Aksai Chin Plateau.

"We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again -- to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more."-Pico Iyer

the askai chin plateau is a pretty amazing place. its so remote and rugged with what seems like nothing but dirt and rocks. it's also a bit of a challange to cycle there. for me the main obstacle was the altitude. headaches, shortness of breath during the night and a persistant cough are reminders of my time on the askai chin plateau. but i'll be back there, so it couldnt have been that bad.......or my memory is not so good.....:)
your cycling along shit roads in what feels like the middle of nowhere, you come around a corner and you see this! welcome to rutok. this was where our friend franz was turned back by the psb a few years before so we were a little nervous. no problems for us.
this is typical tibetan accomodation. we also had some early morning entertainment, but that story has adult content.
just chatting with the locals. sign language anyway.
heading out of ali on the 80klms of bitumen before we are back on the familiar shit dirt roads. frenchman silvaan on the front with franz then myself. we spent a few days in ali having hot long showers, eating large volumes of fresh cooked food and just generally hanging around resting.