Wednesday 30 July - at Shijiazhuang Got the hotel IT team to sort out the Ethernet connection so I have internet! Lots of emails today. The programme for 3-5 August has changed radically from the printed one, we will be doing less tourism and will be in Beijing for only 2 nights instead of three. Another economy measure, no doubt. In the evening there was a tremendous rainstorm, which rather changed my mind about eating out! Ate in the hotel’s “pizza bar” which was mostly Chinese with some rather odd pizzas (several with fruit) and some very greasy spaghetti. At least we had red wine. Thursday 31 July - Shijiazhuang to Dingzhu, 75 km Boring, flat, hot and humid as usual. Pollution as usual, too - everything obscured by a grey mist. We stopped at a ... read more

Thursday 17 July - Xi’an Lots of people have arrived for the Xi’an-Pekin part of the journey. Some of them are cyclists, including a large contingent of teenagers, and some are wives and girlfriends of the Paris-Pekin group who will be travelling by coach and doing tourist things. We feel a bit overwhelmed, after being an isolated community for four months across so many countries. On Thursday I woke up late and dashed down to breakfast - a very good buffet - and was in time to get the tour bus at 8.30. Before going down I sent a load of washing to the hotel laundry: I phoned down and the girl arrived to collect it in about two minutes! We went first to the Small Wild Goose Pagoda, which is set in lovely gardens where ... read more

Friday 20 June - Jinghe to Kuytun, 184 km A long day, but fortunately on good smooth motorway all the way, not a lot of wind, and it was cloudy so not too hot. The group I was with stopped every 25 km and that worked well. Picnic after 115 km at a service station - the only shade available. From the supplies offered I took an egg and a banana, bought a yoghurt at the station shop and an energy drink. ( These are labeled “15 nutritional elements” and are a sort of flavoured milk drink - or maybe soya. They are available everywhere.) After lunch I cycled with Paul, still quite fast but he slowed down for me on the uphill bits. Average speed for the day was 21.6 km/hr - excellent for me. ... read more

Thursday 26 June - Dunhuang to Anxi, 122 km We had good road all the way today. I somehow managed to leave last in the morning, but Claude and Christian stayed behind with me, which was nice of them. My back tyre was soft and I pumped it up but over 20 km or so it went down again. However, it lasted all day in this manner. Lunch was at a toll point at 98 km, there were makeshift shelters and ladies selling melons. I bought one and shared it round at breakfast next day. Until this point there was no shade at all - just desert and occasional irrigation channels. There was one of these just behind the lunch stop and some people bathed in it. I just put my feet in. We reached a ... read more

Monday 16 June - Jarkent to Quingshuihezi, 69 km. Entry into China. Didn’t eat much breakfast. Collected a camelback and filled it with water as we will not have the blue drinks van after the border. Collected my passport from Brigitte. We stopped twice on the way to the border to wait for the vehicles. They had to take Karl for an ultrasound and it took longer than expected. Fortunately it showed he just has an infection, he will be off cycling for at least two weeks. At the border we crossed out of Kazakhstan quite easily, as did the vehicles. At the Chinese frontier we had to fill in forms but it wasn’t too complicated except that Jean-Jacques had some irregularity with his visa and had to wait behind. We ate our picnics at the ... read more