Guangxi to Hong Kong

Left Guiyang following the Motorway. Which is legal in China if there are no minor roads in place, e.g. for routes leaving a major town. But sooner or later all slow traffic is meant to leave, or made to leave. Not this time, which enabled me to enjoy 140km this day on excellent, smooth road, with very few traffic and just occasional climbs. The first part of my itinerary took me along a nice river to Guilin, passing the "Dragon's Backbone"-rice terraces at Longshen. Guilin is just another big city, but touristy for the famous karst rockformations and the Li-river. My original plan was to do a cruise on this river to Yangshuo, hopefully being allowed to take my bike with me to aviod backtracking. But it turned out pretty quick that some things one imagines are not so easy.

After having checked in to the Youthhostel I went down to see the travelagent next door. The girl was nice and supportive but told me that it would be very difficult to take the bike with me as the transferbus would be full and the jetty would be far away. So I left to think it over and had some dinner. Shortly after I had ordered a young chinese woman with a tall german looking guy came along. They where obviously looking for a place to eat, so I made eyecontact and offered them to have a seat at my table. It turned out that he was a german Programmer and she a medical doctor from Guilin, now living in Germany. Good thing: they more or less told me straight away that they also want to do this cruise and that they where looking for people to join them to reduce the costs. As this was in my interest, I agreed.

1st rule in life: nothing is for free.

Was I relieved in the beginning that she was doing the negotiations with the travelagent, it soon started to become annoying. Calling the travelagent all the time, taking care to meet the schedules, trying not to get ripped off. And so it went on until the end of the cruise some 20 hours later (the cruise started 10am the next morning and lasted until 8pm including bus-transfers). The cruise turned out to be a shorter one then in summer, as the river didn't carry enough water, which led to a traffic jam in the end, as all the bigger shipped had to que to get through the bottleneck.

The next day I continued on to Yangshuo, 65km on flat and smooth boring road. Yangshuo is a tourist trap of the finest: packed with americans, western food everywhere, cheap overprices crap, ordinary chinese women prostituting themselves (hello, do you want massage, sex?), petty crime and every second place lonely-planet recommended. Honestly, I don't have a clue why people spend a lot of money to go and they in places like this. The surrounding scenery might be nice, but how can it be enjoyable when the entire place is fake and a rip-off? Might be perhaps the same thing as with gyms: People tend to rather spend big money to go to a gym instead of simply stepping out of their door and enjoying the real world for free...

The place sucked so I left the next day. Some more climbs, meeting the Pearl river and follow it to Guangzhou - 2 more weeks and I will be in Hong Kong!

Once again I have been lucky and found my way into Guangzhou without much trouble. And that is not so easy with lack of decent maps - it definitely helps to meet a group of chinese locals on upper class touring bikes with brand new ortlieb gear! I expected Guangzhou to be "just" a mega-city, but it turned out that almost the entire Pearl-river area, from the outskirts of Shenzhen to Macau, is occupied by urban and mostly industrial area! 15 million people, as I've been told! To have an impression what that means, one should walk the shopping streets at any time of the day.

After hanging out for a few days I left for the final leg to Hong Kong. Arrived in Macau at noon, I decided to not to stay there and carry on to Hong Kong by ferry immediately. This was mostly after I have asked a cop for directions. He helped me, but also mentioned that cycling was not allowed on the street, lacking a bikepath at the same time. Also no space for pedestrians. It didn't bother me much, as I learnt to ignore traffic rules during the last couple of months. But after having a ride in town and seeing the casinos I asked myself what this place would have to offer for a tourist like me anyway.

Arrived in Kowloon after nightfall, found Nathan Road and the notorious Chunking and Mirador Mansions. After accepting an offer of an indian guy to just have a look at his hotel ("you come just have look my hotel cheap price very safe no problem") I found myself having to make my way back out of the place without the assistance of the guy, after I didn't take his room...

Found the USA-Hotel in Mirador Mansions by accident, which turned out to be the best bet for cyclists traveling on a tight budget. Dorm room, reasonably cheap, reasonably clean and a balcony on the 13th floor where to leave the bike attached to the handrail. And a good place to meet people! The owner is a bit greedy though, but everbody is in Hongkong, where everything is about money! Anyway, just relax, smile and you are winning!

As I said, Hongkong is about making money and therefore the Center (Hong Kong Island and Kowloon) is very busy. Packed with people, heavy traffic, shopping malls everywhere. In most places I would find that quite annoying. So many people, hectic, shop till you drop. But not here. Hong Kong is different. It"s alive, it's pulsating, it never sleeps. Anf then there is the notorious Nathan Road. Especially the lower part with the already mentioned Chunking and Mirador Mansions which are within themselves Microcosmoses. Many hotels inside, restaurants, mostly indian and pakistani (my favourite food by the way), moneychangers, tailors - I just love the atmosphere there. Negative aspect of Hong is that it is very restrictive, which you can tell by omnipresent signs saying what one is not allowed to do and what the penalty in case of violation is. But still, I found the mood by far less oppressive as when being in Germany. It felt like that, there are certain rules, and one has to obey them. If caught violating one or more one has to pay. Whereas in Germany the communities provoke violations to rip off their citizens because of their chronically broke households.

Well, the money provides good living conditions in Hong Kong for everybody whereas the german government still has to learn that the politics of recent years is obsolete and a new way of thinking - socially and economically has to be introduced to replace stale attitudes.

Having said that, one can imagine that I am not very keen on going back. But I had to on 4th of January - at least for a few months. Hopefully not forever...

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