Ride 4, Sanjiang – Zhaoxing, a 2-day trip

As said before this ride would be 100km, so a long journey. Therefore I woke up a little earlier than normal and got ready to leave. When I was eating breakfast there was a Chinese family there that was also traveling. They asked me where I was going and in return I asked them and I was surprised to hear they were heading to Guilin. I told them I came from there, so we had a short conversation about it (as my Chinese is still not good enough for a long talk).

The road started really easy as it was more or less flat. After about 20km there was a decent climb, but still not very tough. The view was again beautiful, cycling along the river in between hills. The last few days it’s also been much quieter on the road, so often I can really enjoy the silence and the occasional chirping of the birds.

Now and then I cycled through a small village and I noticed more and more people were wearing the traditional clothes from the Dong minority. Both men and women wear black trousers, a blue shirt and sometimes a white headband.

Last time I mentioned many people always play cards, but here almost everyone I see is working. Most people work on the farmland, as it’s harvest season for rice. They’re cutting the rice plants, then removing the rice grains by putting it into a machine and then the grains are separated and put in huge bags. You see this happening everywhere along the road as the Chinese farm every little bit of land which is available.

After the rice has been harvested it needs to dry (for an x amount of days), so they lay the rice to dry on the ground or on big plastic sheet, and this happens everywhere. I’ve seen many basketballs courts filled with rice or just by the side of the road… or actually on the road. Then they make a small roadblock that takes up one side of the road.

After about 75km I had just passed Longe and I saw a group of people sitting in their rice field eating lunch. I don’t know why, but I stopped along the road and started to drink some water, when one of them shouted “chi fan le ma?” (have you eaten? = a common way in China to say hello to someone). I replied I did, but I decided to walk to them anyway. When I got there I sat down and was immediately offered a big piece of watermelon, great! They didn’t speak any English, but I talked a bit with one of the younger boys. He and a few others were from Guangzhou (one of the big cities in the south of China) and they were here to help their parents with harvesting the rice. Although I had already eaten lunch they kept offering me to try some of theirs, so I gave in and ate a little more :).

After a while I was thinking about leaving, because I still had 25km to go, but the boy I talked with asked me if I would like to stay for the night and join dinner with them. Well, that sounded really nice, so I said I would love to. As they were about half way cutting all the rice he told me I could watch them and wait till they were finished, but I said I would like to help them to cut the rice. He laughed and asked me if I really wanted to… yes of course as I had never done that before! So I was given a hat (with a nice pink ribbon) against the sun and a really sharp knife to cut the plants. He showed me how to do it and I followed him. At that moment I felt amazing as I would have never thought that morning I would end up working in a rice field later that day.

After a while though I stopped as I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt and the rice plants cut my legs and arms which was very itchy. He had already explained that to me before and that is why they are all wearing long sleeves and pants, but I had insisted to try it anyway.

At the end of the day they had harvested about 30 bags of rice which they don’t sell, but eat themselves. Then they drove home and I followed them on my bicycle. They lived in a small house in an alley. I was offered a shower (luckily, because I sweated like crazy that day as it’s still really hot here). The shower was very simple, a tap and a bucket with warm water, but it didn’t matter to me as everything would do as long as I could wash myself.

A bit later it was time for dinner and I could join a big table with just men. I’ve noticed this before that often women don’t join the same table and sit somewhere else or just besides the table. Anyway the food was great and of course I was offered several beers which tasted great as I hadn’t drunk any beer for almost a week.

After dinner the boy asked me if I wanted to rest and then he explained to me that there was a small hotel just down the road. In the beginning I had thought I could sleep at their home, but a hotel will do as well of course, so he showed me where it was and I thanked him for his hospitality and we said goodbye. Such a nice experience and it shows again that Chinese are so hospitable, I think this will be very very rare in Holland or any other place in Europe.

The next day I took it easy in the morning as I had only 25km to go, although I did know there were 2 big mountains, but still how tough could that be…

As I left town I saw the family from the day before, getting ready for another day of work at the countryside, and of course I greeted them. The first 10km were quite flat, but for some reason I had some difficulties with it. It’s always tougher in the morning when you have to get into that flow of just cycling and not thinking about anything else. But today it didn’t really go like that, so I almost wished I’d had continued the day before.

Anyway, I noticed that today I was cycling in the valley as the road was right next to the river. Most of the time there’s still quite some distance in height between the road and the river, but not today. But this changed quickly as the road started to go up the mountain. It was a decent climb, but I felt ok. Only this time the road kept on going up and up and up. And soon I looked down into the valley from far above. Luckily the climbing stopped, but this wasn’t for long as soon it went up again and it felt that it was even steeper than before. I started sweating like crazy as it was really hard work, especially with the burning sun. And this sweat started dripping in my eyes which is really not pleasant.

Along the climbing a small motorized tricycle came by, but just ahead of me its engine died. The driver got out and asked me to stop and help him. Of course I did and he asked me to grab a big rock and put it behind one of its wheels, so it would stop rolling down the mountain and he couldn’t do this himself as he had to hold the brakes of his vehicle. When the rock was in place he got on, started the engine again and drove off after thanking me. But after just 500 meters the same happened again and almost laughing I drove up and helped him out again. Luckily (for him) it didn’t happen again after that :).

After about an hour of climbing I finally reached the top and I could see Zhaoxing all the way down on the other side of the mountain. So the hard work of climbing was over and the next part was just going down and holding my brakes all the time. But because of the warm weather they started to squeak a lot so every 2-3 minutes I stopped and let me brakes cool down. Unfortunately I didn’t have much water left as I had drunk everything going up the mountain. So it took a while to cool them down, but it gave me some time to enjoy the scenery and take some more photo’s.

When continuing downwards I started to look out for small pools of water or flowing water near the rice fields, so I could throw some of that on my breaks and it helped cooling them down much faster. Before I had already noticed that several trucks have installed a system along their tires/ brakes which sprays small amounts of water on them to cool them down… very genius!

And then finally after about 3.5 hours (only 25km though) I had reached Zhaoxing and thinking back to the day before I was really happy I was invited by that family as doing this climb after having already cycled 75km would be a bit much I think.

Zhaoxing is a very small town of about 700 people, it’s a little touristy, but it still has the feeling of a traditional town. There are a few restaurants with English signs like “western food, wine, pancakes” and some of them even have English menus. But people don’t speak English, although many people do greet me with a “hello”. Many women still dress in their traditional clothing and wear their waist length hair in an 8-shaped knot fastened by a comb.

The first night I spend in a small hotel completely made of wood. The stairs squeaked a lot, but it has a nice feeling and it’s really cheap, only 30 RMB per night. A small problem was though that with the key given to me I couldn’t open the door. Unfortunately the daughter who helped me check in had left and no one else was there. So I sat outside and waited for someone to come back. After a little while an old man came and he lived here to (probably the grandfather). Of course he didn’t speak English, but he also didn’t speak Mandarin, so I couldn’t explain to him what had happened, so instead we waited together. Then finally the husband came. Unfortunately his key also didn’t work, so he climbed through the window of the room next-door through my bathroom window and opened the door from the inside. He noticed the lock was broken and told me to wait while he fixed it. In the mean time I went outside for lunch and afterwards checked my email on their computer. Then he came to me and showed me he changed the lock, so now everything was ok.

This little hotel is in the middle of town and is next to the main road. In the afternoon I sat outside, enjoying the atmosphere and reading a bit of my book. It’s great to just sit, relax and see what’s happening. As it’s harvest season of the rice, also here they are drying rice everywhere. Besides rice, there’re also a lot of red peppers and some cotton laying in the sun. During the day it’s a bit quiet, because of the heat, but around 6 o’clock there’s a lot more happening as it cools down. People gather their rice, put it back in big bags and carry it home. Others bring out small stalls and sell some simple food.

The second day I didn’t do much. Although I did change hotels as I found another one which was just 10 RMB more, but it had wifi. Wow… even the hotels I stayed at before in the bigger cities didn’t have that. There I had to use the computer provided in my room and the disadvantage of that is that I couldn’t use Facebook or download movies, so I think the 10 extra kuai are really worth it!

During the day many old, retired men and several women spend their lazy afternoon at one of the drum towers or bridges in town. These function like gathering places and provide some shade from the burning sun. And as I didn’t have anything planned, I sat down at one of the drum towers and started reading my book.

Almost all women there have a kid to look after and let the kids have a nap and sometimes take one themselves too. The men hang a bit, smoke a cigarette, or play some games. A life that’s easy to get used to, so I decided to stay here a bit longer :).

On the third day I went for a hike as there are several villages nearby which should be nice to visit. And instead of cycling up the mountains like before, today it was walking. It’s actually a bit easier, though slower, but the advantage is that I can get off the road and walk through the fields, etc. After a while I walked past a woman and greeted her. She in return started talking and while walking up the mountain we had a nice chat. She lived in one of the villages and had gone to a different city to buy some stuff.

After a while her dad drove by on a scooter and picked her up to take her home. Then she told me it was easier to take a small path next to the road which led through some rice fields and later some trees to one of the villages. So I followed her advice and after a while I got to the top and was in the tiny village Jitang.

I walked around a bit and I noticed the people here are exceptionally friendly. As normal all the kids greeted me with “hello”, but also many adults greeted me here, while normally they only do so if I greet them first. I wandered around and took loads of photo’s of the drum towers, old wooden houses and the views over the valleys.

At the end of the day I decided to stay one extra day to finish writing my blog and to post my photo’s on Facebook.

As usual, here’s the link to the ride I took:
http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/50754218


@ Miran – valt niet mee hoor om zo vaak wat te schrijven, maar maak een hoop mee dus als ik er de tijd voor neem gaat het aardig rap. Je weekend is alweer bijna over helaas… hoe was het? Veel plezier in Portugal straks! xx
@ mam – heb nu 3 dagen niet gefietst, dus hopelijk kan ik er morgen weer helemaal fris tegen aan. xx