Three intrepid cyclists set out in excellent spirits from Huizhou on Tuesday morning, aiming for a city called Bolou, about 40km away, where we had been told we would find good camping, because it was in the mountains.
It's not.
Bolou is actually a poorer and smaller version of Huizhou, but clearly a city on the move. Many new buildings going up all over the place, and a great deal of rushing around. It's about the size of East London, and in terrain like Bloem (For those who don't know, Bloem is so flat they say on a clear day you can see the back of your head).
None the less, it was a lovely cycle there, and only took us a couple of hours, so we felt no worries about carrying on regardless.
My legs, however, were not happy about the situation, and about an hour out of Bolou, started cramping. At first, I ignored it assuming that it would go away, and I could handle the pain (Me big man, me strong, me hair on chest. Me idiot). When first the left leg, and then while I was trying to elegantly fall off my bike the right, cramped to the point of locking up, the matter became more serious. The trip turned into an 8 hour ordeal, with surprisingly good humour on the part of my two companions, and remarkably poor humour on my behalf. Still, I must give my hugest thanks to them in retrospect, for so vociferously refusing to do as I asked and leave me.
We didn't find a campsite, but we did find a little hotel in a small town, where we stayed the night. We had a most excellent meal with some kind of meatballs (no, not dog. But also not something I knew), followed by a massage, which I need to describe.
It's, um, not for the shy. Or people who can't handle a little pain. My massage consisted of about 50 minutes working on my back, doing amazing things which I won't describe right now. However, all my physio friends, you need to visit China and learn a thing or two. She then move onto my legs, which obviously was pretty important for me. Now, it turns out my legs go right to the top floor, as it were, and I was a little nervous when she started pressing with her thumbs either side of my bits. The nervousness turned to anguish though when she shifted her weight, and managed to catch a bit of my important bit under her thumb. Perhaps she didn't notice, perhaps she didn't care, but certainly she didn't release the pressure. Still, pain can be good for us, I hear. And even if I can't have children one day, at least I could cycle the next day.
The next morning we set off again, in search of our now-illusive campsite. By this time, we were near Loufu mountain, and so decided to stay there. It is a very famous mountain in China, and stunningly beautiful, so you can understand why we assumed there would be a good campsite.
At this point, I have to digress. I am sorry, but it'll all make sense in a bit. It's all about communication. See, me, I know about 12 words of Chinese now. BUT, it turns out you don't need a lot of Chinese to be able to get what you want. It started off actually being a joke - me asking for things, but when I got exactly what I wanted every time, with only a scratching of words, and some charades. Eventually, the joke became a hell of a joke - it seems that from now on, you can call me Zak the linguist.
Off the digression. Loretta, who speaks quite a bit of Chinese, got directions from some park administration types to the campsite. Somewhere, stuff got lost in translation (watch how studiously I avoid commenting on this), and we ended up in a theme park. Yes indeed, on the side of one of the most beautiful mountains in China, one of Taoisms greatest monuments, one of the sacred places on earth... There is a theme park. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about an American style theme park, with people who hate their lives dressed in stupid costumes scaring kids. But there was a definite Gold Reef City feel to the place. Lots of tourists, lots of restaurants, a few hotels, and a cable car. Why the italics?
Those who know me well enough will know that I am not a terrible fan of heights. An unkind soul might even say I am terrified of them. Well, some days I don't think as clearly as I should, and I only realised that I was going to have to sit on a small seat about two million meters above the ground for roughly seventy five kilometers straight up the side of a mountain, once I had bought the ticket and was actually standing waiting for my
All of this was made worse by the fact that I was sharing my narrow plank with the American girl (Loretta) on the trip, who was clearly oblivious to the horrors facing me, and happily swung this way and that while looking at various things. God only knows what - I couldn't see past my white knuckles.
Fact is, it was scary, and not an experience I wanted to repeat, so we had to wait until the sun went down before making the trip back down the cars of hell.
We stayed the night in one of the theme park hotels, where we decided to erect a tent in the middle of the room, just for the look of the thing. It was fun.
Day three dawned, we got up, blah blah blah, and headed out to find a new place.
From the cable car of doom, Loretta (who, God bless her little cotton socks, is bloody lucky to be alive after all her moving around and swinging this way and that) had seen a small clearing in the middle of the forest, and so we decided to strike out for that. I will save you the detail of how we eventually found the place, other than to say that we had to get permission from a very unhappy looking monk (who eventually let us up the mountain only on condition that we locked our bikes in his temple).
A short steep walk later, and we stumbled into this fantastic little clearing, which of course was a lot less clear than from the air (I'm assuming here based on descriptions given to me by the others - I didn't see it from the air).
None the less, we eagerly found a suitable spot, and set up our tents at long last for a little bit of proper camping. After a bite of dinner back down the mountain, we all crammed into Loretta's tent for a little poker. Fifteen minutes later, and I looked like a hairy swimming pool. We carried on trying for a while longer, but eventually gave it up as a bad joke. Perhaps strip poker would have worked better.
The next morning saw a few stiff backs (ok, just mine, but I'm a lot bigger than the other two, so I reckon I count for more), smelly tents (again, just mine, for some reason) and some sore muscles, along with a unanimous decision (not just mine, thank God) to return home.
All in all, the trip was fantastic fun, and ultimately ended on the right day. I think if we'd stayed another night, we wouldn't have been good friends by the end of it.
The cycle home was uneventful.
I do have some thoughts on China that came out of the trip, but since this post has now taken me three days to write, and I'm sure you are at least as bored with it as I am, I will put them up at a later stage. Don't worry, I've got a great memory.
Which reminds me - I've mentioned it before, but please don't post comments that you want me to see - I can't see the blog from here, all I can see is a little "2 Comments" on my dashboard, which leaves me very frustrated. And frustration is something I want to avoid right now.
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