Tag: China

I wasn’t going to do it, I really wasn’t. I had read Jan’s account of doing 262km between Anxi and Jiayuguan in one day, and was very impressed, but thought it was just a bit beyond me. I started out from Anxi with headwinds, and it was looking like it could be a long day to achieve the 178km I had planned.

But then as I lay sprawled on the side of the road after 60km, having a rest, as you do, I noticed that the wind had swung around, and was now behind me. It started getting stronger and stronger, and suddenly I was easily doing 30+ km/hr. A couple of hours of racing along like that, and suddenly 260km didn’t seem out of the question. The wind got stronger, I kept racing, and when the 100km sign came up, I realised I could make it – so I put the foot down, and raced along to Jiayuguan. I made it to the “Jiayuguan West” exit around sunset – but of course I needed to do another 10-15km along the expressway to the real exit. As I came off the expressway, darkness really falling now, some petty official came running out of the tollbooth to tell me I couldn’t ride on the expressway. Too late buddy! Every other tollbooth they just wave, or sometimes direct me to an easier path to ride through.

260km, average speed 25.0 km/h – easily my best day. Then of course I had to ride around about 7 different hotels before I could find one that would take foreigners. This has been the most frustrating part of China for me so far – hotels that don’t take tourists – they have English signs, even English-speaking staff (very occasionally) – but they don’t take foreigners! Eventually I found somewhere, total 269km for the day. More than 50km more than my previous best. Then went and had dinner from a street stall – a mobile kitchen on the back of a bike, doing Mongolian hotpot-type skewers of various meats and vegetables. Very nice, and I’ve been back twice since, but I felt I deserved another dinner, so went and had another meal at Dicos – a local version of KFC.

I didn’t feel too bad after all that distance – I’ve done longer days time-wise on the bike before – but I was pretty tired. Collapsed into bed, and then did not much the following day. Have been out doing tourist stuff since, visiting the fort at the end of the Great Wall. Was pretty amazing to think that I am now inside the Great Wall – I am into the real China now, after only 1800km from the border. The last three riding days were 209, 162 and 269km – big miles being covered now.

Back on the bike tomorrow, hope to get to Lanzhou in five days, so that I can start the visa extension process next Friday. Hard to say how long that will take – LP says same day service in Lanzhou, but LP is crap – but I was going to spend a few days in Lanzhou anyway. Still trying to work out my route from there onwards, have got a few different options in front of me. Unfortunately it’s looking like I may end up in Xian around the start of October, which is a national holiday week. Will make finding a hotel difficult/expensive. Hmmm. Could start a big train loop from Lanzhou then, so I get to Xian earlier, then return to Lanzhou to pick up the bike and head south. Decisions decisions.

Oh and I got a few Xinjiang photos uploaded too.

I now have no shoes. I have only worn them a couple of times in the last few months, so I decided to get rid of them. I have noticed that when I walk around town with jandals, I get the usual number of stares, but everyone is looking at my feet now – maybe because they look like this:

I wanted to spend some more time writing a longer post, but the high levels of Honghe smoke in this Internet cafe are making me feel physically ill, and so I think it’s time to leave. I did get my Kazakh photos done though.

In Hami now, about to head out on what should be some of the last long desert stretches for a while, heading across to the end of the Great Wall. Will do some Chinese photos at the next big stop – Jiaguyuan maybe. Big landscapes here, vast emptiness.

Before I go, a few quick notes about some of the T-shirts worn by Chinese girls. Many have fake brandnames, with spelling mistakes (e.g. Abercrombie and Titch). But some of the more amusing ones have English phrases, e.g. “Trouble Everyday” or “Bad-ass Lover.” My current personal favourite is “Juicy American Princess,” worn by someone who was neither juicy nor American, but maybe a princess of sorts. Ah China.

I only carry two pairs of underwear. Given that with bike shorts, I don’t actually wear any most days, I had been vaguely wondering if that was one pair too many. But now the decision has been made for me! I had done some washing yesterday, and hung my clothes on the communal line at the hostel. This morning everything else was there, except for one pair of underwear. Very strange. They definitely came out of the washing machine, and got hung up. Who would want my undies?

I’m in Turpan now, 154m below sea level. Did 196km today from Urumqi to get here – overall the trend is downhill, and I had some phenomenal tailwinds late in the day – going at 40km/h, hardly pedalling. If I had been going into that wind, I would not have been able to move – I would have to seek shelter, and cry. Except there was no shelter – this was in the middle of a large valley utterly devoid of vegetation. Completely bare, not even small weeds growing between the rocks. Very odd – most other deserts I’ve been in – e.g. the Sahara and Turkmenistan deserts – do have some plantlife. Hopefully more tailwinds tomorrow!

I went to the “Geographical Centre of Asia” yesterday. Rather conveniently, the Chinese have calculated this as being about 30km out of Urumqi. Basically it’s a big monument in the middle of nowhere. I expected a few tourgroup buses, but I was more or less alone there. Pretty cool though – from here I will be getting closer to the ocean, whichever route I take – after chatting with Pete in Urumqi, it may no longer be a straight ride to Beijing. We’ll see.

Looks like a few long hot desert days coming up, should be the last ones before Australia!