Lost in Guangxi -The broken spoke diaries

[Supersignet]

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.








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.



























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.







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

[Supersignet]

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.





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





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.

[Supersignet]

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.



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...

[Ratman]

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

[Jim]

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.

[Supersignet]

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.

[Supersignet]

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.

[Supersignet]

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.

[CrazyCarl]

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

[Supersignet]

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.