September 26-October 2 - Bumming around Beijing

Originally we had not planned to come into Beijing but once we heard about the huge parade and celebrations that we going on this week here for China's 60th Anniversary we decided to make a detour and include it in our trip. We had heard that the government had a huge party planned for October 1st: some 40,000 potted plants to line the street, a massive parade including their largest military parade ever, and a big fireworks display that night. Once we got here we quickly realized that we would not be able to witness any of the festivities. In fact the entire parade route from start to finish was closed down to the public and only party members invited by the government could attend. As we (along with most everyone else in Beijing) were excluded from seeing anything regarding the nation's anniversary, we booked tickets on the next train to Chengdu (where we will be continuing cycling away from the pollution of Beijing) on October 3rd, and set out to take in the many sights of Beijing.

 

Below is a picture of the many flowers that lined the streets of Beijing leading up to October 1st.

 

Leading up to October 1st, the only thing that outnumbered the many flowers on the street were the number of SWAT police (such as the group below) which were stationed on every corner. I did like though how they managed to combine the flowers with the SWAT police. Very metro-sexual.

 

While hanging out in Beijing we went to a few of the typical tourist sights including the great wall (which was indeed great), the forbidden city (which is in fact not forbidden), the and the summer palace (which was really more of a lake with a path around it). We decided not to do too many of these sites because for me (this is Mike here) most popular and busy tourist sights are like a really big stack of pancakes. It is great for the first little bit, but you quickly get really freaking sick of it. The rest of the time in the city we spent reading, practicing chinese, and just generally wandering around the city.

 

Jen and I in Tiananmen square. This was two days before the parade and everyone already had to pass through security just to enter the square.

 

The great wall. We did a really nice 10km hike along the wall with Francois-Xavier and Maggie (two other french tourists we met at our hotel).

 

The only downside to the hike along the wall (as in much of China so far) was the pollution. This view out the window was typical and even at noon the sun in the sky was barely visible through the smog.

 

Mike jumping on the great wall because jumping is fun and there was still alot of pancakes to eat before the day was done.

 

The section of the wall that we hiked was really beautiful but hilly. When Jen made it to to the top of this hill it was time for a jump.

 

And one last jump to end the day! (that is Francis-Xavier on the left)

 

Jen and I with a Vinney, Hugo, Morgan (the cyclists that we rode into Beijing with) and Francois-Xaier and Maggie (as seen in the Great Wall photos) at the summer palace. Although we did not actually get into the palaces, the walk around the lake was beautiful.

 

Me attacking Jen at the summer palace.

 

Sept 24-25: China Bites Back (Dabu to Donghuayuan)

Our next two days on the road were a little more eventful. Our first day was ridiculously smoggy. The morning started out well, winding through mountains with beautiful red vines climbing down them and very picturesque cornfields squeezed in the valleys and every tiny little crevice in the hills where there was at least a couple square meters of flat space with soil.

But before lunch, we started reaching more populated vineyards getting closer to Beijing.... the scenery would have still been beautiful except that we couldn't see the backdrop of mountains through the smog. It was worse than we had seen yet so far.

The afternoon got complicated again when we looked for a hotel. We had lunch at a city with lots of big ones that definitely would have taken foreigners, but decided to continue on upon the locals' advice that the next town had lots that would also take us in. This wasn't exactly true. So after an hour of going aroud town asking each hotel with a helpful local motorcyclist that showed us around, we ended up chilling out at a local restaurant whose staff kept bringing us local grapes while we waited for someone they called to help us. Turned out it was the police, who ended up escorting us about half the way to the next hotel that took in foreigners 15km away, making sure that we were clear on the directions to get there before they left. They were also very friendly and almost shy when they talked to us, telling us "You are wonderful people" in slightly broken but very enthusiastic English, blushing when we complimented them on it, checking our passports more out of curiosity than anything (they later asked me in Chinese where we were from, so it became obvious that the passport check was less than thorough...:)

Our escort out of town...

When we pulled up to the one hotel in the region that accepted foreigners we were a little dismayed - it turned out it was a huge resort with hot springs a little beyond our budget. After awhile explaining that we were just looking for any old hotel that we were allowed to stay at, they let us stay in the hotel/living quarters that seemed more for the staff than the tourists, which was back in our price range. We did get to enjoy some of the amenities of the resort though, including the onsite bowling alley.

The only local hotel where foreigners could stay.

The next day we got out of the densely populated vineyards and into a more secluded area around a dam-made lake with only a few huge resort/mansion type places around the lake and quite a bit of new road construction. The lake could have been beautiful, but you could hardly tell the difference between it and the polluted air!

We also biked on our first dirt roads in China. This proved very unfortunate, as Mike somehow got a rock or something stuck in his chain which caused the rear derailer to bend 180 degrees and get caught in the spokes... it happened so fast but was a fairly major problem.  Mike managed to clean it up and reduce his bike to one gear, but it made for a slow ride as the chain kept jumping and ceasing and we didn't want to waste a new chain just to get a better one-gear ride going.

After a couple slow kilometers, we decided to flag down a little truck that drove us in to the nearest decent-sized town while our French buddies raced us in on their bikes.  Coincidentally, Morgan's axle actually broke about a kilometer later, so it was perfect timing when we pulled up behind him and added him and his bike to the truck, too!

Once we got to town, we started looking for someone who could repair the bikes.  This fellow managed to repair Morgan's axle but couldn't do anything that Mike hadn't already done for his own bike.

This led to an interesting cultural learning.... once he had finished working on Mike's bike I made the mistake of directly translating the English phrase "Well, thanks for trying!"  As soon as it was out of my mouth, he cringed and a couple of the girls watching the whole ordeal suppressed a giggle.  I really should have said a very common Chinese phrase that translates to "Well, there's no solution!" which kind of implies less of a personal failure on his part, I guess.  I think it kind of grated on him that he couldn't fix the problem, cuz he proceeded to call all his buddies in Yanqing, a much bigger town about 30 km away, to see if they had the part Mike needed.  As a result, we spent the next morning driving into Yanqing on the taxi he had arranged, going to several bike shops that he called ahead to, making sure they had the parts we needed....

Turns out they didn't have good enough parts to fix it either... all of the rear derailers out in the country seem quite primitive, probably because all the bikes around here are single speed.  This time, when we returned with the broken bike still in tow, I knew better to say "Thanks for all your help, but there's no solution, I guess!"

The taxi then took us the last 70 km into Beijing where, lo and behold, the very first bike shop we see has every part we need, both to fix Mike's bike and to do a bit of a tune-up, replacing our chains and cassettes.  Our bikes were good as new within 3 hours of arriving in Beijing.  Just the first of many examples of the dramatic difference between the countryside and the big city!

Us, our bikes and the taxi driver's wife on the way to Beijing... (He picked her up for the trip to the big city, once we realized we needed to go!)

This fellow replaced all the parts we needed and fixed up Mike's bent spokes, and we were rolling again that night.

Sept 21 - 23: We love China! (Datong to Dabu)

Leaving Datong we were in for a beautiful ride . We knew the scenery would be great, at least until the Hanging Monastery, but after a month and a half in traffic-less rural Mongolia we were anticipating some problems with Chinese traffic. Turns out we had nothing to worry about - the first day gave us our first glimpse of the amazing infrastructure in China. Except for one small section of dirt road on the edge of town, all the roads we were on were beautiful asphalt, most of the time with huge shoulders lined with trees and people selling fruit by the side of the road. Every truck or car that passed seemed to slow down and move half the way across the wide road for us, even when we were many meters away from them on the shoulder.

The day's scenery was also amazing, but really emphasized how different this new country was from the Mongolia we had become so familiar with. Mongolia is so beautiful because of it's wide open unspoiled raw and natural beauty. This area of China is very beautiful, but you definitely couldn't call it raw and unspoiled. Its beauty is a man-made kind, or at least a man-nature joint venture. It's the terraced mountains and the gorges with mud-brick houses carved out of the walls. This makes perfect sense given the fact that China is one of the world's most densely populated countries (at least in this area of it) while Mongolia is one of the least, but it still is quite remarkable how well manicured all of nature here seems to be.

It was also fun after two months biking just the two of us to have some company.... with the five of us (us + Vianney, Morgan and Hugo) we looked alot more like a biking team than just a couple of honeymooners on bikes

The destination of our first day was the Hanging Monastery outside of Huanying. Because of being denied access to the Caves in Datong, this was our first experience of the (relative) expensiveness of Chinese tourist sights. Compared to food, which is averaging about $3/meal for BOTH Mike and I to eat until we're very full, and the max $15/night we are paying for what would be $80 hotels in Canada, paying a minimum $10 each time you see a cave or building or garden is pretty steep. Given that it's the only thing locals don't have to also buy for themselves, it makes sense... That said, the four hungry men I was travelling with at the time could still not help comparing the total 240 Yuan we paid for our 20 minute round-about to the 30+ large bowls of spicy noodle soup it could have bought...

The monastery itself was quite impressive, perched way up the mountain (word is that they kept on moving it up to keep it above the floods, but we think it was just done so the monks could get onto "MTV Cribs"). It is also quite tiny, we wondered how many monks actually lived there in its heyday, as it is only as deep as the buildings itself, there is no additional space carved out of the mountain at all...

This is how it was held up, looks like mud maybe?

Jen doing her best scary statue impression...

The next day was another great ride into the city of Guanling. Other than the great roads and scenery, I have to finally mention something else that continued into our second day biking. As noted in the previous post, we got a bit of gawking at Datong.... more than in Mongolia, but nothing totally outrageous. After one day in rural China, we learned what it felt like to be international superstars or something... The previous day when we stopped for lunch, a crowd gathered and our meal was followed by 15 minutes of picture taking - me with the women, Mike with the men, both of us with all of them, the French guys with the Chinese guys pointing to their beards and a variety of other combinations.

This guys really wanted to have his picture taken with Mike.

The crowd that had gathered outside the restaurant to watch us eat.

This did not turn out to be specific to one town. The next day when we stopped for lunch on our way to Guanling, we were absolutely crowded by what seemed like half the small town. They watched us order, watched us eat, talked with me and giggled at my mispronunciations, and of course, took pictures.... The food was amazing, this time we knew to make sure there were no chicken heads or feet in anything, and all five of us ate until we were stuffed for 43 yuan (about $7 CAD). When we tried to pay 50 yuan, the owner wouldn't let us - matter of fact, she only let us pay 40 yuan, even less than the already very cheap full price. After lunch, we had another photography and bike inspection before taking off, only to be followed by a couple of helpful fellows on motorcycles who wanted to escort us through the tunnel just outside of town, in case we didn't have lights of our own.

Us checking into a hotel and attracting a crowd..

Yet another crowd as we head into lunch...

The pic below is the one the restaurant owner wanted us to mail to her.

The third day of cycling was a little less scenic. The rolling terraced hills and mountains were replaced by some corn and sunflower fields, but mostly coal fields. Though we felt a little burn in the lungs the days before, it was inescapable by the third day. From the little time that we have spent in China so far, it is clear that they use alot of coal. We see more coal trucks on the road than any other type of vehicle, and the piles of coal such as the one below are in every field, home and business.

The lack of any empty natural space also made the prospect of camping less than interesting, so we were determined to find a hotel. Unfortunately, each town we passed said there was no place to stay, but that there were in the next village. So we kept continuing on, even though the places to stay in the next village were always not allowed to have foreigners stay with them, either. In China, especially the rural areas even right outside Beijing, there are alot of hotels for locals only. This became more and more of a problem as the sun started to set.... By the time we reached a house/store the edge of a small town called Dabu we were all tired and getting sick of being turned away so many times (albeit in a very friendly and sympathetic way), that I resorted to shameless begging. The nice thing about begging in another language is that the clumsy questions and requests definitely come off a little cuter - you could see they were amused. The downside is, it's still begging. But the family took it very well and, after first suggesting we camp out front of their house literally on the side of the highway, they warmed up and let us stay in the big dining room in the younger couple's house out back, complete with a locked-up courtyard to leave our bikes.

Us in our "hotel room" for the night. Although it may not look luxurious, we were really happy to have it!

Once they realized we weren't crazies they were super kind and welcoming, just like everyone else we'd met so far. They cooked supper for us and the young couple that slept in the bedroom right next to our dining room campsite gave us gifts of homemade good luck ornaments, an old Chinese coin and medallion they had, along with a picture of the two of them. We left the next morning having hid a thank-you note with some cash out back to avoid the standard argument over not letting us pay.... We felt a little sheepish at the cash instead of something a little less tacky, but we don't carry much extra with us on our bikes and we hoped that the note we left explained that well enough.

The group posing with the gifts they gave us.

All in all, our first impressions of biking in rural China are awesome - we love almost all of it. The pollution is the only downside, and considering it should be much better where we're biking next in the southwest of China, the short one- or two-week dose of it is more than made up for by the incredibly friendly people so far.

Sept 19 - 20: Goodbye Mongolia, Hello China! (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia to Datong,China)

First of all a note about our blog. We are in China right now and all non-chinese blogging sites are blocked by the government, so we can't access our site to post which is why we are behind. We think we may have figured out how to post via email, but we cannot check to make sure it formats correctly. So if the formatting below is off drop us an email to let us know. As long as this posts properly we will continue to post over the next few days and get caught up! 

So picking up where we left off...

Although we loved our time in Mongolia, 10 days in Ulaanbaatar was definitely enough time to make sure we were excited to get going. We had plenty of time to see some sights, visit many many excellent restaurants and then slowly get a bit antsy to get back out of the cities and on our bikes. So we were more than ready to go by the time Saturday rolled around and it was time for our train to China.

This time getting our bikes on the train was even more painful than usual, but it was our own fault. Each time we've taken a train or bus, we've asked ahead if bikes are allowed and how to go about it. This time, we weren't going to but our hotel manager suggested we should, so we did.... after much unnecessary hassle and no results whatsoever, we learned our lesson, yet again, and next time we will definitely just show up with our bags and our bikes and argue until they let us on.

Anyway, as we were getting on the train it started to snow. Turns out we timed our Sept 19th exit perfectly and left Mongolia just before winter hit! (This was a surprise, as the day before it was about 20C, but apparently that's how it always is...)

As we arrived in China that night just before midnight, we noticed some changes immediately. All of a sudden looking out the window there were more neon lights, more large apartment complexes and none of them were empty. We hung out at the border town Erlian for awhile, as the train cars were lifted onto new wheels to fit the Chinese rails (the width of the tracks are different in China than in Mongolia, we were told this was to slow advancing armies, but this could be a myth?, either way the pic below is of the massive lifts which lifted the cars while we were inside).

As this switch took place, the very friendly Chinese customs officials came around, inspected our bags and took our paperwork. (Their English was fantastic, better than any border officials we've met so far.) They did a couple stereotypically Chinese things, including asking about the subject of some books some passengers next to us brought in... I guess maybe to check if it was anything politically subversive? Of course, they never asked about the 320GB hard drive we were bringing in, nor the book reader including one electronic book that is fairly critical about the last 60 years or so of China's history.... Anyway, the second interesting tidbit we learned later is that one unfortunate traveller developed a bit of a temperature after eating at the on-board restaurant. We all filled out forms regarding our health and contact with people with flu-like symptoms and had our temperature taken.... apparently his was a little higher than it should have been, so they checked it a couple more times and booted him of the train. :( Glad we were feeling well on the trip, and didn't eat that pinkish chicken at the restaurant!!

Finally, at around 8AM the next morning, we arrived at our final destination of Datong. We decided earlier in the week to stop here instead of Beijing, so we could see the two major attractions of the area - a Buddhist monastery that hangs from the side of a mountain, and a series of over 50 caves that contain the earliest Buddhist carvings in China - and then continue on with some French cyclists we met in Ulaanbaatar and cycle to Beijing instead, all in time for the 60th anniversary of the Communist Party on Oct 1st, which looks like it will be quite the shindig (LINK HERE).

We started our day in Datong by looking for some breakfast. After being turned away by a number of places that still weren't open, we had a delicious but sometimes startling (see pic below) meal of chicken & mushrooms in broth with sides of jiaozi (chinese dumplings).

After this we hopped two buses, walked a bit, argued with some motorcycles trying to pick us up, hired a taxi and walked a little bit more though a construction zone and finally got to the Yungang caves. We tried to buy our tickets, but they said there were "no tickets today"... we thought maybe this meant that it was free today (it was a Sunday.) Once we got to the gate, we realized that it wasn't a free admission day. Turns out that protesters were blocking entry into the caves. Luckily, we were in line beside a Beijing resident who works for BBC (formerly also of the CBC) who explained that they were local peasants who used to live all around the caves, but were relocalized for the construction that was currently underway. This took place some time ago, but they were supposed to be compensated and were now protesting something to do with their compensation agreement, or the fact that it wasn't materializing. He said they were given 5,000 Yuan (less than $600) per square foot for their homes that were demolished, but were relocalized to an area where they had to pay 25,000 Yuan for their new homes. It was a very small protest keeping out a very small crowd, but even though the Caves were supposed to be the local "cultural heavyweight" (according to our guidebook) we thought we had likely experienced something even more representative of the local culture, the modern one at least.

This picture below is of the blockade that the people had made at the entrance to the caves.

These ladies below were two of the most vocal blockaders and did a damn good job keeping anyone out of the caves.

After taking a taxi back into town, Mike and I walked back to the hotel through most of the city's downtown. As we had also experienced earlier in the morning, we continued to get alot of attention. All through the trip we have had our fair share of curious onlookers, especially each time we rolled into a new village on our bikes going through Mongolia. That said, we've found it to be the same if not more so here, and we hadn't even been on our bikes yet! There does seem to be a bit of a difference - until now, it's been curious glances, now it's just plain old all-out gawking. The large majority of it is very friendly... lots of "Hellos" from people on the street and hanging out their windows. Sometimes after a long stare we'll say "Ni hao" and get nothing back but a continued stare, but most of the time I think the gawking is just because they are curious but too shy to talk or think we won't be able to communicate with them. Either way it's quite funny how curious people are about us. It's a great icebreaker, as I have long adopted the philosophy "if you stare at me, then I am going to go ahead and randomly talk to you without feeling the least bit awkward about it..." So far, that philosophy has lead to a very few frowns or shy giggle and run-aways, but almost all of the time gets at least a friendly hello back and often a full-on conversation about what we're doing here and so on.

Only one less-than-friendly anecdote to recount, but an interesting one nonetheless....In Ulaanbaatar we had the interesting experience of visiting their local black market, which even the advertisements warn is full of very skillful pickpockets. (One guy we met had money stolen from his front jacket breastpocket with two buttons, which was unbuttoned, emptied and done back up without him noticing!!) This is probably why when we saw a young guy pulling at a lady's purse, opening it up and trying to get some money out of it, we thought he was her son bugging her to buy something. Turns out it was just a very sloppy attempt to pickpocket her, so we went and told her, with a mix of a clumsy explanation and gestures, that the boy had just opened her purse and grabbed some cash. He didn't run away or anything, just threw the cash on the ground when he was caught and a couple seconds later yelled "F*%$ you America!" at us with a very angry look on his face. If he wants to make a living as a pickpocket, he definitely needs to improve his skills - maybe some tips from the Ulaanbaatar black market folk would help. Judging by how well-dressed he looked, we didn't think he needed to make it his day job, anyway.

The rest of our day was quite uneventful but we went to bed very happy and excited. China, it seemed, just may meet or exceed our expectations. In just one day in a fairly "boring" city, we had already seen so many things that were new and different to us. The people so far all seemed so friendly and helpful. I was on a bit of a high, after having spent so many months practicing Chinese by myself in preparation for this trip finally getting to use it and seeing that it actually worked! (I had strong suspicions that it might all be for naught, some uncrackable code - I'm still quite surprised everytime I use a new word and am understood!) And both Mike and I went to bed with gloriously full bellies and tongues still lingering with tasty spices. The food here, oh the food! Whether it's the fresh fruit stands in the street, the ridiculously cheap and tasty fresh bakery pastries or the amazing soups and stews and dumplings and stir frys, there is just simply too much good food for the amount one can eat in a day. After many weeks of meals consisting only of milk, meat and white flour in rural Mongolia, the freshness and the flavour of the food here is more than we can handle!

-Jen