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Cycling in China

Email from the Road

Part 18

Beauty

Dushan was the name of the town where I stayed last night. It turned out to be a place on in between two different types of landscape. To the west there were the steep mountains; spectacular and partly difficult. But on the eastside there were slow running mountains on the north and south side of the valley in which a new and excellent road was build. For 30 kilometers it went mostly flat on a road where there was hardly traffic.

The whole scenery seemed very sleepy, even in the villages it was all very sleepy. The men on the side of the road were standing with their hands in their pockets as if they were afraid to loose something. The women were working in the field. I saw an old woman with a log crossing the road, of course not looking at the traffic since there was almost nothing except a bus or three-wheel taxi.

But after 30 kilometers the valley became narrower and the mountains now came closer. The shapes of the mountains were different too. They were steeper and sharper in their tops. The road had problems to stay on the same level and soon I had to start climbing. The climbs were not long but they came and came, a few hundred meters to a kilometer or two and then going down through the paddy fields. The whole scene was magnificent although there was no water on the rice field, which could have made the view perfect. Still, the weather was nicely warm and it was a pleasant to cycle through this (it seemed to me) untouched land.

Tourists probably never come here. I was on my way to the town of Libo, mentioned to me by the guard of my hotel in Dushan. He was right. The road was excellent and the scenery spectacular. And the ascending to Libo was beautiful too. Libo itself does see tourist. There were heaps of hotels and the choice was mine. Probably Chinese tourist know this place since by my knowledge it's not mentioned in the Lonely Planet or Rough Guide.

It could be like Yangshuo a long time before mass tourism came here though the town itself is bigger then Yangshuo. It's very laid-back and a very recommended place for anyone who loves scenic beauty. This is why a cyclist takes his bike, to find places like this. I love cycling!

The town awakens

It was not that early anymore, around 9 a.m. The town gets awake slowly. It is still cold with a temperature of only 6 degrees. Most of the stores were still closed but some were already busy putting their products outside. I was asking myself why I was here. I could have easily go north instead of south to Huanjiang in Guangxi. The road north would have been much easier then the road to this little town. It wouldn't have saved me time to reach my destination anyway. But this road gave me options to see an area I had not seen before and I took the dirt road for granted although I almost regretted when I found a part of the dirt road under contraction. That is always more difficult to cycle then a bad road itself.

Steaming kettles were boiling their noodles or dumplings for the early one who needed breakfast. Also available were soymilk and dumplings. A solitary man sat here or there over his bowl of noodles and warmed his hands on the bowl, slowly eating.

Meanwhile the first merchandisers appeared on the street and some went to the market, other searched for a good place on the main street. A couple with horse and wagon came with lots of ducks and chicken in baskets. A few of the animals were slaughtered and laid on the stone tables while under the tables the rest of the animals were waiting for their fate.

Two men were slaughtering a cow. They collected the blood and with no hesitation they cut the cow in piece for selling. Two other cows were in the back waiting for their moment of eternity.

Two men with a horse and wagon came with a lot of pigs in baskets on it. They let the pigs on the wagon but they were available for anyone who was interested to buy.

Further on the grocery stores opened. Many stores selling the same thing made me wonder how they would make a living. Why would you go anyway to this store and leave the next store where it is?

One store brought the ploughs and spades outside. One other had sinks to sell and a bit further I found more shops selling sinks and other metallic tools.

A woman with some dogs got her place on the market. The dogs were barking to everything that moved. I told myself the dogs would be sold as pets and would not end up on the dinner table.

More and more people appeared now either by walk or by three wheel motor taxi. Vegetables and fruits were exhibited. And even the sun came out to see what was happening!

I wondered why I was still wondering about this street life. One house door was open and the morning cold came in while inside they had a little stove to warm up the house. It didn't make sense. As having said, I had seen this many times now. It didn't matter where I was and who the people were. The behavior was always similar.

The kettles were still steaming their heat into the sky. I loved to see this scenery. It gave me a sense of being home. I needed something warm and decided it was my time for a breakfast.

Another day

One day is not the same as another day. Yesterday cycled easy to Yizhou and today it was difficult, very difficult. Why? I can't tell. Sure, yesterday it was mostly flat while today it went slightly up. I don't like those sort of roads. It's better to climb a real hill then those shitty roads that go slight up. Only the altitude meter shows you're going up. Maybe that explains why it didn't go too well today.

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Peter Vanderlans

But the road itself was fine, the scenery was like Guilin/Yangshuo and here and there very spectacular and the weather cold.

The only thing that made it difficult was when a group of children tried to run with me when I cycled shouting laowai laowai and other probably not too nice names. This sort of behavior hopefully is not educated at schools though one would expect that because it happens in many places. And the parents just laugh. A laowai in this country is sometimes like an animal. You can beat it up with no problem.

Here in Luocheng a boy who spoke good English said fuck you to me! Normal. The surrounding people didn't do anything. I wonder sometimes if those kids would do the same to Chinese people of my age. But then again, this is China, you don't like it? You have to go somewhere else. It's good I'll be in Yangshuo in a couple of days and get out of this behavior.

But then again, straight after the "fuck you" experience, I met some nice people (who didn't know about the "fuck you" experiment) who brought me to a little restaurant and we had a nice little lunch. China is a great country, despite the moments when it's not but isn't that everywhere?

Road construction

Although I had an easy day today and I didn't want to make it more difficult to cycle another 55 kilometers to the next town of any importance I was again surprised by the road condition. In the last days I had experienced very bad conditions. Even new roads sometimes are built badly. But today I was on an ongoing road through Guangxi and this means in terms of Chinese road contraction a very decent job.

Still, on other occasions it's different. It doesn't matter how good or bad a road is, as soon as an official finds out a road has to be upgraded the road gets into a mess. First all kinds of organization has to be done. For example, trucks, materials, workers has to be arranged. And then the work starts. If the road was bad, like the one from Libo to Huanjiang, the road will get worse. The trucks carry big rocks and loads of sand and clay to the place where they begin the work. This usually means the road gets in worse condition because stones, sand or clay fall off the trucks and then the rain changes it into a mud hole.

When the road or what's left of it dries up, the trucks ride holes in the mud and these holes can be very deep. They can be so deep that I can not proceed cycling because my low riders (the front rack) hit the walls of the holes.

On other occasions there's so much water on the road, it can not run away or gets no time to dry up. It causes major problems for me since I usually have to walk through the dirt sometimes ankle deep.

When the real work starts first on the old road the workers put a mix of not too big rocks and clay while a waltz tries to flatten this mix. On the side of the road people use hammers to demolish the big rocks into smaller rocks and eventually into a size which can be used for the top layer of the new road.

The top layer for the smaller roads is build by hand. The upper layer is done by hand. In the end the road is ready and the dirt is cleaned up.

The main roads are mostly built with machines. These roads are usually in excellent conditions though some are after a short time ready for maintenance due to weather conditions in harsh areas.

Now the maintenance of the road becomes an option. Road workers clean the expressways and provincial new roads by hand. You can see them sweeping the road. These workers do not watch the traffic on the road. Even if it's busy they go where they think it's necessary. Still, I never hear about deaths.

Next: Part 19

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