Xi'an to Houmea

All good things must come to an end so we left the comfort of the hotel and set off again riding on a minor highway.  The roads were good with a few hills but nothing like the mountains we have been riding through.  It has been strenuous riding through the mountains but we were not sorry as we  have experienced beautiful rural scenery. China is progressing so quickly people who live here predict a lot of what we have seen will no longer be here within 20 years.  The hardships faced by rural people and the young people moving to the cities will see the farms bought up by larger concerns and the face of rural China will be forever changed.

Cycling out of Xi’an we were faced with a detour which threw us for a bit but three young men out for a recreational ride were going in our direction and invited us to follow them which we were very happy to do.  Recreational cycling is new to China, a bit elitist, most of the cyclist we talk to are students or newly graduated.  The other exercise we see people doing is something like line dancing.  Women do movements to music in large or small groups or sometimes on their own with music blaring from a portable machine in shopping centre car parks, parks or the footpath. A modern version of tai chi.

The weather was hot and windy. Our big western breakfast kept us going for most of the day.  We stopped to buy a cold drink at a place which normally we would not eat at but the place was full of locals so we chanced our luck had a very nice meal there.  The locals were a friendly lot and we had a conversation which consisted of thumbs up, because we are riding, and motions of riding a motor bike, meaning riding a motor bike would be easier. The usual “how old are you” we now readily recognize and we use the Chinese finger numbers to reply. Then they want to take our photo.  This is a routine we have become used to and is played out a couple of times a day with laugher all round.  We were held up by the detour, our long lunch and the wind so could not quite make the town we were hoping to get to before it got dark.  In a small dusty town we asked about accommodation and we were directed to a place we would not have stayed at normally but evening was approaching.  It was the worst place we have stayed, we used our sleeping bags as the bed was not very clean,  there was apit toilet at the end of the yard and no outside light.We have now decided no matter what happens we will plan our day to avoid having to ever stay in a place like this again, or perhaps we were spoilt with the extravagant accommodation we have had the last few nights.  On the whole accommodation has been good, even in rural areas, where we have been able to get a room with an ensuite.

We were glad to leave the next morning and were on the road by 5.30.  Good roads but a lot of going up however we were rewarded the next day by a slight incline all day which meant good speeds for little effort as we rode through a lovely  valley passing through but mostly dusty and obviously poor villages.  The maps continue to be inaccurate, we got into Heyang earlier than we expected as the map said we had another 20 kilometers to do.  We found a market selling food and they were selling the hot bread filled with egg and spicy vegetable which we like so we sat on stools with the very friendly locals and had a meal.  We booked into a hotel and caught a bus, very old and dirty, to an ancient village 9km away set up for tourism, with cobblestone streets and very old houses and alleyways.  Because it was late in the day we had the place to ourselves except for the people who live there and we had an enjoyable time walking around.   We got a taxi back but the driver dropped us off in the new part of the city, where tourist normally stay. We could not make him understand we wanted the old part so we had to walk and with the help of some very nice people eventually found our way back to our hotel.

Our ride from Hancheng to Houmea was unbelievable.  We were on good roads and enjoying the ride when we came across an industrial area where the pollution was the worst we had seen.  Many trucks on the road billowing our black smoke, factories putting out fumes into the air and quarries spewing dust.  There was a black dust settled on the road which rose every time a truck went past.  It was like this for 50 kilometers.  People live here in small towns in high rise apartments and we wondered about their health and life expectancy, they would not even be able hang their washing outside.  When we got to a city further down the road and stopped for a drink the lady in the shop got a bowl of water and a face cloth to wash ourselves with because we were so dirty from the pollution, people in China have been very nice to us everywhere.  We passed the first sign post to Beijing today and also the 999 sign, so we are now less than 1000 kilometers from Beijing.

When we got to Houmea we booked in to a very nice hotel for a few days as Mike caught a bus back to Xi’an to pick up our passports and Heather got a hair cut.