April 19

We bought foods (fruit and breads) had cheese and coffee so made breakfast in our room and were on the road by 7:30. Today’s ride began about 10km out of town with a stop at a folk/cultural village we read about in our hotel materials. Parts were built in the 1500’s and added to through the 1600’s! A couple compounds had belonged to aristocrats or feudal lords and are today inhabited by many Chinese families. We were treated to smiles, assistance in seeing special parts and also, wary looks. These people are still peasants, gathering wood for cooking; washing and bathing in very primitive conditions. The structures were elegant, displaying interesting roof tiles, soaring arched parapets, panels beside and over gateways which displayed Chinese characters of blessing and luck, and carvings in the friezes and roof brackets...

We left the village and wandered a curvy and hilly side road through villages and agricultural areas until we met a larger highway. Late in the day spectacular limestone, karsts formations became the back drops for the older architecture of the villages. Newer buildings are taking over in some of the villages – all brick, some white tiled, all square and blocky. These karsts mountains are quickly being eaten by cement factories!

1, 2, and 3:  Ancient village near Ling Shan 4, 5, and 6:  scenes along the road

Our day ended 86 km at 3:30pm in Xingye after an exhaustive search for an up market hotel. We point to the Chinese characters, saying the word for hotel and we were taken by two different people to the same hotel. It must be the only good one in town. They charge too much in comparison to the hotels we have stayed in to date. But how could we argue? We thought we saw a couple other down market options, but after staying up market, I don’t think I want to lower our standards just yet!

A short day through a very industrial area. The towns were shabbier and hardly anyone called out to us in English as they do in larger cities where the education standards are different. People are friendly none the less and happy to have us stop for a coke or water or noodles. A crowd always gathers to look at Bici and us. The smells are very strong today: like open sewers – pretty bad! The day is cooler but very over cast. There is a monsoon north of us and after we settled into a hotel it rained!

We had a bit of trouble with the a/c not working. Explaining that and getting something done about it is almost painful. I point in the book to phrases that might explain our problem so they can read the Chinese characters (my Chinese pronunciation is rarely understood) and then they write a carefully composed answer in Chinese characters! We really needed an English/Chinese dictionary that we and they could both look up words to exchange. Patience works in the end. Than goodness for Art’s cool head!

April 20
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The ride to Guiping was uneventful. We had such difficulties yesterday finding a hotel (in a city of hundreds); explaining problems; describing food. We began to think we might starve in China! This morning we prepared coffee and ate buns we found in the supermarket. A little way down the road we ate oranges and drew a crowd of fifty who watched us and looked at Bici!

Guiping is in the Rough Guide, so we had a hotel written in Chinese characters to point to. Looked at two – decided on the up market one for $20US p/n (western toilet; working a/c). Laundries in China are non-existent, except for dry cleaners as far as we can tell. So the hotel provided a bucket and we did lour laundry and fashioned a drying line in our room.

1 Guigang 2. Hotel Staff

Even though Judee said today’s ride was uneventful, I believe she is trying to forget the head-on car crash involving a new Honda Civic with an old hauling dump truck. We heard a loud rending noise and as we came around the bend there was the accident. The truck driver hopped out, opened the doors to the smoking and crashed Honda exposing the exploded air bags and carnage inside. What a heart rending mess. We rode on wondering when help would arrive. The ambulance passed us twenty minutes later roaring into the city. We fell helpless and very mortal. Should we stop and try and help? We can’t speak the language, don’t know the local resources. That could happen to us and has.

On another note, it dawned on me today why we are having so much trouble communicating with the Chinese people – we share no common heritage and not a single word. No noise we make do they understand and vice versa. They are very polite and tolerant of our efforts but it totally falls on deaf ears. They don’t even understand our gestures or charades! We are now learning to only use the two travel books to point out words and phrases: ‘twin room’ Do you have a less expensive room? Is breakfast included? Meals still are the most challenging and frustrating. When you are tired and hungry and order a wrong dish like last night – when we were served little dried out duck meat on bones and tendons that we found totally inedible. Thinking it would be our main dish it was upsetting to say the least. The ended well as Art ordered a dish of fried noodles like Judee’s and the real main dish of braised beef and onions finally came. Beer was cold and the tea was hot!

April 21-22

We woke to a rainy, misty morning but anxious to move on, we rode out of town. The road was fairly nice, little villages along the way marked with names in English (bamboo village, ancient prosperous village, etc). These were all located off the road along dirt byways. We knew we faced a lot of climbing in our day so we didn’t linger at these sights. We passed the Tropic of Cancer somewhere along the road (can’t read Chinese). We passed Jintian, the location of the Tiaping Uprisings in 1851, but again, we peddled right on by. A few kilometers and the scenery began to change: mountains, some karsts, some just big, all of them high. The steady mist drifted in and out of the canyons. Rivers flowed into dams; the hillsides had been forested and re-planted many times. The smells of pine, cinnamon and fragrant flowering tees were a welcome change from the ripe odors we’ve been accustomed to along the main roads. There was next to no traffic. Our lunch stop was a noodle stall that served the tastiest soup we’ve had so far in China. Things are looking up!

1. Tombs in the field 2. Veneer factory 3. Hotel laundry

Up was the word, 15 to 18kms we meandered through the green mountainsides. Lumbering and milling logs kept the local villages busy. The smell of the cut wood was powerful. The mountain mist kept us cool although our Burley rain jackets are wearing out so we got wet as well. We came across many landslides on this newly constructed highway. Some of the slides were so large they almost closed the road! Soon we came upon our first tunnel under construction. No sweat we rode through as it as short. The next tunnel looked more foreboding: dark and long with construction equipment at the entrance and no lights. We had passed a warning sign earlier so we decided to take the construction road or I should say narrow single lane, rocky, steep trail to bypass the tunnel. We ended up walking and pushing Bici in some hair raising sections, finally working our way back up to the highway. No sooner had we started off again that we ran into another tunnel. This one was closed and under construction with no bypass. We had to turn around and return to our starting point for the day for a total of 70miles/115km.

We were dead tired but were able to get the same hotel room as last night. We went to the same restaurant and ended up having a wonderful dinner. All’s well that ends well.

1. Karsts in the mist 2. Avalanche 3. Bic draws a crowd 4. Communication by pointing 5. Confortable Chinese dining

PS: The road we took today was clearly marked as a major highway on the two different maps we have been using to plot our route north. One wonder at the mind set of the Chinese map makers who include roads under construction and not finished as completed highways. We will certainly have to try and check to see in the future if the routes we are choosing as passable!

April 24

Back tracking wasn’t so bad! The wind was at our back and much of the two days was down hill. The second night of our reverse trip was spent in a hotel that we had checked out the first time around – a very up market four star. The English speaking manager had offered us a room for $198Y (less than $30US) so we bargained for the same last night since it was Judee’s birthday (62 years). In filling out the paperwork, it was discovered by the staff the significance of the day and a little later a big basket of fruit was delivered to the room! What a delight. We enjoyed food at a restaurant we knew and where the staff knew us, so we got great service and food we liked.

Today we started back onto roads that were new to us. Excited to be moving forward again, we ate in our room after seeing that the breakfast buffet was geared strictly to Chinese tastes, and left the hotel early. The first section of road was busy. It is hard to describe the shrill, loud horns that these trucks and buses use. Sometimes they are trying to toot a hello and blow out our eardrums. We were glad to turn onto a small ‘red’ road – but then began the construction! Oh my! Sixty five kilometers of dust, dirt, torn up surface, hard turning to soft, gravel turning to mud and shared with convoys of trucks and construction equipment. Another accident happened in front of us with a motorbike and a three-wheeled people transport bus. We scooted away since there seemed to be more helpers than necessary.

The scenery is other worldly: karsts formations everywhere and a large mountain range looming to our right. Little villages nestle at the foot of these behemoths with rice fields spread out for hectors between the village and the road. Despite the terrible conditions, it was hard not to be totally enthralled.

The city of WuXuan yielded a four star hotel less than a year old managed by the most lovely and accommodating English speaking manager, Apple. We negotiated for an inexpensive room, but she and the floor manager decided we would be happier a few floors up and with a private computer in our room. Guess where I am now? Sitting at that computer. We were also able to ascertain that the road we are taking tomorrow for at least 70km is the same as todays! Hope the scenery is equally as wonderful. There is a four-star International hotel in that city, too! We are enjoying these wonderful accommodations for about $23US including breakfast. This is too good of deal to fight bad bathing facilities, non-functioning a/c and other problems associated with hotels charging much less. We will spend it while we have it!

1. Rice fields forever 2. Pigs in a poke 3. Buffalo for sale 4. Construction 5. Landscape 6. WuXuan

to Guilin