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China’s East side… and some time off the bike

Monday, May 23rd, 2005

Km cycled: 10,100
Km to home: 29,900

Current Location: Nanjing, China
(If anyone knows people in PAPUA NEW GUINEA (I know that is a bit of a
longshot) or SHIPPING CONTACTS in Asia for a passage between Hong
Kong-Manila, and Port Moresby-Australia… I would be very grateful if
you could put me in touch)

“Monsieur, do not wake a sleeping lion” (Napoleon, on seeing China’s
potential)

“What is ideology? It is a kind of spirit to make sluggish people
industrious and intelligent people even more capable. The spirit should
be started from inside the court and then spread all over the country
to as far as the remotest corner of the empire”
(The Final Imperial
Examination Paper of Number One Student, Confucian Examination Hall,
Nanjing)

“It is glorious to get rich” (Chinese Communist Party Leadership in
1978)

Two whole hours before we were due to land I strolled out on to the
deck of my ferry from Korea. All around (to my surprise) rather than an
empty seascape and perhaps a distant grey landmass, were literally
hundreds of giant cargo ships, an armada from all corners of the world.
For the final hour of the voyage, cranes, docks and industry bore
around us like prison bars. These were my first views of the waking
lion. China’s east coast.

Rolling off the boat and taking my first few pedals into China was
exciting. Last time I was here, in the late 1990s, it was out in the
far west – the empty deserts and epic mountains which border the
Stans. Here in the heartlands, things could not be more different –
concrete, steel and noisy, busy roads. The people smile and help and
spit. The drivers are wild – but at least (unlike in Korea!) do superb
braking/swerving manoeuvres to avoid hitting you. Food and
accommodation is refreshingly cheap.

There is a feel of partial dilapidation – but in contrast to the
collapsing blocks of Siberian Russia, these buildings are falling apart
not due to alcoholism and despair, but rather because everyone is so
busy throwing up new buildings… there is no time for the past. It is
time to get on with the serious business of getting rich.

In cities, the cyclists swarm… stop at a traffic light and you will
soon be swept up in a spinning, silent pelathon of steel horses –
rushing you into the midst of 6 lanes of moving traffic…
astonishingly, you slip through the gaps to emerge unscathed the other
side.

China. China. It is one of those places you know about from childhood,
but it is unreal until you get here. It is different, vast,
mysterious… like it has been hiding. The history is unfathomably
long: whilst Hannibal was raising his army, China was already united;
as Rome retreated from England, China was busy inventing such exciting
contraptions as the wheelbarrow. For the overwhelming majority of
human history China has been number one – not just in population, but
also in economic wealth and scientific advancement … to the extent
that Samuel Huntington calls the past couple of hundred years of
western dominance a “blip”, an anomaly in the history of
civilisations… many commentators now believe the normal order of
things is being restored – China is bounding with confidence and
strength to embrace the 21st century.

Whilst China in the past was the land of inventions – now it is the
land of fakes. The markets are packed with imitation brands – some are
so realistic that it is hard to tell the difference. I realise that
those bargain North Face clothes I smugly bought on E-Bay and wore to
keep me alive through Siberia (and which had mysteriously non-North
Face zips which broke all the time) just might have originated here!

Riding down the east side of China (south from Beijing) is in a sense
monotonous – endless flat roads, dusty villages, muddy paddy fields,
rubbish filled ditches, chattering farmer cyclists with their
interminable string of questions I do not understand. I attempt some
truck surfing to break the monotony. Truck surfing is a fun sport in
less developed countries – where, with timing of the essence, you grab
hold of the back of a truck/tractor which is moving marginally faster
than you are… the only flaw with my attempts to do this so far in
China is the headwind… when I finally managed to build up enough
speed to grab something I found myself fighting to hold the bike
steady. Suddenly the wind blasts my bike sideways and – like a speeded
up video clip – I shoot headlong into the ditch. This is not the only
time I have felt like the cycling version of Mr Bean recently. For
example, the day I discarded my old boots and proudly put on my new SPD
shoes. These are the shoes with the cunning metal bit on the bottom
which actually locks into the pedal – meaning you can pull it up as
well as push it down. To unlock your foot, simply twist your ankle
sideways… very snazzy, and efficient too. With new found elegance, I
come over the brow of a hill looking sweaty and athletic… I glide
smoothly up to an intrigued throng of Chinese onlookers… and then
slowly, heroically, draw to a halt… and – to their slight
bewilderment – throw myself sideways down to the ground (the bike
crashing on top of me) unable to get my feet out of the pedals.

At the beginning of April my parents arrived in China for a few weeks
holiday, so – call me a wimp – I stopped where I was, dumped the bike
with some friends and had a holiday with them. Seeing the tourist
sights of China with a tour group is fun – the Great Wall, the
Forbidden Palace, the Terracota Warriors, Panda bears and the
semi-submerged Three Gorges… I increasingly realise that tourist
sites only interest me in so far as I understand more of the story
behind them. Such as finding out that the 7000 Terracota guys were
actually meant to help the tyrannical first emperor (Quin – pronounced
Chin) in his afterlife, with thousands of slaves also slaughtered
during his burial to help him a bit more. The other chap who seems
rather reluctant to leave his earthly power behind is Chairman Mao. I
waited in line in the Beijing wind in Tiananmen square, along with
thousands of others, in order to file past his preserved corpse. The
faithful propogandised can buy flowers on the way in to leave before
his statue. These flowers are periodically picked up and resold to the
people queing outside. Now if that is not capitalist initiative I don’t
know what is… and all in homage to a dead communist hero !?

After a good break, it was time to say goodbye to my parents again. I
felt grateful for the chance to catch up with them as we shared the wonder of visiting the great sites together. I was impressed by their
ability to adapt to and enjoy the slightly unpredictable and bumpy
nature of travel in China – obviously their own adventurous spirits
are still alive and well. In a way, seeing them made it all the harder
to get going again. But quality time with family is something not to be
received lightly, and if offered, I think the opportunity should always
be taken, however difficult it may be to say goodbye.

So I am back on the bike and pedalling south through more blooming
cities. Of course, China’s economic boom is not the whole story… I am
spinning through the growth zones and will soon reach the mother of
expanding cities – Shanghai. After that, it will be time to hit the
backroads to Hong Kong, on which (I am told) lies a different side to
China – where many people do not have the luxury of hunting for meaning
– they just want to survive.

As always, many, many thanks for your emails, prayers and kind
donations to help the heroic efforts of Viva Network and their
smart-hard work with orphans, street children and exploited children.

If you would like to donate money in support of Viva network and their
work with children at risk, please visit
www.justgiving.com/cyclinghome­fromsiberia (my journey is self funded so
all donations go to charity) Thankyou!

15.jpg
Half a day off to climb Tae Shan (wearing a cool Chinese army coat)

P1010017.JPG

16.jpg
You can see my bike is still excessively loaded… what an earth am i carrying? (i often ask myself this question)