Lost in Guangxi -The broken spoke diaries

Thursday, April 10

We set off at 10am on Thursday morning determined to make it to Guangxi's own monkey mountain. We had been planning the trip for quite sometime but the weather had never seemed to co-operate with our desires and we had been forced to delay repeatedly. Traveling on a motorcycle is always fun, but it always a lot more fun when the weather is good and the sun is shining.

Earlier in the year during the Chinese New Year break from school we had thought of doing a similar trip on our now old and abused 48cc bike. The weather at that time had been the worst this province had seen in 50 years and the thought of riding two up with all of our gear through mountains and cold weather spured the desire for a new bike and the idea that maybe waiting out the cod weather was the best possible plan at that time.


The new bike had arrived and had been broken in with little trouble. Confidence was high for the bike's first real trip out into the world. We had be studying the weather reports for sometime trying to pick the most ideal time to ride. The wife had never been out on any type of road trip before and in the interest of future support for wild and crazy adventures the first trip should always be the smoothest. With the notice of a couple of clear days ahead we pack up the soft bags with enough underwear and socks for an over night trip.

The morning was warm and nice. This was the type of weather we had been waiting for.

Our route was planned to take us through Nanning, to the monkey mountain, down to a Daxin, then back through Chongzuo, Shangse, Dazhi and home. All of this was about 600km round trip and seemed like a perfect start to our touring relationship.

Ever since the new bike had arrived, the wife had been dying to get out on the road. She had also on several occasions hinted at the want for her own two wheels to ride along with me. As a man who loves to ride I thought to myself that this might be the trip that seals the deal and starts a new chapter in our relationship.

The ride north was comfortable whit the ocasional stop to snap some pics of some plane jane Chinese pesent villages. Most people can only imagine to themselves and try to deduce from what media coverage they have about what life in China must be like for most people. As a foriegner living here I am often awstruck at what people make by with and how much they can enjoy their lives. All talk of govrenment and politics aside I can't help thinking how content so many people are with a simple life.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...guangxi/wg.jpg

While these ideals hold true for some there is always the dream for something better and something lacking in most people's lives. I talked to a few people walking down the steps fom the road into the village and they said life there was nice but they longed for the new big Chinese wants for themselves and their kids. The few I did tak to seemed more interested in my bike than actually talking about their lives in the village. What I did manage to squeeze from one of them is he liked his life close to his family, but wanted to move to a big city like Nanning, buy an apartment and get a nice big T.V.

We hit Nanning at about noon and quickly made our way through the city. We had no plans or desire to be stuck behind congested city traffic for the weekend and we wanted to hit the mountains as soon as possible.

About 80km to the west of Nanning we began to start seeing small mountains popping up like mushrooms. Growing larger and larger all the time.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...gxi/wg-6-2.jpg

We were trying to make good time to get to the mountain and feed some monkies, but the secenery was so nice we had to stop and snap some photos. My wife had also been on the look out for some of Guangxi's "Ai Ma" which is kind of like a mini horse, but not really that mini. The horse actually can grow to be about half the size of what we in the west would classify as a normal horse. We noticed a great palce for a picture and the something in the shape of a horse sitting just a little was off the road.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...angxi/wg-2.jpg

I guess Chinese horses like Orange Fanta too. Could this have been the Ai ma that LiXiang (mywife) had been dying to see?

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...angxi/wg-4.jpg

I talked to the guys who owned the horse and found out this wasn't a Guangxi horse and they weren't from Guangxi. They were seasonal workers that come here in the spring and summer to farm their own land and make some extra money for the winter. They said they made their way down to Guangxi every year at the end of March to grow crops and to enjoy the weather and the mountains.

Anyways that was enough talk about horses, farmland and the like, we had a road to hit and monkies to see. We hopped back on the bike and headed west to find us the monkey mountain park.

We made it to the park at about 2:00 and were shocked when we found out the entreance fee for one person was 50rmb. This is a large amount of money to enter a park in most places in the world and I was ven more shocked to learn that due to the Olympics in Beijing this year the ticket price would soon be rising to 60rmb a person. That's quite a lot of money for China considering our hotel rooms only cost us 30rmb per night, but I guess even monkies need to make a profit.

We entered the park and were given the rules by a lovely girl who made it strictly clear about what is and isn't acceptable human/monkey interaction and sent us on our way. To be honest I have to say I was a litte worried. On a past trip to Thailand I had seen a monkey steal a travellers wad of dosh, cimb up onto a ledge, stick it in his mouth and upon realizing it had no real flavour or nutritional value proceed to rip it up in a quick and efficent manner. I had also been told horror stories about a guy who was attacked for making jestures to the monkies at this very mountain and I was carrying quite a bit of expensive camera gear.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...ngxi/wg-10.jpg

The mountain itslf was pretty cool. Nice dence jungle paths convered in greenery and vines.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...gxi/wg-9-2.jpg

Lots of walking up and down steps and a fair bit of hiking. every 700 or 800m there was a group of monkies waiting for you, watching you, stalking you. Waiting for you to put your hands into your pockets and pull out anything for them to steal.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...xi/wg-10-2.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...ngxi/wg-19.jpg

We were also lucky enough to see a monkey fight. This is mating season and horny monkies don't f-around.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...ngxi/wg-17.jpg

And we aso got to see another monkey pic another monkey's butt...

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...ngxi/wg-16.jpg


We were lucky enough not to piss off the monkies enough that they wanted to kill us and were able to leave after some pictures and a couple hours of walking around.

It was now 4pm and we had a litte bit of road ahead of us. We decided to climb back on the Shineray and make our way to Daxin before dark.

We were back on the bike and on the way to Daxin. Just another 75km from the monkey mountain. We didn't stop to do too much on the way. We just enjoyed the ride and sucked in the scenery.

Daxin was supposed to be our destination for the night, but after riding around the city we were to say the least a little disappointed with the place. Also on the way in we had noticed a sign that said "Jingxi 112km". During the winter break we had wanted to ride through Jingxi on the way to Yunnan, but that trip was cancelled on account of poop weather. We talked about it over a plate of Chinese dumplings and decided to make the push toward Jingxi in search of the Guangxi Ai Ma and some minority villages.

The problem we could see about making the push to Jingxi was the time. It was about 5:30 when we finally finished our dinner and got back on the bike. We decided at this point the most important part of our trip was to make it through the mountain roads as safely and as quickly as possible. This meant no time for pics and also meant that we would be pushing our luck by riding in China at night. The new HID light would prove to be money well spent.

Just as the sun was going down was about the time we were about half way to Jingxi we hit a massive cloud of bugs. The constant bug splatter on my helmet was a kind of soothing as we rode into the night. When all of a sudden I got smoked in the face mask by a big back bat. Not the baseball kind of bat, but the flying animal kind of bat. I guess it was either trying to eat some of the bugs or maybe was just depressed and wanted to die because it hit me square in the helmet then deflected off of me onto the wife's big Chinese head. Two for one, pinball style and it almost gave me an asphalt dinner I didn't want, but luckily we manged to keep it on two wheels.


The rest of the ride was fun twisty mountain roads with nothing between us and death excpt a little white line. The roads have no guard rails and in retrospect I really shouldn't have been riding them at night, but we had a new made up schedule to keep and we managed to make our way through the darkness and eventually pulled into JingXi around 8:15pm.

We tracked down a local "Bingguan", which is a kind of cheap Chinese motel, paid our 30rmb and took our bags up into the room so we could pass out. It had been a long day of riding. We did close to 500km in one day. Our asses were tired and I had the infamous throttle hand cramp in my shoulder. All and all the bike did great and was really comfortable considering the distance.

The other reason the Bingguan is a nice place to stay in China is because most of the time they don't want to see any ID. I had left my passport and my wife had left her ID card at home so if they didn't take us we were going to be sleeping on benches in the park. Bingguan to the rescue. A Bingguan is a king of motel, but is also a place where lovers can do their business in an anonymous fashion.

This is what we got for 30rmb

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...ngxi/wg-24.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...xi/wg-7-11.jpg

The bathrooms are usually standard Chinese affair with only a hole in the floor for poop to escape and a shower mounted on the wall. In these bathrooms you have to be careful about enjoying your shower too much because you don't want to end up breaking an ankle by getting your foot stuck in the crapper.

After a careful shower and bottle of beer we were out for the night, proud of the distance we had covered and looking forward to the distance ahead.

Friday November 11th


http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...i/wg-8-5-1.jpg
We woke up early. There was lots of road ahead. We had talked a little bit during the night and decided that we could press on in the morning to a small city called Napo. During the bad weather of the winter break we had missed a good opportunity to visit these places and we decided that we would probably not be back through this way for quite some time.



The weather on Thursday had been bearable and according to our weather report we would not get any sun for the rest of the weekend and there was a good chance we might even have some rain on Sunday. We decided that the weather in western Guangxi had sucked all year so we couldn't delay our trips any longer.



We pulled into the bingguan after dark and had no idea what Jingxi or this area really looked like. At 7:00am I opened my curtains and saw this, not bad for a 30rmb view.







We decided to go into town, find some quick breakfast and get on our way. Napo was one place we had wanted to see for a long time. The rumors of ethnic minorities and beautiful mountain scenery had been calling to us.



We got on the bike and rode into town to get some morning grub. Now those are some chopsticks .

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...xi/wg-10-5.jpg

9:00am and we were back on the road again. With only 97km between Jingxi and Napo we thought we could take our time today and make the trip to Napo a full day event and return to Jingxi before dark.



http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...ngxi/wg-23.jpg



This year the weather had been terrible. Evey weekend since the new year had been raining and the overcast skies had become the norm for us. While it didn't cause much problem to the bike or to the riding it had been difficult on us as we had only seen about 20 sunny days since the middle of January. Today the weather was much of the same. Gray and depressing. At least the mountains were nice and the ride was relaxing.


9:00am and we were back on the road again. With only 97km between Jingxi and Napo we thought we could take our time today and make the trip to Napo a full day event and return to Jingxi before dark.


This year the weather had been terrible. Evey weekend since the new year had been raining and the overcast skies had become the norm for us. While it didn't cause much problem to the bike or to the riding it had been difficult on us as we had only seen about 20 sunny days since the middle of January. Today the weather was much of the same. Gray and depressing. At least the mountains were nice and the ride was relaxing.


http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...ngxi/wg-22.jpg
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...xi/wg-13-4.jpg
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...xi/wg-11-7.jpg
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...xi/wg-12-6.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...XI1/wg-6-1.jpg

The riding was going well through the morning and the kilometers were passing by in a nice relaxing manner. As a habbit Chinese people don't seem to like to get out on the roads by themselves. If you took the time to talk to most people they would think you were crazy for riding your motorcycle 100km or more in one day. As a habbit Chinese people would stick to the busses or trains. Due to this cutural ideal many of the roads we took were almost completely empty.


The empty roads an amazing scenery left us in awe for most of the trip.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...NGXI1/wg-5.jpg

Just when I thought creativity and imagination were completely dead we an into this natural cave and geoarch that had been incorporated into the road. It was really amazing to drive though even if it only lasted about 100m.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-39.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-66.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-41.jpg


About 5km from the cool tunnel we finally managed to find an Ai Ma. The wife was thrilled. She had seen them on T.V. a while ago and as an animal lover she was thrilled to have the chance to see one and feed it some grass. After about 10 min of her playing with the horsey I tapped my watch to indicate that I wanted to press on and that I wasn't as interested in seeing a mini horse as her. She laughed and played for another 5 minutes. No orange fanta for this little guy though.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...t/aaa/wg-2.jpg

We rolled into Napo around 11am. The ride up had been calm and uneventful. I was also really hot and I was sweating like a fat man running up stairs after a hot dog eating competition. I needed some ice cream and some water STAT so we decided to stop the bike in the park and sit for a few minutes. The main draw for us to ride the bike this far was the rumor of a Chinese minority village nestled up in the mountains around the city. We had never seen anyone in China in their traditional dress before and were ready to explore and gawk and any we saw.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...t/aaa/wg-7.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...t/aaa/wg-8.jpg

In the middle of Napo there was this cool little park built in a large cave. Guangxi is full of caves and I couldn't wait to get inside some of them. The wife however was against the idea of scoping out Chinese caves with out the proper lighting equipment. I did have a lighter in my pocket, but she said it wasn't bright enough. The caves are everywhere through out this mountain range and are often used as family tombs. We were also worried about disturbing graves and my wife was worried about upsetting ghosts and leaving us with bad luck for the rest of the trip. I hadn't had a chance to climb in any of the caves so the little park acted as my cave fever queller.

The small temple/ alter itself is supposed to be pretty old. An old man I was talking to said the buildings were about 300 years old and that under the building there were the ruins of some even older buildings. As an archaeology fiend I was quite excited about the idea of exploring deeper into the cave. I looked at the wife to see if she was cool with me venturing into the dark with my little lighter, she tapped her wrist and said we ain't got time to be diggin around in some old dudes cave temple. I sighed and dragged my feet back to the bike. We did have minorities to find and photograph.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...t/aaa/wg-9.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-10.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-11.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-13.jpg

The city of Napo itself can be found lying in a nice fertile farming valley at about 700m above sea level. The minority village we were looking for was supposed to be another 12k away up steep, dangerous mountain at about 1300m above sea level. Not too high, but high enough to scare the poo out of someone on a motorcycle. I said scare the poo out of you because we were told these mountain roads were a little on the dangerous side and that old feller wasn't tellin tales out of school. Some places on the road were just barely wide enough to have a small car drive across with one door missing the rocks and one door on the edge of a nice 150m drop. And of course this being China a guard rail is something you never get. But I think a lot of us like to try our best to cheat death on a regular basis. So I figured what the hell, lets cheat death by riding the windy mountain cliff road. While we were taking our time going slowly and carefully along the road to avoid any problems a local Chinese dude on his 125 Honda wannabe blew by us at about 60kph in shorts, sandals, no shirt or helmet and his girlfriend or wife on the back of the bike swinging her arms in the air like it was the safest place in the world. I have to admit. It did make me feel a little bit like a pussy, but I think it is better to be a pussy and stay alive than to be stupid fool and end up on the rocks 120m below.


http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-34.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-33.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...aaa/wg-2-4.jpg

When we did reach the village we were again smacked in the face by a crazy entrance fee. We talked to the people about how stupid it is for them to charge admission into a village and that nothing but bad press can come from gauging people. I do understand that these people live a simple, poor life and that the money we pay at the gate is used to help the community, but at the same time if I didn't have to pay so much to get in the door I would feel more welcome in the village and be more willing to spend more money inside if we were more comfortable.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...aaa/wg-6-2.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-26.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-27.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-27.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-29.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-28.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-14.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-15.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-16.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-18.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-19.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-32.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-31.jpg

After getting around the money thing and after I started talking to the people in village I began to feel like I was really in a tourist attraction and not a normal village. Everything we talked about came with a price and one lady in the village was pressing us to buy everything. I guessed these people have had a lot of interaction with the majority Han Chinese and have learned some of their business savvy or lack there of from these people.



We did manage to meet one person who was really interested in talking to me and I did manage to find out quite a bit about their way of life. It isn't a normal thing for them to get a white fartass like me that can spit out some broken Chinese to talk to and this lady was really interested in learning about what I thought about China and Chinese culture. Most of the minorities in China really love their government for giving them free schools for their children and free hospitals for them and their families. The government had also helped them by building the modern road to their village and helping them to learn a little bit about how to exploit the interest in their culture to make a few extra bucks to help cover their yearly expenses.



The people in this village belong to the Zhuang minority group. This group is one of China's smaller minority groups and is based in the western mountain region of Guangxi. The culture group shares quite a bit in common with the Miao minority group that can be found in northern Guangxi, eastern Yunnan and Guizhou province. They make all of their own clothes and make some really beautiful hand woven cloth. The group is also know for making silk balls. These balls were used in a ritual for a girl to meet her husband. Each girl would throw a one of these silk balls and the boy who caught it would be her new husband.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...aaa/wg-2-3.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-20.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-17.jpg

This scarf took 3 days to make by hand on a traditional weaving machine.

We left the village at about 4:30. We wanted to make it back into Napo and get some dinner and get back on the road. We didn't want to be riding after dark again.


We took our time getting down the mountain and stopped in town for some quick cheap food. We had been doing pretty well on the trip. Keeping costs down is always important when you're travelling and we had to make sure we had extra money for any stupid expensive gate charges. Most meals up until this point of the trip had fed us both for about 10 rmb. The food wasn't the best, but I was still "regular" and wasn't hungry while riding the bike.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-37.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...net/aaa/wg.jpg

We ate our meal quickly and got back on the bike and headed back to Jingxi.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-35.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-38.jpg

On the way back to Jingxi we ran into a group of people and their AiMas. They were using these little horses to haul pieces of new electrical wire towers up the hill to be assembled. The horses were not overloaded but it did look funny seeing these little horses walking up the side of a mountain with 2 big pieces of metal hanging off of them.

We pulled into Jingxii around 6:30 and found our bingguan from the night before. We got cleaned up and hit the bed early, watched some t.v. and pass out to get rested up for our next day of riding.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...t/wg-3-4-1.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...GXI1/wg-42.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...GXI1/wg-43.jpg

Saturday April 12th

We woke up early after another great night of sleep in Jingxi. Today was our push day. We had planned to make it about 450km to Chongzou so we would have an easy ride home on Sunday.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...GXI1/wg-44.jpg

We packed up our crap, threw our helmet and junk on the bike and were off again. The first time we rode to Jingxi we had missed a lot of the good stuff along the road because it was late. We were excited to get back into the shit and see what we had missed. The wide had been looking at the map before going to sleep and had decided a route to take. I figured her Chinese must be better than mine and that reading a map is a really really easy thing to do. I mean I am a round eye living in China and can make out all those messy lines on the paper pretty well, so she should also be able to right?

Today the weather was worse than yesterday. The clouds were hanging low. The tops of these tiny mountains were gone and we were weary of the looming bad weather. A solid mist, but no raid would plague the rest of our day.

We pulled into this scenic old village on the out skirts of Jingxi to snap some pics and have a look-e-loo. This is what we saw...

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...GXI1/wg-48.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...GXI1/wg-47.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...GXI1/wg-50.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...I1/wg-53-1.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...GXI1/wg-51.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...GXI1/wg-56.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...GXI1/wg-55.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...GXI1/wg-57.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...GXI1/wg-58.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...GXI1/wg-52.jpg

Nice trip Supersig. Thanks for the story and pics. We're still going to hear about the spokes no doubt.
Pete

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ratman

Nice trip Supersig. Thanks for the story and pics. We're still going to hear about the spokes no doubt.
Pete

---

Ditto this :)

I actually haven't had time to read this all yet but the pictures are great and I will read is asap.

After we pulled out of the village the wife peered at the map and advised we venture to the right. I in my trusting wisdom that her ability to decipher a Chinese road map was better than mine agreed to turn the wheel and continue on our journey.

Our first time down this road was at night and we didn't get to see much of the scenery on the way. We were on the lookout for any tourist traps we could find and there were numerous ones listed on the map.

After about 1 hour of riding I thought to myself that this really didn't feel like the road we had been on 2 days before and I asked the wife to stop for a minute and have a look at the map. Surely enough we had ventured of our desired route and were only about 5 km from the Vietnam border. In all fairness it wasn't that important that we took the wrong road. It was actually quite nice to see another part of the country and we did get to ride through some amazing views.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...aa/wg-61-1.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-59.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-64.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-60.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-62.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-63.jpg

The road ended up taking us about 200km off course and we found a small bypass to get us back on the main road back to Daxin. By now the weather had gotten a little worse and the clouds had lowered themselves to the ground. We were riding through a steady stream of thick mist and fog. The camera had been put back in its bag and our main goal was to make it back to Daxin and then press on to Chongzuo so we could have an easy ride home on Sunday.

While on the small road we came to a tunnel that was about 1km long. As with all tunnels in China safety number one on any smart rider's mind, so it was lights on and proceed in a slow, calm fashion. It turns out earlier in the day a truck had blown it's engine right at the exit to the tunnel and had pissed oil and diesel fuel all over a smooth concrete surface. To make things worse the exit of the tunnel was a sharp 90 degree turn down a small hill. As soon as my front tire hit the shit on the road we were down. Luckily for us we were wearing all of our gear and there was nothing coming the wrong way. The slow speed of the dump also took a lot of the drama out of the situation, but never the less it is never an enjoyable experience to eat shit with your wife on the back of the bike.

The wife was off the bike right away and I managed to lay the bike down and get the hell out of the way. It came to rest about 3m away from us in the middle of the road in more seriously in the middle of the diesel fuel/ oil pool that had formed on the hill.

About 8 Chinese guys ran up to check if we were OK and to warn us about the accident that had happened about an hour before we arrived. They proceeded to hep me pick my bike up, but nobody could get any grip on their shoes and every time the bike made it to half vertical everyone slid down the hill and the bike was dropped again and again. I think it was dumped about 8 times in total. After witnessing the pain my bike was being subjected to I decided the best thing for me to do would be to grab the bars and drag the bike down the hill and out of the oily mess. I dragged the bike about 50m and stood it back up. We rested for about 30 min to collect our thoughts and make sure no one was hurt. Our mesh alpinestar coats really did the trick of protecting us and our rain gear did a good job of protecting the gear. After inspection we were happy everything was OK and we looked at the bike to assess the damages. The bike was OK, the only problem was the rear passenger foot peg and a broken ball on my clutch lever. We decided to climb back on the bike and try to make it back to Daxin in the hopes of finding some replacement parts.

We made it back to Daxin around 4:00pm and decided it would be best that after all of our day's excitement if we just stayed the night in Daxin and pushed to make it home on Sunday.

We found a new Bingguan and settled in for the night. A hot shower and inspection of bruises was followed by a good night's sleep.

Sunday, April 13th

We woke up early again. It had rained all night and we were hoping for a nice day of weather to lead us back home. We had a full day of riding to come and after yesterday's follies we wanted it to be as calm and soothing as possible. We packed up the bike and found a local guy to give me a new passenger footpeg and a new clutch lever for 10rmb. We ate our breakfast and decided to take it really easy for the rest of the ride home. Sadly the weather gods did not agree with us and we were forced to ride nearly 6 hours in the rain to get home on time.

This was the wife's first trip to anywhere by motorcycle and I was worried that after the fall she might be a little cold to the idea of us riding to Beijing in the summer. It turns out I'm really lucky to have the girl I have because she wanted to climb back on the bike the very next day. She loved the trip and is now dreaming of having her own bike to ride along side me. Nothing could be better.

There were no broken spokes on this trip and the quality of the wheels on my bike is pretty incredible given the price of the bike. I was told by one of the China bike factories that one reason a lot of bikes suffer broken spoke syndrome isn't because of the quality of the spokes but more a cause of the assembler trying to get through his/her day quickly and not setting them up correctly.

Thanks for taking the time to read my report. As always comments are welcome and encouraged.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3.../aaa/wg-65.jpg

That is some wicked landscape out there. The fog and mist almost make it look surreal. Speaking of surreal, been meaning to ask you what you do to your photos in post-process to give them that SuperSiggy trademark look.

Also, did you adjust your suspension settings for two up travel? Ever find yourself bottoming out? How did the bike do with two pee-po and some luggage?


CC

The photos are post processed in my own special way using the white balance temp, tint, saturation and curves.

The I adjusted the preload on the back shoicks to the 3rd setting. No bottoming out at all with the wife and I on the bike. The ride is still great and the bike is really comfy on the cheaks during the long hauls.

Thanks much for the story.......Awesome scenery. Wife still wants to ride. Lucky guy......and her own bike, even better.
Pete

It's great that she loves the bike so much. I really hope we can get her own bike before the summer comes. Well see what the money gods say, maybe if we pray enough we can work something out.

Great thread, some fantastic photos in there.

My wife won't sit on the back of my bike :biggrin:

Pete

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by petedeuxwheels

Great thread, some fantastic photos in there.

My wife won't sit on the back of my bike :biggrin:

Pete

---

You've got to get her own bike then Pete!:clap::thumbup:

we all were taken in a dream called "the dreamlands of the world"....
viewing the scenes you've shared with us, I decided that the real dreamland is there where you go with your bike and wife/husband/lover...etc.(that's the least important part. you may be alone) we were all deceived...

China makes me really fascinated, your photos made me think once more.

We ride, therefore we exist.
thanks.