What grinds a cyclist's gears and screws out tears

---

I couldn't believe it. It really wasn't there. For a micro second I was convinced Ced was horsing around when he yelled out "Your bike's gone...". Stuffing the last dumpling in my mouth I ran out of the little restaurant we were in to see a blank empty spot where my bike had been. I could have choked if the jiaozi hadn't been so juicy. A little over 3600 kms of pedalling and the worst crisis so far brought about by our cyclist's greed that strikes each time we enter a large well stocked town.

After 4 days of cycling around the rather remote rice terraces of Yuangyang and another day of hard pedalling through the tin mine zone of the Honghe perfecture we finally pulled into Gejiu to greet our first big Chinese city in days. Rows of restaurants, bakeries and shiny supermarkets welcomed us and whetted our greedy guts. The previous night had been spent in coal smog infused Khafang and the hotel we'd stayed in overlooked another large noisy tin mine. The toilets were far from pleasant, being just a hole in concrete on the second floor. I really didn't dare to figure out where all the debris dropped to. We slept and scooted off as soon as we could the next morning preferring to relieve ourselves in the wide outdoors. A few hours of steady pedalling and we were descending down to Gejiu overjoyed to see a fairly modern clean town.

We sampled each food joint on the first street we passed. By the time we reached the end of the road the though of a last round of dumplings tempted us enough to leave our bikes outside and pop in to eat sitting instead of wolfing it down standing by our bikes. I guess it was the courteousness and friendliness of all the people we'd met along the way that got us careless. Hesitating for a second whether to go through the trouble of locking the bike and the deciding it was unnecessary as we could see the bikes from where we were, we sat and concentrated on munching.

Reaction to shock is always preceded by milli seconds of awful silence. The mind goes blank. I slumped down and squatted on the pavement. Cedric grabbed his bike and pedalled down the street hoping to catch up with the thief. I guessed he went the wrong direction cause that didn't help. A small crowd gathered as the owners of the restaurant questioned by passers if they'd seen anything. It was a fairly busy street. No one had noticed a thing. The police were called and the first car came in minutes. I had recovered a little by then to uselessly rant details of the loss in English. We were told to sit while they tried to get in touch with the local English speaking cop.

Inspector Zhi arrived with a big good natured smile that matched his portly figure. "And was your bike as muddy as this one?....Ha! Ha! Ha!" was the first thing that left his mouth after being updated on the case and surveying Ced's mud splattered bike. I had to grin as I nodded. "Don't worry we'll do our best to catch the thief. We have cctv cameras posted at all street junctions and Gejiu isn't too big a city. Cigarette?". As I murmured my polite refusal the cigarettes were proffered around till all smoking males had a glowing stick between their fingers. Passing cigarettes seems to be a ritual courtesy and declining the offer if you do smoke is not very polite and could cause the one offering the cigarettes to "lose face", an aspect of Chinese social etiquette that I would accost frequently.

Unable to follow the Chinese floating around we just sat as we'd been asked to while looking on helplessly at the police take long drags of their cigarettes. Each new arrival was followed by another round of cigarettes passed around. If it wasn't for all the green tea they drink I guess most Chinese men won't live very long with all the cigarettes they smoke. So we sat in silent frustration till Inspector Zhi suggested we move to the police station to file our report after which he dropped us in his car to a hotel where he furiously negotiated a good deal for us. Unable to even take a shower as I had only the dirty salt encrusted clothes I was wearing we decided to revisit the scene of the crime and do some sleuthing ourselves in the numerous small lanes between the tall high rise buildings that make Gejiu. That's how we met Peter.

Peter was the only foreigner in town and was really surprised to see other foreigners in the rarely visited uptown area. He was on the way to dinner with a young Chinese man keen on practising his English. Michael Stone was the English name he'd chosen for himself. Michael seemed thrilled to meet more foreigners and used all his 18 year old persuasive enthusiasm to convince us to join them to go home for dinner. He seemed rather unperturbed by the story of our loss and finally won us over by his rather acute observation "You won't find your bike standing here so join us for dinner". We relented.

After dinner with Michael and his dad we tagged along with Peter to the English Corner by the Gejiu lake and there met his wife, a hyper-energetic Chinese lady called Ming. Many Chinese folks are pretty keen to learn English and so most towns have a small informal gathering of folks in English Corners where they meet and try to converse in English. We met a lot of really nice people there and very soon everyone was clucking their sympathies at our story. That's where I met Suli, an attractive lady in her late 40's. I noted her slim athletic build and also her practical subdued clothing, a rarity in extremely fashion conscious Chinese lady circles. But it was her eyes that caught me. Eyes that seem to reflect a muted sadness even though they'd crinkle up with laughter lines with the smile she mostly had on.

We were lucky to have met the folks we did as it took our mind off pondering our loss. I was carrying the hard disk with all the photographs of our trip so far with no back up. My ipod with over 20 Gb of music I had painstakingly collected over the years was also gone with every thing I currently owned; my underwear, socks, sleeping bag, tent poles, clothes, jacket, tooth brush....I spent a rather sleepless night. The next morning we woke up to Michael who'd come over to pick us for breakfast. He'd arranged for us to meet Suli as she had some things for me. I was touched to find Suli had spent the evening rummaging through her cupboard to find clothes for me. We'd decided to head directly to Kunming where we had Arun, an old dear friend of mine waiting for us. I just wanted to get out of the town to stop dwelling on the theft. Afraid I wasn't suitably warm enough to face the cold spell in Kunming, Suli had put together some leggings and a jacket along with a few other knick-knacks.

The police hadn't still hadn't received any leads as the cctv records turned up blank. The thief had been really sly or he'd just loaded the bike in a van. I was resigned to not getting my bike back. Ced and I spent a long while rationalising our loss and being grateful we were safe and still together. The day passed with our new friends and I received another bundle of clothes and assorted gifts from Peter and Ming. I nearly reached a point of almost being happy my stolen bicycle brought me in touch with these lovely people. Otherwise Gejiu would have been just another faceless city we'd have been happy to pass through without any thought as we tended to avoid cities except for indulging our tummies.

That afternoon Suli and Michael dropped us to the bus station for the Kunming bus. As we sat there waiting I had a personal moment with Suli as she told me about bits and pieces of her life in slow halting English. Where words failed we used sign language. I slowly figured she had a daughter but lived alone. By then Suli had more than shown her deep empathy for my loss. Spending time with us was a way of her trying to make up for the wrong that happened to me in her city. A few minutes before boarding the bus I summoned up enough courage to ask her about a husband or partner in the picture. I knew it was an emotional subject as I saw her eyes mist up even though the smile remained.

It was a slightly awkward for me when she struggled for a word for awhile before giving up and clutching her throat and hanging out her tongue to make a croaking noise. She giggled once she saw comprehension dawn on my face. Unsure of what to say, I stammered out an apology which she gaily shoved aside. "I cry many many last year, so now i look old woman, but no more cry now...it's ok". As it turned out her husband died in a car accident while on duty at his military posting in Beijing last year. He was taken to the hospital alive but passed away just as Suli made the long flight across the continent to reach just a few minutes too late. Her story made my tummy lurch.

Here I was moaning my material loss with a lady who'd taken my loss so personally and there she was, still grieving but ready to help out strangers with an open heart. It hit me deep. Slightly embarrassed but grateful for it, I could only squeeze her hand. The talk shifted to how to load Ced's bike in the bus but I couldn't stop reflecting on life's many gifts and small losses we tend to linger on. After we waved our byes I sat brooding life the 5 hours to Kunming.

Arun was there to greet us with his Buster Keaton impersonation. It was a delight to meet him after 3 years. He'd followed the Stillwell road from India through Burma to China researching material for the book he hoped to write but disappeared into Kunming's twinkly lights with hardly a word about what he was upto. I guess I was to find out but the first things I was informed and warned of was his latest Buster Keaton obsession which often spilled into rather exhibitionist public displays of crankiness. I tried not to be embarrassed till I didn't have to try any more. It was good to see him.

Arun made sure we were back into some heavy weight socialising and merry making to distract us from any moping we might have succumbed to. We took a trip to Dali where he was organising a concert. Days that left us hung over but happy. It was good to enjoy the company of merry folks after months of travelling and passing through places. I was very happy to see him jabber away in fluent Chinese and that made me realise the things I did miss simply travelling through places and picking up only random phrases. It's partly the reason I'm here now trying to learn Chinese.

The party continued for awhile and while I still sighed now and then about the future of our journey I was happy. Ced caught the flight back to France to settle some business and I carried on trying to write while meting new folk. Till one day, 2 weeks after the Gejiu incident I recieved a call I didn't expect.

"Ha! Ha! Ha! Miss Jacoba, we found the thief but he sold your bicycle and most of your things but we'll try to get them back for you. Catch the nest bus to Gejiu...". Again it was a few seconds of blankness before the news sank in. I whooped in delight surprising a few of the standoffish backpackers nearby and scurried off to share the news.

To end, they did find my bike which had been sold for 70 Yuan at the flea market which was all the junkie who'd stolen my bike had managed to wangle from a farmer who'd bought it. My bags and clothes were retrieved from the garbage dump outside the thief's house and I got back most my things except the tent poles, ipod, hard disk drive, sleeping bag and a few other things. The cops celebrated with me. I was picked up from the station, chauffeured around the city and back to my hotel and we had a huge Chinese style lunch as well. Of course I didn't pay or else the cops would have "lost face".

Also in case I didn't mention, I've gone down in Gejiu history as the first person to have gotten a stolen bicycle back. No wonder my story merited a front page cover in the next day's paper.

---

Photos

Descent from Xinjie, Yuanyang
Over 100 km on rough hewn rock roads...it rattled us proper

Descent to Hong He River
...only to climb again across the river to Khafang and Gejiu

Ascent toward Khafang
The road swung left but the climb was as much

Giant Palm fringed old road to Khafang
On the old no longer used road to Khafang

Tin Mine Sludge
Apart from the rank smell of coal fumes the streams reek of the same and look pretty bad.

Doggie in a Basket
10 mins before bike gets whacked

Dinner at Michael Stone's
Ced, I, M's dad, Michael, Peter

Poster that never got posted
Recieved call just when friend was helping me translate contents to Chinese

Front Page Debut
Mr. Zhi and me inspecting retrieved camera. Smart fellow deleted images though. Oh and I was on Gejiu TV too.

Comments

[surabhi]

wow
pearly! how amazing. the story as well as what you are up to... glad to have access to your journey and your thoughts along it! keep writing xo

[Michael]

haha
haha,great,I was in there>~