Posts from — November 2008

Visa extensions are always fun … not really. This one proved to be an exception almost. I got to the office and was greeted in a modern office which could rival anything you see in Germany or the US by an official whose English was impeccable. This was the foreigner desk, but the locals were next to me so it’s not just the foreigners who get good treatment (at least in this office).

I anticipated some glitches and sure enough there was one. Where are you staying? I mentioned the name of the hotel, not sure whether it would be a permissible one or not. The name didn’t ring a bell. I was given two forms and had to go back to the hotel to have them stamped. On the way back I ran through my options as to what I would do if the hotel wasn’t good enough. Just move to another one or move on to Lanzhou. The good news here though was that it would take two days only. The same day myth wasn’t credible, but two days is pretty good I would say. Unfortunately the new visa starts from the day of the application, but that can’t be changed and since I do want to get back a bit early it is roughly the right timeframe now.

So back to the hotel I went and - lo and behold - they stamped it without much of a fuss. I filled out the forms and went back. “Come back in two days, the papers are in order.” Alright. Why you can’t give me the extension right away then is beyond me, but hey.

After all was said and done I hung around the city again. There are more markets to explore, more food to sample and more people to watch.

And some more alternative areas to discover … the ones I have seen tend to be in the less modern parts, but are in danger of being torn down it seems.

And then there was everyday life again …

If the visa comes through, this is the plan for the remaining time in China. I am feeling much, much better and am keen to ride again. This is a good thing. At the same time the distance is as far as I would like to go and ideally I would like to do a little less. Now, having said that I will see how everything develops (bike, myself and I, weather, roads and the like). If things go well, I may be able to go all the way. If they don’t, I will take a bus again part of the way. It’s all about enjoying the rest of the ride now. Again thanks to all that have written in with notes of concern / encouragement / advice. It was all immensely helpful and I hope I didn’t come across as complaining about things too much.

daily distance: 10km
total distance: 13,355km
riding time: 1/2h (it was fun) 

It was bike fixing day … or at least I hoped it would be. The day started out dull and grey and with what I thought was snow on the roof of the next house. It wasn’t, but my bleary-eyed negativism made me think so at first. Out with it I decided after taking another look. It was still dull and grey, but it was just some white powder on the roof. Not snow.

Off I went with the bike, pushing myself with one leg the 5km or so to where the bike store was. I had not much else in mind at that point and when I got to the bike store we got to work. The guys liked the bike and the bike seemed to like the derailleur alright. We fixed it on and it seems to be working alright. The bent frame is a bit of an issue, but the re-bending in the middle of nowhere seemed to have done the job. At least for the time being. I don’t want to jubilate too early just yet. So do keep your fingers crossed. After fixing up the rest of the things that needed to be taken care of after the truck and bus rides (breaks, wheels and the like) I was on the bike again and cycled back to the hotel. The sun was just burning away the fog and I was smiling again. Things were on the brighter side of life and it was Spoil-Markus Day. Or so I decided. Well deserved. Or so I thought at least.

And so I set out …

And I wasn’t the only person for whom this city was new … these guys had never seen the steamed dumplings. They refused my offer however.

I milled around and did whatever seemed the next best thing to do. I strayed in places where foreigners probably don’t go and was stared at (I’m used to it by now and let the camera stare back at times).

I’ll call them early adopters …

My straying included lots of food and trying out whatever life threw at me. And there was lots. With my stomach back in shape, things were better on that front too. Instead of telling you all about it, here are some of the more than 50 pictures of today that I posted. For more, take a look at the flickr site. Here are some market impressions …

It was good times to say the least. The city is extremely multi-cultural. People in red robes (you can figure out where they are from), people in other colored robes and many more Han Chinese make for a colorful mix in the city.

Although he wasn’t happy to have his picture taken … (he came after me when seeing me, but I disappeared in some side streets)

And the city is big (and you should view this in larger size, so click on it).

It was a good day and my mood has brightened considerably. I am looking forward to reaching the Yellow Sea (or thereabouts) without however breaking a leg in the process (and taking the bus if necessary once again). We shall see what happens …

PS: I want to thank all of you who sent me notes to cheer me up. These messages make my day and you won’t believe how much they help in what can be frustrating times. So THANK YOU!

Arrival in a new city. I was not looking forward to it and despite the cramped quarters would have liked to remain where I was. The night had been awful … the situation had only gotten worse during the night and my two companions weren’t budging much. But we got to Xining and I was not looking forward to fighting another battle for a hotel. I had to I guessed. Short of moving on to Lanzhou (another four hours by bus) I dind’t have much of an option.

So I got my stuff, checked my bike and headed out. And there was this moment … they just happen every now and again. I put my bags on my bike and just then I felt that I didn’t want this to be the end of the trip. That I wanted to move on. This lasted for only a bit of time - but despite the shortness it was uplifting. I headed out and was turned away a few times and then found a place. It was time for a long, hot shower. I considered sleeping a bit, but decided that I was hungry and might as well scout the city for something to eat and a derailleur. The first one wasn’t a problem. We got in at 6:30am and now it was 8:00am because it had taken forever to find a hotel.

I was also looking to extend my visa. The PSB office was easy enough to find. On the way I already saw plenty of uniforms.

But the office was closed. What? I knocked. An old man spoke good English and said that I would have to come back Monday. What? It’s closed? But it’s Friday! No, said the man - with a bewildered look at me. It is Saturday and it won’t take long to do the visa. Maybe one day. That was good news, so things were looking up. Finding a derailleur was a bigger issue. I looked long and hard, was sent this way and that way. It was cold and I was still tired and didn’t feel like looking around for long. I was just about to give up when I by chance happened upon a bike store. I had seen none at all before and here was one with new road and mountain bikes. And they had Shimano derailleurs on them. Good. Do you have a derailleur without the bike? The guy looks at me blankly - then pulls out a very low end derailleur to my great delight. This was what I needed. I told them to keep it under lockdown and that I would come by the next day as they were closing things down.

Will be back tomorrow. Then more food over which I talked to a local agriculture professor here in Xining. Some more internet time and then I turned in. Xining will be get a more apt description tomorrow, suffice it to say that it is large enough to not only have one, but at least two of these …

I will stick with the yummy local food though.

Well, I slept well where I was. I really did and woke up early. Or so I thought and then realized that the bus would be leaving on Beijing time and I was still on Xianjiang time. Two hours difference. But all still doable. I got up and dressed, headed to the bus station. 

Not without buying things for the ride and then off things went. It was a sleeper bus … as it was going to be a long ride.

And the area was beautiful, but would have been difficult to ride through at this time of the year. There was little water around and whatever there was would have been frozen. And there were almost no towns. Made the Taklamakan look like a very populated place. There was oil exploration and all sorts of extraction going on. The road was good, excellent and very bad. And it turned out to be a much longer ride than expected. It went overnight.

And the night was ugly. There were too many people on the bus and being in the last row of beds, they placed two more people in our row, making it five altogether. Having been by myself for the last months I felt a bit squeezed. Squeezed by one side with a person you are close to is not an issue. But the two guys on either side seemed to want to gang up on the puny foreigner and basically lay on top of me at times. Which caused some not so good-natured wrangling from my side after pleading with them at first.

The long ride also did nothing to uplift my spirits and the temptation has, if anything, only become great. Bag it and head to Beijing. Then I try to rationalize things and come up with a plan. See how much you can fix in Xining, get your extension and then take it from there.

daily distance: 18+3km
total distance: 13,345km
riding time: 3h (doesn’t really matter)

This is disaster day … of sorts. It wasn’t a good one and it may be a longer post. We shall see. It started out alright. The weather was stunning when it had become light. The night … not so good. Feverish for most of the night, but OK in the morning I decided to give things a go. As I am typing this … maybe I shouldn’t have. But I felt fine then and things were OK.

Breakfast with Feng and Lee … and then it was back on the bike. Slight cloud cover overhead, but good times really.

The first few kms went really well. The road climbed perceptibly, but things were moving along. The road was in excellent shape and there were no complaints there at all. Not sure how long it will last though given that there isn’t that much asphalt.

I motored on, still doing pretty well and enjoying the deep blue skies up here after the mostly hazy desert stretches. It was cold and extremely windy, so much so that it caused me to crawl up the mountain more than anything else. But all was good.

Then, after taking the first real break disaster struck big time. I had pushed a bit harder as it was steepish and the wind came at me when the chain came off with a clonk and what I heard didn’t sound pretty. It looked and was even worse. Here is the result:

On the left side you see the rear part of the bike from the bottom and you can see that the frame is actually bent. I can’t have caused this on my own and the derailleur (pictured on the left and broken) had been shaky from the start since Kyrgyzstan after the Sary Tash events. The idiot that rode my bike must have banged it up much worse than I had thought. When you click on the pictures you will see what I mean - I am adding notes to make it clearer. This was it then for the tour … What happened was that the chain got sucked in and caused the derailleur to move up with the wheel and … snap. That should not happen with a derailleur in good shape, but this one wasn’t up to par any more. The worst thing though was the frame that was bent. And with it the hanger for the derailleur was no longer in the right place. All of this was going through my head … as well as the thought that the tour was now over.

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of things for a few minutes. Wait for a vehicle and hope that one would come soon. Walk up the pass and finish it up. It was only 10km to go. I was about to pack up and do just that when the first vehicle came by. Large SUV, but not enough for the bike as they had a full load of passengers. But they left me bread and just as they were heading out, there came another car - a little truck which could easily take all my stuff. The bike shared the back part with ducks and all sorts of other stuff. The driver was a maniac, but there was little choice and I only found out on the way. There had been less than 10 cars all day in both directions, so I was happy to have wheels to get me someplace at least.

Here is that someplace. One of the most ugly places that I had been in  and I wanted to get away. Easier said than done. After assessing the damage and seeing the bent in the frame was bad I decided to try to bent things as best as I could and see what I could do. I would need a new derailleur and that I would only be able to get in Xining. Or have one sent from Gundula who had already scouted one for me close to Beijing. So that was an option. The question really was whether the hanger would hold up or not. I had no way of knowing until I put a new one on. So, with a big pair of pliers I put the frame back as much as I dared without gonig too hard at it. Ugly affair, but what the heck. Can’t be helped. The way it was it couldn’t stay. Sort of worked. But then out of there ASAP.

As I said, easier said than done. I waited for hours and hours. I had cramps again, but in the end - after having been refused by a number of people going to where I needed to get to - I was picked up by a crew of people that had a motorbike in the back of their pickup. And the bikes and I shared the bed of the truck as the cabin was full. 80km in the wind with the sun setting and on a bumpy road. Good thing I had a good jacket. The landscape was more desert hemmed in by high snow capped mountains on both sides. Beautiful really. Would have loved to ride that bit. But it wasn’t to be.

Then, the search for a hotel was on. It should have been easy, but it wasn’t. Every hotel refused me again and again. This was with the help of the guys that took me along. It was frustrating. I was cold and miserable. Then they wanted to give me the Deluxe Suite for EUR 100 and that was the only room that was still left. I refused and left and said my thanks to the guys as they had to move on and had spent an hour with me looking for a place. It was always the same. Do you have a room? For you (meaning my Chinese friend)? No, for him! NO!!!

I was about to head out and then went to the police station and complained. Said that things were full in the foreigner hotel and the others wouldn’t take me. This went back and forth for a while until there were 4 policemen in the room. Including the head huncho. He asks for my passport, can’t make out where I am from. What difference does it make? Alright, we head to leo.dict.org and start the translating business a bit. Then he calls his friend who speaks English and wants to know why I am in the city and the like. Interrogation. Not standing up for that. In the end I leave and decide that I will find a place in a hotel or one for myself somewhere in this city. As I was heading into the first hotel a police car comes up behind me and the four policemen muscle past me into the hotel - they were extremly forthcoming. The first one was full - one goes next door and says no prob, they will take me. Aha … the power of the police here. I was sorted in the end. Had a place to rest and put my head down.

There were lots of thoughts going through my head … most of which surrounded cutting the tour short and whether that would constitute some kind of failure on my part. I must admit that I don’t feel like going on right now. It seems really, really tempting to bag up and head to Germany. Let China be China - not for me. And I have so much to do before heading to Miami - classes need to be prepared, I need to move my life there and having nothing at all … all really tempting. That bus to Xining and then a train to Beijing … we shall see.