We have travelled down from Chengdu to Jiang Shui via Kunming. Four days of hard work. We are having a day off though to relax a bit, catch up on things and check the bike over before our last couple of days in China as we then, hopefully, move on into Laos.
The days have been long not only because we are far from the quickest on a bike, but also because the roads have been slow and difficult. The road surface has been not existent in places. Luckily we have the Electraglide 'Enduro' model with its more resistant paint specification and optional sound system with improved balance, which has made all the difference...
We have passed tea plantations, paddy fields, fruit trees of all kinds (mangos, pomegranates in paper bags- literally! bananas, grapefruit and of course watermelons which you find by the thousand), water buffaloes, Yi people, rape seed being dried on roadside mats, stone forests, cherry trees protected from the birds by being covered with plastic sheets and that's what we can remember in a couple of minutes. Some of the scenery has been truly magnificent. We have again been the source of amusement to local people not used to seeing non-Chinese as well as construction workers who don't seem to understand that it is actually quite difficult to drive the Electraglide in Chinese conditions.
Our GPS, Mr. Garmin, has struggled with the rapid evolution of the Chinese road network. New roads are being built everywhere often to empty towns, and old roads being closed down sometimes with brick walls. But where there's a will there's a way and Paul has always wanted to walk through a brick wall!
One of the things that slows us down is the right handed hairpin bends where Paul is still a long way from being at ease. When on the bike it is non-stop concentration as the road surface might disintegrate round the corner, there might be large, ie very large potholes, slow lorries, mopeds and scooters darting in from the side. And really large rocks too! It really is quite challenging and although we have seen a number of accidents, there have not been that many considering what actually happens here every minute. The flip side is that motorcycles are - or at least it seems to be that way - allowed to break the rules in full view of policemen. Except they really don't like you going on the expressway.
One of the unexpected hazards on the roads is that caused by learner drivers. They go out to learn en masse, a line of seven or eight of them all travelling even slower that the most agricultural and heavily laden of trucks and three wheelers. It must all be down to safety in numbers, their safety.
Just as China is changing so are the vehicles. In a few years all these contraptions will have been scrapped. Now is the time for someone to be collecting them and making them ready for a Transport Museum to show the humble tools that will have made China great.
One day we climbed to over 2,500m where it started getting quite cold again. We have done this on roads that would simply be condemned as not fit for usage in the UK. Our hardest day was undoubtedly this day which in the afternoon was followed by 1 .5km of mud and gravel, where Francoise had to dismount as it was just too difficult. Unfortunately photographs just cannot convey the difficulty or stress levels! Francoise was however not overtaken by any of the lorries following her! After the mud we were still 30km from the hotel and we hit the Tunnel of Death. No lights, shared tunnel, single lane in each direction and more pot holes, the whole width of the tunnel and we hit them. Whether we had a dipped beam headlight or not was irrelevant. Maybe Paul should have taken off his Aviators though.
Nobody respects a lumbering Electraglide struggling to get by and no road works take into account the existing road user. Yes, they could just dig up one side of the road and let traffic pass as if normal on the other side, but they don't. Yes they could do complete sections of road, but it is more fun just to resurface the straight bits and have enormous muddy, gravelly pot-holed ramps at the corners, where they will build it up later. It's just a different logic.
The following day we found out en-route that the road works were even worse and quite difficult for a 30km stretch with areas off at least 20cm of water. All covering the hidden pot holes and the wheel ruts. When the water wasn't there, it was just mud. We had already done 250km that day when we found out this was ahead of us; the previous day had been a twelve hour ride and with this we were looking at substantially more, two of us stood up on the footboards or... We crashed the expressway. We sneaked up behind a truck packed with pigs. When the policeman saw us and started running towards us, we accelerated past a coach just as the barrier was lifting avoiding the lady who was running out of the toll booth too. We had 47km of perfect road unless we were stopped. Our exit junction was to be the third one, so we hid behind a lorry at the first junction but there was no one there. We followed the same strategy at the second which meant that the police man saw us far too late and we just opened the bike up 140km/h as they were standing in the middle of the carriageway frantically waving their arms. The next junction was ours, we hid in the queue until we could make a dart for it as the barriers opened.
Jian Shui is a great little town. We visited the beautiful Zhu gardens as well as the Confucius Temple where they had gone for overkill on the water lilies. We ate on a balcony in a timber two storey building overlooking the shopping street. No tower blocks in sight - what a welcomed change! Francoise even dared to visit a hairdresser (£2.10 a haircut, rather good value!). This is what we imagined China to be like. But we have travelled a month through China to find it. It's sometimes hard remembering where we were the day before and what we were doing. Writing things down like this will be our memory jog in the future along with the photos.
Other bits and bobs... The chrome lady costs slightly more on petrol per day (£15) that on food and drink for the two of us. And as far as logic is concerned we have tea and coffee with our meals and both are warm drinks. So why should we expect water or beer served with meals to be served chilled or cold? Or breakfast fruit juice to be served chilled? Or it even to be fruit juice and not just powdered cordial with boiling water?
Thought for the day: 'Warm tip, carefully slide'. And this was nothing to do with riding a motorcycle.
Paul and Francoise
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