So here we are, caked with dirt and smelling accordingly but somehow putting our feet up in a 4 star hotel in the center of Dali. Not exactly what we had in mind when planning our trip. The events that led up to this seem to be almost typical during our stay in China- we bumble around with very little idea of what's going on, mispronounce most of the Chinese words we know, are sure we’re headed for disaster, then miraculously everything has a way of working out. This is usually due to some Chinese person putting in a huge effort to help us out. Today it was the man at the printer shop we stumbled into while looking for an internet café. Not only did he let us use his computers but he negotiated a wildly cheap price for a hotel and took us out to dinner. So far it seems as though this kindness and generosity characterizes just about every Chinese person we have come in contact with, unbelievable really.
Our trip essentially started in the industrial Eastern city of Changzhou. We had planned on trying to get out of the east as soon as possible but with problems with transporting bikes, broken down buses, and certain train routes that didn't exist, we ended up spending near to a week in Changzhou. It was lucky we did because it gave us the opportunity to poke around and get a perspective on how quickly certain things happen in China. From anywhere in the city at least 3 or 4 cranes were visible and buildings were being thrown up everywhere. We took a couple of rides out of the city, but both times we failed to fully escape the factory sprawl and were exposed to new smells coming out of the factories. Most would put Rumford to shame and had a sulfurous or acrid tinge to them, and in the short time I was riding through them I could feel my lungs burn. By the end of the week we were dying to head west.
We were prepared for the worst when we finally boarded a bus out of Changzhou. For some reason we were under the impression that the route to Chongqing was to take 30 hours, pretty brutal by most standards. The bus was unlike any I have seen in the US. It was a so called sleeper bus, filled with pod like beds stacked two high and three wide. What space was left was taken up by our bikes, someone's satellite dish, and numerous buckets of concrete. The pods might have been long enough for the average Chinese person to stretch out in, but were far from long enough for me and Ben. The beds were also all different sizes, I lucked out with a longish one while Ben managed to score a 4 foot long torture bed. The ride was like most things in China- rushed, bumpy, and completely unpredictable. By the time we arrived in Chongqing, 41 hours had passed, the driver hadn't taken a break longer than an hour, the bus had broken down twice, driven off the road once, and the lady slightly ahead had thrown up well over 10 times. Despite all this, it was probably the most enjoyable bus ride I have ever been on and definitely the most exciting.
Our trip essentially started in the industrial Eastern city of Changzhou. We had planned on trying to get out of the east as soon as possible but with problems with transporting bikes, broken down buses, and certain train routes that didn't exist, we ended up spending near to a week in Changzhou. It was lucky we did because it gave us the opportunity to poke around and get a perspective on how quickly certain things happen in China. From anywhere in the city at least 3 or 4 cranes were visible and buildings were being thrown up everywhere. We took a couple of rides out of the city, but both times we failed to fully escape the factory sprawl and were exposed to new smells coming out of the factories. Most would put Rumford to shame and had a sulfurous or acrid tinge to them, and in the short time I was riding through them I could feel my lungs burn. By the end of the week we were dying to head west.
We were prepared for the worst when we finally boarded a bus out of Changzhou. For some reason we were under the impression that the route to Chongqing was to take 30 hours, pretty brutal by most standards. The bus was unlike any I have seen in the US. It was a so called sleeper bus, filled with pod like beds stacked two high and three wide. What space was left was taken up by our bikes, someone's satellite dish, and numerous buckets of concrete. The pods might have been long enough for the average Chinese person to stretch out in, but were far from long enough for me and Ben. The beds were also all different sizes, I lucked out with a longish one while Ben managed to score a 4 foot long torture bed. The ride was like most things in China- rushed, bumpy, and completely unpredictable. By the time we arrived in Chongqing, 41 hours had passed, the driver hadn't taken a break longer than an hour, the bus had broken down twice, driven off the road once, and the lady slightly ahead had thrown up well over 10 times. Despite all this, it was probably the most enjoyable bus ride I have ever been on and definitely the most exciting.
Another 15 hours in a bus and we had made it to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan. We had planned on continuing westwards by bus at least to Dali. However, a combination of disgruntled drivers along with being sick of busses led us to decide to ride directly from the center of Kunming. From there we've just been riding, when we get hungry we cook something up, when it gets dark or we get tired we find a place to camp, and when we feel like riding we ride, pretty basic really. The ride so far has been dominated by passing through small scale agriculture on some of the steepest terrain I have ever seen farmed. The farmers here work from the crack of dawn until the sun sets. The terrain has slowly gotten more and more abrupt. What started out as rolling hills in Kunming have become hour long climbs, and looking north from Dali it seems as though the hills only get larger. There really have been too many events to go into detail right now, from food poisoning to fireworks. Hopefully we can get to them in another post, but for now we're headed northwards to the city of Lijang.
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