I'm sure it will be lovely when it's finished: Struggling on through the great Chinese construction project

September 28, 2014

The next day I finally stopped going west and turned south on the S228. I'd already worked out that reading place names and signs was going to be almost impossible, but all of the roads were numbered so all I needed to do was know the numbers of the roads that I had to follow. Simple. And it felt really good to be able to stop going the wrong way. I was pretty tired of going the wrong way. From now on I resolved to head pretty much as directly as possible to Australia - a country full of English speakers sounded like a real nice idea to me by now. Turning south also had the benefit that I now had a massive tailwind and I made the most of it as there was nothing but desert all day, apart from a small town that I visited in the morning. It was a Muslim town and was remarkable primarily for the number of motorcycles. Literally everyone had a motorcycle, even though the town was small enough to walk around. But who wants to walk when you can motorcycle?

Herding your cow down the main street using a motorcycle is a great idea, the only problem is it might hit another motorcycle

That evening I had to register at a police checkpoint but the Han Chinese policemen were really nice and funny. So far interactions with the Chinese had been positive. These police all had helmets and riot shields at the ready, which seemed a bit extreme. But the next day I saw gas stations that were all surrounded by barricades, and the staff had helmets and riot gear too. Was this region more dangerous than I'd thought? I knew there had been terrorist attacks but I thought it was further west, and even the British government weren't advising against traveling here. I decided not to hang around at any gas stations anyway.

These camels were enjoying a game of hide-and-seek

I saw a dinosaur. Actually it was a park and museum, they found dinosaurs here, including the second biggest dinosaur fossil ever. But everything was locked up, so I just took a picture of this real live dinosaur

I really liked China's entry into the 'World's best deer warning sign.' For one thing it is blue, and there was a lot of style to the design of the deer. But it loses points for the antlers, which I feel are at an unrealistic angle

Stopping at this temple scored me another free drink

The worst thing was the standard of driving, which seemed to have nosedived again. Almost all of the traffic was big trucks, carrying the raw building materials for the great Chinese construction project. The road wasn't really wide enough for me and two trucks so if two were coming in opposite directions at the same time I just moved over onto the sand to let them through. I didn't have much choice, if I didn't they'd just beep and drive straight at me. Worse was the overtaking though. Cars and even trucks would overtake coming the other way and drive directly towards me head on. It wasn't as if they didn't see me, they just didn't consider a cyclist worthy of waiting for. Time and again it happened and I hit the sand. What else could I do? Raise a middle finger and shout "Stop doing that! I've recently realised I'm not immortal!"

Big empty buildings, big trucks and big plans for what it will all one day look like

These big empty buildings cropped up along the road every so often. Here you see just one of the shops is occupied, the whole of the rest of the building is empty, even as the next big building is being built alongside.

I reached the junction of the S228 and the S303 where I turned east. It was a horrific place, that junction. It was in a little village and the crossroads narrowed and converged in such a way where all four lanes of traffic had to squeeze through a space not really big enough for one truck. There were trucks everywhere, queuing up to squeeze through or just parked around. What once may have been a quaint little Chinese village was now made up entirely of truck mechanic workshops. It was hideous.

It might once have been a quaint Chinese village

At least the S303 was much better with most of the trucks going another way. Then I became very confused about which way to go because a new expressway had been built that crossed my road that appeared was going to be called the S303, but that I wasn't allowed to cycle on. I eventually worked out that I needed to carry on along the road I was on, which was the 'old' S303 and would therefore go through the town of Mori, which is where I wanted to go.

Is this the world's worst basketball court? The hoops aren't even facing each other!

I was relieved to find that Mori was a big town, newly built and still with a large part of its skyline composed of cranes. It was really nice though, with a wide main street busy with life and children out from school, people on bicycles, fruit and vegetables for sale in the street. And bread! I found bread at a bakery, it was the first bread I'd seen in more than a week!

I wanted to stay in another hotel. It had been so cheap before and I wanted to relax and to try and connect with the outside world and get the blog all up to date. The first hotel that I found looked really nice and a girl there spoke some English. She told me the cheapest they could do was 150 yuan, 15 pounds, so I asked her if there was anywhere cheaper. Being extremely nice she showed me to a hotel a few doors down, but the woman inside wanted 300 yuan and wasn't budging on that. So I looked around and eventually found another hotel. I was told it was 120 yuan and the room looked nice, so I agreed. Then the receptionist (who was a long way from being the most beautiful girl in the world) asked for my Chinese ID card. She seemed surprised when I didn't have one and declared it was impossible for me to stay without one.

Tired I went back to the first hotel. Sure I could spend a couple of hours looking for another hotel that might be five pounds cheaper, but was a couple of stressful hours of my time really worth a fiver? And they had seemed really nice at that hotel, so I just went back. I went in and the girl who could speak English, who said her name was Sunny, asked me for my Chinese ID card. I got out my passport.

"Is this all you have?" Sunny asked.

"Yes"

"Oh" she talked with the man behind the reception desk, who it transpired was her brother, and then said, "We need to call the police."

"Steady on, I only want a room!"

"No it's okay. You are the first foreigner to stay here. We just have to tell the police."

"First foreigner ever? How long have you been open?"

"Five months."

"Oh thats not so long."

"No some of the buildings nearby are very much older."

"How old?"

"About ten years I think."

There was no problem with me staying at the hotel and if the police were involved I didn't know about it. The room was even nicer than the first one, with a huge bed and great shower. Mori was an interesting place as well, very busy and with a friendly, happy atmosphere. I walked around for a while and sat in the park near the hotel. A small military troupe was practicing for some sort of flag raising event and kept being marched up and down. It was funny to watch with the contrast of the young children playing around them. Chinese writing was all around on the big modern buildings and I felt really good for the first time in a while. I was in a good head-space again now.

Which was lucky, because the next day I was going to start cycling around the world.

28/09/14 - 158km

29/09/14 - 124km

30/09/14 - 50km

Today's ride: 332 km (206 miles)
Total: 29,570 km (18,363 miles)

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