September 26, 2014
A harsh introduction to China: Happy birthday to me
It was such a relief to be out, to be able to make a new start of things in a new country. I felt like everything was going to be much easier in China as I walked between the border posts and was directed into a small building with my bicycle. A group of Chinese border officials directed me to take the bags off and feed them through an x-ray machine. Then four of them began to rifle through the bags, going through them with ruthless efficiency, taking everything out and examining it closely. One of them got very excited. "Computer! Computer!" he cried, almost with joy at being the lucky one to find it, as he jerked the screen back violently and pressed the 'on' button before running behind a desk where I couldn't even see what he was doing with it. All of which felt like an awful invasion of my privacy, as if my last shreds of dignity and final faith in humanity were being ripped apart along with my personal belongings. So much for my new start.
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Finally they were satisfied and I could put everything back together and retie the things on the back that I was still holding on by string for want of a bungee cord. Then I walked the bike a hundred metres to another, much bigger building. Despite it evidently being recently built the only way in was by a series of ten or twelve steps, so I leaned my bike at the bottom and asked a woman if it was okay for me to leave the bike and go in to get my passport stamped, then take the bike around the side. She seemed to think it had to go inside. I left it and went in without it anyway and went to border control, where a nice man took my passport. Then the woman came back with another man and they told me that I simply had to bring the bike through the building.
Frustrated I went out and untied the string and took everything off again. Border staff did at least help carry my bags up the steps, but inside they were loaded onto a desk labelled quarantine or something where a woman asked me to open them. She wanted to search them again. "Are you kidding me!!?!" I screamed, "They've already done this!" I was really mad now. I started taking things out of a bag and throwing them around. My stress levels were pretty high at this time, although I don't remember throwing my cap on the floor. I can't have been wearing it. Anyhow, I recommend this 'getting angry' approach because all of the Chinese officials appeared terrified of me and the woman lost all interest in searching my bags. Instead my team of helpers gathered up the bags and ran through the building with them where they were fed through another x-ray machine. This, I can only assume, was in case I'd smuggled in any heavy firearms in the hundred metres since the last x-ray machine. One of the guys even fed through my big clear plastic water bottle. "No, don't do that," I cried, "That's where I've hidden the grenades!"
The final outcome of all this was me being dumped outside surrounded by my bags, two of which had been broken by careless hands somewhere along the way. But at least they didn't make me take a car.
'Okay, just put that behind you, new start now,' I thought as I cycled off on a very nice road which really did feel like a new place. I was putting the past behind me, and not least of which it was a great relief to finally leave the cyrillic alphabet behind. It was so confusing, such a difficult alphabet, I was really glad it was gone.
But, on the plus side, at least they also wrote things in Arabic, to make things a bit easier
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But there were good things. First of all there were trees, which I noticed were turning a pretty yellow and reminded me that it was autumn, a season that I love cycling in that I'd almost missed. The river in the valley that I was in had actually been used to irrigate things and I was also taken aback by the simple sight of fields of grass and farmhouses.
As Axel had told me there was a town not far across the border, about twenty kilometres. I can't tell you what this town is called I'm afraid. Even if I could read Chinese this town wasn't on any maps as it was still being built. My introduction to the great Chinese construction project had not taken long as I cycled down streets surrounded by men laying paving slabs and half-built buildings with cranes leaning over them.
My primary goal was to find a hotel and it wasn't too difficult. It was 100 yuan, about 10 pounds, and it was modern, well furnished with wifi and a hot shower, so I wasted no time in checking in. It was also bright pink. I took my first shower for a month. After the second one I started to feel clean. I flicked on the widescreen TV and saw News channels and pop videos and Chinese gameshows. I was in a different world.
I treated myself to a second night in the hotel, partly because the next day was my birthday and partly because I needed a day off. It was my first rest day in more than two months. I wasn't very much in the mood for celebrating though despite, or perhaps because, it was a 'big one'. The first birthday I had had with the number '3' in it. Well, apart from when I was '23' and '13'. But the first birthday I'd had that started with a '3'. Well, apart from when I was actually '3' of course. Oh look, I was 30, okay?
I had just finished reading 'The Great Gatsby' that Ewan had given me and in it there is a quote by the narrator Tom Caraway when he suddenly remembers that it is his birthday: 'I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new decade.' It seemed rather appropriate for me under the circumstances. After what I had been through recently I was suddenly very much aware of my own mortality and there really was nothing else for me to do but spend the day feeling thoroughly sad. The Great Chinese Firewall had blocked me off from communicating with anyone and there was no chance of finding any English speakers among the construction workers that formed the majority of this new town's population. I was back in civilization but I felt more alone than ever.
Today's ride: 18 km (11 miles)
Total: 29,135 km (18,093 miles)
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