Today’s guest post “A journey across remote lands: Tibet and Mongolia” is by Nicolas Marino (Website | Blog | Facebook | Flickr | Twitter):
Hi Everybody! My name is Nicolas and I am a documentary and landscape photographer who, since 2006 has chosen a bicycle as means of transportation to travel and reach some very remote regions of this world. I have cycled 41.000 km (25.000mi) in Asia so far and due to the nature of traveling by bicycle I can relate very intimately to the people of the places I visit, as most of the time I can share quality time with them. So in this opportunity, allow me to take you for a ride along two places that truly touched my heart out of all the ones I have been to, Tibet and Mongolia.
Exploring the Tibetan plateau by bicycle has been one of the most rewarding yet tough experiences of my life. Throughout my years based in Chengdu, China I have made several solo extreme cycling trips across the provinces of Kham and Amdo and in each one of them, I had to endure the extreme weather of the region to be able to experience the soothing warmth of the Tibetan people. Averaging 5000 m (16400ft) of altitude, the Tibetan plateau is by nature an inhospitable land where I would spend several days, riding solitary tracks and getting across one after another and another incredibly high and cold mountain pass.
