Rain, river crossings, bread making and still more rain

It's cold, the rain is coming down hard and I'm outside with an 8year-old boy and a 13year-old girl who climb 2miles up the valley like billy-goats. I'm slipping and I'm tired from our long bike ride, and it's getting dark.

We had left Lanmgusi towards Xiahe, excited to finally bike on a paved road. After a gradual highpass we roll down the hill hitting a flat plain averaging 25km/hour. It's a blistering pace in comparison to our dirt-road-bump-splosh-pace. Today could be our longest ride. We break for lunch 81km later. For the past two hours a dark cloud has followed us. It catches up. We are approached by a woman. Her brilliant gold-toothed smile invites us for tsampa; and as we walk to her house the thunder strikes and the shower begins. Our cycling ends for the day, but there is still work to be done. So I accompany the boy and girl to get the sheep while the mother milks the yak. At a river crossing I see the girl is about to pick up her brother to carry him across; the current is strong. But I move fast and pick him up myself and off we go. They giggle all along the 2 mile hike.

We work with hand signals, and between the three of us, we herd 150 sheep back down the valley to their home. We all sleep in the same single room. The morning begins at 5am for the mother and her daughter who milk the yak and let the sheep loose. We eat breakfast and I learn how to make bread. It's actually more like a doughnut, because it is all fried.

It's great having the video camera. Many have never been outside their region, so it is nice to let them see other parts of China. The family got so emotional when I showed them footage from the important Lama who visited the Tsongetsanz monastery we had been to. We give them a bag of fruit along with a picture of us. The fruit: they eat instantly; The picture: they carefully wrap it in toilet paper to keep it safe.

We leave with a small drizzle which later matures into a harsher rain. The paved road ends as we turn off and take a short cut to Xiahe.....haha.....It was the worst road yet and the rain didn't make it any easier. We spend the night in a small village and finally make our way to Xiahe, wet.

It has been almost one month since Chengdu. We've cycled over 1200km and have climbed the equivalent of Mt. Everest 1.5times and we're still very far from Kashgar....This trip is flashing by.