It’s slightly past eight and going on pitch black. In the distance I can hear the sounds of a
few stray cars cruising down the highway, making their way into or out of
Beijing, while immediately surrounding me I hear a variety of barks, buzzes,
chirps, and croaks. All different
pitches, cadences, frequencies, rhythms, volumes. People own the day here, but at least as far
as this little grove of trees of ours is concerned, it seems the animals own
the night.
We’ve pitched our tents in yet another forest – one that
doubtless falls into Jensen’s category of “toxic.” I wince at using that word, though, because the
forest is decrepit through no fault of its own.
In and of itself, without reference to what it once was, it’s far too beautiful,
giving, and peaceful for me to malign. Mingyu
and I are currently camping a mere fifty-five km outside of Beijing. The combination of a wonderful weekend
Couchsurfing in Chengde, two days of blissful riding and magnificent views, and
our imminent arrival in the capital of the Central Kingdom (as China refers to
itself) has got me feeling all nostalgic and thinking about milestones. Reaching Beijing tomorrow will certainly be
the biggest one, as it’s what every push of the pedal since we got off the boat
has been propelling us towards. Many others,
some big and some small, some expected, some not, come to mind:
-
Completed our first, second, and tomorrow, third
week on the road.
-
Clocked our 997th km just as we met
our CS host in Chengde. Might as well
call that 1000. Either way, we’re way
past that now.
-
Pitched our tents for the first time.
-
(The next morning) Used the great outdoors as my
WC, and cleaned up India-style.
-
Got chased by guard dogs of the unchained
variety. I sped away from them pretty
quickly, but poor Mingyu was several hundred meters behind me and had a
slightly scarier time.
-
Got rejected after asking for permission to
sleep in a temple courtyard.
-
“Showered” in a cool stream.
-
Finished my first book (Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, a long interview
with David Foster Wallace) and my first audio-book (Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, by the same DFW).
-
Ran out of time and sunlight and were forced to
pitch tents on a distant, sloped, rocky corner of a farmer’s land.
-
(The next morning) Woke up to the farmer
standing outside my tent. He just
chuckled and smiled as I told our story in my best broken, broken, shattered
Chinese.
-
Random*
point-at-something-on-the-menu-and-hope-it-turns-out-well venture and success.
-
Ran out of drinking water on top of a mountain
and had to go to sleep thirsty.
-
Made our first Chinese friends.
-
Got drunk with our first Chinese friends.
-
Received loads of free food from our first
Chinese friends.
-
Wrestled with our first Chinese friends.
-
Fell asleep sweating then woke up to see steam
coming out of my mouth and nostrils. Thought,
“Shit, good thing we’re heading south.”
-
Told first joke in Chinese. (Which was: a fellow in a restaurant asked me
what my and Mingyu’s relationship was. I
said “He’s my father.” Total
knee-slapper, caused an uproar.)
-
Passed our first police checkpoint. They didn’t stop us or anything.
-
Saw scenery so beautiful I nearly cried. (Many times).
Things that haven’t happened, but which seem
more or less inevitable:
-
A flat tire, accident, sore knee, fall, or some
other sort of cycling mishap.
-
A fight between me and Mingyu. So far only the waxing and waning of
occasional tension.
-
Theft of gear, money, or something else.
-
Encounters with swindlers, beggars, or other
troubling types.
-
Hit a hill so steep I have to push the bike up
it.
-
Traveler’s diarrhea.
-
Getting caught in a rainstorm.
-
Catching a cold.
In other news, I’ve been enjoying reading Mingyu’s blog and thinking about
how he and I ride the same roads, eat the same foods, meet the same people,
have mostly the same experiences, and yet experience everything differently and
choose to highlight and share different parts of the trip when blogging. I wish that you all could read his stuff, or
that I had time to translate it.** One
rather stunning difference, which I read on his blog and wouldn’t have known
about otherwise, was that on our hardest day, nearly a week ago now, when we
were pushing uphill for about 20km straight, he asked himself if the trip was
worth it. We could be home, reading
books and browsing the ‘net to our hearts’ content, hanging with friends,
eating and drinking merrily. Instead
we’re out here sweating by day and itching by night, never quite knowing what
we’re going to eat or where we’re going to sleep. I suppose by most standards that sounds a
little less than pleasant.
Oddly enough, though, that little doubting thought has yet
to cross my mind, even despite the fact that mine is a mind that often doubts
and second-guesses itself and its decisions.
Oddlier yet (I suppose that means it’s also more than sufficiently
oddly), it occurred to me that I can’t even make the thought make sense to
me. “Is it all worth it?” What would
that second “it” even mean? It’s
supposed to represent something I’ve lost, something I’m missing, something
I’ve sacrificed, but nothing feels that way. Using the internet once every three days is
more than enough; my Kindle holds more books than I’ll ever be able to read;
and the food here is as good as anywhere.
The only thing left is people but, I haven’t given up any relationships,
or, at least, not really any more than I had already given up by simply being
in Korea. Mathematicogeographically
speaking, there’s nowhere that I could be where I wouldn’t be thousands of
kilometers away from, say, ninety percent of my friends and family. So, while I’m jealous of the fact that just
about everyone Mingyu knows and loves lives within a three hour drive from his
house, I’m also now aware that my emotional freedom is the happy result of what
seems to be my wanderer’s curse. It strikes me as paradoxical, though. The more I wander, the more people and places
I like. The more I realize that I could
settle down just about anywhere. And,
therefore, that I have no reason to settle anywhere in particular, because
anywhere else would probably be just as great.
I suppose that means that if you’d like to see me anytime
soon, you’d better hop on a plane. Or
on Skype.
I’d like to leave you with a few pictures of recent good
times, and then, if I can get it working, a video of the moment on the ride when the thought “I want
to say that this view would make me answer yes to the question ‘Has it been
worth it?’ but now I realize I can’t even apply the question to myself,” came
to me.
Someone's drying some corn.
Yet the corn in the fields is still standing...
OK, the photos loaded backwards. I guess y can tell we made it to Beijing?
Had some helpers for the last 20km or so
Our most perfectest capming spot yet.
Gotta get a little upper-body exercise in every now and then. We have a "stop at every playground and do some pullups" rule, but it doesn't do us much good.
Filming an American Eagle ad.
I like how Chiense people will just sit down with us at a restaurant and chat. He didn't even work here!
More camping.
Our CS host, Marcus, along with the folks at the Muslim restaurant next door.
It's not a milestone, it's a KILOMETERSTONE!
GET IT?!
Horsing around with Mani. This man knows how to make a mean noodle!
Not quite sure how it came to this.
Good times.
That's right, he started it!
Giving my footsies a little break.
cute cute cute cute cute
A Chinese cyclist gang we ran into one morning. Some of them were in their 60s. Also, some of them were in pyjamas.
Mingyu takes nice photos.
*ok, not totally random, I know the characters for meat,
vegetable, noodle, rice, and dumpling.
Also, the one for bread, since it’s just “noodle dumpling.”
**or that he could write English well enough to do a
bilingual blog. His speaking is good and
getting better, but the poor guy has to learn English and Chinese at the same
time!
4 comments:
Your legs are huge!
You do so much cool stuff that I feel like I just want to follow in your path. Though apparently I'm about 5 years behind. I'm also a terrible Fauxbo.
Pretty cool stuff man. By pretty cool I mean, really amazing. Pics A++ Video A-(because you didn't pan to yourself smiling or making a funny face, though understandable because you were probably exhausted or didn't want to muck up the nice scenery with your ugly mug :-p)
Questions: Have you found your breath to get into a nice steady rhythm while riding? Or is the terrain too varied and unlike my homestate of Illinois to find such a thing? Is Anapana and riding a possibility?
Ka say yo
C: Dang, I should be doing time-lapse leg shots as well.
나: It's never too late to cultivate your inner Fauxbo. In other words, there's no need to have Fauxbophobia. Step 1 is not having a house or car. After that, you've got nowhere to stay and no way to go anywhere, so everything falls into place.
L: My excuse for the video is that it's mounted on a tripod on my handlebars so that I can film while still keeping two hands on the handlebars. Gottabe careful riding downhill at 40km/h.
Breathing is steady except of course for huffing and puffing up mountains and holding my breath when trucks come by and spew dirt or exhaust at me. I'm too scared of cars and potholes to devote much attention to Anapana, though the thought has crossed my mind. I do try to pay attention to where and how the wind is blowing over my body. I had a freaky current running along the underside of my arms the other day. I'm working on meditating in my tend in the mornings and evenings, but the sweat and mosquitoes and my desire to be outside doing stretches or yoga looking at trees makes it tough.
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