Monday – Day 10: Gaoding to Longsheng

This morning our route rises and falls for 10km bringing us to another monster 11km (500m) ascent. This is followed by a fantastic 9km descent before the road flattens out. Longsheng county is famed for Longji rice terraces (Longji Titian), known as ‘The Dragon’s Backbone’ by the locals, entire mountainsides have been transformed into rice fields creating a dramatic landscape like great chains, or ribbons extending from the foot to the top of the hills. This maximises use of the limited arable land and water resources in the mountainous area.
The Terraces were first started in the Yuan dynasty and finished in the Qing dynasty by the Zhuang people and look as if they were sculpted into the mountainside. The Longsheng Hot Springs, known as “a heaven of peace and happiness” and “paradise on earth,” are the centrepiece of the national park. Bubbling out from the rocks halfway up the mountain, the hot spring water is completely clear and contains many trace elements. The water is good for drinking and bathing and believed to have healing powers.

Accommodation: Guest House
Cycling distance: 104 km
Meals included: B, L, D
Morning profile-

Sunday – Day 9: Zhaoxing to Gaoding
We head across the border to the remote Dong village Gaoding in Guangxi province, tucked away in the mountainous area bordering Guizhou and Hunan. Our day begins with a 10km steep climb, we then journey down for 15km into a narrowing valley, passing-by unspoiled Dong villages and wind and rain bridges to reach a pass on the border between Guizhou and Guangxi. Our scenic route passes through beautiful tea fields that characterise the valley. After a further flatter 10km we have another 10km ascent before dropping down in to Dudong for 7km. We continue north to Gaoding our destination for the day. The village retains its traditional character with wooden buildings, six drum towers and farm animals wandering freely along cobbled streets.

Accommodation: Guest House
Cycling distance: 48.5 km
Meals included: B, L, D

The afternoon here was pretty uneventful, I had a large cold beer (3.6% ABV) in the lobby purchased from the small store across the street for $.70, sat and watched the life of this village go by on the street just steps away. As the sun went down, the traffic slowed to almost nothing, and the streets seemed to be taken over by kids yelling and screaming and playing and laughing and just having a grand time running up and down. Somehow reminds me of the days when I was a kid in Oakland, kids were out in the evening playing in the street and nobody thought anything about it, it was the normal thing to do. Somehow I think it’s a little different in the states now, but here the kids prevailed on the streets after hours…

Chu took us to dinner at a friend’s house, a man he’s known since middle school. He and his girlfriend cooked us dinner, it was a fantastic meal! Very similar yet different from everything we’ve had so far; fried Anaheim peppers, beef and potatoes, tofu and Red peppers with pork, fried greens, pork with bell pepper, steam rice, and of course rice wine! After several toasts with the host, we all had a very nice time at his house! The house, by Western standards, was very small and simple, but the meal they cooked was very tasty and they seemed as happy to have us there as we were to be there.

One last philosophical comment… Being here, as with much of Asia I’ve seen, reminds me that most people are happy to have what they have. I puzzle that in my mind somehow in comparison to Americans who, for example, would take a perfectly good working and functional kitchen, completely tear it out and spend thousands upon thousands of dollars replacing it with the newest version of the same thing; simply because the original was “dated.” That contrast of affluence vs what is necessary is interesting to me…

Photos tomorrow…

A massive 6k climb started our day leaving Zhaoxing. The weather is perfect for me! Warm enough that when you stop cycling for a break and are completely wet, you don’t get chilled at all. I love the warm weather!!

We stopped at another Dong village, this one was small and very interesting. Their main Central Square area had a performance stage, but just beside that was the main water source for the town, using water to its greatest potential. Let me explain…

Above the square about 10 steps, was where the water actually spilled out of a pipe from a river up above, and this would be the place for you to get your drinking water. About three or four steps below that, there was a small pool where water was collected that came down from the drinking source, and this was used for washing vegetables and food. Another three steps down from that, another pool that was used for cleaning yourself. The final pool that is much larger, a collection pond for fish. The stream out of the fish pond led down to the terraces and it was then used for growing rice. Essentially five layers of use for the same water source, pretty smart and efficient!

As we rode on from that village, we were on a concrete one-lane road that was a very nice running up through the valley paralleling a river for many kilometers. It was more jungle like then most of the riding so far, and I saw many spiders, praying mantis, grasshoppers, several dead snacks, and almost ran over the tail of the snake as it slithered across the road in front of me. No monkeys, though!

The end of today’s ride was 8k of very rough downhill. I’ve talked to people who say that they prefer off-road to on-road, but I don’t think most of them right 60 or 70 km a day… I certainly prefer a smooth surface! Kind of like preferring a road with a clean shave vs stubble… 😄

Today we also left Guizho province and entered Guanxhi province. We are in Goading, a dusty little town. By far the least pleasant hotel, my room is acceptable and always thankful for hot water. However the bathroom, sink, and squat toilet are all combined in a very small space. If you take a shower, and you get shampoo on your head and you can’t open your eyes, you must not move your feet lest you land a foot in the squat toilet!!

We are somewhat excited about tomorrow, well anxious I guess because it’s the longest day of the entire trip at about 108 km, but at the end of the day we will be in Chu the guide’s home village, and he has invited us to his house for a snack or dinner, I’m not sure which but we will see his house and meet his family. Very kind of him to do that!

Six more days of cycling, it’s been a great trip so far, yet I have moments when I wish it was over and I was back in the modern convenience of the Western world… There are certainly more (than fewer) people in the world less fortunate than I… But in knowing that; I think that’s one of the reasons I tend to appreciate my incredibly fortunate life perhaps more than other westerners might…

One last general thought about this ride… The corridor that we are traveling on is dominated by a massive four-lane highway project but I’ve mentioned before. I saw it being built when I was here five years ago, it is scheduled to open sometime next year. Once this opens, this region will change dramatically. You can already see it happening, massive housing projects being built along the highway, primarily for people now living in the country who wish to move into town and achieve the middle class ideal that is quickly developing here. China is an incredibly prosperous place by any measure you can see, and 10 years from now this region will be likely unrecognizable from its current state. I’m glad to see it now…

Last note… Nobody else has a mosquito bite. I have about 20. What’s up with that??? Grrr…

I am unable to upload photos today because I don’t have Wi-Fi, but will upload tomorrow night with today’s photos.

What a gift to have a rest day on these trips! We rode for six consecutive days, this is the only day off, we ride for seven consecutive days after this.

Zhaoxing is the largest Dong village in the area, and it has developed a lot in the last few years as a world heritage site destination. There is a large cultural center here now, there were about 20 separate rooms dedicated to each important component of Dong life and culture. Rooms for history, birth, death, eating, building houses, weddings, making clothing, making rice wine, pretty much every component of traditional Dong life was addressed. It was very informative, the only museum type place we’ve visited that had English captions as well as Chinese. Dong make up .22% of the total Chinese population.

Of note on our morning walk about town, there were two large pigs slaughtered under the drum tower just across from where we are staying. You could hear their last squeals clearly. An unusual thing to hear… As we walked down toward the gathering, the pigs were already being butchered open, it was fascinating to watch that process. A true reminder of where food actually comes from… (Standing joke is that Dong People eat everything from the pig except the squeal!)

All of the food was being prepared for a funeral celebration today. It has been going on all day, it started with the butchering, hanging the meat, prayers for the dead, lots and lots of fireworks going off about every five minutes, and traditional music being played, and now the meat being cooked over open fire. The fireworks are holy shit loud, and they haven’t stopped all day! Thousands and thousands of firecrackers going off all at the same time, and then larger louder single booms in series of three. Fascinating to see how death is celebrated in different cultures. And the general rule here is that if you died a natural death, you are put in a wooden coffin in a burial area, usually above ground. If you died an unnatural death of some sort, you are generally not allowed to be buried in the traditional burial ground and you will be cremated.

The other thing dong are known for is indigo fabric. The process is to grow indigo plants; you take the shaft of the plant and keep it in water, eventually the color comes out as deep blue dye. Fabric that is woven by the people here is dyed 4 to 5 times in this indigo dye to make it an extremely dark, almost black bluish color. Then it is pounded with wooden mallets until it becomes shiny and iridescent; sometimes egg white is added to make it even more shiny. An interesting process, and the fabric is used for all the traditional clothing, pants, shirts, coats, hats, etc. Detailed hand stitched embroidery is added to give the clothing a bright and festive appearance. You’ll see in some of the pictures below some fabric hanging to dry, also some buckets with indigo dye in it. Very interesting process…

Also in pix below, the drying bushels are sticky rice, a particular rice well developed over 1000 years by the dong and is a main staple of their diet. Their motto is every meal has something sour (fermented), sticky rice, rice wine, and tea!

Wandered around town a little bit, now back in the room for a brief respite, maybe close my eyes for a few minutes… Some pictures from here…

I was unable to post anything for a couple days, so this one will cover three days. Life has been like a roller coaster lately. I have been experiencing lots of ups and downs. You know… HILLS!! Me so funny!! Anyway, after you regain your composure from the laugh riot my joke surely caused, reading below are the official trip summaries of each of the days. I will follow each of those with some comments…
Wednesday – Day 5: Rongjiang to Diman

Ronjiang is lively in the mornings with a busy market. Stallholders sell fruit, vegetables, local sweets ‘Jaoizi’ and bowls of steaming food such as red bean soup. We cycle on from Rongjiang towards Diman. After a flat start for 7km we tackle the first of 2 big climbs. A 13km (400m) challenge. For the next 22km the road inclines then rises again towards our second 12km (450m) of increasingly steep ascent.

We finish the day with a steep 5km drop into We enjoy fantastic views, timeless scenes, and undulating road. We may hear the sounds of traditional music wafting across the countryside from a reed flute or traditional drums. This evening is one of the highlights of the trip as we are amongst the first tourists to stay in the village of Diman. We will receive an authentic warm welcome from the community.

Me: Diman was a mystical village, very old, very traditional, very nice. What struck me at this place; of all of the many places I’ve been fortunate enough to travel, I’ve observed variations in pacing. You know what I mean, how fast Americans move, thinking they need to accomplish something all of the time, go shopping, or whatever. This village definitely had a much slower pace, of course it was a farming village. But you could just feel the absence of the outside world imposing on their way of life, something unusual in places that most tourists visit.

On our arrival, I noticed a few of the local sitting on the steps of a closed small business there, right on the main town square. This is a small square, not a grand one by any means, just a large open the flat space. Have to be laundered and showered, we went to a place that I had seen on the ride and two old men drinking cold frosty beers. We went to that place, they weren’t selling beer there but she pointed across the square, to a shop with had to be a 100-year-old man running a small store, but he had a cooler full of extremely cold beers! It was a grand moment to find those, for all of sixty cents, sit with my biking gang on those same steps as the old men I saw earlier, watching the village go by at its own pace. Special…

Paul and Bill have desired a handmade wicker basket shaped kind of like a shoe, it’s purpose is to hold an iron scythe that all of the farmers and such carry around, tied around their waist with this basket at their back. On our walkabout, Chu the guide was with us, and we came across this very friendly old farmer and his wife. He had one of the baskets hanging on the front of his house. Paul and Bill asked Chu if the farmer was interested in selling it. But what they really wanted was two, so in conversation with Chu, the farmer offered to check with his friend if Chu came back in 30 minutes, he might have two for them to purchase. He did, and Paul and Bill are now the proud owners of handmade wicker baskets to hold an iron scythe, emblematic of all the farmers and the Chinese countryside. (Fast-forward two days for the moral of the story, as we arrived in Zhaoxing and we walked along the village river to our hotel, I saw the exact same items for sale here for about the same price they paid the farmer! Of course the ones here come without a story attached…)

Thursday – Day 6: Diman to Liping

Bidding farewell to our hosts we take a road out of Liping that follows the river downwards for 150m over 23km. We cycle this section of the route without vehicle support as the road is not accessible to vehicles. We rejoin our support team before starting to cycle our only long climb today. It’s a 7km (450m) steep haul before we’re over the peak for a 43km (550m) descent, taking in a few wee bumps before arriving into Liping.

Accommodation: Guest House
Cycling distance: 72.9 km
Meals included: B, L, D

Me: Li Ping was a pretty big town! I’m pretty certain the hotel we stayed in was the same one that I stayed in 2008 when I was cycling in the same area. We wandered around for a while in that town after we arrived, found a large market, with fruits and vegetables and dead animals and live animals and dead fish and live fish and every imaginable food item.

We had intended to eat for dinner, but that was unavailable at the last minute because there was a Dong traditional singer conference occurring in town and they had most of the hotel booked. But the neatest thing was before we went to dinner, there were several of the Dong singers in the lobby, all males. One of them tried to strike up a conversation with me, I really didn’t understand a word of Chinese, nor did he understand a word of English. I attempted to use Google translate to ask him what job he had, and asked him to speak into my phone. When he did, he unexpectedly sang the most beautiful song you might’ve ever heard a man sing! It was joyous and high-pitched and full of lilting notes, it was fantastic and perfect! Needless to say, I wish to hell I had recorded it, but I was not doing so because I was asking him to speak words not asking to sing a song. While I didn’t record the song electronically, it is certainly in my brain, and a beautiful song I will remember for some time…

Friday – Day 7: Liping to Zhaoxing

Today we cycle on towards Zhaoxing on spectacular quiet road with 2 mountain pass climbs, to begin and end the day both of which are short and steep. On the hill tops truck drivers make stops to refill with water and local women sell traditional crafts here including embroidered slippers and painted scolls. Our approach to Zhaoxing takes us through rice fields etched in the hillsides and we will see the famous Drum towers.

Accommodation: Guest House
Cycling distance: 71 km
Meals included: B, L, D

Me: Much of this ride is on an old road of extremely varying quality that was the original road running between Guiyang and Ghuizo. There is a new superhighway being built, portions of it already open. Much of this old road is deteriorating, but that is the road we are riding on.

I will relay one of the funniest moments of the trip so far for me. I was riding along a reasonably flat portion of the road today for quite some distance at a very good pace. Sometimes you have legs to go fast, sometimes you don’t. But for this portion, I did! Bill, the Aussie, came up behind and drafted me for several kilometers. Of course I knew he was there the whole time, and at some point I made a comment to him about all the work I was doing on his behalf. About then he said “If you ride in the center smooth part of the road, it’s like gaining a full gear!” But this is the difference sometimes between what is said, and what is heard. You all know what I mean… What I heard was “It sure is nice riding behind and drafting you, I should buy you a beer!” When I told him what I heard versus what he said, we both had a pretty good laugh with that!

Zhaoxing is much more touristy than I remember from five years ago, but still a really cool place. It is a Dong village, but also a touristy town with tourist amenities. Had a gin and tonic tonight which was a true treat, but that is absolutely the first gIn we’ve seen since Guiyang! Very nice place, but this is truly the very first time we’ve seen any other Western tourists our entire trip!

Tomorrow is a day off here, it will be great to be off the bikes and to wander around this interesting place. Legs are doing great, body is sore, but happy to be alive!

Some pics from the last three days…

It’s just after 9 PM and I can barely stay awake! Today was a very tough long day! 72 km, about 45 of which were over hard rocky nasty dusty difficult road surface! One flat, one broken chain, no bruised egos…

We were delayed by almost 2 hours by a group member making a bad decision against reasonable logic, ended up going the wrong way. We got to the hotel much later than planned, but this day is done and a new one starts tomorrow.

Tomorrow will be lots and lots of uphill for 60K, but at least the road surface will be smooth!

Random items from today…

Item 1: Chinese people eat everything! From our guide: “Chinese people eat everything with four legs except for tables. Chinese people eat everything with two legs except for people.” (This is so true!! You can see in the markets that every part of the animal gets used for something and it’s all for sale. I could name a few unusual pig parts I saw for sale today, but I will let you use your imagination…

Item 2: Hacking and spitting. Need I say anymore? Well I will… It is incredible the amount of deep seated loud acrobatic hacking and spitting that goes on here by both men and women! That’s all I have to say about that…

Item 3: One child policy. China was criticized 30 years ago as I recall for enforcing a one child policy on parents, but in retrospect it makes good sense. You can actually have more than one kid, it’s just that you pay huge fines to the government if you do. We had a conversation after dinner with the guide about this.

Item 4: Prosperity! With the amount of construction, and in a town like Rongjiang, and the number of stores with modern items available, it’s very clear that there is a lot of wealth and growth of a very strong middle class here. It would behoove anybody with children to think about having them learn Mandarin!!!

Item 5: Road construction! Miles and miles and miles of road construction, most of it done by hand, wheelbarrows, and troubles with a few pieces of heavy equipment here and there… Pretty amazing to see how hard these people work…

Falling asleep…

A spectacular day of cycling among rice terraces and forests. It was VERY chilly starting out this morning, but eventually things warmed up. But that’s bound to happen when you’re cycling uphill for hours! The road condition was fantastic, the road surface were on couldn’t be more than one year old!

We were cycling through country that is populated mostly by Miao people, you see many women in traditional dress, black clothing with bands of colorful embroidery added to the fabric. I might’ve snuck a few pictures of some Miao women today, but I generally avoid taking pictures of people when they know it because I think it’s somewhat impolite.

If I can get the phone to cooperate, I’ll upload some pictures at the end of my comments here.

Here are some random items from the day…

Item 1: Google translation is fantastic!
So this morning, the hotel was the type where you have an electronic card and the door opens when you tap the card. I accidentally left the card in the room on the way to breakfast because I sat down to breakfast, we were right in the street and it was breezy and extremely cold! I had to run back up to the room to get some more clothes, and that’s when I left the card in the room. As I’ve mentioned before, it is extremely rare to find anybody who speaks any amount of English here, so I used Google translate to ask “I left my key in the room, can you open it for me?” The guy behind the desk read it and understood immediately what my problem was, called somebody on the phone to meet me at the door to open it. So there is a direct purposeful value of the Google translate app!

Item 2: Chinese Prickly Ash
We’ve all noticed here that in the soups or dishes sometimes there’s this little chewy crunchy item that when you chew it it will make your tongue numb. Somewhat like a fresh clove will do but much much stronger. We were all laughing about it because Bill mentioned it first, but the rest of us had the same experience and just hadn’t mentioned it. Turns out it is something called Chinese prickly ash, it’s a small seed pod, looks somewhat like a black peppercorn before it is pulled off of the plant, and if you bite into one directly it is immediately apparent that your mouth will go numb for a little while! An amazing natural topical anesthetic.

Item 3: Miao women are TOUGH!
It is very common in Asia to see women working their asses off, and frequently the men are nowhere to be seen. Or sometimes even worse, they are to be seen standing nearby drinking tea or something like that… Anyway, at one of our rest stops today, we were pulled off on the side of road and there was a trail that went nearly vertical down some hill. We were very surprised to notice that suddenly two Miao women popped up that trail with huge baskets on their backs carrying a huge bundle of an edible root. They were absolutely tough! And I mean tough looking too, the kind of looks that you’ve seen in a rooster that’s very old, tough, hard-faced, grizzled, the kind of person you know has worked for a long time… Maybe a bad metaphor with the rooster, but it’s the one that came to mind for me…

Item 4: Market Day
In the town that we stopped at for lunch, it was market day, which means people from out of town bring their wares, and line them up on the street, so lots of stuff for sale. I’m always amazed at the animals that are available, live pigs, butchered pigs, live chickens, live dog sometimes, but then you see a table where a pig has just been butchered, and the parts are available for sale.

In fact where we ate lunch, not 2 feet behind where I was sitting was a large bucket of pig entrails from a pig that was butchered shortly before our arrival there. It sounds brutal, but in this context it’s completely normal and seems okay somehow, not like if you saw it in the states.

So here at my hotel room, it’s about a 1.5 star hotel, I have to leave the window open because I need to get my laundry to dry, but I’ve already been bitten by a mosquito that I can’t see! They’re extremely small here, you don’t see them, completely unlike Alaska!

It’s getting to dusk here, that’s when the mosquitoes are always the worst. In the background I can hear kids yelling outside, people talking in the streets; large trucks, motorbikes and cars going by, often honking as that is the standard here. I can hear lots of fireworks going off behind the building I’m in, not sure if it’s a new year celebration or just something random.

As usual, I will meet the group for dinner, we will eat somewhere that the guide picked. He has mentioned tonight will be a hot pot, which will be a giant propane fired wok full of soup like broth with meat in it, and then you add vegetables and greens as you wish, cook them up a little bit and grab them out and put them in your bowl. Usually very tasty! I love that the greens here are generally picked the same day, not like a grocery store or especially unlike Alaska where everything green was picked and shipped many days ago…

That’s it for now, I will try to upload a few pictures from today. Having a nice time, it’s days like today that remind me why I love these cycling trips!

The first half of today was driving to our starting point about 3 1/2 hours. Along the way, the magnitude and scale of growth, infrastructure building, high-rise residences, new roads, tunnels, high-speed trains, it is incredible how much stuff is being built here! Mind boggling!!

We finally met our bikes at lunchtime, had a bowl of noodle soup and hopped on after that around 1 PM. 42K on the bikes today, but it felt more like 60, lots of uphill!! Only 740k to go! We ended today in Leishang. It is a much newer city of about 30,000 with a very aesthetically pleasing look, unusual for most Chinese towns. At night, all of the newer buildings are lit with the intention of pleasing lighting. There is a lake that meanders ( can a lake meander?) through the middle of town, and a huge square and plaza where much activity occurs in the evening. The Chinese tradition of large groups of women dancing in the Square in the evening was very apparent here, very interesting to watch and clearly the sense of community here is very strong. My observation is that China is a very cohesive culture, much different than the melting pot the US prides itself on…

Our dinner tonight was very tasty, including fried greens, shredded potatoes, spicy beef, bamboo shoots, and two kinds of tofu. All very tasty!

Regarding the riding today, with five of us in the group, everybody is in pretty good shape, and I think we will be reasonably well matched and generally travel pretty quickly each day. Of course who knows who will still be pedaling well after three or four consecutive days…

Tomorrow is 58K, plenty more hills as well… I hope it warms up a bit, walking around in the evening was long pants, and three layers on top. We are on early start tomorrow, 7 AM breakfast and 8 a.m. on the bikes.

Sorry few pics, China Wi-Fi problematic for uploading them…

I probably spent four hours today walking around, went to a small museum, wandered around Main Street, sidestreets and a few alleys, lots of interesting things to see. There is no shortage of fresh fruits, vegetables, and unusual animal parts for sale…

We all met up at 7 PM; myself, Paul, Rebecca, Bill, and the other addition to the group Ian from outside of London. Also Bobby, our Chinese guide. Had a nice dinner, seems like a good group though I’m a little concerned that other cyclists aren’t very prepared for this trip. This trip is 800K in total over 13 cycling days, some seem that they’ve hardly ridden this year at all!

Bobby lives about 600k north of here, has a car repair shop. Apparently car repair is slow right now because he’s guiding this trip… After our meal, we got briefed about tomorrow which includes a three hour transfer, then on the bikes in the afternoon for the 45K day.

I must say that I love having a smart phone with live mapping on it, you can find any path you want on the map and never get lost. Bill and I wandered out after dinner, walking down some side roads and came across a little alley bar called the hobo bar. Like everywhere here, we are absolutely the only Westerners to be seen, but we walked in and had gin and tonics which was such a treat because that is so rare to find here!

Had a nice chat with Bill, he’s about six years older than me, has already navigated the retirement jungle a bit, so I appreciated his insights on a few things…

Up early tomorrow for the bus ride, we will have lunch and then be on the bikes. Very much looking forward to that!