder no more. The size and scale of these terraced hills of tea
was staggering. It went on as far as the eye could see. Here some workers snapped with a zoom.
Closer....
Closest...
Here is a long shot of the road to the Laos border. This is a very expensive road, with lots of tunnels and raised portions
to keep the road fairly straight and level.
Today was a pretty good day, had only one near death experience. I am sure this rate will pick up faster a bit later in the trip. Coming into a long tunnel from the bright daylight, I carefully turn on my lights and flip up my sunglasses. About halfway into the tunnel I see bright lights coming directly at me in my lane. WTF !!! I jam on the brakes, pull over to the edge of the raised sidewalk, and wait while seconds later a large truck comes past me, missing me by inches. For some reason they were doing roadwork in the lane of the oncoming traffic. So the tunnel workers simply coned off the lane, and directed the traffic into my lane for a length of about 200 meters.
Amazing China? It pays to be really careful in a land of no liability.. Here you see the cones starting to move traffic into my lane.
Am now spending my first night in the town of Samao, a very pleasant medium sized town.
Met some really friendly people, and had a great dinner. The small restaurant even had a picture
menu, saving me the trouble of wondering around the restaurant staring at people's food while deciding what to order. The famous point and shoot method. The soup was red hot.....
While I was checking into the very nice small hotel my first night in China , I asked the man who was helping me what kind of business it was across the street with the garish neon lights. He informed me that I could get a massage there.......
After dinner of course I had to stop there and check it out. There were maybe 5 girls lounging there in fairly fetching outfits. As I cannot speak a word of Chinese, and they cannot speak a word of English, I pantamimed a massage with a quizzical look on my face. She smiled broadly, shook her head, and then took her index finger and poked it in and out rapidly in the circle formed by the thumb and forefinger of her other hand...:rofl :rofl I thought the other girls were going to die laughing. I took a pass, as no one really caught my eye. Sadly no girls inside looked remotely like the advertising girls on the sign outside. :deal
It is pretty common to put your bike inside the hotel lobby. I always had a feeling there was real fear on the part of the hotel that if something happened to a foreign owned bike, it would be serious trouble for them. Because I know this I try to keep my bike fairly clean.
Next morning an early start, and off into light rain. In South East Asia I never worry much about rain. The rain is warm, and localized so if you keep on riding you will generally ride out of the rain. Oopps.... Wrong again. I rode for a while with no rain gear until I was soaked,
and by the time I put the gear on it was in essence too late. I was soaked to the skin, and starting to shiver. Note to self, put on rain gear early.....
While riding along slowly going uphill on the very twisty road, I had my first low side in 30 years. The road had been heavily patched with perfectly smooth asphalt. So just starting into a turn, the front tire hit one of these patches and went down instantly, no chance for a Rossi style recovery... You can see up in front of the bike one of the patches.
After laying there stunned for a second, I realized I was fine except for a bit of hurt pride and a broken handguard. However, I was pinned down by the bike, with my left leg under the left side stand off bar for the soft bags. I simply could not pull it out. When you are pinned like that you have no leverage whatsoever to pick the bike up. For about one minute I thought it was sort of funny. I was going to pull out my camera and take a picture of myself stuck. Then common sense kicked in, as I realized I was now in the middle of the road, could not move, was just past the apex of a blind curve, on a road heavily traveled by trucks.....So I flipped the ignition back on so I could honk the horn in case I heard a truck coming, and now REALLY began in ernest to get out. Finally after maybe five minutes of struggling I was able to get free. Whew....
Not many pictures from that day due to the pouring rain all day. I felt sort of bad for the hotel I was checking into. As I am standing there
waiting for them to finish the paperwork, there is a large puddle of water forming around my feet from the water running off me.
Next day I woke up feeling 55 years old and like I had an accident. Everything in my body was sore. Wait !! I am 55, and I do remember an accident......Took three aspirin, put tiger balm on my back and neck, and headed out towards Dali. The highway sort of heads towards Kunming before looping back and heading west. Very light rain today so I start the day in rain gear this time. :evil Another day, another near death experience... Coming into a turn, I see a large truck just entering the turn headed towards me. Next thing I know there is a car that made a really bad blind pass on the truck in my lane headed right for me. SHIT !!!!!!! Luckily have been riding in Asia enough that I tend to ride on the outer edge of the lane to give myself some breathing room just for events like this. I jammed the brakes, went to the very edge of the road next to the ditch, while he went past just missing me. That would have been one very ugly accident if he had done a head-on into me. Sorry, no photo....
A long hard day on the bike, and I realize there is no way I can make Dali. So finally stop in a fairly large city to look for a hotel.
I stop at two small reasonable looking hotels, who in a flurry of Chinese in essence let me know that they would not rent me a room.
WTF ??? Finally at the third one, the very pleasant girl shows me upstairs to a great room for 30 Yuan, just my style. Not great and not awful. As we go downstairs to check in, the manager shows up and takes a piece of paper and keeps writing " no " on it. I am tired, hungry,
and getting tired of this nonsense. The manager finally calls someone who spoke very good English, who explained to me that I could only
check into " foreigner approved hotels ". I thought that dated back to the days of Chairman Mao, when China was afraid if a foreigner stayed in a substandard hotel he might leave China with a bad impression. So the government picked out certain hotels, and foreigners
could only stay there. I never had this problem the last time I stayed in China for two months, I had no idea why it was popping up now.
So the manager actually walks me about half a kilometer to an officially approved hotel . Of course it is way too expensive, but I have no choice in the matter. The starting price was 260 Yuan, but I bargained it down to 200 Yuan. That is about 32 US dollars......
The room was great. Here are some pictures.
Next day the check out nightmare begins. I stop at the lobby to drop the key, then go outside to start packing the bike. After a while I go back inside to get my 200 Yuan deposit back. There on the counter I see two towels from my room, with the receptionist girls giving me accusing looks. ???? The day before I had arrived with a lot of road dirt on me, as well as on my face. So some of the dirt got on the towel.
I thought that was the job of a towel. Guess not in China. So they wanted to deduct some amount of Yuan from my deposit. I was so amazed I had I just had to go out, get my camera and take a picture of the scene. They were not very happy with that, and quickly gave me the full 200 Yuan back. Here are the offending towels.
I had no time to eat dinner the night before, so I was really hungry. This was a 3 star hotel, which normally have a pretty good free breakfast. So when I ask / pantamime about eating, big smiles appear, and they lead me off to a dining room. Except it seems a bit swanky....I receive a pretty good breakfast, nothing special. After I am done the service girls lead me back to the front desk where they now demand 50 Yuan for the breakfast. This seems a bit odd to me, as that amount was more then I had paid for my hotel room the night before, and in the past every nice expensive hotel I stayed at had complimentary breakfast. Soooo...... I refused to pay on principal. Lots of discussions, managers going back and forth, phone calls to mysterious people , but in the end they gave up and just told me to go. Here I am at the VIP breakfast room watching the NBA playoffs.
As I finish getting the bike ready to go, I happen to glance down under the bike. Hmmmmm, looks like trouble.....
Yep....the underside of the bike just under the shift lever.
Still plenty of oil in the bike, I figure I will fix it when I get to Dali. So finish loading, and head out.
Sights long the way. Here is brick factory.
Rice farming. My back hurts just watching.....
Old school using buffalos to pull a sort of sled with teeth on the bottom to soften the ground before planting.
Background is rice ready to be harvested, and foreground is shoots that have just been planted.
Here is an ancestor planted in the middle of the field. First time I had seen this. Maybe instead of being in a graveyard full of dead
strangers, it would be more usefull to be out in the field making sure your heirs are taking care of the farm business...
Navigation.....Almost impossible without a GPS. The trip before I had a so-so highway map that more or less worked for me. So this year I got hold of the official Garmin map of China, complete with very detailed street level mapping of all the cities. So am thinking this will be a piece of cake. Wrong.....I found out later that the Chinese government made Garmin produce a China map with a 600 meter offset built into it. Then when you buy a Garmin unit in China, the hardware somehow takes this offset out. My Garmin was bought in America, so guess what ?? Yes, it is offset time for me.......:cry :cry
Here is another of many mystery intersections, with the road looking exactly the same in both directions.
And here is the Garmin view at the exact same spot. Blue line is my track, purple is the track where I want to go, and yellow is the highway.
Not really a big issue on the highway, as you know about where you are anyway. The trouble really begins in the large cities which are like a maze. There is very seldom a bypass road, generally the highway goes straight into a city, make a bunch of turns , and then ends up headed out on the the other side. Here is where a GPS is critical. With no detail that is correct, I would have to scale the screen way out,
and then just head in the correct direction, trying to follow trucks. Here is one one my favorite screens. Because the GPS is not really locating itself on the map properly, it can lead to some funny routing. Here is my favorite....
As I know I need to change out the oil seal on the shifter when I get to Dali, I figure I should clean the bike before I hit town. It has dirt picked up from detour sections of the road. Here waiting patiently...
Car wash girl hard at work.
As I am rolling into the town of Dali, I see a large professional looking shop that says Suzuki on the front. Hey, wait a minute, my engine is made by Suzuki !! Perfect !! I stop in, they indicate to me no problem to fix it. A guy is sent out for the exact part, and it is expertly installed. Total cost including a spare seal is about $ 6 US dollars. Here hard at work. The guy on the left is stitching up the broken hand guard. When I showed them where it was split, they immediately brought out some epoxy.
I said no, and showed them how to neatly stitch it up with stainless wire ,which is much stronger.
Big smiles all around , and a thumbs up...
Finally reach a guest house in Dali and call it quits for a couple days. Great place, with a little shop in the back to work on the bike. After four days on the road , there are always a few tiny repairs as well as some organizing that needs to be done. Here are the inner bags I found in Thailand that fit perfect into the soft bags. Pretty handy, as most hotels want you to take everything off the bike. So instead of dismounting the softbags, I just pull these inner bags out, and leave the soft bags on the bike hanging open. Here is I am getting everything sorted. This system works really well. So a good night's sleep, then off north towards Lijiang for new adventures.....
1. It is a hell of a long way. Solution ? Lots of riding .
2.The city of Chiang Mai has been seizing bikes that have foreign plates. So for the last few months my Chinese bike has been cowering in my shop. Solution? Leave at 6 in the morning when the police are sleeping.
3. I smuggled the bike into the country with no import papers. Solution? Try to quickly board the ferry across the Mekong before the customs guy sees me. If he accosts me, plan is to look very sorry and slip him a medium sized bribe.
4. The Chinese registration on the bike has expired. Solution? At the Chinese - Laos border when they are carefully
examining every document, try to look befuddled and hopeful at the same time.
5. No foreigner is allowed to enter Tibet without a special travel permit, and you are certainly not allowed to travel alone. By Chinese law you must book a tour through a travel agent. Solution? Cross the border into Tibet at 5 in the morning when it is not manned. If spotted, keep my visor down, and hunch down to try to look like a Chinese rider.
So that is what I am facing. Plus extreme altitude, bad roads, snow, cold rain, ice, etc.....
No need to waste time worrying, just go !!! But all trips should have a certain amount of preparation . For high altitude training, I rode today to the highest point in Thailand, 2565 meters. A bit lower than the passes in the Himalayas....:rofl
A Thai girl I was riding with, in front of the sign to prove the extreme altitude.
The bike.....A Qing Qi 200, with 14 snarling Chinese horses on tap waiting to be unleashed. I have spent a fair amount of time prepping this bike out. If you go to China to buy one it will not look like this one....
Side view.
Back view.
Cockpit view.
The front ....
And a finally a picture with a friend to keep you guys interested.
Tomorrow morning I hit the road, bound for Laos the first day, then onto China. Am pretty sure this should be an interesting trip..........
An early morning departure out of Chiang Mai, and a smooth uneventful trip to the border of Laos at the city of Chiang Kong. I had to get the bike out on the sly, as I did not have any import papers for the bike when I brought it in. The trick is to follow a truck down the ramp to the ferry, and quickly get on board before the customs guy sees you. I zoom down but miss the ferry by seconds. So had to pull the bike around the river bank out of view of customs and wait for the next ferry. 20 minutes later I was aboard and headed to Laos.
Another smooth segment with a bit of rain coming into Luang Nam Tha, which is a town in Laos near the Chinese border. There I met up with my long term friend David Unkovich for dinner. He is the owner of the Africa Twin in the picture.
Up to the border in the morning, a pretty short trip. Here is the greeting sign just before you cross.
I was asked first if I was sick , or had been near any pigs.....
Then at immigration I presented my passport, while dressed in biking gear. He then sort of fearfully asked where my bike was from. He was stunned to see I had all the proper paperwork for a Chinese bike. Big smiles, a couple of stamps on the paperwork, a couple questions as to why the bike had been gone for two years, and then I was in !!!
Rolling the perfect brand new toll road leading north.
Sights along the way headed north. Did you ever wonder where the tea in the cup you are holding comes from? Wonder no more. The size and scale of these terraced hills of tea
was staggering. It went on as far as the eye could see. Here some workers snapped with a zoom.
Closer....
Closest...
Here is a long shot of the road to the Laos border. This is a very expensive road, with lots of tunnels and raised portions
to keep the road fairly straight and level.
Today was a pretty good day, had only one near death experience. I am sure this rate will pick up faster a bit later in the trip. Coming into a long tunnel from the bright daylight, I carefully turn on my lights and flip up my sunglasses. About halfway into the tunnel I see bright lights coming directly at me in my lane. WTF !!! I jam on the brakes, pull over to the edge of the raised sidewalk, and wait while seconds later a large truck comes past me, missing me by inches. For some reason they were doing roadwork in the lane of the oncoming traffic. So the tunnel workers simply coned off the lane, and directed the traffic into my lane for a length of about 200 meters.
Amazing China? It pays to be really careful in a land of no liability.. Here you see the cones starting to move traffic into my lane.
Am now spending my first night in the town of Samao, a very pleasant medium sized town.
Met some really friendly people, and had a great dinner. The small restaurant even had a picture
menu, saving me the trouble of wondering around the restaurant staring at people's food while deciding what to order. The famous point and shoot method. The soup was red hot.....
While I was checking into the very nice small hotel my first night in China , I asked the man who was helping me what kind of business it was across the street with the garish neon lights. He informed me that I could get a massage there.......
After dinner of course I had to stop there and check it out. There were maybe 5 girls lounging there in fairly fetching outfits. As I cannot speak a word of Chinese, and they cannot speak a word of English, I pantamimed a massage with a quizzical look on my face. She smiled broadly, shook her head, and then took her index finger and poked it in and out rapidly in the circle formed by the thumb and forefinger of her other hand...:rofl :rofl I thought the other girls were going to die laughing. I took a pass, as no one really caught my eye. Sadly no girls inside looked remotely like the advertising girls on the sign outside. :deal
It is pretty common to put your bike inside the hotel lobby. I always had a feeling there was real fear on the part of the hotel that if something happened to a foreign owned bike, it would be serious trouble for them. Because I know this I try to keep my bike fairly clean.
Next morning an early start, and off into light rain. In South East Asia I never worry much about rain. The rain is warm, and localized so if you keep on riding you will generally ride out of the rain. Oopps.... Wrong again. I rode for a while with no rain gear until I was soaked,
and by the time I put the gear on it was in essence too late. I was soaked to the skin, and starting to shiver. Note to self, put on rain gear early.....
While riding along slowly going uphill on the very twisty road, I had my first low side in 30 years. The road had been heavily patched with perfectly smooth asphalt. So just starting into a turn, the front tire hit one of these patches and went down instantly, no chance for a Rossi style recovery... You can see up in front of the bike one of the patches.
After laying there stunned for a second, I realized I was fine except for a bit of hurt pride and a broken handguard. However, I was pinned down by the bike, with my left leg under the left side stand off bar for the soft bags. I simply could not pull it out. When you are pinned like that you have no leverage whatsoever to pick the bike up. For about one minute I thought it was sort of funny. I was going to pull out my camera and take a picture of myself stuck. Then common sense kicked in, as I realized I was now in the middle of the road, could not move, was just past the apex of a blind curve, on a road heavily traveled by trucks.....So I flipped the ignition back on so I could honk the horn in case I heard a truck coming, and now REALLY began in ernest to get out. Finally after maybe five minutes of struggling I was able to get free. Whew....
Not many pictures from that day due to the pouring rain all day. I felt sort of bad for the hotel I was checking into. As I am standing there
waiting for them to finish the paperwork, there is a large puddle of water forming around my feet from the water running off me.
Next day I woke up feeling 55 years old and like I had an accident. Everything in my body was sore. Wait !! I am 55, and I do remember an accident......Took three aspirin, put tiger balm on my back and neck, and headed out towards Dali. The highway sort of heads towards Kunming before looping back and heading west. Very light rain today so I start the day in rain gear this time. :evil Another day, another near death experience... Coming into a turn, I see a large truck just entering the turn headed towards me. Next thing I know there is a car that made a really bad blind pass on the truck in my lane headed right for me. SHIT !!!!!!! Luckily have been riding in Asia enough that I tend to ride on the outer edge of the lane to give myself some breathing room just for events like this. I jammed the brakes, went to the very edge of the road next to the ditch, while he went past just missing me. That would have been one very ugly accident if he had done a head-on into me. Sorry, no photo....
A long hard day on the bike, and I realize there is no way I can make Dali. So finally stop in a fairly large city to look for a hotel.
I stop at two small reasonable looking hotels, who in a flurry of Chinese in essence let me know that they would not rent me a room.
WTF ??? Finally at the third one, the very pleasant girl shows me upstairs to a great room for 30 Yuan, just my style. Not great and not awful. As we go downstairs to check in, the manager shows up and takes a piece of paper and keeps writing " no " on it. I am tired, hungry,
and getting tired of this nonsense. The manager finally calls someone who spoke very good English, who explained to me that I could only
check into " foreigner approved hotels ". I thought that dated back to the days of Chairman Mao, when China was afraid if a foreigner stayed in a substandard hotel he might leave China with a bad impression. So the government picked out certain hotels, and foreigners
could only stay there. I never had this problem the last time I stayed in China for two months, I had no idea why it was popping up now.
So the manager actually walks me about half a kilometer to an officially approved hotel . Of course it is way too expensive, but I have no choice in the matter. The starting price was 260 Yuan, but I bargained it down to 200 Yuan. That is about 32 US dollars......
The room was great. Here are some pictures.
Next day the check out nightmare begins. I stop at the lobby to drop the key, then go outside to start packing the bike. After a while I go back inside to get my 200 Yuan deposit back. There on the counter I see two towels from my room, with the receptionist girls giving me accusing looks. ???? The day before I had arrived with a lot of road dirt on me, as well as on my face. So some of the dirt got on the towel.
I thought that was the job of a towel. Guess not in China. So they wanted to deduct some amount of Yuan from my deposit. I was so amazed I had I just had to go out, get my camera and take a picture of the scene. They were not very happy with that, and quickly gave me the full 200 Yuan back. Here are the offending towels.
I had no time to eat dinner the night before, so I was really hungry. This was a 3 star hotel, which normally have a pretty good free breakfast. So when I ask / pantamime about eating, big smiles appear, and they lead me off to a dining room. Except it seems a bit swanky....I receive a pretty good breakfast, nothing special. After I am done the service girls lead me back to the front desk where they now demand 50 Yuan for the breakfast. This seems a bit odd to me, as that amount was more then I had paid for my hotel room the night before, and in the past every nice expensive hotel I stayed at had complimentary breakfast. Soooo...... I refused to pay on principal. Lots of discussions, managers going back and forth, phone calls to mysterious people , but in the end they gave up and just told me to go. Here I am at the VIP breakfast room watching the NBA playoffs.
As I finish getting the bike ready to go, I happen to glance down under the bike. Hmmmmm, looks like trouble.....
Yep....the underside of the bike just under the shift lever.
Still plenty of oil in the bike, I figure I will fix it when I get to Dali. So finish loading, and head out.
Sights long the way. Here is brick factory.
Rice farming. My back hurts just watching.....
Old school using buffalos to pull a sort of sled with teeth on the bottom to soften the ground before planting.
Background is rice ready to be harvested, and foreground is shoots that have just been planted.
Here is an ancestor planted in the middle of the field. First time I had seen this. Maybe instead of being in a graveyard full of dead
strangers, it would be more usefull to be out in the field making sure your heirs are taking care of the farm business...
Navigation.....Almost impossible without a GPS. The trip before I had a so-so highway map that more or less worked for me. So this year I got hold of the official Garmin map of China, complete with very detailed street level mapping of all the cities. So am thinking this will be a piece of cake. Wrong.....I found out later that the Chinese government made Garmin produce a China map with a 600 meter offset built into it. Then when you buy a Garmin unit in China, the hardware somehow takes this offset out. My Garmin was bought in America, so guess what ?? Yes, it is offset time for me.......:cry :cry
Here is another of many mystery intersections, with the road looking exactly the same in both directions.
And here is the Garmin view at the exact same spot. Blue line is my track, purple is the track where I want to go, and yellow is the highway.
Not really a big issue on the highway, as you know about where you are anyway. The trouble really begins in the large cities which are like a maze. There is very seldom a bypass road, generally the highway goes straight into a city, make a bunch of turns , and then ends up headed out on the the other side. Here is where a GPS is critical. With no detail that is correct, I would have to scale the screen way out,
and then just head in the correct direction, trying to follow trucks. Here is one one my favorite screens. Because the GPS is not really locating itself on the map properly, it can lead to some funny routing. Here is my favorite....
As I know I need to change out the oil seal on the shifter when I get to Dali, I figure I should clean the bike before I hit town. It has dirt picked up from detour sections of the road. Here waiting patiently...
Car wash girl hard at work.
As I am rolling into the town of Dali, I see a large professional looking shop that says Suzuki on the front. Hey, wait a minute, my engine is made by Suzuki !! Perfect !! I stop in, they indicate to me no problem to fix it. A guy is sent out for the exact part, and it is expertly installed. Total cost including a spare seal is about $ 6 US dollars. Here hard at work. The guy on the left is stitching up the broken hand guard. When I showed them where it was split, they immediately brought out some epoxy.
I said no, and showed them how to neatly stitch it up with stainless wire ,which is much stronger.
Big smiles all around , and a thumbs up...
Finally reach a guest house in Dali and call it quits for a couple days. Great place, with a little shop in the back to work on the bike. After four days on the road , there are always a few tiny repairs as well as some organizing that needs to be done. Here are the inner bags I found in Thailand that fit perfect into the soft bags. Pretty handy, as most hotels want you to take everything off the bike. So instead of dismounting the softbags, I just pull these inner bags out, and leave the soft bags on the bike hanging open. Here is I am getting everything sorted. This system works really well. So a good night's sleep, then off north towards Lijiang for new adventures.....
Although at this stage you are making it SOUND all too easy. Great prep job on the bike also. Best of luck. 
