8000 km Road Trip through China Episode 1 Shanghai to Xi'An

This video is about the pain of reaching China's remote mountains from Shanghai—and the huge reward when you finally get there. It is the opening episode of an 8,000 km Road Trip Across China, a documentary series following our journey through 10 Chinese provinces, inspired by my obsession with finding a mysterious mountain that had already defeated me twice. Travelling through China is never just about driving. Every day is influenced by two major factors: • Holiday traffic During the summer holiday season, millions of drivers fill the highways and mountain roads, often causing heavy traffic jams. • Weather Although China's motorway network is excellent, we are searching for something completely different: remote mountain roads that reveal the beauty of the real China. These tiny roads are rarely maintained and are often affected by rockfalls and landslides, especially during the rainy season. That means: We have the plan but the weather tells us where to go.:) Our original route was to explore the Dieshan Mountains( Zaghana Mountains), drive the famous Locke Road, find the mysterious peak, and continue into the Hengduan Mountains of Sichuan. If conditions allowed, we even hoped to reach the Tibetan border near Yushu in the Kunlun Mountains. We were lucky to find a three-day weather window for the Dieshan Mountains, while most of the Tibetan Plateau and Sichuan were already affected by the early summer monsoon. Instead, we continued north into the Qilian Mountains of Qinghai, home to the elusive snow leopard. From there, our journey took us to the spectacular Danxia formations near Zhangye, western Gansu, Ningxia, and finally to the southern edge of the Gobi Desert in Inner Mongolia. Planning the journey We never pre-book hotels. Instead, we search online each afternoon for nearby hotels that are licensed to accommodate foreign visitors. So far, we've always found a comfortable place to stay. One more challenge: altitude We live almost at sea level in Shanghai—only 5 metres above sea level. Many of our destinations lie between 2,500 and over 4,000 metres. That's why we spent eight days gradually driving towards the Dieshan Mountains, gaining altitude step by step to help our bodies acclimatise before reaching the high mountains. Diving date : June 1st./2nd. 2026 Outstanding: The Beauty of the highway through Qinling Mountains maplink https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Baosh... Timeline 00:00 Preview 00:55 Baoshan tollgate 02:00 Border Jiangsu 02:30 The way we avoid fines 02:56 Anhui Border 03:13 Yangtze Bridges 06:51 Countryside Service Station 07:35 Henan Border 08:13 The reward for yesterdays boring drive o8:24 Qinling Mountain foothills in bright sun 09:13 Shaanxi Border 09:28 First Shaanxi food 10:14 Crossing the Qinling Mountains 14:12 Reached 1000m elevation 17:39 Qinling Banyuan Tunnel 19:21 Xi'An outskirts 20:55 Xi'An tollgate 23:35 What a friendly welcome at the hotel!