Month: November 2007

The plan was to ride across the causeway bridge to the island of Xiamen, and from there get a ferry across to Gulang Yu. This area was one of the first treaty ports in China, and is supposed to be a nice quiet little island, with colonial architecture, ideal for a few days rest. It had been recommended by both Chinese and Western people I’d met, and I was looking forward to stopping there. The road from Fuzhou down to here along the coast was absolutely appalling, way too busy, with hundreds of minibuses driven by people who have never driven a vehicle until last week, and get paid by the horn blast.

Roadworks for 20km at a stretch too. The Chinese have built thousands of kilometres of roads in the last few years, and maybe they’re getting good at it – although I still think they have some fundamental design issues, since they don’t do things like drainage properly, which is going to cause them major maintenance problems over the next few years. But anyway, the thing that they seem totally incapable of is traffic management during roadworks. Rather than thinking about how they are going to keep the road open, and minimise disruption, they just go ahead with whatever they’re planning, and let the traffic work out what it wants to do. So if they’re working on a dual carriageway, rather than putting in a contraflow, and completely renovating one side before switching over, instead they get a large jackhammer to tear up both sides of the road for 10km at a time, leaving traffic to bump its way over it. Not much fun on the bike.

So I got into town, and made my way down to the ferry terminal, looking for somewhere to buy a ticket. “Mei yo, mei yo!” the girl came running up to me shouting. Hmmm. Try going another way – but she’s onto me, and it seems will not let me board with my bike. Crap. I look around, and realise that there are no other Chinese boarding with bikes, although you are allowed a cartload of random stuff. Now what do I do? I had planned on staying at the hostel on Gulang Yu, but it seemed I couldn’t get there. I had read other cyclists’ accounts of staying there, but they didn’t mention any problems getting over there. I hang around for a while, hoping that there will be a shift change, and I can try my luck with a different attendant. But no luck, so I go in search of a hotel.

Dear old LP had their budget accommodation starting at 200Y per night – way too much. But I manage to find a Chinese hotel for less than that, although still a bit overpriced for what it is. I’m crap at negotiation, but it’s important to do some in China with most things, especially hotels. The usual trick is to go in, ask the prices, then turn away – this usually results in them running after you and offering better prices.

This seems a nice town, and I could stay here a few days, but I think I’ll make a push from here to Hong Kong tomorrow – maybe 6-7 more days riding. I could get the ferry from here, but I think I’ll ride it. I’ll head inland though, hopefully get some respite from the traffic along the coast.

Just a couple of quick things – one is that I’m sorting out some China photos, but don’t expect them to all be uploaded any time soon. They are taking forever to upload from here, with frequent connection resets. So if you are following any links from my China photos page, don’t be surprised to get “file not found errors.” At least I’ve got them sorted now, and I should at least get all the HTML parts uploaded.

Secondly, you may notice I’ve added the RSS subscription link to my pages. I’ve always had the RSS stuff in the background, but for some reason or another, I never got around to adding the links. If you use RSS, I’d appreciate it if you could confirm that it’s all working OK. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t worry about it!

UPDATE 22/2/8: I’ve finally added the necessary meta tags, so that if you’re using a modern Internet browser – Firefox, Safari, IE7 – it will auto-detect that there are RSS feeds, and show an appropriate icon for adding the feed to whatever reader you use.

For some time now, the exploits of Jan “Hollywood” Slatter have had me consumed with envy. Repeated requests for television and print interviews is just sickening. Surely he’s no more handsome than me? But at last I have got off the mark, with my first television interview, for a regional TV station! I was stopping in Pucheng, a small city off the tourist trail, where very few white people ever visit. I ran into Rock, a local who thinks he is probably the only person in that city who speaks English. He showed me around the town, and sorted out getting a decent haircut at his friend’s hairdressing salon.

Rock works at the local television station, and so the next morning as I was riding out of town, a car pulled up alongside, with a TV camera sticking out the window. We then conducted an interview at the side of the road, followed by footage of the tollgate officials giving me a cup of tea, before I rode off into the distance. With a bit of luck at some point I’ll get hold of an online copy of it. I really need to do a print interview as well though, so I can get something in Chinese about what I’m doing printed out, to show to people.

So-so riding the first couple of days south-west from Hangzhou, but things have been really nice once I crossed the border into Fujian province. Not nearly as much money here as in Zhejiang province, but less industry and fewer vehicles has made for some great days out. Riding down the G205, a national highway, feels like a backroad after some of the busier roads. Just a nice concrete road winding down through a forested valley, tracking a clean wide river. Small rural villages, just nice and pleasant. Another surprise though at Jian’ou – after checking in, I got a knock at the door – rather than the usual “massage happy ending” proposal, the hotel owner had gone and gotten his English-speaking friend to make sure that I was happy, and I didn’t need anything. If I needed something later, they would give him a call to help sort it out. How nice is that?

A bit of hilly stuff over the last few days has left me feeling a bit more tired than usual, so I’ve had a half day today, and I’m stopping in Nanping, a nice city at the confluence of two rivers. I might take the day off tomorrow too, will see how the legs feel in the morning. Trying to download the 157MB update for my iPod is taking forever anyway, it could be a while…But by all accounts the city/riverside is beautifully lit up at night, so should be nice.

I was going to go in a straighter line to Hong Kong, but since I’m liking this province, I’m taking the advice of locals, and tacking southeast to Fuzhou, and I’ll follow the coast around from there, via Xiamen, to Hong Kong. Perhaps 10-14 days, I haven’t really worked it out. As usual, I try not to plan too far ahead. Frequently when I wake up I’m not even sure where I’ll sleep that night. Here you can get away with that. Someone asked if I was worried about getting lost, but it really doesn’t bother me much. Obviously if I was in a remote area I would need to take more care, but then there would probably only be one road anyway. Worst case here, I’ll end up in some town I didn’t plan on stopping in. But no problem, I can get back on the road soon enough. Perhaps that’s part of why I’m so happy in China – it’s not just that I’m enjoying China for being China, but it’s that I’m just in a good rhythm, and feeling completely comfortable with what I’m doing.

Shanghai was lots of fun to visit, but the pollution’s fairly heavy, and I’m not sure I’d want to live there. At the suggestion of a friend, we went up to the 87th floor of the Shanghai Hyatt, to the extremely fancy bar, for cocktails. The best time to go is around dusk, to watch the city lights take effect. I was wearing jandals (that would be “thongs” for my Australian readers), and was told that I could only stay until 18:00. No worries though, we couldn’t afford to stay too long anyway, at 90Y per cocktail, plus 15% service charge. Outstanding views though, well worth it.

A bit tricky getting out of the city, heading out through the French Concession area. They don’t hate bicycles the way they do in Qingdao，but they don’t make it too easy. Bikes aren’t allowed on the main roads, so I needed to tack back and forth around the main road leading out of town, trying to keep it in sight. It actually wasn’t too bad getting out of the city, it was as I got out to the industrial areas that I got a bit lost, with a few deadends, and bemused locals wondering why I’m riding down the road that they know has a massive roadblock 500m down the line. Eventually found the G320 highway that I wanted, and I was rolling.

It was good to be back on the road, and back into places where tourists are quite uncommon. It was starting to get quite annoying in Shanghai walking around the main tourist areas, and being constantly asked if we wanted to buy “watches/bags/shoes/jackets/DVDs.” You stop saying “no” and just ignore it. When wandering around the fakes market, we had one guy following us for about an hour. It all got a bit creepy. I didn’t think much of the quality of the fake watches, so gave them a miss. But perhaps I should have bought one, my Polar watch stopped a day after leaving Shanghai…

Next big stop was Hangzhou, which is a very nice city, one of the premier tourist sites in China. The mist that was hanging around probably made the West Lake even more picturesque. The hostel was in a flash part of town, right next to the Lake, over the road from the Porsche dealership, etc…not cheap though. It was just as well we did lots of walking on the first day, as the second day the rain kicked in, so we just stayed inside most of the day, watching “Band of Brothers.” Digital TV in this province is cool. One other note is that most hostels have a huge selection of DVDs (all copies of course) that you can pick and choose from, to watch in the evening, or on a rainy day.

Walking back from the Wushan Lu tourist centre, with all sorts of stalls, statues, etc, we came across one of the most outstanding sights I’ve seen so far in China. A man was up a tree, madly shaking the branches. I couldn’t quite work out what was going on – was he trying to shake something out of the tree, like fruit? No, it wasn’t a fruit tree. Watching for a while, I worked it out – he was shaking the branches to try and shake out the leaves that would be going to drop off over the next few days. They were then sweeping up the leaves. Rather than wait, they were trying to accelerate the process. Of course, this was being done at 9:00pm, in the dark, no safety equipment, not even a ladder. Ah, China.

Back on the road now, heading southwest towards Hong Kong. Not sure exactly what stops I’ll make along the way, will just keep on riding, see how things go and what I find. With a bit of luck, the light rain/drizzle will clear up soon enough.

Just a short note to say that I have arrived in the epitome of capitalism, in the most capitalistic country on Earth – yes, that’s right, I’m in Shanghai, and the end of the G312 highway, that I first started following at the Kazakhstan border.

I enjoyed Nanjing, but unfortunately the one thing I specifically wanted to see there, the Memorial to the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre, was closed due to construction. So I jumped back on the bike, and rolled on towards Shanghai. There was a mix of riding along the way, some boring industrial corridors, but then some lovely riding along the Grand Canal. Watching the barges cruising up and down reminded me of Germany. Except a lot dirtier of course. Suzhou was nice enough, but all get a bit artificial now. A real highlight was finding two places selling Erdinger Weissbier – both helles and dunkel, and one had bottles, the other a tap! Not cheap, but the 50RMB (about 5 euros) was worth it for my first wheat beer since Austria.

I have said before that China continues to amaze me every day, and today was no exception. I was wandering around the Yuyuan area, which was overly touristic, and had had enough of it. So I headed off down a side street, and came across someone setting fire to a rubbish bin. A flag went up, a whistle was blown, and someone came sprinting down the street with a fire extinguisher, put the fire out, and ran back. A couple of minutes later the process was repeated. There was some sort of drill going on, and staff were being timed in how quickly they could respond to a fire. Ah, China.

And for today’s Chinglish quiz, I’d like some guesses as to what this means: “Point profess your excellency seat.” Answers on the back of a postcard please.

Not quite sure why I didn’t think of these the other day, but here’s some more CCP that I thought of while riding into Nanjing:

• Roger that, 193643! Qingdao has six beaches. When naming them, the council was looking for names that would reflect their individual nature, famous figures from the area, historical events, the beauty of the Chinese language, and the great imagination that the Party has. So, in no particular order, we have:
  • Number 1 Bathing Beach.
  • Number 2 Bathing Beach.
  • Number 3 Bathing Beach.
  • Number 4 Bathing Beach.
  • Number 5 Bathing Beach.
  • Number 6 Bathing Beach.

  Seriously. Everything is like that – bridges, schools, factories, etc. Everything is just a number, not a name. But it gets worse. If you go into a Post Office, or come across policeman, shop assistants, whatever – all their name badges simply have a number, and not a name. Objects I can handle, but I find referring to people by number deeply disturbing. I’m not sure if this is a Communist thing, or if it goes back further – I suspect it’s Communist.

• Turn it up to 11! Everything in China is done at maximum volume. People who are sensitive to noisy environments will have a rough time in China. It’s not just noisy traffic and car horns, it’s everything. Talking on your phone in the middle of a restaurant? Well, it is a mobile call, and the other person might be a long way away, so better to shout as loud as possible into the phone. Chatting to the person at the other side of the table? Why not shout at them instead, in case they miss something? With construction work taking place over approximately 97.5% of China, it also adds something to the aural mix. Not a lot of peace and quiet here…
• Facemasks as fashion accessories. You’ve probably seen footage of Chinese people wearing facemasks, especially during SARS outbreaks. But what you might not realise is that they are quite commonly worn, almost exclusively by women, to try and filter out some of the crap in the air. Interestingly not so much in the really polluted places like Lanzhou, and Coaldustville, Shanxi Province. But where they are worn, they’re not always plain white surgical masks. I’ve seen all sorts of colours, and even crocheted ones. Don’t think they actually do much about filtering the air, but I guess they make people feel better. I see them as a sort of silent protest against the rape of the environment too.
• “Happy Birthday To You.” China is the only place I’ve ever seen street cleaning machines that blare out loud tunes as they meander along the roads, blasting jets of water into people’s houses. The washing machine I used yesterday that played a tune on startup was quite a novelty to me too.
• Chav China. I don’t know who made this decision, but every school in China has tracksuits as their uniform. So when you are riding through a village around lunchtime, you are suddenly surrounded by hundreds of Chavs on bikes. Very disconcerting. I think someone visited England, saw all the shellsuits, and decided that would make for a good uniform. Dear oh dear. (PS For my much beloved Scottish readers, I am aware that the correct term is “Neds,” however I prefer the alliteration.)

I’m now in Nanjing, after some fun with some unplanned expressway riding on the way in here. I was sure I was going to get thrown off, and indeed I wanted to get off the epxressway, but it took ages to reach an exit. Not that the police cared, they just left me alone. It’s a nice city, except I’m back into pollution, after some lovely riding down here, through nice countryside, with lots of waterways and lakes, and some nice riding along quiet country roads. No more of that as I head to Shanghai though…