Hello Everyone
This is a long overdue update that we wrote a long while ago but figured so
old news might be better than none at all and was actually written for a
cycling club but we hope you’ll enjoy it too.
From Korea we took the boat to Shimonoseki (wonderful city – very sorry we
only spent 1 day there – great funky bikes/bikeshops too!) in south Japan
and cycled up towards Nikko. We never made it to Nikko as it was late
December by the time we got into the Japanese Alps and every time we took a
mountain pass we’d get stopped by snow – the Japanese are efficient enough
not to clear any unnecessary roads and on several occasions we spent several
days camping & pushing the bikes through snow piles until we’d give up about
6kms from the pass when the snow reached waist deep & come back down again
to try another route. Usually on the way down we’d participate in our newly
discovered extreme sport – bike skiing. Fun on the snow but rather painful
on the icy parts when steering control was lost (that happened frequently
enough for us to joke that we had designer tans - multi coloured purple &
yellow ones as our bruises were no longer distinguishable having merged into
an all over full body spread. )
When our 3 month visas were up we took a ferry to Shanghai – the local
residents were as surprised as we were when we arrived & Shanghai was
covered in snow. It hadn’t snowed in Shanghai in decades (though to be
honest we’re now getting very used to the extreme changes in normal weather
patterns) but the Shanghais took full advantage of it & cars were seen
everywhere driving along with snowmen on their roofs.
China’s a massive country & I can’t really give it justice in this brief
update but there are fabulous sights to be seen and heart wrenching scenes
of pollution & poverty at the same time. The propaganda is something else.
I’ll give you one example in the following and I apologise but rather long
tale. We’d been cycling along a small country lane in the Yulin province
fobbing off the locals advice every few kms who were determined that we
should take the main road (they couldn’t understand why we’d be taking a
small back route when there was a shorter new main road with lots more
traffic as an alternative!) when a small van drove past, a mass of heads
swivelled round and huge smiles & waves were clearly evident through the
van’s windows. Then the van stopped and it seemed that half of China
squeezed out of the doors. They nattered away in Chinese and produced a
video cam. We eventually deciphered that we were being invited back to visit
a kindergarten. As it was quite late in the day and we were considering
looking for a place to sleep we enquired if we’d be able to spend the night
there & how far it was. They enthusiastically agreed to let us stay the
night & advised us it wasn’t far – about 3kms. We turned around & 17kms
later rolled into a small community. Clearly someone had gone ahead as there
was a welcoming party to greet us. We entertained the children with our
bikes for a while & went through the honoured guests ceremonies until we
were invited to eat. That caused a great furore as being vegetarians they
were flummoxed as how to show their hospitality without offering the best
they could offer – in their view (and most of China’s) that being meat. It
was resolved by downing masses of cheap 1000% (or so it felt) industrial
alcohol. We were petty sure we’d wake up blind in the morning but stopped
caring after the 1st 2 toasts when we’d managed to overcome our urge to
retch just at the smell of it.
The next day they’d organised a massive show with banners, decorations &
lots of wild headgear for us. At some point journalists were summoned from
the central city (about 50kms away) and they interviewed us. What was
evident was the pride the Chinese had in the forthcoming Olympic Games &
they wanted to know our opinion on it.
In fact we had strong opinions. From what we’d read we understood that
Beijing had been granted on the Olympic Games on the condition that it would
be a green one and most people have heard about the traffic controls that
had been tested out to decrease pollution in Beijing. In fact we can testify
that they worked as we were in Beijing the week the regulations were put
into effect and we were repeatedly told by locals that they had hadn’t
experienced the blue skies and clear air that Beijing displayed that week
for years.
However, less was publically discussed about the problems such as that
caused by the diversion of the water supplies used for farming so that
Beijing could present a pleasant water sculptured façade to the world. Much
awe was expressed by the huge Olympic flame kept alight throughout the games
and the Olympic Flames being FLOWN!!! around the world (not great
contributions to reducing greenhouse gases in our opinion).
Nevertheless – in order to keep goodwill flowing and preventing anyone
losing “face” we diplomatically explained that the Olympics weren’t really
our “thing” – that in regards to sports, cycling was our passion and that
we were more concerned about the environment, climate change and how to
avoid disasters similar to the earthquake that had only happened days
previously in the Sichuan province.
On our departure we were asked to pose for a photo with a banner with
Chinese writing. We asked what it said & were told that it had to do with
cycling around the world. We allowed the photo to be taken but then on
examining the banner we realised it had something to do with the Olympics –
even we knew the Chinese script for Beijing and could recognise 2008 easily
enough.
We were asked to attach the banner to our bicycle flags but we refused and
set off. For the next 40kms we were followed by motor bike & repeatedly
photographed with the banner displayed next to us despite our requests not
to . We eventually got quite angered by it and shortly before reaching Yulin
lost all our face by turning and cycling off in a different direction and
literally zigzagged until we lost them.
We sneaked in to Yulin later on that day & booked into a hotel for the
night. The next morning the owners of the hotel proudly showed us the local
newspaper & we were surprised to see that there was a photo of us with the
banner. Richard was reluctant to buy the newspaper but I insisted as I
suspected that we wouldn’t like what had been written and wanted a copy for
myself to get translated. A week or so later we did get someone to translate
it and were shocked by what had been written. Basically the article stated
that we had had left Europe with the sole intention of going to China for
the Olympic Games and that we were following the Olympic Flame around Asia
in support of China hosting the Olympic Games!
Despite our initial hostile feeling towards Yulin because of this, we
actually have very fond memories of the city. Eating dinner by the lakeside
(no – no fancy lakeside restaurant – a DIY job on a picnic table) we were
approached by Kayla who turned out to a cycling fan and insisted on dragging
us back to the cycle club she was a member of. They were a fabulous bunch &
we wished we’d met them earlier – the photos of the routes they’d done in
China were heavenly and we regretted not having cycled some of them
ourselves!
Now we are in Laos and will head over into Cambodia tomorrow – looking
forward to those dusty unpaved roads – NOT!
Wishing you all the best for 2009.
Stani & Richard
www.velomad.com <http://www.velomad.com/>
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Petrus & Wasabi - Japan.jpg
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Snow cycling fun - Japan.jpg
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