The students pose in front of the Potala Palace

Six students from Tianjin University spent 24 days riding their bicycles from southwestern China’s Chengdu to Tibet during their summer vacation.to “have a different vacation”.

The students climbed over 20 mountains, the highest one being 5,013 meters, went across the Jinsha River, the westernmost of the major headwater streams of the Yangtze River, and visited a number of sightseeing spots including the Potala Palace in the 2,100-kilometer journey.

The trek was organized by the Peiyang Federation of Cyclists at Tianjin University (formerly known as Peiyang University).

“I wanted to travel across China when I was at college to experience the beauty of the country. I told my club members I planned to ride to Tibet half a year ago and they gladly joined my wagon,” Jiang Xing, head of the Federation, said.

The federation only has seven members—five males and two females—all of whom practiced hard for the trip.

On July 1st, all members except for one, who got injured before the trip, started from Chengdu along the Sichuan-to-Tibet road.

“There are five roads to Tibet. We chose this one because the scenery along the road is incredible although it is tough,” Jiang explained.

At first their ride went well but the mountainous road became tougher after Chengdu. It took them one hour to ride just three kilometers on several occasions.

Even more challenging was the fickle mountainous weather, where it may “rain three times and have sunshine three times in one hour”, a member of the group said.

“Sometimes when I just put on my raincoat, the rain stopped, but minutes after I took it off, it started raining again,” another member complained.

The most difficult part of their journey, however, was altitude stress.

“I felt my head was about to explode and really wanted to get a ride in a passing car and have a break when I began climbing a 4,000-meter mountain,” group member Wang Hao recalled.

When the students felt they could not hold on any longer, a Tibetan worker and one group of soldiers passing by gave them some encouragement.

“Come on, there are only 600 meters to the mountain top,” shouted the soldiers, the students recalled.

Ren Sijie and Wang Shuang, the only two girls on the team, were impressed by the cute wild animals they encountered when they cycled from Tibet’s Zuogong county to Bangda county.

“The plump prairie marmot looks like a little dog but its short tail can be barely seen,” Wang Shuang described.

“It is afraid of people. It dug a hole very quickly and hid before I could snap it,” she said regretfully.

On July 24, when they finally arrived in Tibet, they won applause from the tourists there, marking a successful end to their long journey.

By Guo Changdong