Linhai

Rice combine

We’ve been meaning to make it to Linhai for some time now, but hadn’t found the time.  Linhai is 70K away (80K by bike) and has what is known as the “southern great wall of China”.  Finally taking initiative, Vicki booked a hotel room and put together some GPS tracks – successfully getting accurate tracks by making a map in Google Maps, overlaying it on satellite images in Google Earth, and then redrawing the actual path before uploading it to our GPS.  While we did ok in Anshun navigating with a slightly off GPS, it was really nice to have such accurate tracks to follow this time!  At one point we took a wrong turn and knew it within 100 ft.

It was a very nice, leisurely weekend.  And the weather couldn’t have cooperated any better – 75 degrees and sunny!  We even acquired fresh tan lines.  We left on the bike at 8:15AM on Saturday morning and took a long route to Linhai so we could visit the Linhai National Geological Park on our way to Linhai proper.  That deviation added an extra 25k to the ride.

Rice combine and wedding
Porsche refueling 

Apparently it was a wedding weekend, so we saw lots of wedding party processions throughout the journey and heard lots of fireworks (they never wait for dark here – they set them off at all hours).  We also saw our first small rice combine harvester (like a driven tractor).  In Guizhou Province, where we saw rice being harvested for the first time, it was largely done by hand – beating it against the side of a wooden barrel.  It is an incredibly labor intensive process.  There were also some farmers there who had small hand-fed motorized threshers.  It was so crazy to see how quickly the combine could harvest a field ~ 200x faster than with manual labor.  It makes us wonder why China isn’t investing more into modern agricultural equipment.  It could greatly increase the productivity of its people.  If only China had fewer Rolls Royce and more combines. 

When we made it to the Geological Park, we were quite disappointed to realize that it was just a Chinese tourist trap.  All it consisted of was a big concrete monument with the words “National Geopark of China Linhai”.  The mountains around us were not even unique.  We have prettier ones outside our Sanmen apartment.  So we ate a few Oreos and jumped back on our bike.  We made it to Linhai about 2PM.  We decided to go straight to the “great wall” using our clothes methods we had refined while on vacation in Anshun – throw on jeans (that had been stuffed in LiLi’s seat) over our shorts and just change our shoes (which were tied to the back of LiLi’s seat).

Linhai Wall

Main entrance gate

Construction of the Linhai wall began in the Jin Dynasty (265-420 A.D.) and was completed in the 1300’s.  The wall was originally 6k long, and 5k of it still remains intact today.  The main tourist entrance to the wall also happens to be the steep section of the wall.  After riding 105K to the wall, Vicki was pretty tired having to walk all of those steps!  Since we had to return to our bike that we left at the main entrance, we decided it wouldn’t be prudent to try and walk the entire 5K.  We ended up doing the steepest part and then exited the wall through a temple that was connected.  The temple had a tree on its premises that was incredibly old –about 1300 years old.

East Lake as seen
from the wall

We then walked the road back to the tandem, bought some cantaloupe on a stick (we never had a formal lunch), and pedaled to our hotel, which ended up being only about 1K away.

The old tree

When we rode up to the entrance to the hotel, the place was packed with people in formal wedding clothes.  And we were wearing our cycling clothes.   Apparently there were three different wedding parties taking photos there at that moment.  Mark weaved his way through the crowd and checked us in.  Two hotel staff quickly came out and helped me wheel the tandem to the security office in the back.  We had requested to keep it there overnight instead of in the hotel room so we wouldn’t need to 

LiLi enjoyed the
drainage holes

decouple it to fit it in the elevator.  The staff was very nice and helpful.  When LiLi and I got into the hotel with our stuff, Mark was just finishing checking us in (it can be a longer process in China since they have to register our passports with the police).

East Lake

After quick showers, we were starving so we headed out to find some dinner.  We ended up at U.B.C. Coffee.  They have a pretty predictable menu with pictures and some English, which is what we wanted that evening.  It was a fabulous meal and we returned to our hotel and went right to sleep.

Line dancing

Linhai wall

The next morning we woke up before the breakfast buffet even opened and downed the bananas the hotel staff had left in the room for us.  While waiting for 7AM, Vicki and LiLi were watching the people in the plaza below the hotel do their morning dance groups, calisthenics, and play badminton.  This is a morning ritual for many older Chinese!  Then, suddenly at about 6:50AM, an area in the plaza cleared and about 200 people who had been doing their own thing a few minutes before formed a large grid and started marching to some Chinese music.  After only a few steps, the leader would yell at them and they would go restart this march.  They must have finally done it right though, because on the third or fourth try, they marched forward to the Chinese music, then suddenly they all whipped out fedora hats (they didn’t look like real cowboy 

At East Lake

hats) and the music changed to American Country Music and this massive group did a very well choreographed line dance!  It was the most unexpected thing we have seen in China.  The National Day holiday just passed, so we have no idea 

LiLi makes
friends everywhere

what they could be practicing for.

We were still hungry though… so we didn’t watch for too much past 7AM.  Whenwe checked in we had been told that there was a Western breakfast at the hotel in addition to the Chinese breakfast.  We were excited about this since we sometimes have a hard time filling ourselves on the Chinese breakfast.  It was a wonderful buffet that included eggs, toast, yogurt, fruit, and coffee.  Sometimes it is the unexpected little things that make you the most happy.

Hiking path

We then headed out to visit East Lake (Dong Hu).  It is a pretty little park just on the other side of the plaza we were looking down on from our hotel room.

We climbed to the
top of this pagoda

After walking through most East Lake, we decided to try to do more of the Great Wall – starting at the other end this time.  So we hailed a taxi and successfully made it to the other end.  After a short walk on the wall (a section not even requiring a ticket), we came to a temple complex with several pagodas.  We decided to go see what it was and realized we had made it to the “Ancient Town” we were planning to ride through on our way home.  The ancient streets actually turned out to be the least interesting thing here.  The Buddhist temple complex was the most active Buddhist religious center we have seen yet.  There were a series of temples to visit and hiking trails that led to a couple of pagodas.  One of the pagodas was even still open to climb up to the top of. 

Fun times for LiLi

Being short on time since we had to check out of our hotel by noon and still pedal 80K home (with a major hill climb on the route home), we decided that exploring the rest of the wall would have to wait for another visit and we went to find a taxi.  We couldn’t find any though and eventually settled for a “bam bam” – a sketchy little three wheeled vehicle.

The bike ride home was largely uneventful.  The local farmers were drying rice on the roads, which would make a two lane section reduce to one.  The roads were not crowded though, so this wasn’t a big deal.  We were more mentally prepared for the two long tunnels this time, which made them a bit better.  While we have a blinking head and taillight, on our way there, the headlight was dim since the batteries were dying.  Additionally, the lights in the tunnel are dim at best and these were 

Concrete resurfacing -
already marred by
chicken feet

long tunnels, one after the other!  There is also a curb that you want to hug, but not bump; because of the dim lights though, it was hard to see the curb, making the navigating stressful for Mark.  When you add crazy Chinese drivers to the mix, it can make it a scary experience.  On our way to Linhai a car in the opposing lane decided to pass another car by swerving in our lane (a normal driving habit – but especially stupid in a tunnel where many locals don’t have any lights on their vehicles, scooters, or bicycles).  The way home was fine though.  We had both lights working and we had a game plan (pedal as fast as we can as Vicki calls out any rear approaching cars to Mark).  While it was a 

Terraced fields

nice bike ride sans these two tunnels, we have a hard time recommending this ride to friends since they are less experienced riders than us, which would make these tunnels a lot more dangerous.  

When we got to the major hill climb of the day, we 

found a crew adding 8” of concrete on top of the existing pavement, which meant it was shut down.  Not quite knowing another easy way home, we decided to push the tandem on the side of the road until we could ride it again.  Thankfully, it wasn’t too far.  Among the cyclists on site, this climb is known as the “tea farm climb” since there is a tea farm at the top.  Few of the riders here have actually descended the backside of it.  It is simply an up and back down the same way sort of climb.  While our normal way up it is very pretty too, the other side of this hill is just spectacular.  It is pretty mountainsides punctuated by crazy terraced fields.    The amount of human labor that goes into farming the mountainside is extraordinary.  It is also a very quaint area.  Cattle are used to help with some of the farming, so it is not uncommon to have them standing on the roadside – or the middle of the road.

Our tandem looks good
at the top of hills

LiLi and the orange
grove owner

When we reached the top of the climb, we decided to take a little break to eat, stretch, and let LiLi walk a bit (not that she complains about riding though!).   We were starting to consider how to ration our remaining food since we didn’t have much more for the way home when Mark realized we were sitting next to an orange grove.  Vicki wouldn’t let him steal any oranges though.  However, a few minutes later, a car comes driving down the dirt driveway next to the orange grove and stopped a few yards from us.  A few people jumped out of the car, opened the trunk, and brought us four oranges!  It turned out one of the people in the car was the owner of the orange grove.  She thought LiLi was really cute and wanted to give us some of her produce.  She also taught us the “proper” way to eat the oranges – rip them in half and then eat the fruit directly off the

Rice drying

 peel.  Before the left, they brought us another six oranges.  We no longer had to ration food!  It was a nice descent down the hill and pedal home.

Us in a traffic mirror.
See how awesome
this hill climb is?

It was really a perfect weekend vacation.  We never felt very rushed, we got to pedal our tandem a lot, and we didn’t have to pack much stuff at all.  And then when we got home, one of our friends called to say she was dropping off dinner for us:  Thai fried rice.  The social norm of reciprocity sure is wonderful.  Vicki had made banana bread for this friend earlier in the week, so this was her way of reciprocating.  After 185K in two days, it was really nice to not have to cook dinner.