Chapter 25. To Chengdu across the Long March grasslands 红原 - 查真梁子 - 黑水 - 茂县

It’s one thing to take an e-bike to the headwaters of the Yellow River, but quite another to get it back again. One of the reasons I chose to make the First Bend the ultimate goal and endpoint of my trip was because I could take my bike from there into Sichuan, where I had friends who could store the bike for me. 

So from the First Bend I embarked on a four-day journey through the grasslands and mountains of northern Sichuan to get to the provincial capital.  My last view of the Yellow River was when passing through Tangke (唐克), a scruffy riverside town that had little to recommend it. I made a detour across a bridge over the White River (白河, Baihe) for a few kilometres to the west of town to see what the road looked like going upstream. 

After passing a large field of rapeseed it petered out into a dirt track that ran through farmland flood plains. The river here changed its course frequently. On the map I could see ‘ghost’ loop images indicating where the river had previously run. The route upriver looked desolate, especially in the rain. 

 My journey to Hongyuan (红原) took me across Tibetan grassland plains beside the Bai river. The rainy season had set in and I became accustomed to pedalling in the wet. Along the roadside there were many more Tibetan tourist businesses, all offering the same range of horse rides, ATVs, honey for sale, yak meat barbecues and rows of cabins and tents. There were Long March memorials, Tibetan Buddhist chortens and car wrecks displayed as public warnings against traffic accidents (‘9 out of 10 crashes are caused by speeding!’’). 

 Hongyuan was a mess because the entire main street was closed off for reconstruction. I squelched my bike through a muddy diversion and found a room in a tatty Tibetan run hotel with a friendly receptionist.  On the second day of cycling through the rainy plateau south of Hongyuan I pedalled up a long incline to a 4350 metre pass called Chazi Liangzi (查真梁子). The signs proclaimed it to be the place where the watershed of the Yellow River met with that of the Yangtze.  “Standing on the ridge and looking down you can enjoy the two very different landforms of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River at the same time, and enjoy the two different landforms of mountains and grasslands,” it said. Sure enough, there were mountains ahead, albeit covered in rainclouds. 

As I descended, I left the grasslands  - and the Yellow River - behind me. After one more climb to a tunnel through the Qionglai mountain range, it was downhill all the way from there to Chengdu. I took the road down to Heishui (黑水), following the course of the Black River, which was in flood. The Aba Tibetan houses here were built of stone and looked like chalets from the Alps. To the south were the famous peaks of the Sigunian Range and I bypassed turnoffs to see glaciers and more Long March monuments. 

 Here was tourist infrastructure: the road had cycle paths in some sections and Heishui town had boutique hotels: but I was not yet home and dry. The rain continued the next day and the river was in even greater flood. The road south was blocked by landslides due to the rain and I had to wait an hour in a line with a lot of impatient Chinese car drivers for a bulldozer to clear a way though. 
After the tunnel ordeal I arrived in Dujiangyan a nervous mess, spending the last few kilometres yelling at cars for being too close when passing me. Perhaps it was the anticlimax of no longer having a goal after three months of following the river - I needed a break. 

 When I joined the busy highway that linked Jiuzhaigou to Chengdu the real traffic nightmare began: it was a narrow twisting road with no shoulder and many blind corners. I spent so long pausing to let passing traffic go past that it took me two hours to cover the last 30 kilometres into Maoxian. 

With the rainy season now providing a steady daily downpour the Min river en route to Chengdu was in full flood. The highway made numerous crossings of the river whose waters piled up in alarming surging waves against the bridge supports, and I worried this would lead to the road ahead being closed. What I should have worried about were the tunnels. 

From Maoxian (茂县) the road south passed  through Wenchuan (汶川), the epicentre of a 2008 Sichuan earthquake that killed 69,000 people. When rebuilding the roads devastated by landslides, China’s civil engineers had created a new route using a series of tunnels through the mountains. Four of these were more than two kilometres in length, and one was a whopping 4.7 kilometres. There was only a narrow shoulder and some sections were unlit, which meant pedalling in complete darkness with just a weak bike light to illuminate the way ahead. 

The road was wet and there were ruts and potholes in the surface that were hard to see and threatened to unseat me. Not to mention my worries about carbon monoxide from exhaust fumes, it was terrifying to have three or four trucks approach from behind you. When I saw the headlights I would pull over and huddle in as close to the tunnel wall as possible until the monsters had roared past. I dropped my precious hat somewhere in the tunnel and was too scared to go back for it.

After the tunnel ordeal I arrived in Dujiangyan a nervous mess, spending the last few kilometres yelling at cars for being too close when passing me. Perhaps it was the anticlimax of no longer having a goal after three months of following the river - I needed a break.

First Bend of Yellow River to Chengdu, via Dujiangyan (click on image to enlarge)

 

第25章 穿越长征草原赴成都

将电动自行车带到黄河源头是一回事，但要把它带回来则完全是另一回事。我选择将"第一湾"作为旅程终点的一个原因，就是可以从那里进入四川——我有朋友能在成都帮忙存放自行车。

于是从第一湾出发，我开始了为期四天穿越川北草原群山的省城之旅。最后瞥见黄河是在途经唐克镇时，这个邋遢的河畔小镇乏善可陈。我特意绕道镇西的白河大桥，想看看上游道路状况。穿过大片油菜田后，柏油路逐渐变成穿越农区洪泛平原的土路。河道在此频繁改道，地图上残留着旧河道的"鬼影"痕迹。雨中溯河而上的路线显得格外荒凉。

前往红原县的路上，我沿着白河骑行在藏族草原。雨季已然来临，我逐渐适应了冒雨蹬车。沿途清一色的藏家乐提供骑马、沙滩车、蜂蜜、牦牛肉烧烤，以及成排的木屋帐篷。长征纪念碑、佛教白塔与交通事故警示架（"十次车祸九次快！"）点缀其间。红原县城主街全封闭施工，我推着泥泞的自行车，在一家藏族小旅馆找到了住处。

离开红原南行的第二日，漫长爬坡将我带到海拔4350米的查真梁子。标识牌宣称此处是黄河与长江水系的分水岭："立于垭口之巅，可同时观赏长江、黄河两种截然不同的地貌，领略山地与草原的迥异风光。"虽然雨云笼罩，前方确已显现山峦轮廓。下坡途中，草原与黄河都被我抛在身后。

穿越邛崃山脉隧道后，便是一路下坡直抵成都。我沿暴涨的黑水河前往黑水县，这里的嘉绒藏族石砌民居宛如阿尔卑斯山屋。南望是著名的四姑娘山群峰，岔路口指向冰川景点与更多长征遗迹。旅游设施开始出现——部分路段设有自行车道，黑水县城还有精品酒店——但考验远未结束。

次日持续暴雨引发山体滑坡阻断道路，我与焦躁的中国司机们等候推土机清障一小时。当汇入九寨沟通往成都的繁忙公路时，真正的噩梦开始了：这条没有路肩的曲折山道布满盲弯，频繁避让车辆使我两小时才骑完最后30公里抵达茂县。

随着雨季持续性降水，通往成都途中的岷江已全面泛滥。公路多次跨江，惊涛骇浪猛烈拍击桥墩，我时刻担心前方道路中断。但真正该警惕的其实是隧道——从茂县经汶川（2008年导致6.9万人遇难的大地震震中）南下的新修公路，采用穿山隧道群替代被滑坡摧毁的老路。其中四条超两公里，最长达到4.7公里。狭窄的应急车道时明时暗，我仅靠微弱车灯在漆黑中骑行，还要躲避湿滑路面难以察觉的沟槽与坑洼。

最恐怖的是三四辆卡车从身后逼近时。看到远光灯我就紧贴隧道壁蜷缩，等这些钢铁巨兽咆哮而过。途中丢失了珍爱的帽子也不敢折返寻找。经历隧道折磨后抵达都江堰时，我已成惊弓之鸟，最后几公里不断呵斥贴得太近的汽车。或许是因为三个月黄河之旅突然失去目标的空虚感——我确实需要休息了。