03/12/2025
So how did we suddenly get teleported from north china, urumqi, to our destination, which was Nepal?
As you might know, our plan was to cycle all the way from our hometown, Belgium, to Nepal. Our goal was to do it all by bicycle, on humanpower only. But soon, the reality of geopolitical situations came along the way. In certain regions of the world, things are just uncertain. It started with the sudden war in Iran, followed by the only 3 days transit visa to cross 700km in Russia, and a closed border between Kazakstan and Uzbekistan.
But one other big obstacle came along the way pretty early in the journey: the conflict between India and Pakistan, closing the only remaining land border we were supposed to cross to reach Nepal. Since, we hoped this border would eventually open again in the months to come, which didn’t happen. The only other option to arrive at our destination by land was through China and Tibet. BUT: China is huge and Tibet is a very restricted part under Chinese control.
So, we cycled the furthest we could during the 1month of free visa in China. The city we reached thus became URUMQI, with about 15.000km on our counters.
Cycling through Tibet (from Lhasa to the border) COULD have been an option, but requires guide, travel permits, a van carrying the stuff and supplies. Budgetwise that would’ve cost us more than one year of travel. So, we choose the option to organise a 4 day tour with bus and 4 other fellow cyclists to cross Tibet and be dropped at the border of our long desired land border: Nepal!
So despite 2 small parts (one through Russia and one to cross the border from kazakstan to uzbekistan) we managed to cycle it all until Urumqi, in North-west China, Xinjiang.
We are happy and satisfied of the choices we made, of the route we’ve cycled, of the countries we’ve crossed. 🚴♀️💜
