Lucky number 8 20/03/2011: Boten to Mengla (China) 50.84km

Only a short day planned to get a feel for China before I blitz through to China so I was late in getting up and checking out from my room number 8 and this isn’t where the coincidence with the number 8 stops (if you don’t know the number 8 is deemed lucky in China). I wasn’t feeling very lucky today, in fact I was a bit down. The hardest part about travelling for so long has been leaving my dog which back home I would go everywhere with and has been around for a big chunk of my life, she’s getting old, 11years and speaking to my mum over the phone age appears to be catching up with her as the vet said her liver isn’t as good as it should be. I miss my dog to bits and don’t think I could handle it if anything happened before I got back home, it makes leaving and do all this seem so worthless, I just hope time is on my side which of course there is never enough of, especially when it runs out before you’re ready for it.

 I gave the bike a quick service then I and Loon were headed for China. Stamping out of Laos was easy enough though the guards did tell me to get off and walk my bike through. Not having any respect or care for Laos as soon as I walked past them I jumped back on and rode away, I’m not in Laos anymore I don’t have to obey their rules. Checking into China you could notice a staggering difference. China had an enormous Jurassic Park style gate whereas Laos gate was just a building site that looked like it’s been under construction since the Jurassic period. The border guards on the Chinese side were smartly dressed and very well disciplined taking their time to make sure the picture matched, whereas on the Laos side they were dressed like a sack of spuds and didn’t appear they could type very well on a computer keyboard.

The border point for China looked much like that to an airport, me and Loon went in one at a time, the other keeping an eye on the bikes being hounded continuously by the phrase ‘Money Change.’ Just before we set off Loon checked his altitude reader which amazingly read 888m, luck had to be on our side though my knee wasn’t receiving any, there’s a dull ache which has followed through from yesterday and even now laying down is still aching.  Ignoring this we set off into China. Stopping at the Chinese border town we tracked down an ATM and after some hassle got money out, had some food and sorted out sim cards for our mobiles all of this made easier because Loon can speak Chinese.

Electric Police Cars

The big thing I noted was how clean and new everything was compared to Laos, there was police present in brand new futuristic electric police cars.  Again amazingly despite everybody appearing much richer and better off than those in Laos things were much, much cheaper something that doesn’t make any sense to me but I’m not complaining.

We then got things rolling, we were on a new, smooth looking highway which had a much smaller road that would zig zag underneath and run a long side, this was the old road but our new highway, a good sign of China’s growing wealth, was too good not to use, especially as there was no cars on it. We came to a toll booth and I remember Athena saying to just hide behind a truck and sneak through or they will charge you or even worse not let you through, so I hid behind a truck, as I went through I was looking out for the boom gate but couldn’t see one and I heard a few screams but just carried on. Looking back Loon had stopped then came through. When Loon caught up he was laughing at my little stunt, apparently we were meant to pay but as I just went through the guard let him through and the screams were because the boom gate was about a foot away from dropping on my head, no wonder I couldn’t see it. The riding was great and we even had tunnels to navigate through, the first went by without trouble but the second, spotting some trucks coming I waited for them to clear while Loon carried on without lights and was pretty close to being road kill, I made a dash for it while the road was empty, the third we stopped and put our lights on.

Soon enough we came to Mengla which looked at first to be a brand new town. We had a walk and found a market where we stuffed ourselves silly on the local food, it was much better and cheaper than anything except maybe the baguettes in Laos. Walking back to the hotel we soon realised this shiny new layer was just a shell covering the old China, sure people were much better off now but you could see the old run down streets, shabby dirty little houses behind the brand new looking high street. China has moved forward but from my initial look it’s much too quick to keep up with itself, it has a long way to go to reach the American standard of living it strives for, a few trailer parks filled with trash talking red necks would be a start.

For now ‘HELLO CHINA.’