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Cycling in China

Email from the Road

Part 14

The Photo

The road was blocked. There was a long line of busses, trucks and cars waiting for something. I passed the whole line while some in the vehicles looked jealous to me. Sometimes two wheels are faster then four wheels I thought. But at the end of the lines there was a roadblock. There had been landslides and road workers were repairing and restoring the road. I had to wait for awhile.

A young man came to me, asking me if I spoke English. Then he wanted to know where I was from. I nodded backwards, where I had come from. But he meant my country name. So I told him I was from Antarctica. He wanted to know why I didn't use guides because he himself was a guide working for CITS, the Chinese travel service. CITS had been always useless for me and I told him I had a map and a guidebook so why should I need a guide? "You can not read or understand the language. How can you find your way, hotels or food?" They were the usual questions. "You are a guide, you should know how a man can find his way around", I said. He nodded and let the subject go.

"Where will you tonight?" he asked. "I'll ride a bit further and then set up my camp", I told him. "There's no hotel, you have to go another 30 kilometer, very far!" "I have my tent and sleep near the river, no problem." "Don't you know bandits live here, it's very dangerous and there's wild animals", he said. I couldn't resist laughing. Wild animals I had not seen except insects. Anything bigger than a squirrel was not in the area. The river would provide me water and my stove would boil the water. What else would I need? He couldn't understand. "There's bandits here, you can not trust the local people here" he said.

At that time the roadblock was opened. I didn't want to get involved in such a discussing which a man who had such ideas. Maybe it's the way the CITS guides are trained, I had heard more of this sort of stories of tour guides. For me it was more important to find a good place to camp that night so I bid farewell to him and continued cycling.

A few days later I met another Chinese cyclist. It was a man of over 50 years at least. He rode a no gear bike and came from Xinjiang province, the far west of China. He had crossed on this bike, a ladies model, the Tibetan plateau! Although I was cycling about 23 km an hour he had no difficulty to ride next to me. When I slowed down he went faster as if he was willing to tell me, I have no problem with the speed.

He had almost no gear with him. At the backpack he had a red flag which said something like: "Ask me for the next Olympic Games 2008 Beijing". He was wearing a pair of trousers, nice looking shiny shoes and a shirt with no sleeves. On his head he wore a plastic working mans helmet.

He told me he was riding to Chengdu and after he would cycle to the east coast. Finally he would reach Beijing, his end goal. Who cycles this way only deserves only respect.

Morning

I had an excellent breakfast of soymilk with fried breads. The town of Pengshan had been nice to me and I left the place with a good feeling.

In the last days it had been clear autumn was on its way. The temperature in Chengdu had dropped from a comfortable 25 degrees to just 15 at daytime and in the night it was just 5-10 degrees. But yesterday had been nice. And today was starting promising. I cycled out of town and found a flat area. This area was filled with little and not so little villages and town. It was mostly green. The farmers here grow a bit of rice but mostly cabbage, eggplant and potatoes (very Dutch indeed).

The morning mist had not been solved by the warming up sun. The sky was bright but the sun was not very strong. Every now and then I saw a building coming out of the mist and floating around for awhile. It was magic. I felt that life was good to me and I absorbed as much as I could.

Later in the morning when the sun grew stronger the mist disappeared and a bit later the sun too. The day turned grey and clouded and the joy of the morning disappeared too.

From Chengdu to Junlian

I know I know, I shouldn't mention all the time names. Many of those names are of no use for the average readers and even some of my Chinese readers probably can not place them. Still, I got to do it because otherwise the story will be a story with a loose end.

Anyway, I left Chengdu for an easy ride to Pingshan. It turned out I was on the wrong road. Getting out of Chengdu is a bit of a nightmare since there's no road markers. Finally I got on a road and then this road turned out to be a dead end street. I didn't want to cycle 10 km back for a decent road so I took a short cut.

Shortcuts are dangerous. Usually shortcuts are longer or more difficult and so was this one. The asphalt road became a mud path after 6 kilometers but I was stubborn and continued. Yes, I had to pay the price. My bike and me got stuck in the mud, the front wheel almost half sunken in the mud. But it came to an end and I reached Pingshan.

The next day was fast and easy to Leshan where I saw the big Buddha. Indeed it's big, 71 meters high. I cycled out to use another shortcut that cost me another 20 kilometers of nightmare road in a scenic landscape with little villages and astonished people down the road. The shortcut cost me 15 km extra!

In Rongxian is the second largest Buddha of China and again indeed, it's big. Same thing as Leshan and no need to visit though Rongxian is not a bad place.

Zigong was much better. There were a bunch of temples and a great teahouse where I spend two afternoons. From the outside it's like what Lonely Planet writes: a holiday resort for Dracula but inside it's bamboo and lots of people playing mahjong, cards and Chinese chess. A wonderful place to be. Food was slightly more difficult. The usual available street restaurant were not that much available but at night time there were a lot of street places setup and some local dishes as cold noodles with ginger and spices were excellent.

Another road took me to Yibin, more south in the direction of Yunnan. In the area there's the Sea of Bamboo but now the weather had turned into a grey mist. I didn't feel it was of use to visit that place and Yibin itself? Well, the best I can say about it is that the colors on the streets are made by the flowers and fruits. At nighttime however it seemed the city came alive with lots of Hui Muslims selling excellent kebabs and sweet pancakes. Still, not enough to stay so this morning I cycled easy down south and found a bed in a nameless hotel in Junlian, a town on the border of Sichuan and Yunnan. It's my last stop in Sichuan; Yunnan again is waiting!

Yunnan

The road was bad, was it a road? A mud path was a better description. Still, all the maps say this was a continuing road between Sichuan and Yunnan. This path had never been paved! 40 kilometers of dirt and mud I had to pass before I came in Yunnan's first little town. It was a little dirt town that hardly sees foreigners. All I heard was laowai, laowai and meiguo mei guo (foreigner, American).

The hotel was nice and comfortable which I really needed and so did my bike. The bathroom was very dirty after I cleaned the bike but the staff will never know.

Apart of the 40 kilometers of dirt and mud I had cycled only 10 "normal kilometers" and it had taken me almost 5 hours. The road had been swindling up and down. It wasn't an easy day.

The next day however was much easier, at least the first 60 kilometers. Sure, the road was going up and down but the road was ok too. There was not much to see since it was grey and drizzling but here and there were glimpses of great beauty to see. The only thing that bothered me in those kilometers were an amount of waterfalls on the road. So I had to cycle around the water masses and the water that came pouring down.

Ten kilometers before the stopping off place I saw the town. At first I thought the maps had been wrong in the amount of kilometers but then I realized I had to climb up. Since Kunming lies on an altitude of 1890 meters I had expected climbing anyway. And now the road went up to over 1000 meters on a very bad road, mostly potholes, dirt and mud.

The hotel was very new and despite its name I didn't see any Blue Skies (which was the hotels name). The staff however was very friendly and invited me for dinner. Breakfast they didn't allow me to pay. I gave them a couple of photos and they were quite happy with them. I guess not many laowai visit Daguan, which was the towns' name.

When I left all of the staff waved me goodbye, sometimes Chinese are the most wonderful people you meet.

However, not in 10 minutes I had seen the other side. A couple of youngsters in a minivan tried to cut me off the road. Just for the sake of fun. I could escape through a new build highway where I could go and they couldn't!

Later I realize why the road was cut off... a landslide had made a hole as big as almost the whole road itself. Cars and motorbikes could not pass here but walkers and a cyclist if crazy enough could.

The road continued getting up. It went as far as a tunnel of 1 kilometer long at almost 1900 meters. From now on I expected it would not be getting up much more but after a short down going I continued climbing to almost 2100 meters. By now I was so tired and cold, it was just 10 degrees and drizzling and besides, I had left in the morning in still wet clothes. Those clothes had been drying for 16 hours but were as wet as when I had taken them off. A shirt provided by William of to 7th Heaven helped me out as did an old pair of trousers but my jack was wet. It wasn't pleasant even though I went fast down. The meter said 45... 50... 55... and finally 61 km an hour on a smooth and wide-open road.

7thh2.jpg (20977 bytes)

7th Heaven Cafe and Hostel

I saw the next town Zhaotong coming up soon. It looked big and thus with available hotels. That was what I wanted, some hot shower and time to clean my clothes. It also meant I would stay in this town for a day of rest. After all I have cycled already 5 days in a row. Time for a timeout!

And again I found a luxury room in a luxury hotel for a budget price. The staff helped me out with bringing me to the 8th floor where I have a big room with an even bigger bathroom. Despite the road condition, my bike was again dirty of the film of mud on the road surface and thus the bike got another shower. Now everything is clean and I am warm again! Time for a good meal and check the maps how to reach Kunming, which is no more then 400 kilometers away.

Next: Part 15

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