Hello there.... this WILL be long,
We will be leaving Beijing this Saterday. Yes! Noodles, soups and sauces to sweat over, the real Asia was a very 'NEW' experience for us all. I must admit l missed Turkey after arriving in China. I wanted an Iskender kebab with fresh yoghurt finished off with a small cay and some baklava and a language l could get my head round. Now Beijing has softened for me. I love biking down the huge bike lanes with all the cranky Beijing bikes, thousands of electric scooters and all the other pedal transporters from food to rubbish bikes.
Picking up the car from Ankara airport which was supposed to be an estate car was the beginning of an interesting journey. The car was simply not there! Thanks guys... I have a plane to catch tomorrow morning and over 450 km's to drive with a ridiculous amount of luggage. What turns out to be around 150 kg's! This, the kind lady at the check in desk informed us. Our reliable car company, NATIONAL, informed us that the biggest car they had was a poxy Fiat saloon thingy. After looking at the other companies, the biggest l could get was a Toyota Corolla which was a few cm's larger than the poxy Fiat. These few cm's might matter l reasoned to myself. Not one to lose my cool, externally in any case, l was on my way with the Toyota. Arriving at the hotel, Dorothee was understandably livid. I had been sweating around the airport all morning and been sweating around all the afternoon before, packing bikes into boxes too small for our bikes and trailers into the smallest and lightest versions possible and now had a headache! A cold beer would have helped at this point but l took a pill instead. Getting everything into the Toyota seemed to be a hopeless affair. The whole hotel wanted to help. We broke the boot lock in the process. Dorothee was taking the bus with Oceanne. I wasn't having any of that. What if poor me fell asleep on the road...! Have no idea why l took a baby seat as there was no way Oceanne and Dorothee could sit separatly. This now added to our luggage challenge. So with boot half open and expertly tied down by our friends and the car so full that side doors were difficult to shut, we were on our merry way. Found out later that we drove all the way to Istanbul on a very far down rear tyre. Should have checked that! Turkish rental cowboys...Crossing the Bosphorous at sunset in the high speed Istanbul traffic and then meeting Dorothee's brother for another surprise visit, l finally got to have that cold beer. Yes!
The big stress for me was to come the next morning. This was probably why l left my beloved MEC soft shell jacket in the airport somewhere containing my lucky coins, vaseline and indestructable sunglasses. They should give me a new one if l write a nice letter perhaps. That's the plan. The excess baggage issue: We were only supposed to have 20 kg's each with an extra 10 allowed in extreme circumstances. So that's makes 90kg's in total plus hand luggage. We did our best putting heavy stuff in our hand luggage but all the heavy tools and pedals still had to be in the bags as l would most probably injure someone on the plane when l planned to divert towards my friends in North Korea. So we ended up having 118 kg's in total. At 44 euro's per kg as excess we had 28 kg's extra. We pleaded. We could not pay well over a 1,000 euro's for baggage. That is just silly. Oh well, my worst fears had been realized. The kind manager eventually came down to 5kg to pay after much talking about biking around the world or trying to, Iran and their refusal to love us and of course our daughter who doesen't escape un-noticed and sometimes helps us gain some sympathy! I lost my jacket at this point. Getting hot and bothered going to the bank and then paying the busy staff at excess baggage. All this a far cry from when we biked the last time. Before arriving in Ankara we had been able to eat our dinner outside the tent with the sun setting and the traffic rumbling by. The first time it had been light and warm enough in the evening since the long winter had finished. I am glad l had taken time to breathe before the packing began. A baklava in my now, favourite place in Ankara followed by the famous small glasses of cay on tiny wicker stools on a quiet street. We have missed biking in spring it has to be said. Tourism in Turkey and all the visa process's we've been through here in Beijing for just two of the countries we wish to visit in Central Asia have taken the second half of April and the first half of May but there was no avoiding this. The biking will feel all the sweeter!
Turkey we miss, yes, but the plan as it stands is to finish the trip there. We have visas's now for Kyrgystan and Tajikistan and should be able to get extensions to our Chinese visa as it is one mighty country to cross. We hope to get a visa for Uzbekistan which is not too difficult for me but for Dorothee and Oceanne it is slightly more complicated as a Canadian passport requires an invitation letter. The agency that we expected to give us one here let us down with the sorry excuse that it is too dangerous to travel with Oceanne by bike. Silly woman just doesen't understand and is it not us, the parents who should take that very important responsability. We have another agency lined up however. In hindsight, which is a great and annoying thing at the same time, we should have all got French passports before we left but that in itself is a very long process for myself in any case.
Biking in Turkey was great. We biked the 450 km's from Istanbul to Ankara via Iznik and Eskesehir with little problems. We were supposed to take a more mountainous, scenic route but family compromises had to be made and the road we did take was beautiful in any case and meant we arrived in Ankara sooner. I had a moment of sheer fear in Ankara. Learning to drive in Canada meant that l have never really driven a manual properly. Renting a car to take my mother in law to visit Cappadocia l had distinctly reserved an automatic but they soon let me know that they had none left. They then kindly decided to deliver it too me. This was perfect as we were living on a University campus with a contact. I could practice on the quietish streets of the campus until l could master the, 'clutch control'. The man who delivered it was a really genial Turk but he pleaded with me that the very first thing l had to do was fill it up as it was more than empty. The man was very right as it was at the bottom of the reserve and it stuttered to a start when l turned the key. The campus was huge and we were at the entrance where l was 3 km's from where l lived but only 2 km's from a petrol station on the Eskesehir expressway which directly abutts the entrance. It was rush hour and seven lanes of back to back cars on a five lane road. I quickly regretted my decision to go for fuel. Thought this may be one of those really stupid things l have done. I stalled a few times in this mess thinking well, "what if this great car doesen't start again with all these Turkish, honking, hot-headed commuters". Clutch burning by the time l got to the petrol station, l had relief on my face. This lasted only a few seconds as l realized the man was putting diesel into my car. What, you crazy man, this is a petrol car. He looked at me with a look on his face that said, 'what, you silly pumped up tourist, look what it says on the cap'. Of course he was right, it said diesel on the fuel cap. Calm down Rupert. It is true l was very pumped up. Now, when l got back to driving l could hear the distinct sound of the diesel engine. I started to get to know my car in the next couple of days and now really want a Hyundai Accent diesel manual all for myself! Keep the dreams small of course. Who needs a Ferrari but really l have no luck with rental cars as this one got a flat as well.
Cappadocia was beautiful and we finally found, after quite a few days searching, these most perfect fallic rock formations in the so-named, valley d'amour. Do they really call it that because of the rock formations one asks! Back to Beijing. This city is huge. Thank goodness for the subway which builds a new line every two years since before the Olympics in 2008. On the map of the city everything looks quite close but it is so spread out. In between going to each of the Central Asian embassy's five times for this and for that, we visited a lot of Beijing. The Forbidden city, Beijing Zoo and it's Panda's, the Summer palace, the Temple of heaven, Beihai and Jingshan parks, the Drum and Bell towers, the Lama temple and the Hutong area which basically means the alleyway area. This is where l got to go and swim with the Beijing locals who laughed at my swimming technique while l was close to drowning getting stuck in the weeds of Qianhai lake before l somehow made it to the central island to take a rest. It is true l don't swim much and it is definetley not a good sport for me. The swimmers bring their big containers of fresh water along with them to rinse off. The water doesen't smell but it's not the cleanest. It is very hot here at the moment , around 32 degrees so it is very tempting to go swimming but that was the only lake in the many lakes in Beijing that we have seen where l have seen swimmers. It is also mainly the elders who are doing the exercising, if not swimming then stretching or a continuous clapping of the hands as you walk. Often wearing these flat-foot, thin, black slippers. I have purchased a pair and have become very attached to them. Just need to learn Tai Chi or Kung Fu now,or maybe this game that they play in the parks that involves keeping an object that is half-way between a hacky sack and a shuttlecock in the air. Normally played between three or four people, the elderly are amazing at it and get very enthusiastic when you want to join in but l don't think l'd be much good at it to be honest.
We are now living in our third place in Beijing, a youth hostel after spending two weeks with contacts. Thank you so much Christophe and Yin. We are spending our last four days here to do all the stuff that requires time on the beloved internet and also writing postcards. I would say my favourite place that l have seen in Beijing has to be the Lama temple. There is a Buddha in there that is beyond imagination. Incense wafting in the trees and the size of that thing is beyond words. It is a very relaxing place.
All my thoughts, Rupert
Kilometres and flats sadly do not have to be updated.
Note: Facebook and anything associated with google is blocked here, so photos and blogging on picasaweb and blogspot cannot be updated. Maybe we will find some way around this but the internet is strictly censored. It's hardly hardline communism anymore here but control still definetly exists. It seems they are trying to take the best from capitalism and communism to attempt to make the perfect society!? Will be group e-mails for now then.
