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Published: April 3rd 2012
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Date: Tuesday 3 April 2012
Having to date only witnessed strange traffic practices, today was our turn to be part of them.
Breakfast at the Canton Hotel was notable mostly for some more interesting Chinglish signs, such as "Suspend in use" (Out of Order), "Potato and sweet corn in farmhouse" and "Oat steamed stuffed bun".
Our group assembled in our biking gear and we headed out in our van for a 2-hour drive out of the city. There were myriad expressways with astounding traffic manoeuvres, and our driver got lost a couple of times even with the help of a GPS navigation system. Once we reached our official starting point, we discovered that it had turned into a building site so we continued a few kilometres to a clear site and unloaded our bikes from our truck.
During our ride, the van will drive ahead to mark our way at intersections while the truck will stay at the back in case of any mechanical or human problems. Frank, our tour leader, rode with us today. He says it is to lose the weight from his tour trips to Tibet where he eats too much!
Several of
us adjusted our bikes and attached pedals, gel seats and various GPS devices. I had bought a Holux GPS unit from Taiwan for $70 on eBay, which would record the journey for later playback in Google Earth, while also giving speed and distance information while riding. My brakes, I discovered, screeched like a banshee but our truck driver / mechanic didn't seem to consider it worth fixing.
The ride was split into two parts. First, we rode along the Xi River on a levee that reminded me of the dykes in Holland, with water on one side and farmland on the other. The group of 7 riders split apart due to delays in getting started, but we had each been given a directions sheet with instructions such a "Granary on left" or "Meet at ferry dock on the right". Unfortunately, the three of us at the back didn't see the other riders at the ferry dock, so we kept riding. My iPhone showed that it was the correctly named ferry station, but our truck driver told us to keep going. I was a little concerned so I phoned the tour leader in the front pack and he assured us
to going. Fortunately we found them again, indeed at a ferry stop, but it didn't match the riding directions. From then on, I decided to ride at the front of the pack.
We crossed over the river on a vehicular ferry and had lunch at a restaurant on the other side. The restaurant had a deep pool with fresh fish ready for consumption, together with a turtle and small eels. We are now learning to tell the difference between various styles of Chinese food, such as Cantonese style or minority style. Thoroughly sated, we continued the second part of our ride along busy, wide roads. This led to some fun, such as turning at an intersection where the lights were with us but other vehicles still turned across our path. Then there was the car that drove in the wrong direction on a divided road, and our riding the wrong way down a service road where Graham faced off with a bus. After that, we moved to the footpath rather than fight the oncoming cars, bikes and motorcycles.
We soon turned off into a lovely mountain area with plenty of greenery and found the Song Tao hotel, where
we will be staying for the next two nights. It is on Fairy Lake. Near Longxiaogong. Once in our room I joked to Lyle that we should check for wifi, and imagine our surprise when he found a signal! I had a great-quality FaceTime call back home, even showing the view out of our window.
After a shower we regrouped and headed to the Seven Star Crags Scenic Area but it had closed for the day. We will visit it tomorrow instead of a normally-scheduled visit to a Kindergarten because it is now the April 4 holiday period and schools are shut.
A bit of leisure time, a group dinner and back to our hotel, all of us looking quite exhausted at the end of just our first day of the trip!
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