Week 2 Road Recap

Yeah, so much for that plan of doing food on Mondays and Road on Fridays. It looks like my writing schedule will be determined by external factors, such as: a) how sweaty and nasty and generally uncomfortable I am after a long day of riding, and thus whether or not I can be bothered to sit in my tent with a piping hot netbook on my lap; b) how many days in a row we’ve camped and whether or not I’ve been able to charge the laptop in the meantime, and c) whether there’s an internet connection available, and d) whether or not I know what day it is. So far, I’d say that on any given day the probability for both c) and d) [independently] is under five percent.


Unfortunately, there’s an e)th consideration, which is my level of jadedness. Well, perhaps it’s not jadedness, as I’m not tired of the trip by any means. Every day brings new vistas, new people, new foods, and new insights into the Chinese language. Despite that, our days are repetitive enough that they don’t often offer us much insight into China itself. The roads are for the most part good; people are friendly; there’s nowhere to throw out your trash, except everywhere*; farmers here grow lots of corn, and sometimes some peanuts and other things too. Most of the wonderful things are the little ones, which I still haven’t quite figured out how to write about again and again.

Anyway, pardon the meta-stuff. I’m trying to cut down on it.**

So, with no further ado: The last week first saw us take the big turn at Yingkou and start heading southeast along the coast after several hundred km of trying to get off the peninsula. We camped a couple of times, then got stuck at a giant hotel (rant below)*** Then another several hundred km down towards Shanhaiguan, where we had our first rain delay. Once the weather cleared up, we spent a morning exploring the easternmost section of the Great Wall, which actually runs all the way to the sea, and then yesterday we turned inland. As we move away from the Bohai sea, the land is becoming more and more mountainous; today was the first day that I had to drop down to my low gears to make it up the steep, strenuous climbs. Still, a hard day hear is easier than an easy day in Korea. The only seriously tough part is the tunnels, some of which which have either no or very little lighting and no ventilation and thus make for a rather frightening ride. Particularly if they’re also busy, wet, slippery, and poorly paved. Certainly the most nerve-wracking part of the trip so far. Well, aside from every time I see a farmer walking along the side of the road holding a scythe, and I imagine him deftly, smoothly, nonchalantly chopping my head off as I ride by. I wonder if I would keep pedaling, chicken-style?

Anyhow, we’ve got about 180km (hopefully two days of riding) before we hit our way to the old imperial resort city of Chengde, where a couchsurfing host awaits us. There are no more switchback squiggles on the map, so I think we ought to be fine.

We’re averaging 72km and 79 Yuan (13 bucks) a day. I think I see a new goal: more distance ridden than money spent!

*in an awkward reworking of my new blog title….

**The irony of that statement (and, indeed, of this one, ad infinitum) is not lost on me.

***Hotel rant: the big hotel in Huludao that cost us more for one night than the total cost of our four cheapest days put together. To be fair, it was only fifteen dollars each, but still… The reason we chose such a luxurious place – with an ensuite bathroom, an air conditioner, and a flat-screen TV (we didn’t use either of the latter two) – was that, in big cities in China, some hotels are allowed to take foreigners and some aren’t. We have yet to run into this problem in the countryside**** , but in Huludao we got shot down by about six small, cheapish hotels until some cops finally redirected us to the “Huludao Grand.” We tried to negotiate for a discount, but they weren’t having it. Having the internet just meant that I spent all night doing crap, and then Mingyu wasted the entire next morning, so that we didn’t even hit the road until after lunch. We therefore reserved to camp as much as possible.

****There have been instances of hoteliers with great big worried looks on their faces making a big x with their arms as soon as we approach, but I’m chalking those up to all the dirt plastered all over our clothes, bicycles, and faces.

Traditional market in Huludao.

 Modern Huludao.

 taking a break less than 5 meters from the highway

 Took a break in the shade of this house, not knowing a little girl and her mom were inside.  The girl kept peeping out at us through the window and curtain-things.  Adorable. 

 Pre-camping mischief.

 Noodles and salad, dinner of champions.

 Great Wall!  Psyche! 

 Not the cleanest restaurant we've visited.

 Spent the rainy day studying, watching movies, and enjoying some fine fare. 

 Also not the great wall.

 But this is!  Twelve meters tall here.  This is Dragon's Head, the eastern tip of the GW, which actually extends almost all the way to the sea.

 Entrance to the ancient walled city center of Shanhaiguan

 A gate.

 He's guarding my bike,

Just a few km from Old Dragon's Head, the GW runs into and up Jiaoshan mountain.  It's steep.

 Yup.

 Biking doesn't do much for the chest muscles, clearly.

 Dad told the son to come pour me some OJ.  I then went over and pretended to pour the kid some beer.  Dad didn't laugh.

 Ancient city. 

Camping spot.  This one wasn’t very good, but we were desperate, as it was getting dark.  Actually, we slept here without permission and hoped the farmer wouldn’t mind.  He came up at about 6 and was actually quite friendly and cheerful.  Phew.  

.

The waitress at a small restaurant called her brother to translate for us.  What sweet people!

Aforementioned warm-harted waitress

 Free shower, coming right up!

Week 1 Road Recap

It’s 5:07AM, I’ve been up for 45 minutes, and I’m writing from my tent, which is pitched in a “forest*”, about 20km NE of Linghai. We’ve finally made it up and around and off of the peninsula that we arrived at almost exactly 10 days ago. The route has taken us nearly 500km: from the massive congestion (the traffic variety causes the nasal variety) of Dalian, through the cherry plantations of Jinzhou; then, up to Yingkou, over softly rolling hills covered with peach trees and corn crops; and, finally, over a river and across the plains and rice paddies towards Linghai. Within a day or two we’ll reach Shanhaiguan, where we’ll get our first view of the Great Wall, and then another day or two after that, Chengde, the old imperial resort town. After a day’s sightseeing, we’ll make the two-day trip to Beijing, and then hopefully Couchsurf there for three or four days and regroup.


A few days ago, on rather chilly day, after a desolate ride that started out on an empty eight-lane highway running through an industrial zone still in the planning stages and continued up the barren and blustery coast, we passed through an odd city and I composed a sort of poem in my head.

Six lanes, no cars.
Futuristic stop lights, no traffic.
Landscaped parks, no families.
Statues of Gods, nobody to care.
Hotels, no guests.
Bus stops, no buses.
Storefronts, no stores.
Construction workers, no citizens.
Skyscraper skeletons, no windows.
Posters, plans, grids; no life.
A ghost city, not yet born.

These were the sort of things running through my slightly delirious head as we approached Yingkou from the southwest. We had had a smallish breakfast, started late, endured the toughest conditions so far (admittedly not that tough), and just wanted to stop and eat somewhere. We turned towards the skyscrapers and apartment blocks, figuring that where there are people, there’s bound to be food. Instead, we landed in the twilight zone. I kept vaguely recalling Stephen King’s The Langoliers, all of which I remember is that a bunch of passengers deplane to find the airport and the rest of the world empty. I also thought of zombie flicks like 28 Days Later, and that Will Smith one (I Am Legend?), where someone wakes up to find the world more or less empty. My exhaustion, desperation (for food), and bewilderment all acted to turn what might ordinarily have been just a little bizarre into a truly haunting experience.

We rode through what must have been about 8 kilometers of this maze, every time hoping that the next set of apartments would be inhabited, would show some sign of life, but no such luck. We passed a Howard Johnson resort-in-the-making; across the street was a giant expanse of a field, where weeds and reeds that reached up over my head. We passed the “Yingkou Guest Hotel,” a giant walled complex with several American colonial-style brick mansions. We passed a building that reminded me of the UN and looked to be a conference center, though the nameplates hadn’t been attached yet. As we approached the real city – not that we knew we were doing so at the time – we saw this advertisement.

Apparently this city, with all its shiny suaveness, aspires to become a shitty American mall from the early 1990’s. SERIOUSLY, A WALDENBOOKS?!?!?!** Oh, and with only white people shopping there. Nice job Photoshopping in a couple Chinese characters, though. It looks like the Chinese dream is to emulate the worst parts of the American dream; understandable considering that you have probably to realize it to some extent, to live through it for a couple of generations, before you realize how empty it is.

One thing that I’ve been enjoying about China so far is – and I can promise you I’m going to overuse and abuse this term a lot over the coming weeks, months, whatever, because it’s one of the central preoccupations of my life these days – it feels much more authentic than home (which means both the USA and Korea). Of course, I know there’s a lot I don’t know. I’ve only been here a week, I don’t have any Chinese friends, and don’t have any particular insight into anything. But there’s a certain amount you can tell from the surface. In particular, there’s no glamour so far, no shamming. I’m not seeing sex – by which I mean depictions of incredibly, unreachably beautiful men and women in various stages of disrobement*** – selling underpants, booze, and breakfast cereal. I don’t see cartoon characters in the windows or on boxes pitching stuff to kids. I don’t hear cell phone stores playing the latest pop music to drag people in. I don’t see guys in suits, or women in (really high) heels and (noticeably thick) makeup. I don’t see pomo**** billboards that make knowingly impossible claims, knowing that the viewer will see through them but hoping they’ll think it’s funny enough to be attracted despite the bold lie. A kind but curt bluntness, rather than obsequious smiles, from clerks at hotels and cooks, waiters, and waitresses at restaurants.

So, that’s what I mean when I say that China so far has been Authentic. Maybe it’s’ a characteristic of the countryside in general, worldwide, though even Dalian, population 3 million or so, largely had this feel to it. (To cut myself off at the kneecaps, now that I think about it, the Carrefour [think French Wal-mart] in Dalian was an epicenter of inauthenticity. As is, I’m confident, most everything on TV here. And probably in Beijing, too.)

That’s another way of saying that I like it when things make sense and are as they seem.

Thanks for listening. Now, some more fun stuff.

Mingyu and I are slowly but surely working out the kinks in our travel skills. As all of you must certainly have thought to yourselves when reading the recent food post, we were eating way too much, and the morning after that food post I paid for it with a pretty rough time in the bathroom. Not rough by Thai or Indian standards, but very rough compared to Korean ones. If anyone wants details, they can email me.

So, we’ve adjusted the amount of food we eat, usually ordering one plate instead of two, and then stopping along the road for more snacks, dumplings, or fresh fruit. I really regret not buying cherries and mangosteens in Dalian when I had they chance; there’s nothing of that sort out here, just plain old apples and peaches and plums. We’ve also cut down on the drinking, for a number of reasons. First ,the celebratory portion of the trip seems to have ended. That feeling of “We’re really here! And we’re still alive! It’s not as hot, dirty, or dangerous as everyone said! We rule! Cheers to us!” has passed by, and now we’re getting down to business. I’m pushing Mingyu to ride a little further each day (I want to shoot for 100km, he seems to be content with 50-70), and he’s pushing me to do more camping. We’ve camped on three of the six nights since we left Dalian: once in a forest* just past a road block, once on a random dead-end road amidst rice paddies that three Chinese grandmas assured us was safe to sleep on; and, last night, in a fairly wide patch of forest* between a mid-sized road and some railroad tracks. An average meal at the market costs about $1.50 each if we eat a lot. Triple that at a restaurant, and half if we cook noodles and some fresh veggies ourselves. Even including the prices of three hotel rooms, one of which even had an ensuite bathroom and an internet connection (from which I set three posts I had already prepared to automatically post themselves at intervals of one to two days, in case you’re wondering how I have such constant access to the net), I’ve spent under 50 bucks this week. The cheapest day, on which we had leftovers from the previous night’s dinner for breakfast, cooked noodles in a park (much to the bemusement of a pack of old men) for lunch, picked up a healthy-looking gourd off the side of the road, bought tomatoes and greens for 35 cents (total), and had couscous for dinner, then camped for the night, cost us $1.50 each. Counting water.

In short, life is good. Traveling is cheap and I feel vindicated for all those times when I thought to myself, “I’d rather not go do X. Y (amount of money) is Z (days) traveling in ㄱ[shit…out of lettersㅋㅋ](country).” Now I’m making good on that miserliness and reaping its benefits. The bike is in good shape. No accidents, no breakdowns, no physical ailments. Unless you count body odor!

I’ll leave you on that note. Read the notes and then enjoy some pictures.

*More accurately, either a tree farm or a reforested zone. You can tell because there’s only one species,, hardly any undergrowth, and all the trees are the same size and lined up in rows. What Derrick Jensen would call a “toxic mimic” of a forest; “mimic” because it looks like one, and to most of us who spend most of our time in concrete jungles and only see forests on TV, probably feels like one too, and “toxic” because it doesn’t carry out the ecological functions that real forests do, and also because tie “mimic” aspect, by allowing us to believe that there are more forests than there really are, leads us towards some degree of complacency and keeps us from doing (or at least demanding, supporting) more reforestation work.

**Then again, I suppose there was a Dippin’ Dots at the North Korea lookout point I visited a few weeks ago.

***Like I said, I know there’s an underside and that the sex trade itself is almost certainly probably alive, active, and nastier than back at home.

****Shorthand for “post modern.” Sorry, I’ve been reading a book about a road trip with David Foster Wallace. The author repeatedly comments on how seductive DFW’s way of speaking is and how he (the author) continually found himself adopting words like “dudn’t” and “idn’t” and “continuum” and, yesm “pomo.”

Takin' a rest on Day 1.

City. 

 Actually, almost all roads have been well paved.  This was a side street that we went down just for the sake of the badass photo-op.

When it's too early to pitch a tent, might as well chill by a tree.

 Too much spare time.

 Again, just for the photo op.

 Friendly Chinese folks, never deterred even after I say five times "I can't speak Chinese!"

 Old dudes in a park.

 Traffic jam caused by the peach trade!

 Getting lessons on cooking noodles.

 Park friends

 Owner of the sporting goods shop across from our hotel in Yingkou.

 Dinnertime.  Tubs of greens and tomatoes for $0.15 each.

 Photo bomb!

 Streamlined gear setup.

 Bedtime

Beijing-ho!

How Times Have Changed

Jeff Stepp, master archivist and my someday biographer, unearthed this gem from deep in the annals of mikeindaegu:

 

"And speaking of supermarket price gouging, I'm reminded that I was
nearly sent into shock upon noticing that broccoli here, on sale,
costs more than beef in America. It's about 14000 won/kg, which works
out to something like 5 bucks a pound. As if I needed another excuse
not to eat vegetables..."

 

I ordered a tub of broccoli from a restaurant here the other day.  World travel, what have you done to me?!?! 

Food Recap, August 14-20

Mingyu will kick your ass if you don't read this post all the way to the bitter end!

So, I’ve been here a week, and even though I’ve cycled about 300km (a weak showing, I know, but the first 3 days were spent lying low and avoiding the bends), I’m pretty sure I’m pudgier than at any point in the past couple years. I don’t think it’s because the food is greasy, which is always what Koreans warn you about, but because 1) being social makes you eat a lot, as does cycling; 2) it’s all been delicious, and 3) Mingyu loves beer way too much for his/my own good.


What delicacies have we had, and how much have they cost us?

Attempt at couscous on the boat. Didn’t turn out so great, since we had no flame, just hottish water from the water machine.

Cabbage and zucchini dumpling with cornflour shell. Easily the best dumpling I’ve ever eaten. Crispy, oily, packed with veggies, filling, practically like a hamburger. Not pictured: spinach dumpling with flour shell, polenta brick. Total cost for 2 people: 6 yuan / 1 dollar.

Make-your-own-wraps. We ordered sides of cabbage, green beans, noodles and mushrooms, and some cold cabbage/cucumber/soybean/peanut dish that was sour and pungent and fantastic. Everything was amazing. 40 yuan / $7 each.

I didn’t buy these, but anyway…

Giant donut puck filled with mashed sweet red beans and dates. Killer hot from being fried, crispy on the outside, tart and steamy inside. Good buy for Y4/75c

Shopping for burrito ingredients with our CS host, Guy. Less than $5/30Y for mushrooms, onions, spinach, lettuce, bell peppers, and tomatoes for three.

Noodles and dumpling soup for lunch. Pretty unremarkable, but cheap. Y8/$1.33

If you think ordering Chinese at home is tough…

Asparagus sautéed with garlic; bak choy with shiitakes in brown sauce; mystery vegetable flavored with Lucky Charms marshmallow magic; eggplant, potato, and bell pepper stir fry; Schezuan chicken; some sort of fried bread shreds; and pears soaked in red wine. Maxing out the credit cards at Y40/$7 total.

Meal from the market: eggplants stuff with garlic and cilantro paste; pitas; crepe; and some dumpling. Total: Y12/$2. The eggplants were incredible when used as the filling in a pita sandwich. By the third or fourth one, though, I hit my garlic limit…

Haggling over banana prices…wound up paying 4Y/75c for three. A little disappointing.

Photo menu at the dinner place.

Who know the sweet, sour, vinegary peanut dish would be a veritable mountain? Y28/$4.75 Y22/$3.75 for the snap pea/carrot/lotus root/floppy shroom stir fry. And Y1/20c per bowl of rice.

Interesting ordering method: in addition to the written and pictoral menus, at some restaurants, you just walk up to a big fridge like you’d see in the supermarket, peer through the glass, and point at a big plate of veggies. It could be just one ingredient or several; either way, you don’t know how it’ll come together. Well, maybe the natives do. So, we pointed at this plate of cucumbers, shrooms, and carrots, and somehow we got this scramble! The big heap of refried tofu (tastes way better than it sounds!) came with garlic and cilantro. Also, two beers. Total price: Y40/$6.75. For two.

Homemade oatmeal with peanuts, raisins, and cinnamon.

Stir-fried Shrimp in sweet sauce (40/6.75) and stir-fried broccoli (20/3.25) which tasted a lot like the stuff you’d get back home. Several beers at 3/.50 apiece.

Lastly, the most amazing meal so far. We checked in at a random cheapie hotel where the guy didn’t even look at our passport, so I was a little skeptical when he recommended his friend’s place next door. But, he said they had veg options, and Mingyu was whining like a little baby after our 95k day (longest yet), so we agreed. Mingyu pointed at a plate of stuff sliced so thin I couldn’t tell what it was; I pointed at something kind of leafy with a few mushrooms on top. Mine came out pretty normal, with a thickish kind of soy sauce. Mingyu’s, though, was certainly among the most incredible things I’ve ever eaten. Zucchini, carrots, mushrooms, and eggs, stir-fried but then cooled, served in a sweet vinegar sauce. Also in the mix were some sort of roasted red pepper husks – thin and flaky to add to the texture, with a deep, smoky-but-not-spicy flavor. I wasn’t sure if the peppers were edible at first, so I asked the guy “Is it possible to eat these peppers?” He misunderstood me and brought out an entire bowl of them. I ate them all. Maybe

Each plate cost Y18/$3.

So, final judgment: it’s been no problem at all here sticking to only veggies despite, again, how often Koreans told me it would be impossible. For all that I love Korea, I really don’t like the way people have only negative things to say about most of the rest of Asia. The fact that everything is stir-fried or griddle-fried hasn’t started to bother me yet, since there’s a wide variety of flavors, in particular, more nuts and more sour stuff than I expected, which is a nice change from Korean. Plus, there’s plenty of fresh fruit around – it seems that peaches, apples, cherries, grapes, and mangoes are in season up here at the moment. Not bad, not bad!

Oh, and everything is dirt cheap! Even our most luxurious meals have yet to near $10, and our cheap ones – and there have been many – come in at about $1. In fact, so far, in six days, I’ve spent less than 50 bucks on food and accommodation combined, without even watching my spending! Hooray for traveling! Save up a couple thousand bucks, quit your job, and come join me! Let’s pudgen up together.