November 7, 2014
This guy wasn't as silly as he looked: China hadn't beaten me yet
Beyond QianWei the reprieve of the flatter section ended and I once again found myself climbing, something that I was going to have to do a lot more of before China was through. With the return of the mountains came the return of the tropics, and the first climb up to the industrial town of Muchuan took me on a narrow winding road hemmed in by dense lush green foliage. The air was humid and the sweat on my brow sticky, as the frustrations of the climb and another busy and dangerous road took a further toll on my psyche. Only the friendly waves and shouts of "Hallo" from unusually nice youngsters kept the pedals turning.
A dual-carriageway bypass meant I avoided going into Muchuan, and on this road I had a peculiar meeting with a bald man dressed in army fatigues. I guessed he was a few biscuits short of a picnic pretty quickly as he stopped me and started shouting like a lunatic at me. Well as the saying goes 'it takes one to know one' and I responded by shouting like a lunatic back. "Sorry buddy, I know this will come as a surprise to you, but actually I can't speak Chinese!" He got the message. I couldn't speak Chinese. No problem, this guy wasn't as silly as he looked. He had a solution:
The road was a lot less busy after Muchuan and eventually I reached the summit of the climb through a four-kilometre tunnel. On the other side was a big downhill through a more cultivated area and I then turned off on a road that had been suggested to me by my 'Chief of Chinese Navigations' Peter Jacobsen. Back in Lanzhou I had sent out a request on this site requesting some assistance in regards to maps. Usually I would just use google maps but seeing as how China wouldn't let me look at google I needed to find an alternative way of navigating. A paper map would have been a conventional solution but if you think you can just go out in China and find a good road map of the country then you, my friend, have clearly never been to China. So I turned to my faithful followers and what a response I got. I'd just like to take a moment now to say a big thank you to Andy Stow, Dave Bourke, Shannon Rooney, Randy Weiss, Robbie Jebb, Mike Dowler and of course the ever-dependable Simon McC. Each and every one of these kind-hearted men and women took the time to send me maps and if you ever need any maps of China do watch out for these lovely people, because all the maps they sent me were rubbish. Fortunately that didn't matter though, because Peter Jacobsen went a little bit crazy, and not only sent me maps but took it upon himself to take me through the rest of China with a brilliant set of idiot-proof directions (and I can confirm that they are idiot-proof, they have been thoroughly tested now.) So if you are in the extremely unfortunate position of cycling through China yourself, I certainly recommend you follow Peter's directions too, you used to be able to but can no longer find them on my guestbook by clicking just about here.
Peter's advice took me away from the G213 and onto a road that bordered a large reservoir on the upper reaches of the Yangzi river. The cliffsides down to the water were very steep but the road remained quite flat as it went through one hell of a lot of tunnels. Actually for most of the next morning I was cycling in tunnels. I would ride two or three kilometres in a tunnel, then come out into the daylight for a hundred metres to cross a bridge over a tributary, then dive right back into another two kilometre tunnel. It wasn't my favourite cycling, especially as the scenery outside was nice when I could see it, but the fact that I didn't have to climb up over the mountains did save me a lot of time.
Another good reason for taking this shortcut was the XC34, the small country road that followed the tunnel road, which eventually reconnected me back to the G213. A contender for my favourite bit of cycling in China, this relatively peaceful little road climbed gently up a pretty valley, and made me forget my troubles to a backdrop of misty peaks and tranquil waterfalls. The traffic here was not at all bad and I was now more likely to be doing the running-over than to be the runned-overed, as many little baby chicks ran around following their hen mothers. When I came past the startled little chicks ran away cheep-cheeping. I don't like startling things like that, but it does happen. One time I even startled a bush!
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Speaking of waterfalls, the next day I found myself on what I can only reasonably describe as a 'waterfall road.' Here many cascades of water fell steeply from the vertical cliffside, and the Chinese very sensibly built the road directly underneath it. Quite aside from the beauty of all the falls, the experience of cycling along the road was itself quite unique, as the water sprayed down from above. Naturally the road became a river, and everything weaved in and out as best as it could to avoid getting too wet. I was just grateful - a first shower for three days and I didn't even need to get off the bike.
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Another long and steep climb followed and the road became very, very, very foggy as I got higher and higher into the clouds. The day was drawing to a close and the Chinese driving was typically Chinese, so there was no surprise to find myself passing a car lying sideways in the ditch. I made myself as visible as possible in the fog and carried on, by now I was so tired I couldn't really summon the energy to care much about the dangers. With all the mountains I was falling short of the hundred kilometre per day target again, but with the aid of Mr Jacobsen's shortcuts and a grim determination I was hanging on in there. China hadn't beaten me yet.
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07/11/14 - 95km
08/11/14 - 88km
09/11/14 - 86km
Today's ride: 269 km (167 miles)
Total: 32,882 km (20,420 miles)
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