8 day Dongbei extravaganza!

[HarbinSteve]

I just got back from an 8 day loop from Harbin to Heihe, Mohe, Beijicun (China's northernmost point) Genhe, Hailaer, qiqihaer, daqing and back to Harbin. Overall the riding was great, and I had a good time. I'll put the pics and report up over the next day or two.

Day 1:

I left Harbin at about 7am and was accompanied by a friend of mine out of the city. His name is 王承旺 and he is a travel journalist. I was lucky to meet him at a motorcycle market when I was buying a helmet a few days before my trip. He has ridden his Bmw 650 all over China multiple times, and writes about his experiences. He gave me a ton of really useful information and tips for my trip.

The bikes (mine looks like a toy next to the bmw)
IMG_3672-1.jpg

After getting out of the city, Wang headed home, and I continued on the national highway 202 towards Beian. I had planned to get to Hei he on the first day. When I stopped for a drink of water I remembered I had a friend in Beian, which was on the way to Heihe, and decided to call him and see if he wanted to get lunch. I called, and it turns out he lives not in beian, but in a city an hour south of it. So I found out where I need to go, and found the road on a map which would take me there. After going back and forth 4 or 5 times, and wasting over an hour, I gave up and found a different way.

Great weather for looking for roads that don't exist:
IMG_1050.jpg

Later I found out that road didn't exist anymore. (The first of many times i would learn the lesson: BUY A GPS) After wasting a lot of time looking for a road that didn' exist, I arrived in Hailun about 3pm and found my friend. In typical Dongbei fashion, they insisted that I must stay with them for a few days and eat delicious food until I couldn't move， then eat more. After dinner we played some pool and I went to bed.

Hailun, pretty much the same as every other small city in China:
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Their son was terrified of me, the first foreigner he had ever met:
IMG_1060.jpg

I only made it about halfway to where I had planned to stop for the night, but I wasn't really on a schedule, and it was good to hang out with friends.

[HarbinSteve]

Day 2

After eating breakfast, I denied the invitation to stay a few more days and headed out about 7:30. And thats where the day started to get confusing. As soon as I left the city, I found the road that the map said (Note:buy a GPS) would take me to beian. As soon as I turned onto the road, I hit a checkpoint ( I have no Idea why there was a checkpoint. the road was empty) I was extremely glad my MCM friends had convinced me to go the fully legal route. I showed the cop my papers and was on my way. So I headed down the road and it turned to gravel, then ended at a hole in a fence. I didn't think much of it, as I am in China, and this kind of thing is pretty common. So, I followed the well-worn dirt patch through the hole in the fence, and after it was too late, I realized...

That I was on a 高速公路: (motorcycles are forbidden)
IMG_1063.jpg

by the time I realized it, it was to late to turn around and go back through the hole. No problem I thought, I'll just exit at the next stop. Turns out that was 30km away. I pulled over and asked a road worker, and he told me just ride, I didn't really have a choice. So I rode until the next stop, a small town called Tongbei. As I went past the toll booth on the exit ramp, I exchanged a glance with the toll collector, we both looked confused, shrugged our shoulders and I rode past. So now I was in tongue, and the only road going where I wanted to go was an expressway. (Note: buy a GPS) The map showed a road that went from where I was back to the G202 I was on the day before. Simple enough, I thought. 2 hours later I had been going in circles and getting confused at forks in the road, and ended up giving up and going back to Tongbei. (Note: buy a GPS)

Too many of these:
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I filled up with gas, and went to ask some locals how to get to Beian on a motorcycle. Eventually I was lead to this:

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Which after a little offroading turned into this:

IMG_1071.jpg

Then because a nice easy to follow road was too easy, it went into a village where they were repaving, and had an unmarked detour that took a few tries to figure out how to pass


IMG_1085 by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr
After awhile I made it to beian, then continued on my way to Heihe. A bunch of roads turned out to lead to random places, and Im not really sure what happened, but the road my map said was a normal road, had since been changed into an expressway, and the las 30km to heihe seemed impossible. I asked the woman at the tollbooth if there was another road, but she said she didn't know. So I went back to the small town I had just passed, and asked. An extremely nice man made me get of my bike, eat some ice-cream with him, drink a bottle of water, then told me to follow his friends who where going that way. After many turns and weird shortcuts I never could have found myself, I made it to Heihe, and set out to look for a place to sleep. In the inner city the hotels were all a bit expensive, and had to place to put my bike. I went to the outskirts and found an nice little place for 20RMB. The owner turned out to be awesome. He let me put my bike in his garage. I was the first American he had met, so he wanted to go out to dinner together. His daughter had gone to school in Harbin, and actually lived about 2km from where I live. His family and I went out for BBQ and a beer and had a good time, then went for a walk along the Heilongjiang river, which borders Russia.

[bigdamo]

I like the photo's.I remember someone asking you(probably someone from Beijing or Shanghai) why you would live up north due to the cold winters.One answer well for me is the clean air, blue skies and open spaces just like in your photo's.

[euphonius]

Great curtain raiser on your ride! This only goes to prove there is adventure everywhere, at every fork of the road, at every hole in the fence.

Don't get too troubled about suddenly finding yourself on an expressway, especially in northern China. Around Beijing, you can enter legally and they'll give you the same toll card they give to cars, and happily take your toll when you exit. The National Highway Law, as we've debated ad nauseum in MCM, actually does NOT forbid motorcycles, but merely prohibits riding two-up or exceeding 90kph. But so many provinces have jury-rigged their own local restrictions, the public now widely believes that bikes are forbidden. Chalk up another win for hearsay.

As for pictures, you might consider posting your pix to a server somewhere and just putting the links in your ride report. It's much easier to manage, and you can post larger pictures, and more pictures per post. Like this:



Looking forward to further installments!


Cheers!

[HarbinSteve]

As for pictures, you might consider posting your pix to a server somewhere and just putting the links in your ride report. It's much easier to manage, and you can post larger pictures, and more pictures per post.

What host do you use? flickr and photobucket both have issues for me behind the great wall, and my vpn takes foreverrrrrr to upload photos. Is there another decent option that is great wall friendly?

[euphonius]

I use smugmug, which I think costs about $40/year. there are other free options, and others in this forum are familiar with those, both inside and outside the GFW.

good luck!

[HarbinSteve]

Day 2 continued...

These guys were great:


IMG_3713-2 by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Heihe is full of Russians that come over the border to party for a few days. Unlike the Chinese, they love cameras


IMG_3732-4 by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

After BBQ we went for a walk on the Heilongjiang river, which marks the border between China and Russia


IMG_3739-5 by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Made some wishes


IMG_3748-6 by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Russia


IMG_3755-7 by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

More Russians


IMG_3760-8 by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

[HarbinSteve]

The room. Not much, but for 20RMB (about 3 bucks) I'm not complaining


IMG_3766-10 by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr


DAY 3

Delicious breakfast compliments of the owner


IMG_3769-11 by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Tighten the chain and change the oil


IMG_3770-12 by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Chinese oil change=put old oil in plastic bag and throw it away... not exactly the most "green" method


IMG_3772-13 by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

[HarbinSteve]

After the maintenance I ran around looking for an extra bungie chord, with no luck. A guy said he could help me find one but just ended up following me around blabbing and actually turned out to be pretty annoying. When I gave up and went back to the hotel to grab my bike, I was feeling lazy and decided to take a cab. The blabbing guy told me his friend would take us in his 3 wheeled motorcycle on the curb. I was stupid, hot and tired, and forgot to ask how much before I hopped on. After driving less than 1km, we arrived. I asked how much and the guy held up 3 fingers. I gave him 3 rmb and he said, "no, 30" I said "are you kidding me, that was less than a kilometer, I'm not giving you that much" He looked angry and a little confused that the foreigner wasn't surrendering to being cheated and took a bit of an aggressive stance. I told him I'd give him 5 and he could shove off. Then he stepped closer to me, and his friend was looking nervous. I would have like to have grabbed the tire iron out of my backpack and pounded him into the ground and tell him to stop cheating people, but I didn't want to get chased down by all of his other 3wheeled motorcycle friends, so we settled on 15 rmb and I shrugged it off. It was partially my fault anyways for forgetting to ask how much before we left. He was the only black sheep out of all of the people I met on the whole trip. Everyone was was extremely hospitable, and great to be around.

After that ordeal, I figured it was time to move on. I grabbed gas, and headed out with the intention of making it to mohe. The weather was sunny and the road was beautiful and empty. Perfect riding conditions.


IMG_3680-1 by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

It paralleled the Heilongjiang river for almost the whole time. I stopped in a small town (I forgot the name) for some noodles, and randomly saw the biggest church I've seen so far in China


IMG_1106 by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

I have no idea why it was in such a small town.

I ate lunch and the owner of the noodle shop was really exited there was an American there. He called his wife and made me talk to her on the phone, then called a bunch of his friends over to see. We had a good chat while I ate, and he gave me some useful information about the roads.

After lunch I continued on. It was mostly uneventful, but I did see the remnants of a few days past


IMG_3786-14 by HamSandwichChina, on Flickr

Probably a safe bet to say there was some alcohol involved in that. I stopped to take a photo. I thought I was in the middle of nowhere, and hadn't seen a person or car for a long time. Suddenly a head pokes out from the bushes on the hill above.
"Don't take a picture, you can't take a picture of that"

"Why" I asked.

"Its ugly, you don't want to take pictures of ugly things"

"Its interesting. I've ridden over 2000km, and haven't seen anything like it"

"Interesting?"

"I'm going to take a picture anyways"

"Where are you going"

"Mohe"

"add some more gas, there aren't many gas stations on the way"

And then I took a picture and rode off. After awhile I was getting tired, and the sun was going down, so I decided I wouldn't make it to Mohe that day. I stopped at the next town that had an inn. I ended up in a town called the eighteenth station. I ate some dumplings and had a good chat with the owner, then went off to bed.

[euphonius]

Very much appreciate the switch to flickr for your excellent and interesting pix!