Stewart Law
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Our journey through China start in the Xinjiang province, to put it lightly this is not the friendliest welcome into China you’ll ever receive. Xinjiang is an automatous region of China and is a full-blown police state.
In Xinjiang we didn’t have a SIM card, so we didn’t have the “conversation” feature of Google translate. This meant we could only communicate by writing a message on our translator. Frequently people would look at my phone with the message, acknowledge it and then make no effort to help us.
Honestly, we did not expect to enjoy Shilin Stone Forest as much as we did. At an eye-watering 300yuan (£32.91) we were thinking about giving it a miss, especially as the weather was so bad yesterday.
The hotel owner invited us to sit with him and enjoy tea. For the first time we saw a Gongfu tea table, as pictured. The process of tea drinking seemed intricate and far from the mug of tea I get at home.
The ice is no more, the clouds have broken and we’re now cycling in glorious, glorious sunshine in one of the most beautiful parts of the world. The mountain roads are absolutely stunning as you can see.
This lovely lady sells street food on the back of her bicycle. What’s most impressive about this is that like most places in China this lady can accept electronic payments via WeChat.
Stew hates jet washing the bikes but they were so dirty it was just easier. We wondered if this car wash might help us out with 2 very dirty bikes. They were happy to oblige. Within moments they had the bikes in the wash!
The mountainous roads of southern China are proving a bit of a challenge. We only have to cycle an average of 40 miles a day to allow ourselves 3 days off between here and Vietnam. On a couple of days even that’s been too much.
If you’re in Shropshire make sure you pick up a copy of today’s (28.12.2019) Shropshire Star to read about our Christmas in China. I posted this picture of Stew because I love it! He’s got about 14 oranges in that bag. Someone stopped him on the road on Christmas Eve and handed them to him.
We’re in our fourth and final province, Yunnan. Tonight we’re staying in Shizi and what a warm and friendly place it is. Probably the warmest place we’ve visited in China.
I know that if I had flown to China with no experience I would look at a little cafe like this and refuse to go inside. When we walked past this little place, which was essentially in a garage, we looked at each other and said “that looks pretty clean!” Oh how standards have changed.
We plan to jump on the bike and RIDE on Christmas Day – well what else is there in China? We will ride a short day of maybe 30-40 miles, but don’t worry our shift on the bike will not be void of Christmas – we’ve been carrying this little decoration since we left home on 31st March.
We’ve been on the road for 9 months cycling almost daily and Christmas Day will be no exception… Visa time is a little tight, but there’s enough wriggle room! We need to average 50kms/day everyday to reach the Vietnamese border on time.
In Chengdu we decided to stay in a hostel and we absolutely loved it. The hostel was a welcome break from our new found norm. We played pool, spoke English, caught up with a couple of travellers, we drank beer and ate western food.
I’d never describe myself as an over-emotional person, but when I was knocked off my bike today it was one thing too many. We were riding down the scooter/bike lane less than 1km from our hostel when a scooter with 2 men on overtook me...
Sichuan, China has been a massive highlight of the trip. So cool, so beautiful and what an experience for both of us. Sichuan is closer to how we imagined China. We love seeing the Chinese architecture as we cycle by.
China is full of surprises and each province has something new to offer. A couple days ago we entered Sichuan and waved goodbye to Gansu; a province that had provided such a relief from the politics of Xinjiang.
I haven’t had a single puncture in 12,000+kms , Stew on the other hand has had 8 in China!! He had a run of getting at least 1 a day for a few days and it’s very frustrating. That being said it’s pretty common to get punctures in China due to the amount of trucks on the road.
Good things come to those who wait. Today we said goodbye to the snow with a very beautiful bike ride. When we got to Tanchang I was absolutely full of joy – the pedals turned effortlessly!
In Guazhou there were lots of colourful stalls. It was quite a cool town actually, just a place on route, not particularly well known and we definitely didn’t see any tourists.
I must admit, we are quite bored of the snow and ice now. We keep thinking we’ve made it past the worst, but we’re just not there yet. We’ve been hiding in a hotel for 4 nights due to the recent snowfall, today we decided we’d ride 60kms (40miles) to the next town.
We cycled uphill until the sun broke through the clouds and suddenly the day turned into one of the best days of the trip. At the top of the pass, over 9000ft we prepared to descend into the biting wind.
Remember Shandan where we tried to cycle, but found it too icy? On this day we tried a different hotel, as ours was expensive. We went to Shandan Hotel which was closed. This sweet man gave us directions to a new hotel, then....
The highest we’ve been on the trip so far. Thankfully the Chinese roads made this feel quite easy. Typically in China the climbs are slow and steady over many miles.