Day 6: Zhaoqing to Qingyuan

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Our favourite breakfast dish is turning out to be Chinese Donut, a soft yet crispy fried thing that is totally unexciting apart from the fact that we dip it into chilli sauce. HOT chilli sauce!

We started the day with a 1-2 hour drive out of town. Several of us took the opportunity to snooze during the drive. All this cycling and eating is making us tired! (Actually, I suspect that people are just staying up late doing stuff on the Internet!)

By the time we got to the starting location it had started to rain, and quite heavily at that. Only three of us were brave enough to face the weather, wrapped in wind and rain jackets. The bikes don't have mud flaps so the water from the front wheel flicked into my face while the water from the back wheel watered my back. After riding through the first big puddle my socks got totally wet. After that, I was as wet as could be so I didn't have to worry any further.

The scenery was lovely, much as I had expected for the tour. We passed innumerable rice fields, with farmers digging up the ground using mud-ready tractors. The main difference is that I imagined dirt roads, whereas there were very good roads. On the quieter roads, there were mostly motorbikes and bicycles.

Oh, one thing I learned about Guangzhou - they have apparently banned motorcycles there due to high crime rates involving motorcyclists stealing handbags and driving away. Heavy-handed, but it works!

We rode through a town just as school finished for the day and mixed-in with the crowds. I got wonderful looks of amazements from locals unfamiliar with foreigners riding through their town. Many schoolchildren called out "Hello!" to us.

One township had particularly bad roads and we had to ride around potholes, puddles and a corner that resembled a swimming pool. I saw a shop with cages, no doubt housing chickens, and at the front of the shop they pulled-out a de-feathered one for eating.

Lunch was a picnic under an awning (still raining) and it was much to my liking - peanut butter, banana and sultana sandwiches with berry-flavoured Oreos. Some school girls around 9 years old watched on as we ate, but they were too shy to have a photo taken. So, I pulled out my iPad and showed some family photos. Before long they were zooming and sliding the photos, fascinated with pictures of strange animals in Vanuatu and the silly antics of my children. They even started asking me questions in pretty good English and I finally got my photograph.

The rest of our group then joined the ride as we headed to Qingyuan (the Q is pronounced as ch). The rain eased up and we managed a total of 73km today. I witnessed several riders having near accidents with cars doing strange things. Vehicles simply do not give way here, even to other vehicles. The one who honks the loudest seems to win.

The most difficult part of the ride was right at the end, where we had cross a 8-lane road on a pedestrian crossing. The fact that it had striped lines made no difference to drivers, who kept on coming. We kept an eye on the locals to see how they crossed, and it seemed to be based on the fact that there are fast cars and slower motorbikes. Once the cars are gone, the motorbikes are easily dodged.

I had a loving shower, scraping off the mud from my legs. I threw my socks and underwear into the rubbish bin rather than figuring out how to wash, dry and store them. At least my bag is getting smaller!

After dinner I had a walk around the area. I asked the reception here at the Jawa Hotel for a map, and was given an umbrella (!?). This proved handy since it was still raining rather hard. Our tour leader tells us there is a typhoon at tomorrow's location, hence the bad weather. So, more underwear will die!

I bought some fruit for breakfast tomorrow - some apples and bananas. I had no idea of his price, so I handed the lady ¥10. She didn't look satisfied so I pulled out another ¥5 and she smiled. So, the bunch of bananas and 3 large apples cost about $2.50.

The residential buildings around here are a mixture of 7-storey older blocks beside 30-storey new blocks, with the newer ones taking prime place along the river. The view out of our hotel window and across the river shows dozens of large residential blocks. There's nothing like this population density in Australia.

The beds in our hotels have been getting progressively harder. In this hotel, it feels like a cardboard box spread over wood. Graham apparently slept ON TOP of his doona to try and get some softness into his sleep.

Let's see what tomorrow brings!

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