CHINA...

Hello

Some might say it's been a while, some might simply say 'oh not again' but in all cases here l am, so tough titties!

CHINA could easily stand for Crazy, Happy, Intense, Noisy and Ancient. Between Beijing and Xian, two cosmopolitan entities, the real China took us on. Dirt, pee, faeces, industrial installations camoflagued by their own output, air horns on every single vehicle used at every single moment, the attempt to understand Chinese and understanding the Chinese way of life through their very interesting peculiarities.

Leaving Beijing we got slightly lost but all in all we had a pretty normal first day apart from drinking gallons of water before camping in a field. The next day though we suddenly realised all was not well. Tired from family logistics, parenting and educating a very active child while on the road, trip daily grind which let's not forget includes 5 hours of packing and unpacking when we're moving after a total of 8 months now. We only realised when searching for the extra energy required in adapting to a culture that away from Beijing is almost the complete opposite of ours. The tastes, the language, the air, the hygiene, the noise and mannerisms! I'm not sure if the Chinese like noise but it sure is ear shattering noisy. Exhaust silencers don't seem to want to be used on the trucks, tractors and invented machinery. I can accept it on the 'l put it together in my backyard yesterday' tractor but on the other one's, the poor drivers are making themselves deaf! It is a very poor country outside of the cities and hardly any of the traffic is private cars. The buses and trucks push their air horn down at all times just to let you know they are there and arriving at quite a slow pace as it happens! They are high pitched and seriously deafening. No understatement at all! Hard to put the noise into words actually. I can hear the exhaust 10,000 miles away anyway!

The locals love Oceanne as always, even more so if this can be possible. Photos all the time on mobile phones with screams of 'baby, photo, baby'! So beautiful is always what we get. Yes she is but surely not that special. It's the hair. The blonde hair is like gold for the Chinese like water is for us in this 37 degree heat. Speaking of Oceanne. 8 months of travelling has of course meant she has changed during the course of the trip. Because of the trip probably not, not yet anyway. When she doesen't want to go near a bike or get on a plane when she is capable of making her own decisions, we'll know why! She is nearly 3 now and needs different things to occupy her mind. We took a while to understand this. She stills loves her trailer but also likes to do touristic activities more and more and will not just be the girl that follows our every whim anymore. All this had us very close to heading back to Beijing after 24 hrs on the road. Not to mention the saving of money to put into looking for a house instead!

We took stock however and our now 1,300 km's further down the road in Xian ready to climb up towards 2000 metres to Lanzhou skirting the Northern edge of the Tibetan plateau in very hot and industrial heavy air. I have no problem with the heat apart from the fact that at 2 p.m if we're silly enough to be on the road it can be like breathing in a furnace! I have also the problem of a slightly cracked rear rim that could go at any moment with the 60 - 70 kg's l'm pulling depending if we visited the supermarket recently. I love Georgina but she may be letting me down a bit at the moment. I should have gone crazy and bought a beautiful top of the range bike like Dorothee's but l still think Georgina might pull through especially if l get ebay to unblock my account and get a kind man to send a very good wheel to China for the minimum cost. Then there is the baggage trailer that doesen't stop getting flats. Cheap tyre that was sold with it seems to be the problem. I will be writing to them!

We extended our visa in a town called Anyang. We should be able to extend for another month in Lanzhou. After that, we're not supposed to be able to but we will see what we can do in the name of love, cycling, family and adventure. The major deal it took to extend it once was unbelievably frustrating and has already been documented in detail by Dorothee on the blog, French only. I will not bother but will just say that the police or public security bureau as they wish to be called are a difficult bunch where you are most definetly guilty before proven innocent. We even lost our cool at one point. When you just want to visit somebody's beautiful country instead of smuggle heroin through, it is mighty boring especially with a tired child in your arms. Are next country should be Kyrgystan. We know very well the current situation in Kyrgystan and will not be going there if the situation might even slightly compromise our security. Then again we are still 3,000 km's away and may well go through Kazakstan instead.

Anyway back to the road. From Beijing to Xian we passed by Baoding, Shijiazhuang, Xingtai, Anyang, Xinxiang, Luoyang and then up to Xian. Baoding was where we learnt we could only stay in certain hotels that had the 'quality' as they call it here in China. Choice is still not a part of the slowly changing communist China. Us tourists whether we like it or not have to splash out on the top hotel in the town. This is not the same in the touristic towns which have hostels that surely do not have the 'quality' of a four star establishment that we are often forced to stay in. This is actually because we shoulden't be in those non-touristic towns anyway. In China most tourists are encouraged to go from one touristic sight to another and l suppose this is completely normal but for us it's not really the plan or possible anyway. Sometimes it is but there is also a lot in between especially on a bike. China has not thought of us minorities yet so for them we are put along with the businessmen. Not so bad actually as in Baoding l had the equivalent of a Turkish beating in the male bathouse that always exists in these top establishments! It's quite bizarre going from camping with the peasants who our so amazed at us that they can watch us for hours setting up camp with little or no communication being among people who really have very little and then mixing it with the high flyers the next night with my bathrobe on. It took us a while to get used to how the country people can speak to you. On first hearing them screaming right in your face, you might be mistaken for thinking they could be getting aggressive but it's often to offer you a boiled egg or ice cream. In China these can very easily go together l assure you. In the countryside in any case. Maybe not in Beijing. On our second night out from the capital we were rushed into someones's house because the owner thought there was a big storm coming. It was only a short shower but he put us in a bed after a warm shower out in the yard!

Xingtai had us trying for a visa extension only to not bother because the wait would have been for too long. The day into Xingtai had been our longest ever day under a persistent light rain and a tail wind where we rode over 116 kilometres. Luoyang had us taking a few days off to see some immense Buddha's carved into the cliffs at Longmen and then going to the birthplace of Kung Fu at Shaolin temple which is still a very important place to learn and preach the sport which is half a religion. Just as an example, Luoyang, an unimportant town that was not even the provincial capital was HUGE. Over 6 million and this was the norm. Quite surprising the size when you imagine that this was a city of only 20,000 before communism and industrialisation. Chimneys and massive industries are often found in places that were mere villages before. From Luoyang I also had to do a return trip on an interesting 'sleeper bus' to Beijing to get Oceanne's French passport which we had applied for while we were waiting for the famous Central Asia visa's. We had an interesting day a couple of days before Xian when we were climbing all day in very high temperatures with trucks back to back on the switchbacks causing 25 kilometre tailbacks. We had no choice but to squeeze in between everybody. This was also the day when we lost the famous 'Mr Duck'! Mr Duck is Oceanne's comfort blanket, yang yang etc. I think we were more sad than her as she's now taken my bike rag that has ducks on it and it works just as well. She either chucked it out of the trailer or it fell. It must have fell as the trailer is always open now and she has so much stuff that l think it must have got mixed up somehow. Funny because we thought it would be a big deal but in the end, no! After all of that l went and climbed up the sacred Taoist mountain, Hua Shan during the night with thousands of other Chinese to catch the sunset at 2100 metres. It was magnificent even though l was knackered and cold after sweating on the way up even during the early hours. We should be leaving Xian on Sunday after catching up on things that needed to be done as well as visiting such famous sights as the Terracotta Warriors that are over 2000 years old! It is unbelievable what this country was doing when other civilisations were still treading water. That is where the 'Ancient' comes in.

Oceanne is still not out of nappies l am afraid. Makes us feel all the more worse when we see the Chinese children that love to play with Oceanne clean at a very young age and going to the toilet on their own even if it is just in the street at way less than 2 years old. They do not wear nappies just walk or crawl around in clothes with a gap around the bum area for quick access! Anyway is not right to compare.

All the best, Rupert

7916.0 km's and 18 flats plus maybe one at present.