The scenery, topography and towns stayed about the same for the entire seven-day ride, so they run together in my memory, even now, just two days after arriving in Chongqing.

I do remember that shortly after leaving Zigong it started raining lightly and continued for the next two days. At first I was glad because it kept the dust down. The dust the first two days had choked us at times. A thin layer of dirt coated the road most of the time, especially near the edges, where we rode. Every time a truck passed it engulfed us in a cloud. The dirt clung to our sweaty bodies.

The rain only changed the manner in which the dust got on us. Instead of getting covered with dirt, we got covered with mud that splattered under our tires and sandals. It coated us and our bikes. At the end of the wet days I looked like a swamp creature.

The whole ride to Chongqing was gritty, and not just the road. The towns, friendly and busy, were also gritty---with greasy heavy industry, smokestacks, haze, loud blue trucks and long freight trains. one town had a big sign, in English, "Welcome to Transmission Factory." I didn't mind that kind of grit. It meant we were in just plain old ordinary towns. We went through the Youngstowns, Akrons and Toledos of Chinas. Just as we had hoped.

Despite all the dirt, the towns did have at least one glamorous block of well-lit, fancy clothing stores with strange names in Roman lettering. The people often dressed very sharply. it was not uncommon to see a young woman in short shorts, elevator shoes, and a tight-fitting brilliant yellow shirt out raking the rice to speed the drying, but looking more like she was posing with the rake for a clothing ad.

Speaking of women, we saw them doing many jobs that we saw only men doing in the rest of Asia. They drove rickshaws and taxis, and even worked on road crews. In hotels we dealt mostly just with women.

Our inability to communicate combined with our route through towns that rarely see foreigners made us feel helpless sometimes. But sine we were such a novelty, people took pity on us and went out of their ways to help us.

In Neijiang we had trouble finding the Bank of China (the only place to change money or get cash advances). So a woman from the hotel hailed a taxi for us and talked to the driver and then climbed in and rode with us to a Bank of China. The taxi driver stopped outside the bank but to get there, we had to climb over a metal fence that's meant to keep pedestrians from jaywalking. (These fences can run 1/8 of a km). Our 'guide' (a staff member at our hotel) climbed over the fence too. she was short and wearing a skirt and had a rather immodest moment in the middle of the fence. She just laughed and laughed about it though, and went on into the bank with us, unperturbed. She told the teller what we wanted to do. The taxi driver parked and came in with to wait with us at the bank. They were quite interested in our transaction. (We probably changed $40 or something).

Basically, it went like this: every night we found good or excellent accommodation. Occasionally the roads were intimidating and awful, but most had great blacktop. People treated us like extra special guests of honor (though we get a little tired of the staring huddles that formed around us every time we stopped). Many towns were skirted by huge communist style projects. Farmers dried their crops on the road. We made many stops for popsicles and cold drinks. We gathered lots and lots of grits.

Particular events.

Losing the pump. One morning we found Joan's rear tire flat. We pumped it up in our hotel lobby and realized 22km later that we had left the pump behind. It's our only one, and probably the only one that would work with our bikes in that part of China. We had to go back for it. Joan paid a taxi 100 yuan to take her back to the hotel, and then caught a public bus. It took hours. I was getting anxious.

Bowling in Bishan: In many towns we had seen 20-foot tall bowling pins attached to buildings. We noticed one outside our hotel in Bishan so we inquired. A uniformed guard lead us up a few flights of stairs, turing the lights on at each floor. Around a corner and down a dark hallway, we found a sparkling new eight lane bowling alley, equipped with the latest in automatic computer scoring. I thought they would have people behind the alley setting up pins bu t it was actually exactly like the last time I bowled in America. We were the only bowlers. It cost about US$4 for each game and they brought us hot green tea. It was expensive for us, but we figured, how can we stay in a hotel with its own bowling alley and not bowl?

Chinese Photographer. One of the few people we met on the seven-day ride who spoke English was an amateur photographer in Yongchuan. He was learning English out of a book and doing rather well. He was genuine and the kind of person you think would be a friend if you lived in the same town. He had two nice SLR cameras. (Not great--they were Seagull brand) he took a photo of us and we took a photo of him. He said he works in a plant in Yongchuan and takes pictures on weekends. he wrote us a note in Chinese that said "please help me get to Chongqing" or something like that. he wasn't joking because the paper helped. (He gave us his business card. Later someone translated and said this guy was the official communist propagandist for his factory). Oddly, he asked us about the Summer of Love when we said we were from San francisco.

Arriving in Chonqging. The city's metro area has 14 million people and we didn't have a decent map. I worried we would spend hours in the hat climbing steep hills in the wrong direction. We memorized the Chinese characters for Chongqing but, like most cities, as you get close the signs are all for neighborhoods. They don't bother pointing you towards Chongqing anymore. They might have said "city center" but we had no way of knowing. But with help from many strangers and our photographer friend's note, we found our hotel without any wrong turns (that we know of) and the ills weren't so bad.

Next: Yangtse, Xi'an and fever in Chengdu.

China Main Page World Trip