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Angela Smith
Finally retired in January 2008 and in March set off on a cycle trip from Paris to Beijing, run by the French national cycle touring organisation, arriving on 3 August. I moved from Essex to Kent just before departing on the big ride and am getting used to country life. Grannysmith
Travel Blog Posts
August 19th 2008
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
August 12th 2008
Thursday 24 July - Luo Yang to Jiyuan, 69 km For some reason I was slow this morning and was last to leave. When I went down to the hotel’s underground garage there was just one lonely bike left. At least it was easy to find, usually it’s just one blue bike among 100 blue bikes! Today’s was a very boring ride, all on main roads, mostly flat. The pollution and traffic was quite bad, though not as bad as yesterday’s. We cycled through a villtage where the local industry was making hideous pottery animsls - the whole street was lined with them. Gil’s tyre exploded, which was a bit disconcerting. Hermina and the blue van came to the rescue with a new tyre. Shortly afterwards the blue van’s rear tyre exploded - a hole in ... read more
July 25th 2008
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
July 23rd 2008
Thursday 10 July - Lanzhou to Dingxi, 106 km Quite a hilly ride today, but quite cool and cloudy. We climbed to a tunnel, which we went through in groups with vehicle escort. We had our picnic at the tunnel exit, then descended to moderately hilly country for the rest of the day. Harvest is in full swing here. Since the agriculture is in little fields and terraces most of the work is done by hand, though every possible kind of vehicle is used for transport. There is a lot of haymaking and stacking. Wheat is cut by hand with sickles and stacked in stooks. Threshing is either by rollers or by hand with flails, or sometimes the wheat is left in the road for the wheels of traffic to run over and separate the grains. ... read more
July 19th 2008
Thursday 3 July - Zhanghye to Shandan, 63 km A horrible day. It rained in the morning, not hard but enough to put a rain jacket on. The countryside was mostly desert, the road was good and flat. We arrived at the outskirts of the town and were directed into a building site which should have been our campsite. After a long wait we moved into a gym alongside, which was quite fortunate as there was a lot more rain in the afternoon and evening. Lunch was a picnic at our own tables and stools - I ate my own food. Set up my bed in the gym and just lolled around bored. Read a bit, played 2 games of chess with Christian Roche, lost both although he gave me 3 pieces in the second. Dinner ... read more
July 19th 2008
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
July 19th 2008
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 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 big ... read more
July 19th 2008
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
July 18th 2008
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
July 9th 2008
Wednesday 11 June - Karakol to campsite, 78 km (610m climb) Breakfast in the courtyard, rather disorganized; bread and their very runny jam, then some cheese and butter arrived, then last the hot water for tea and coffee. There was meat soup that hardly anyone wanted. Today was not a nice ride - the road surface was bad in many places, and the last 30 km mostly very bad. There was a head wind some of the time, too. The road was quite hilly. I got very tired and hungry and stopped and ate my supplies, but then a few km further found everyone had stopped for the official picnic, as the lorries with the camping equipment had not arrived. Hung around a long time, had a walk down to the river. The landscape here is ... read more
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