Day S6: Fences to Beaches
Shenzhen to Jiao Chang Wei
After a great few days in Shenzhen, it was time to get moving. The weather was very sultry as per usual, and it wasn't looking fun to venture out of that blissful AC room. The folding bike was left securely inside the hotel overnight. In the morning I proceeded to take out the bag with the folded bike inside it.
While exiting the building a security guard stopped me and wanted to know what was in the bag. This was highly unusual as they tend to inspect bags going into a secure building, not on the way out. So I told him it was a bike and let him inspect it. Not wanting to go through this crap again, I double-locked the bike further outside the compound. Then I did some more errands and went back into the hotel to retrieve my luggage and also store the folding bike bag at the front desk until I come back. The same security guard eyed me suspiciously on the way in as I showed my health code and put on the mask. The mask was taken off about 20 feet later. What can I say, I was a hero for 20 feet.
Finally it was time to start riding east. On the way I was hoping to find some sort of shop to buy some bungee cords. I've always done this before, but for whatever reason this time it was proving impossible. The first shop said, "We don't sell it, you need to get on taobao and have them deliver it to your house."
That was rather pointless and frustrating. It was yet one more example of a cashless society taking over. Everyone now orders online and this so-called "convenience" actually makes it more difficult. For starters, you need to coordinate with the hotel or wherever the address is. Then you have to get on the phone with the drivers and try to explain in Chinese where to deliver it as they call you. They also need to navigate the hotel entrance barriers and all the covid protocols. Figure all that, then why would a shop owner who is about to go out of business from the online competition actually then promot it enthusiastically?
The next shop was even move bizarre. The conversation went something like this:
- You sell bungee cords?
- No we don't have
- What about this? (me pointing to a makeshift rope). You sell this?
- It's no good. Not safe. You need bungee cord
- I asked you just now and you said you don't sell bungee cord. What about this rope here? Do you sell this or not?
- I'll just give it to you
- Thanks
- But it's not safe. It doesn't meet the country's safety guidelines. I'm not kidding you know
- I'll survive anyway, not really interested in safety rules. Thanks and have a nice day
The whole exchange was very bizarre but in the end I got a free piece of rope that I managed to tie down my bag to the rack of the bike until another shop appeared that might have bungee cords. Yet there were none to be found.
Things got quite interesting later as my route followed parallel to the border fence. There was no traffic on this road at all as the expressway with the tunnel carried it, and so it was quite a nice and peaceful ride. Still extremely hot, but that's just how it is. All along this fence road, it became quite apparent that there was in fact double fencing. The fence on the Shenzhen side (my side) was pretty intimidating: tall, barbed wire, electrified, and not a single weak spot that I could see. But this was in fact the secondary fence.
The primary fence on the Hong Kong side was even more intimidating. It was hard to spot at first but could be seen far off as the two fences got closer together when the buffer zone between the territories narrowed. The primary fence had three rows of razor wire all the way to the ground (on the side to prevent people from scaling it towards Hong Kong), complete with spotlights, cameras, and goodness knows how many secondary fences beyond that on the HK side.
If it was somehow possible to scale the fence on the Shenzhen side and avoid the military patrols, then the primary fence would be that much harder. There wouldn't be much point in trying. But my deduction from all this was that the fences are designed to keep people from leaving China, not the other way around.
No, you can't swim. If history is any guide, this location is the most attempted for people to swim to Hong Kong because it's a narrow inlet and the waters are not rough. A strong person could easily manage this in an hour or less. Because of this, patrol boats are *constantly* going back and forth in this area.
But now, ironically, the flow of people might from from HK to the mainland. During covid, HK is basically walled off from the world and with the potential of an outbreak they would smuggle people to the mainland to get better hospital care
[Update November 2022] That is exactly what happened with the massive Omicron outbreak early in the year. Eventually though, and likely because of that outbreak, Hong Kong gave up on zero covid and started opening up to the world while the mainland did not.
The road went away from the fence and paralleled the sea to approach on a famous beach area called 'Da Mei Sha'. That's when the thuderstorm happened. I wanted to take shelter near the beach at a restaurant but it wasn't possible to access the beach so I found somewhere else nearby.
The storm passed, then the road itself was awesome as it paralleled the coastline. I wasn't surprised really that there was about 6-8 more beaches that could not be accessed. They looked nice from the road, but of course there was no way in. The larger ones had private resorts or some sort of controlled entry that was clearly not designed for public access. I wasn't in the mood to try, just disappointed because it wasn't like Thailand where for the most part you can access the empty beaches along the road.
So there was some beauty that I took in from the road, and tried to appreciate as much of what could be seen.
Still I couldn't help but be disappointed because for years, if not decades, I've always managed to find a way to tour outside of China during winter and summer breaks. Those have been my go-to survival strategies for working in the mainland. Now traveling here, things just suck compared to what is possible outside which greatly causes disappointment. I try not to think like this, but is hard to change my reference point and is all because of this pandemic that looks like will never end.
I made good time to the beach which was basically the major public access beach for Shenzhen. It soon became very clear as to why all the others were private access.
The place I booked was Aloha Beach House and it was a nice vibe. The owners were friendly and they've had cycle tourers before. But looking around, it seems this was remnants of a China that had seen better days. There were things like the wifi password including 2008 and various other clues of a blast from the past. This was probably one of the first hotels to go up by looking at it, and the expat who still runs it stays on because he married a local and they run as a family business.
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 0 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |