October 1, 2014
It begins: Oh Mori, you should have
As I left the hotel I asked Sunny if she would come and take a photo of me in Mori's central square. I wanted to get a photo to commemorate the start and hopefully end point of my world tour, and experience had shown me that Chinese girls were very good at framing photographs. Unfortunately there was no Eiffel Tower in Mori, but there was a sculpture that would make an adequate alternative. It was partly blocked by a big board though.
"What's this doing in the way?" I asked Sunny.
"It is because today is China's National Day," she replied. What an extraordinary coincidence, it was France's National Day the last time I started, and it got me thinking, maybe I should hang around.
"Will there be a big party tonight? Fireworks, that sort of thing?"
"No."
"Oh. Paris had fireworks."
I should probably explain why I was starting a world tour by bicycle halfway through a world tour by bicycle. Well, of course, if you've been paying attention you'll remember that the Russians forced me into a motor vehicle and ruined everything, and then I cleverly stuck a middle finger up to the Russians and said "I'll just start again then!" Then I spent a month going the wrong way, and nothing in the world will ever get me to go back to Mongolia, so that made Mori, China, the most logical place to restart the circumnavigation attempt. If I can get all the way around and back to Europe, and then keep going east and enter China from Kazakhstan this will be the place I'll hit first. Of course after everything that had happened recently the very notion of me being capable of actually doing all that seemed completely absurd, but I couldn't think of anything better to do, so I declared this the start of a new attempt to circumnavigate the planet using only my bicycle and boats. I declared it to myself, because Sunny had no idea what was going on, but she did frame the picture very well.
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I thanked Sunny and said goodbye. "We'll see you again?" she asked. Maybe she had been paying attention after all. "Yes Sunny, I hope so." And then I was off on my grand world tour. Ironically at a time when I was already 29,000 kilometres into my grand world tour. Ironic because 29,000 kilometres is the distance you are required to have cycled to qualify for the 'having cycled around the world in the fastest time world record' like what that Mark Beaumont did. It seemed I'd cycled it to get to the start line. But how exciting it was to be beginning such an epic journey! The whole world lay ahead of me! Think of it! The whole world! Apart from Mongolia, I wasn't going back there.
Unfortunately for the next few days nothing terribly interesting happened, and I've got nothing to talk about except the roads and their numbers, but dammit I'm going to try and make it sound interesting anyway, as befits the opening moments of such an adventure. I'll start by talking about the stupendously fantabulous roads of Mori itself, which were very wide. Why were they so wide, I wondered.
Then I was out onto the incredible bombastic S303 heading east out into the desert. It occurred to me as I set up camp that night that I was essentially crossing the same desert that I'd spent ages cycling across in Mongolia. Then I had gone from east to west, and now I was going back west to east. I hoped the change in direction might put a different slant on things, but so far it had mostly looked like desert.
The next day the dastardly deceitful S303 headed into the mountains and lost it's shoulder completely, not even a sand one, just a slope, which made proceedings rather unpleasant due to there being plenty of trucks and a big sidewind coming from the north. When the chance came to take a road to the south I jumped at it. Not least because the loquaciously hedonistic S303 was going the long way around to the next city of Hami and I knew that there were two main roads (the gargantuan G30 and the pugnacious G312) to the south that would get me there in slightly less distance. By the way I don't know what any of these words mean. So I didn't really know where this road was going but as it was going south I reasoned it would bump into those other roads before too long. I would also have a massive tailwind.
The triumphantly triumphant S238 not only carried me south through the mountains but did so entirely downhill for 40 kilometres, which I thought was mighty generous of it. The mountain scenery was very nice although nothing overly spectacular. I mean, it wasn't anything that I hadn't seen before. Sometimes I imagine I'm living in a make-believe world like on the 'Truman Show', do you ever get that? Actually, that's the main reason why I travel so much - I want to see how big they can make the set. But by now I had the feeling they were just reusing the same old sets over and over again. Anyway, then I got to a valley with a village that was just empty buildings. It was a ghost village. I think everyone moved to Mori. And the road turned to gravel and I started to think I was lost. But then I asked a truck driver and he said I was going the right way, and gave me two bottles of water, possibly to congratulate me.
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The tremendously tremendous S238 regained it's tarmac surface almost as quickly as it had lost it, and after a brief climb I saw the filinocious G30 ahead of me. Now the diocetic S238 ended it's southern journey and the hippyphonic G30 was my only choice, running west to east. Yes I am making these words up now. I hope you're enjoying my epic world journey. I'm literally just talking about roads. The fugomonic G30 was, however, an expressway and there was a big sign saying that bicycles weren't allowed. I had been told by a few people that it was okay to cycle on this particular expressway though, most notably Dino and Suzy. Dino and Suzy, or Suzy and Dino as they are sometimes known, you might remember as the couple that I met in Istanbul, or you might remember as the couple that I cycled with for a while in Iran (unlikely as I haven't written about that), or you might even recognise as the author's of the very underrated journal NZ bound by bike. They were now about two weeks ahead of me in China and had told me that they'd taken the G30 (they used no imaginative adjectives) all the way and the police had done nothing but wave at them. So I got on the dangerously illegal G30 expressway myself.
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Of course it was great in the sense that the shoulder was massive and I had a whole lane to myself and didn't need to worry about the traffic at all. I didn't really like it that much though, having the fast paced road to one side and a big ugly fence on the other made me feel separated from my surroundings. So when the chance came to get out through the fence and escape onto what looked like it might be the majestic G312 I took it. And indeed I was right, it was that road, the old road. And it was paved and it had no traffic on it at all as everything was on the expressway. It was perfect!
Only one car passed me in the two hours I cycled on the superbly silent G312 and interestingly enough it stopped. The occupants, a Kazakh-Chinese man and wife got out and the man ran over and, as is customary for all Kazakh men, asked to have his photo taken with me. Assuming that there would be a drink in it for me I happily agreed. The first phone the woman tried to take a picture with didn't work, but I waited while she found another phone. I was feeling quite thirsty after all. I wondered what I might be getting. Water had been the most common gift so far, but vile-tasting juices had also been proferred. Maybe I'd get a fanta or a pepsi. The phone was found and the photoshoot commenced. The woman moved around snapping away, getting me and her man from all angles. It was a successful shoot. I prepared for my payment. I was really hoping for pepsi. They got back in the car and drove away. "But, but, what about my drink?!" I cried out hopelessly. I'd been had.
01/10/14 - 59km
02/10/14 - 131km
Today's ride: 190 km (118 miles)
Total: 29,760 km (18,481 miles)
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