Monday 4 January 2010

11,000 - 12,000 miles: Shanghai to Shimonoseki (Japan)

Cycling has the ability to reduce you to a cultural moron and we seemed to spend most of our time in Shanghai shopping for winter clothes, an activity given greater impetus by a biting wind from Siberia that had arrived out of nowhere.

We were very excited to be leaving China and even more pleased to find ourselves on a half-empty Japanese ferry on a sunny morning in early November. Moored on a bend in the Huangpu River we had fantastic views across to the towering skyscrapers of Pudong and down the river to the colonial style buildings of The Bund and hundreds of barges going up on the tide.



Our boat sailed north along a flat floodplain past miles of industry, docks and sprawl - which we discovered is much more enjoyable from the deck of a boat than the saddle of a bicycle. Eventually we merged with the huge brown expanse of the Yangtse River as it emptied into the sea, finishing its 4,ooo mile journey from the Himalayas. As we sailed out into the ocean we slept in Japanese style dormitories - on a blanket on the floor of a large room.


We were befriended by Mr Watanabe, a 76 year old Japanese who was on his way home after travelling to England and back overland by train and boat. An eccentric character who spoke fondly of Chester and Tranmere, bought us dinner and drinks, liked cats and having played a role inventing early computers was proud that one of the first uses they found for them was karaoke playlists. We would come to realise that in many ways he was quintessentially Japanese.


The rugged coastline of western Japan appeared on the horizon and as the sun set the lights of Nagasaki glimmered on the shoreline. While we slept the ferry passed through the Kanmon Straits and made its way east through the "inland sea" that separates the main island of Honshu from the smaller islands of Kyushu and Shikoku. When we woke we were approaching the harbour in Osaka.


On a grey morning we cycled away from the docks, on the left-hand side of the road. The tarmac was so clean we could have eaten our dinner off it (indeed this would have been more hygienic than many of the restaurants we had hitherto eaten in), the traffic slid past silently in well defined lines - no horns, no fumes, no attempts to kill us and no-one stared, gawped or even noticed us. There were shops and supermarkets and prices on everything and people going about their business in an orderly fashion. There were bicycles everywhere and recycle bins. I changed some money at a small post-office, it took 10 seconds, involved no paperwork and was done with a smile. We felt like we had come home - we had reached civilisation again!!

This had its immediate advantages - when asking for directions in Japan if people don't know they just whip out their phone and use GPS via the internet - and in this fashion we found our way through a maze of low rise buildings in Osaka's red light district to Keizy's flat. It was our first attempt at couch surfing and we were surprised that having only just met us Keizy had to leave to go to his night job and left us in his flat with all his gear. We were even more amazed to be told that he had no keys as the front door had no lock. Aside from the earthquakes Japan must be the safest country in the world.


"Westernised" it may be, but Japan is still Japan and we set about enjoying the cultural differences - restaurant windows full of plastic meals, flashing neon, the eccentric fashions of teenagers, vending machines on every corner, toilets with heated seats, glowing water and automatic bum washers, electronic voices issuing incessantly from store doorways and the bright lights and incomprehensible din from Pachinko Parlours. Every time we entered a shop the entire staff shouted out greetings and started bowing at us.


The pound was plumbing new depths and had halved in value against the yen in two years. For us it was probably the most expensive place in the world. Every lunch-time we could be found sheltering from the wind outside FamilyMart, 7-Eleven, Lawson or K-Plus convenience stores eating pot noodles and rice triangles wrapped in dried seaweed.



On our way out of Osaka we became acquainted with the tedious Japanese road system that has traffic lights at every junction. Our map was excellent but was in Kanji characters and looked like a plate of spaghetti, so we failed to notice that our days ride involved a hill. In the scheme of things it wasn't a big hill but it was the steepest we had encountered and took all our effort to push the bikes up what is apparently one of the most difficult roads in the country.


In the historic city of Nara we were hosted by Jun, who we had contacted through the "warm showers" website for cyclists. I was surprised to learn that it had taken him 4 years to cycle from Alaska to Patagonia until he showed me his route - he had slalomed his way south through the continent like a drunkard, as he explained "there was a lot I wanted to see". Japanese apartments are notoriously small and sparse and Jun's was no exception but he kindly let us stay for 4 days and on his day off took us hiking through a beautiful ancient forest, helped fix my bike and took us for Japanese food. He was a lovely guy and we were sad to head out into the pouring rain with plastic bags on our feet to ride north through the sprawl to Kyoto, the old capital of Japan.


Thousands of Japanese tourists were ooohhhing and aaahhhhing and taking photos of the famous temples, castles, palaces, shrines and tea gardens set amongst the colourful autumn leaves of maple and ginkgo trees. It would take a month to see all Kyoto's historic buildings and bankrupt you in the process - we deemed two days enough and headed north on a busy road over a hill and down to Lake Biwa. A white bullet train passed by on its way to Tokyo - a journey that would take it two and a half hours and us two weeks. The sun glistened on the water and the flocks of winter wildfowl as we made our way along the eastern shoreline of Japan's largest lake.

We were woken early next morning by the sound of hunters blasting ducks from the sky. The stove packed in half-way through cooking breakfast which meant eating cold, lumpy porridge and an hour dismantling, cleaning and re-assembling the burner. The tent had been eaten by insects in the tropics and T attempted to glue up the biggest holes with bits of plastic bag. Our gear was increasingly being held together by gaffer tape, super-glue and tie wraps.



We set off east, away from the lake towards a ridge of mountains. There was a long que of cars caused by hundreds of people descending on a temple to view the autumn colours but after that the traffic thinned and we made our way up a wooded valley ooohhhing and aaaahhhing at the bright red and yellow trees.


For some time we had been seeing temporary road signs in Japanese writing but thought nothing of it and the afternoon turned grey and cold as we climbed up into the mountains. At the foot of the main ascent an excited motorist flagged us down and explained that huge landslides had taken out the road beyond the pass and that the road ahead was closed. Bollocks! When we looked at our map the diversion on a bicycle was massive - not only did we have to go back the way we came but it was then at least a day's ride through the mountains. Arse!! Cycling in China had taught us one thing - just because a road is closed to vehicles doesn't mean you can't get a bike through. We had nothing to lose apart from wasting our time cycling up a big mountain. We managed to get the bikes past the traffic blockade and after that we had the road to ourselves. The silence and solitude was eery as we wended our way slowly up to the pass.


The light was fading by the time we reached the top and round the first bend the road was mangled but we rode through the debris. We made a steep descent through the forest which we realised we would have to cycle back up should there be no way down. The tarmac was littered with debris and had clearly been shut for some time. It was getting dark when we reached the first landslide. There was no road but there was a walkable route through the debris, and also through the second landslide but the third was more precarious and some workers had laid a ladder to get across. It seemed possible but too dangerous in the semi-dark. We had no choice but to camp next to the road close to the carnage. An earthquake would have finished us and we were sufficiently nervous to place some of our dinner at the gravestone next to our tent to please the ancestor spirits.




Unbelievably four motorbikers came down the hill in the dark, tried to speak to us and then carried on. They were there for ages, shouting and revving and trying to get through - eventually two of the larger bikes came back, meaning the other two had either made it or fallen off the hillside.


It was very cold and we we put on all our winter clothes to go to sleep and in the morning we were woken by a deer barking near the tent. The bikers had done us a favour by laying a makeshift path of bits of scaffolding over the third landslide and we were able to get the bikes over and speed down the mountain. The authorities had built a substantial gate to stop idiots from going up the road but the bikers had bent the railings to get out which was very kind of them.



Japan is a mountainous country with some flat valleys and the threat of earthquakes means that buildings are low rise. As a consequence low density settlements sprawl along the valleys and the cities are endless. The Japanese differentiate between one place and another but to us it was just continuous, grey, urban conurbation. It took us all day to cross the sprawl of Nagoya City on some busy highways and we camped the night on a riverbank surrounded by hotels, malls, roads and pylons and we felt like the vagabond outsiders we were.



It was raining heavily when we woke. Eventually the threat of starvation and bursting bladders forced us out. We reached the town of Toyota, which was "proud to be a car town" but the cheapest room to be had was the equivalent of 80 pounds, which seemed an expensive way to get dry so we stopped at cafes, supermarkets and convenience stores every half a mile in the hope it would stop raining. It didn't. We headed into the hills up a quiet valley with quaint traditional houses, rice terraces and gushing water but we were soaked and cold. There is a God of Cycle Touring though and in the middle of a wood we came upon a sizeable pavilion and toilet block which we commandeered for the night. It rained solidly for 36 hours but in the morning the sun shone, we dried out a bit and made our way up into the mountains of the southern Japanese Alps.



It took us four days winding our way south-east to cross the mountains. It was great cycling - the minor roads were smooth and well maintained but barely had any traffic - we cycled along to the sounds of rushing mountain streams, cawing crows, squeaking bulbuls and the silence of autumn forests. We passed through a scenery of wooded hills, small terraced fields, neat rows of tea bushes and tiny villages of traditional wooden houses with clay-tiled roofs and manicured "bonsai" trees. Old people farmed their plots by hand and the women wore bonnets. The people we met were incredibly friendly, polite and helpful. Each day we toiled for hours up to a high pass and down the other side and we finished the day with a hot drink and swiss roll while making camp. The Japanese seem to love (over)engineering and we passed through dozens of tunnels and crossed countless brightly painted bridges. The days were sunny and cold and the nights even colder.



After five days without a wash we cycled with purpose to a village with a hot spring bathhouse and were gutted to find it closed on wednesdays. We camped nearby and returned in the morning. Bathing in hot springs (onsen) is one of Japan's oldest traditions, even their monkeys do it. Men and women bathe separately and naked. It felt like the best wash and hot soak of my life and is possibly the only bargain to be had in Japan. Tracey was ecstatic and from then on our route planning was based on getting a regular soak in an onsen.


A spur of high mountains stretched across our path and with no road over them we were forced south, down out of the hills to the narrow, industrialised band of flat land by the coast. As we rode across a bridge into the city of Shizuoka to our east the snow capped volcanic cone of Mt Fuji rose magnificently two miles into the sky.


On a cold day we slogged east along the seafront on tired legs into a demoralising headwind, the grey industry and sprawl of Fuji City on our left and the grey sandy beach, grey sea and grey sky on our right. In Numazu we stayed with Will and Chrissie through Warm Showers. A young American couple teaching english and cycling in their holidays. We would have been grateful just to get clean and out of the cold but they were fantastic hosts and looked after us, showed us around, gave us an expats insight into Japanese culture and some cycling tips for the rest of our trip. We left feeling re-invigorated and ready to face the road once more.



We followed the sprawl north up a valley and boredom made us pick the "scenic route" over a mountain. On a clear day this might have been a good choice but in the cloud we could barely see each other and the road became so steep we had to get off and push. It was nearly dark at 4.30pm so we called it a day and found a camp spot in a wintry looking wood. As we cooked dinner we looked forwards to America and chatted about how we would cope camping with bears, glad that there were none around here. Next morning was clear and sunny and we made our way up to the pass where there was a picture of a scary looking bear and a warning notice!!



As we sped down towards Lake Yamanaka there were spectacular views across to Mt Fuji and the high mountains of the Alps. We made our way east down a valley and stopped for a soak at a hot spring - where it became apparent we were not the only people wearing thermal underwear. The next day we slid out of the mountains and down into the sprawl of the world's largest conurbation, home to 26 million people.


Jun had kindly introduced us to his friend Ryo who had agreed to host us when we reached Tokyo. Unfortunately he was away on business when we arrived so he introduced us by email to his friend Fuminori. Fuminori did not know us from Adam and said that on the day of our arrival he had to go out drinking with his boss, so he emailed directions to his flat in Kawasaki and left the key for us in his postbox and told us to make ourselves at home and help ourselves to whatever we wanted. Japan made us question where our society had gone wrong.


Fuminori was great. Anyone who cycles the circumference of Australia on their mum's shopping bike because it seems like a funny idea was alright by us. He accompanied us into Tokyo, took us for sushi (though I'm not sure how I got talked into eating raw horse) and to a sake bar. He booked our ferry tickets (which would have been impossible for us as no-one spoke english at the booking office) and invited his friends over and cooked dinner in our honour.


Tokyo itself was my only slight disappointment in Japan - I had been anticipating a "Bladerunneresque" place but in comparison with some of Asia's other large cities it was very ordered and westernised. There were of course the eccentricities of Tokyoites - designer dog clothes, grown men in rockabilly outfits dancing in the park, teens and performance artists dressed to shock and love motels with themed rooms.


We cycled into downtown and got told off for riding in the Palace grounds before crossing a series of bridges to the ferry dock. From the deck of the boat we watched the twinkling lights of the city's skyline recede into the distance as we made our way out into Tokyo Bay.

There were only a handful of passengers and almost no staff. The restaurant was a bank of futuristic vending machines. The emptiness, silence and low hum of the ships engine reminded me of the spaceship in "Space Odyssey 2001". It was an 18 hour journey west to the port of Tokushima on Shikoku Island. T got hooked on sleep inducing sea-sick pills and spent most of the journey comatose on her blanket on the floor of the open sleeping area. In the morning I stood on deck mesmerised by the beautiful play of light and clouds on the Pacific Ocean.


There were two young Japanese cyclists on board. Unencumbered by camping gear they aimed to cycle around the island in 7 days, the same time it would take us to cross from one side to the other.


We followed a river uphill for two days through some beautiful mountain scenery and camped on its pebbly banks. It was raining when we woke and made our way slowly uphill to the Yotsuashitoge pass in the silence and rain, the mountains shrouded in mists, but when I tried to point out the beauty of it a very wet and cold T nearly bit my head off. At the top we cycled through a mile long tunnel which was slightly nervy in a country prone to earthquakes. We stood cold and dripping at the reception of a hot springs and were shown the way to nirvana. In the afternoon there was a break in the rain and we pelted downhill out of the mountains, away from the ominous clouds and spent a damp night camped in a grove of rotting satsumas.


True to form there wasn't a cloud in the sky the next day. We made our way west along the seafront on the southern side of the island and camped on a beach under a full moon to the sounds of bikers revving their engines on a friday night sojourn.

Shikoku is famous for its ancient 88-temple buddhist pilgrimage in honour of the saint, Kobo Daishi. Over the next few days we would see several pilgrims in their trademark white clothes walking the roads between temples.


For half a day we rode up and down through some fantastic coastal scenery on a beautiful sunny day but as if to remind us that Japan is not all nice, in the afternoon we passed heavy industry and the traffic on the main road south of Susaki was sufficiently heavy and scary for us to change our plans and take the longer scenic route. We had grown quite fond of the silence of the Japanese countryside being punctuated twice a day by public announcements and simplistic electronic ditties broadcast over load speakers - weird.


We followed the Shintogawa River west. The scenery was lovely, the wind biting and the streets deserted. We spent most of an afternoon hunting for an onsen and I had been so cold all day that I let out an audible groan of pleasure when I slipped into the steaming hot water - as did the gang of construction workers who got into the small tub with me.


We camped on a rocky river beach on a very cold and starry night and the tent was iced in the morning. We continued west to Uwajima and visited the fairytale style castle above the city and the shinto sex shrine. We had hoped to spend the night in a love motel to escape the cold and for curiosity's sake but though the city has a six foot long wooden penis that it parades through the streets once a year apparently there's nowhere to copulate. So we cycled around in the dark looking for the youth hostel, which was on top of a mountain.



Heading north from Uwajima we joined a coast road on the western side of the island. My diary for the day reads: "Fantastic coastal scenery - clear, calm sea, rocky headlands, terraces of oranges and satsumas, views across the bay to small islands; little fishing villages, quiet roads; seagulls, ospreys and kites wheeling overhead; lovely blue sky with whispy clouds; picnic lunch on a beach with palm trees; watching the sunset from a temple on a headland". Cycle touring doesn't get much better. We cheekily camped in the temple grounds and were up with the sun to avoid getting rumbled. We made our way along the coast to Yawatahama where we boarded a car ferry west across the Sea of Suo to the island of Kyushu. It was only a three hour journey but it was raining heavily when we docked in Usuki. It rains so much in Japan that umbrellas are almost public property - every guesthouse and tourist attraction has a bucketfull to borrow. Winter is in fact the "dry" season.


We accidentally left our phrasebook at the town's TIC and while I was at the supermarket rummaging around in the bargain bins the tourist lady had tracked us down to return our book. In the peaceful rain and fading light we wandered around a forest of giant bamboo and the 1,000 year old carvings of buddhas cut into soft rock. The God of Cycle Tourists came to our rescue again and we found a spot under a bridge to spend the night out of the rain.

As we trundled north with the Postman Pat cars in the drizzle I noticed there was only one person in each car. As in Britain there are campaigns to encourage people to lead greener lifestyles but in a country with a massive car industry no messages about curtailing their use - The Japanese approach seems to be to build them very small and fuel efficient.


Cycling along the seafront we could see the steam from hundreds of hot springs in Beppu on the mountainside ahead. Sitting in a covered outdoor hot bath when its cold and raining is immensly satisfying. We splurged to experience a traditional Japanese inn and coming out of my second bath of the day a helpful man showed me how to dress myself in my Yukata, a type of Kimono.


We were possibly the cleanest cyclists in the world for a short while, but a bird crapped on me and T got dog poo on her hands when her wheel fell off. It rained on all three of the days it took us to reach the northern tip of the island. We went via the Kunisaki peninsular and paused to visit the 11th century Fuki-Ji Temple. Japanese temples and shrines are simple, symetrical structures of natural wood. There is something almost Scandanavian about their use of natural materials and perhaps that is why we liked them so much - Less dramatic but more stylish than thier neighbours'.


We passed the sprawling plants of Nissan and Mitsubishi on our way to Kitakyushu. The tunnel for walkers/cyclists under the Kanmon Strait was closed for repair and the motorway suspension bridge off limits. Our bikes were loaded on a truck and we followed them over on a bus back to the main island of Honshu. In Shimonoseki we bought tickets for that night's ferry to South Korea and jostled aboard with the returning hordes of week-enders. In the dark we sailed past factory lights and out into the Sea of Japan and were sad to say goodbye to the Land of the Rising Sun.



Sunday 3 January 2010

10,400 - 11,000 miles: Nanchang to Shanghai

China did have its pleasures. As a lover of fine teas it was fantastic to be given tasty pots of green tea free with every meal and I had been sampling some of the hundreds of varieties on sale in the tea shops that can be found in every town. We visited the tea museum in Hong Kong and learned about the different methods of preparation performed for the serving of different types of tea. Despite the language difficulties we spent a lovely couple of hours in a tea shop in Nanchang with the female staff watching them prepare different teas and sampling them - I was so wired on caffeine when we left I could've cycled the remaining 600 miles to Shanghai that afternoon.



The weather was turning cooler by the day and the hot bowl of noodle soup with a plate of steaming dumplings with chili sauce for breakfast never tasted so good. On our way east out of Nanchang we came upon a young chinese cycle tourist - without access to the latest gear he was piled high with bags, appeared to be using a cardboard shoe box as a front pannier and was carrying an enormous bike pump. He was dressed in camouflage clothes and travelling at the speed of a tortoise - disappointingly he spoke no english and we could only determine that he was on his way to Beijing, the fact that he seemed to be lost and going in the wrong direction only made us like him even more. A true pioneer who brightened a dull grey day.



In the middle of nowhere we came across hundreds of restaurants lining the roadside selling crabs and we stopped for lunch. I was amazed to see that the chinese method for eating them was learnt from sea otters - they were just chomping them up, shell and all and then spitting out the crunchy bits. This also helped explain why makeshift dentists with a deckchair and rows of false teeth can be found in China's parks.

Yugan was just another dull chinese town but I enjoyed a stroll in the early morning sunlight, past rows of steaming dumpling trays, watching the chaos of handcarts, motorbike taxis and cycle rickshaws and in the still waters of the town's lake the floating corpse of a pig.


Further east we found some quieter roads with less noise and dust and some smooth tarmac and it was cozy in the tent at night. The rice crop was ready and in the golden fields gangs of peasants were cutting, threshing and drying, while flocks of swallows passed overhead, migrating south for winter. Cycling towards Wuyuan we were amazed to come across an open air theatre in the middle of the countryside with a performance of Peking Opera in full flow. We stood with our bikes and watched alongside the villagers taking a break from the fields but we could only stand the shrill, high pitched wailing for so long and continued east.

After riding through China for a month without sight of another westener we finally reached another tourist area. For reasons of history, across China there are pockets of villages spared the worst ravages of the Cultutal Revolution, communist architecture and modern development that, with some "renovation" (ie re-creation) have been turned into tourist villages. Bus loads of chinese tour groups pay whopping entrance fees to be led around the narrow streets by microphone wielding, flag bearing tour guides and get a glimpse of pre-revolution China. And so it is in this nation of two countries that wealthy chinese from the cities turn up to take photos of rural chinese washing their clothes in the picturesque village streams. Despite the daytime circus, in the early morning and late afternoon sunlight and in the surrounding fields and valleys Little Likeng and its friendly villagers did have a wonderful charm now lost from most of China.





We cycled north along river valleys, past neat rows of clipped tea bushes and ancient camphor trees. Praying Mantis were undergoing some kind of mass migration and it was impossible not to squash some of them as they bumbled across the roads. In the late afternoon we began passing through a series of old Qing and Ming era villages like Little Likeng without the tourists and the renovation. White buildings with tiled roofs and horsehead gables, flagstone paths and arched stone bridges over small streams, woodsmoke hanging in the valleys. Tarmac gave way to stony track as we made our way up the valley to a ridge of mountains. We camped next to a clear stream full of plastic bags and ate our pot noodle in the rain.


It was sunny next morning and we bounced along the track past more picturesque villages and as we started to make our ascent of the mountain tarmac made a mysterious but welcome return. It took a couple of hours to reach the pass and we barely saw another vehicle. Over the top we crossed into the province of Anhui and the tarmac for the descent was fresh and smooth and the scenery sublime. It was easily the most enjoyable cycling we did in China. We stopped for lunch in a village and ate in an old wooden building where we were served a pot of the best green tea I've ever tasted. The locals were very friendly, a bit tipsy and slightly confused as to our purpose in their village and before we knew it I was having a telephone conversation with an equally confused policewoman. We continued down out of the mountains and made it to the village at the foot of Qiyan mountain where we took a room with a view of the old stone bridge across the river and the hills behind. Suddenly China didn't seem so bad.


T was excited to take her first ever cable car ride to the top of the mountain and on a warm, sunny autumn day we enjoyed the mountain paths, Taoist cave temples and amazing views so much that we nearly missed the last cable car down.

We cycled east through Huangshan city where we stopped at a gaming cafe and booked a ferry to Japan, which was exciting and a relief as our visas were fast running out. North of the city we were back on busy, noisy, dusty roads with mile after mile of factories and sprawl. The evenings were drawing in and in the fading light we managed to find a spot for the tent amongst the neatest, well tended fields in the world. The friendly villagers were out at dawn and after the surprise of finding us in their field insisted on picking half a tonne of sweet potatoes to load on my bike.

It was a lovely sunny day as we made our way up a valley into some mountains. We passed a lady selling marrow fritters that were so tasty we ate thirds, causing much mirth amongst the locals. The road up to the pass was quiet with rural scenes of mulberry bushes, bee farmers and almost the entire population employed cracking pecan nuts by hand. Over the pass we entered Zhejiang Province and descended along a broadening river valley camping the night under a starry sky on a wooded ridge that would be our last night under canvas for a while.


Although mainly downhill it was a tiring 75 mile ride along busy, noisy roads and through the sprawl and industry to the city of Hanhzhou. We had reached the more prosperous, industrialised eastern region of China. Only students and old people still ride bicycles, everyone who can afford it has an electric scooter bike. In the cities there are millions of them whizzing around causing chaos. In order to cope the authorities in places like Hangzhou and Shanghai have created enlarged 2-wheeler lanes and banned them from the rest of the road. In the parlance of ancient China these would be called "the lanes of a thousand near misses and minor accidents". As we sped into Hangzhou rush hour riding the madness of these lanes with thousands of scooters was electrifying.


Hangzhou is famous for its beautiful West Lake, surrounded by pagodas, temples, landscaped gardens, tea plantations and meandering walks. It is mobbed by chinese tourists and couples in wedding outfits with an entourage of photographers, make up artists and hair adjusters. Unfortunately our visit coincided with the annual fireworks display and the lake was cordoned off by thousands of grumpy police paid for by the people of China so that the People's Republic could charge the people of the republic an extortionate amount of money to watch them alongside the local dignitaries. Nothing is free in the land of the people. We had to stay an extra day so that we could enjoy the lake.



From Hangzhou we rode 60 miles to the north-east without a break in the smog or factories. It was all capitalist China cliches - black fetid rivers, sweatshops with names like "magic knitting" and billboards advertising firms that were "hand-in-hand with fashion and side-by-side with trend." From the 11th floor of the Motel 360 we had a birds eye view of Jiaxing city. China is not a country for "point-and-hope" when it comes to ordering food and my tired lapse into laziness resulted in offal soup for dinner.


It was another 60 miles of industry to Suzhou. Some of the chimney stacks had been painted blue with clouds to blend into the sky but smog grey would've been a better colour. Although surrounded by factories the centre of the city was a pleasant place dotted with old merchants houses, canals and its famous gardens dating back to the 14th century. There were boutique style shops and cafes and excellent food.



Making our way out of the city under the concrete flyovers we discovered that the road to Shanghai was closed and a diversion in place. Undeterred we assumed it was some minor works that we could negotiate on the bikes and carried on. After a couple of miles it became apparent that the road was closed because a raised 6 lane expressway was being built in its place. Not wanting to backtrack we asked some men in hard-hats the way to Shanghai, obviously being conscious of Health & Safety regulations they directed us to continue through a major construction site, which at one point involved squeezing under the hydraulic legs of a crane while it was manoeuvring a massive slab of concrete into place. Construction workers laughed in amazement as we negotiated our way through the site. Eventually we emerged unscathed onto the "old" road and had 6 lanes all to ourselves for several miles, which was a slightly surreal experience, like a post oil vision of the future.


We rode another 60 miles of non-stop factories to central Shanghai, the sprawling metropolis of 20 million people. We lodged at a backpackers hostel, grabbed some beers and wandered down to the famous waterfront Bund to see the spectacular nightime skyline and celebrate cycling 11,000 miles across the vastness of the Eurasian continent. It seemed only fitting to find that it was a boarded up construction site.