It was a perfect day to ride, beautiful clear sky, very little wind, not too hot or cold and most importantly smooth silky road not too hilly. My bike didn’t feel overly great, but i think that had something with the half a ton of mud that was clinging to it, i didn’t mind the day was too good after yesterday’s crappy weather and worse roads.
After lunch i decided to put on some music, i rarely listen to my music while riding but today it seemed fitting and only lifted my mood even more. There was a number of Chinese cyclists just out on a days ride with it being a beautiful Saturday. While climbing the only major hill of the day (climbed about 400m to 500m) a Lycia clad cyclist dared to overtake me, i decided he wasn’t going to get away from me, so on my fully laden steel tank of a bike i showed him how to ride a bike and kept right on his back wheel. He understood my game and tried sprinting away but i kept right on him. I wondered what he must have been thinking, a guy on a 50KG bicycle (who had about 1000km on him) keeping up with a guy on a bike no more than 10Kg with the rider dressed for the tour de France. The guy seemed about my age and appeared to be a keen cyclist so i was pretty pleased with my effort. Near the top though i stopped to take a picture of the stunning view, it was to be my last climb in china so i wanted to look at my effort. Going over the top the cyclist i had been chasing down was up there with a load of mates and gave me a big thumb up as i passed, then i headed down hill but the traffic was unbelievable heavy, seemed everyone from Chengdu comes here for a day out, it was manic and i even saw a few crashes.
I hit the bottom of the hill and the real build up to Chengdu, i was almost there now i jut had to navigate through a city i did not know. Luckily the cyclist i had chased up the hill was just behind me with his mates, he stopped and said they were all heading into the city and i could follow, so i did. One guy spoke good English but there was still some confusion. I wanted to stay at a YHA hostel as they tend to be clean and of a good standard but did not which ones i had marked out were YHA’s. They did not quite understand and so took me to the University that they went to and really just wasted time. I got a bit fed up a decided to head to a hostel oi had marked. The main English speaking who told me to call him Mr. Wan came with me but where it was marked on my GPS there was nothing. I went into a hotel to use their internet and find out where the YHA hostels were. The one i was heading for was a YHA and was a little further down the road.
Finally finding it, firstly i bumped into a French cyclist then got in and was told there was only a double room available for a 100 yuan, it was quite late and i didn’t want to go looking around for other hostels so i hummed and harred hoping they would find a solution to suit. Just as it seemed hopeless somebody checked out of a dorm leaving me a bed. PERFECTO.
In the dorm was Leon and Mary both English but both had a travel bug. Mary lived in China and spoke Chinese where Leon was an eternal traveller, when he finished working as a teacher in south Korea he cycle back to England on a similar route as me. Kyrgyzstan was his favourite place and showed me pictures. It was not the Deseret i imagined it to be, it was more like New Zealand and look just amazing to cycle and camp in. They then invited me to join them for dinner and we were joined by a Chinese girl. We went Tibetan and it was the best food i have had in China but i loved it. Tibet is one place i will cycle one day but while China continues to repress the most amazing, holy, peaceful place on earth its not likely i will be able to cycle round. Chinas occupation of Tibet is something i truly deteste china for. They went in, and got rid of the essence of Tibet and banished his holiness the Dali Lhama. I could go on forever about the subject but words wont change anything, the rest of the world wont do anything about the injustice caused here but a civil war in Libya is more important. FREE TIBET!!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment