London-Beijing

So, a few days in Beijing – to tick off all the other touristy things it has to offer, and get the bikes packaged up in containers.
For myself, it was mostly spent with Angela’s family.
Tried to get a Mongolia Visa organised – first attempt, found the application centre – closed for the Naadam Festival. Second attempt, waited in queue for two hours, until noon, where they just shut their application windows. It’s open until 12, and at 12 – the shutters came down.
So – my flight for Saturday(today) – can be forgotten.
Also went out to the Great Wall again (Mutianyu section this time), which was as awesome as ever, but with very low-hanging cloud – so we could never really see my favourite view of the wall stretching away over the horizon. Instead, it was a view of the wall disappearing into the mist, with glimpses of it in the distance through that same mist. Still pretty cool.
Intended to visit Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City on the morning Angela’n’co flew out – but the queue for Forbidden City looked like it would take several hours (even with tickets pre-bought)… so it was just a (relatively) quick wander around Tiananmen Square instead. Although we came in via the corner with the Museum of China on it – and there were still queues, to go through a security checkpoint. If we’d come in from the South – no checkpoints, no hassle.
Tiananmen Square – didn’t have the same feel as the last time I visited. I’d just gotten off a bus last time, very very tired, and perhaps more suggestible… but I recall it having a lot more gravitas, while also being more “fun”, if that’s not contradictory. I just remember walking in, thinking “this place has been here since before New Zealand was on any maps”, but also there were people flying/selling kites everywhere. The other day – a lot more fences up, a couple of sizable sections completely fenced off for restoration, crowd-control everywhere, security – and no kites. The crowds were much larger than normal due to Chinese summer holidays – so perhaps the extra numbers contributed to the extra crowd-control measures and therefore general soul-less-ness.

Angela flew back to New Zealand, I said farewell to the final riders left, and checked out of the hotel – moving to a cheaper one, near the Mongolian Embassy – to regroup, and try to start organising my next stage of the trip. I think I have a plan, but currently – after 3 months of having every day pre-planned, being told where to go, and early starts… I feel like I’ve hit a wall – and just want to sleep for a week.

13 July – China (Beijing) – ~40 miles

Placeholder post: busy day already, much more to do.
But in short – made it to Beijing, safe/sound. Absolutely amazing to ride into Ace Cafe and see my sister there with her family.

A more gushing/raving post of details to come tomorrow, with a hangover to help – presumably.

Edit: an attempt at a more complete post. Although – not really sure what else there is to say…
Had a sleep-in, a few final gazes at The Wall, a couple of extra photos, and then a very late-morning group-ride into Beijing. Stinkin’ hot, riding in “formation” – bullying our way through the expressway traffic… to arrive at Ace Cafe Beijing. A little bit misty-eyed, must have been some dust on that expressway, turned in – and saw Angela standing on a grassy knoll, which just made a rather special moment even more so.
Parked up, bottles of “champagne” were handed out… and I couldn’t even get mine open. Bubbly spraying everywhere, and after about 5 minutes of fumbling, with shaky hands, the cork broke off, and I gave up – grabbing a couple of beers instead – letting others spray champagne all over me, us, and the bikes. Some rather sticky/aromatic bike kit at the moment.
Eventually things calmed down, and there were the photos, speeches, presentations, photos, speeches, a birthday cake (??? I believe for the Ace Cafe Beijing itself?), and some food. And some beers.

Then – packing up all our stuff – and goodbye to the bikes. For me – the final goodbye – giving my lovely white lady a few parting hugs. And there was some more dust in the air. Weird.
Bus back to the hotel – a bit of rest, and organising a taxi for Angela’n’co to get to their hotel (after a bit of a typical chinese mix-up with their taxi from Ace Cafe), a quick shower, and then off to Ace Cafe Beijing central-city-edition. For… beers, photos, speeches, food, cigars, and some beers.

Most people had a relatively early night, but a couple of us dedicated ourselves, and continued onwards, to… some beers.
And eventually, in the wee hours of the morning, ignoring a taxi drivers shaking head that he couldn’t take a fare, inserted ourselves into his taxi, and after some false starts, back to the hotel. (Poor fellow thought he could get rid of us by just pulling up to some random other hotel… no such luck. You’re taking us home, laddie, and these 3 laowei ain’t getting out until they recognise the hotel.)

12 July – China (Shanxi-Hebei-Beijing) – ~180 miles

Final day of riding solo.
Final chance to ride like a local(/nutter).
Final proper riding day.

Started off well… leaving Datong, the GPS tried to take me out of the old/inner city via a gate/bridge which turned out to be one-way, the wrong way. My very first thought was not “oh well, let’s look for a new route”, it was “well… footpaths aren’t one-way, and that gate/bridge has a footpath, so…” No need to looking for a new route.

The rest of the day – turned out to be an excellent little compilation of all the experiences over the last two weeks. Red trucks, mostly carrying coal, for ages – coal dust everywhere. Insane traffic, with us joining in the fun. Overtaking dozens of trucks all lined up for their weight checks, dodging oncoming traffic, overtaking vehicles 3-wide, overtaking on the inside, ignoring red lights, coming across the road completely disappearing – and enthusiastically trying 6 or so different detours, off-roading random places, until finally finding a way around.

And then, we roll up to our hotel, located right at the foot of the Shuiguan section of the Great Wall. Riding along, coming around a bend, and seeing that bloody great wall along the skyline – magical. Not quite as magical as my first ever sight of it – but still pretty cool.
Got in early enough for an afternoon “wander” up the Wall. It’s still a good wall. Last time I saw this bloody wonderful thing, I spent an entire day just sitting on it and staring at it, including dodging the security guards to spend the evening sitting on some of the towers after-hours.
Today – after a hard day of “combative riding”, and then climbing the approximately 70-degree slope stairs to just get to the first tower – I was happy with just a couple of hours on it – including the ridiculously perilous climb up and down. (Super paranoid about just having a little slip and spraining an ankle on this of all days – and rolling into Beijing Ace Cafe sitting in the van – I was creeping down like a pensioner)
And then standing on the roof of the hotel, reading the book, gazing up at that glorious endless masonry on the skyline as the sun went down.
Good wall.

11 July – China (Shanxi) – ~262 miles

Another day of “eating up the miles” or “just getting to where we’re going”.
Another day of red trucks, coal-dust/soot, traffic, fairly boring roads.
Another day of getting the fun in where you can – whether it be ridiculous overtaking manoeuvres, running red lights, ridiculous overtaking manoeuvres past police cars while running red lights, or just lunch with locals.

But – it was our last day on the G108… it was actually fairly sad to leave her. I made sure my lunch was had at the last possible moment before splitting – in a small town obviously existent solely to serve the local miners/truckers… a laowei stopping in for lunch on an “ultra-modern” motorcycle was quite the event.
But – the 108 and I had different goals, so I had to leave her after one final goodbye meal, and then started my relationship with the 208. The 208 seems slightly less grimy/sooty thus far, but after an initial honeymoon period – the omnipresent red trucks appeared again. And she tried to insert a little bit of ‘magic’ – a very short stretch of twisty roads over a pass… but after the magic of the 318, and the relatively frequent spurts of adventure 108 turned up… I don’t really know how any road will ever live up to those giddy heights.
I managed to capture a little video of some of the infamous “red trucks” – in case anybody doesn’t believe just how many of them there are – including some fairly typical passing, as I’m filtering between the oncoming queue of stationary trucks, and the outgoing queue of 40mph trucks, all displaying very un-chinese standards of driving as they seem to be checking the rear-view mirrors and moving slightly aside to let me zoom up the centre-line.

There were also some fairly standard navigation issues, coming across roads which were non-existent, in the process of being built, or some-such. In most cases, a little bit of riding down through inappropriate alleys, road-works, rice-paddies, and pretty much anything heading in vaguely the right direction – worked out well.

Arrived in Datong – staying in the middle of the “old city” – but this one looks like it’s in the process of being rebuilt/restored to become the next big chinese tourist centre… so fairly uninteresting in its current state.
An effort was put in to cleaning up the stock of spirits bought in various countries over the last 3 months. Tonight, the focus was on the Kazakhstan Brandy.

Tomorrow – the last day of “solo riding”, before the group ride into Beijing.
The reminiscing started last night, continued tonight… I’m not really sure I’m ready for any of that yet. I’m pretty keen to just get to Beijing, spend a few days, then turn around and ride back to London, maybe with a slightly different route – just to mix things up a bit.

Anyway, some photos of 208’s attempts. It’s nearly embarrassing.

10 July – China (Shanxi) – ~120 miles

A short day, but one of the grimiest, filthiest, sootiest.
There was an option to take the well-known, safe and comfortable, G108 up to Pingyao, but some of chose to take the unknown new road, the S224, for part of the trip.
Like all newly found diversions, it initially seemed a nice sweet alternative. Four lanes (each way) of empty road, clean. Not particularly interesting – but an easy way to get where one is going. Then – warning signs – a random car parked in the middle of the four lanes, hazard lights flashing. First thought “Okay – maybe a warning for an upcoming hazard”. Then – another car, in the 3rd lane, hazard lights going, slowly turning back out to the third lane. “Odd… hazard-warning guys with very poor danger awareness”. A third example – completely halted in the middle of this “highway” – I glanced inside – saw the car packed full of very young people, the driver very very nervously hunched over the steering wheel. Fourth car exhibiting similarly odd behaviour – the same. These were teenagers learning how to drive (apparently very early learners) – in the middle of a four-lane highway. I gave them even more leeway after that.
And then – the red trucks again.

I am meaning to look up how many trucks there are in China – and specifically, the red ones, and whether they are perhaps state-owned.
Today – many, many red trucks – the majority carting coal.
I don’t know how many red trucks I overtook – it would probably be hundreds. I do know how many I overtook in a standard deemed appropriate in NZ or UK law – zero.
Yesterdays little mining town, where the colour seemed to disappear from the air, and everything was just a dirty dark-grey or black… was nearly the entirety of today’s ride. There were little “dust-devils” of soot flying around in the road. During some rain, I glanced down at the wind-visor, the water dripping down it was far from transparent. After the rain, the stuff left on my helmet visor – yuck. Other riders got into the shower in their full waterproof kits – and apparently the runoff was something to behold.

And – I thought that was just the nasty S224.
But – apparently – the G108 knew of my little misdemeanor/diversion – and decided to punish my infidelity with more of the same.

But – eventually got to Pingyao – dirty, but in some sunshine, and made my way into the old city. The old city is surrounded by wall/moats – with no cars allowed inside. Bikes… yeah, sure – rules don’t apply to motorbikes, as we all know. Snaked my way through some very small alleys/dirt-tracks – to find our hotel – in enough time to wander around the old city for the afternoon. Lovely place – all re-built rather than original (apparently) – but very much a tourist-trap “old Chinese city”. Albeit the vast VAST majority of tourists are chinese. Even in a tourist-trap like this, we are the subject of photos, shock, etc.
Difficult to get any decent photos of the general town, and wasn’t really too bothered to do so once cold beers were found, but a couple of cursory attempts…

09 July – China (Shaanxi-Shanxi) – ~263 miles

A fairly boring day – just eating up the miles.
Not a single photo or video taken.

Arrived in Linfen after the said 263 miles of not-much.
If there were any highlights of the day, they might include such non-events as…
walking out to the bike this morning to find it with no rear wheel, and the support crew working on it to fix the rear brake not sitting right
going very carefully in the early wet, with brand new tyres
crossing a ridiculous bridge with a 1.8 metre height restriction, into the grimiest dingiest town seen yet… just a small village of coal-mining and depression.