Day 228, 14th January Tan Mai - Dam Ha - Tien Yen I sweated so much last night that my sleeping bag was soaked this morning. All of our tents were wet too due to the high humidity. We said our farewells to the farmers who’d let us free-camp and were on the road for ten. Me not feeling fully up to strength, probably due to that home-made hooch last night, and having to stop to rest regularly at cafes along the road. It was difficult ordering veggie stuff, so strangely enough, I just decided not to eat and bought one [View Full Entry]

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Day 226, 12th January Qinzhou - Jiangping - VIETNAM - Mong Cai - Tra Co My guts weren’t much better this morning, but after a quick email check, we were up and on the road for 10am. The idea was to get as close to the Vietnamese border as possible somewhere along the coastal road, and then camp. As we sped along the empty roads though, the general consensus was to reach the border at Dongxing and cross it today. At about 4.30pm, we reached the town and located the narrow muddy river that is the actual border. It looked fairly [View Full Entry]

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Day 223, 9th January Zhanhjiang - Suixi - Shankou - Zhakou PHOTO UPDATE: Check out the last 6 blog entries, I’ve stuck some new pics there which I’ve just digitalized from my slides…enjoy! It was a similar sort of day to yesterday, the other guys think we’re in front of them, though. The weather was warmer and I was happy to have shaved this morning using my cooking pot as a makeshift sink! After about 50 miles, we left Guangdong province and entered Guangxi province via a crazy town. The near perfect road just deteriorated immediately into the bumpy surface [View Full Entry]

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Day 220, 6th January Xinhui - Kaiping - Enpeng - Yangjiang Awoke at sunrise to a soaking tent due to the early morning mist from the nearby river. Shook out my boots in case any of the snakes had decided to set up home in there, then Stephane and I packed up our tents and set off for breakfast in Xinhui for a nice plate of egg fried rice. We carried on afterwards the 20 miles to join the 325 rout, a fairly busy road with a cycling shoulder which was a bit rough in places. The route took us through [View Full Entry]

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Day 218, 4th January Macau Had a great sleep last night, even though it was a bit noisy being in the room by the stairs. It was strange because there was a gap at the bottom of the wooden walls, like in a toilet cubicle, which helped the mice to scurry from room to room un-hindered. We got up and wandered the strrets to find some good bread for breakfast, then used the net to see if there was any more info from the guys - no, so I left a message with our planned route so that we could meet [View Full Entry]

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Day 214, 31st December Hong Kong I slept till mid-afternoon then picked up my wages from the Jackie Chan work off Michael. This time it was HK$1000 due to last night’s filming till midnight. As I sat at the hostel table recounting stories to the others about the past week, another surprise happened - a package came from Kathryn. It was full of chocolate goodies, Christmas crackers, and Marmite…Yum! I did a bit of shopping later, emailed again, then got ready for a night oot wi’t lads. We’d earlier made a contact with a guy from the hostel, ‘Azure&rsquo [View Full Entry]

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Day 207, 24th December Hong Kong Scott and Nick had sobered up somewhat and were apologetic for their behaviour last night. We got our Chinese visas through from Mr Chan’s daughter, then went shopping and email checking. At the ‘Poste Restante’ department of the post office, I picked up a Christmas card from my parents and a letter from Kathryn with some photos inside. Went over to Hong Kong island on the Star Ferry with Rory to check out the Vietnamese embassy and returned on the MTR. Seems it will be no probs getting visas. We checked email again and saw [View Full Entry]

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Day 205, 22nd December Tangxia - Shenzhen - HONG KONG - Lo Wu - Tai Mo Shan Today we cycle into Hong Kong after pedaling 2,200 miles southwards from the Mongolian border. We woke with high spirits, packed our bikes, said “Bye” to the secret policeman at our door, and were on the road to Shenzhen at eight. We had a brief breakfast stop and were crossing the border into the ‘Shenzhen Special Economic Zone’ at ten. I was surprised to see that the SEZ was sealed off from the reast of China by an electric fence and guarded by watchtowers. [View Full Entry]

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Day 202, 19th December Renhua - Zhoutian - Xinjiang Had a great sleep, however I found it very difficult to get up. Rory was feeling better after his projectile activities, so we went for breakfast noodles at a café next to the hotel. We were all ready at ten, and headed south out of Renhua on our trusty bikes… It was a warm day with no rain. The landscape was bizarre - dotted with huge knobbly mountains and then hills. Some had sheer sandstone cliffs, and some were shaped like penises which caused a bevy of laughs. The road was good, [View Full Entry]

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Day 199, 16th December Shuikou - Guidong If yesterday was one of the most idyllic, well, today was one of the most spectacular and toughest. It didn’t rain again today, and it was a good job too as we did a 12 mile climb up a dirt-road though spectacular bamboo forest. We rode up and up, into clouds, and out of them again till we were above them in sunlight. It took ages, hairpin bend after hairpin bend. And then when we thought we were at the top we saw the road winding even higher up the sides of the mountain. [View Full Entry]

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