Second best couldn't be better

**corporal_clegg** · 08-25-2011, 04:41 AM

Day 2: Anji To Lin'an (almost)

We arose early(er) to a beautiful day. Our plan was to make 200 km a day minimum at a leisurely pace so we set off soon after on the 201. Before long we were itching to get off road again and did so at the first opportunity. Baited by bamboo trails we made for the mountain from a few different angles but to no avail. The bamboo trails, tempting as they were were all dead ends. There were some thin trails up through the woods but they were made for someone of more grit than myself (or bamboo harvesters). Buttreflies began arriving one by one like in the Birds. Although I didn't see the end of the movie I remembered poor Dan and we beat a hasty retreat.

Back on the guodao, perpindicularly, for two seconds and we were off again in search of trails without much luck. We stopped at a shop to find some mosquito repellant and asked the locals where the nice riding might be found to which the reply was an offer of a guided tour. I don't know his name but I'll call him Mr. Zhu because somehow the conversation always returned to bamboo. Mr. Zhu took us on a nice (small) road up the mountain where we chilled out for a while and I thought him how to say hairy molly. He told me all about the bamboo, which types we better in which seasons and what for and where the best spots on the mountain were, price per jin and so on. I have to say I couldn't really follow what he was saying, nevertheless we were invited us to his house for lunch. Here he plied us with alchohol, it started raining and he beseeched us to have a nap at his house and sleep off the drink. It was 12 already and I think he was more in need of the nap than we were so we set off during a break in the rain.

After some time (checking for more trails along the way) I had the feeling that this road could not be the fabled Anji twisties as it had gone a little too long and was way too straight. We turned back towards Anji and back into the rain. Passed an overturned truck which we're pretty sure wasn't there when we came out and went to a petrol station to check their maps which were impossible to make out. About 45 minutes later we were back on the road (same original direction + useless maps, still raining) and just figured we'd get to LinAn and figure it out from there. 207 off the 201 and then some country roads and we found ourselves in GaoHong a very nice little village outside LinAn and decided to call it home. My co-pilot was experiencing some technical difficulties so I left her in the hotel and set off to make my bones in the twisties.

I didn't go far into them when, following the usual pattern I struck off to the side and was rewarded by a very steep twistie route up into a village in the mountains. In the first (main) stage of the village it was dinner time and everyone was outside and very surprised to see this all black astronaut roll through. Further up I stopped to give some guy a lift up to what he reckoned was the top (the second stage) then found a trail which took me almost to the very tippie top. By then it was almost dark so I went back, going down was more fun than going up (but not as much fun as the next few days were going to be) and all in all I wasn't very impressed by what I saw of the twisties. The view was great but the corners were a bit too tight so I couldn't go as fast as I would've liked, I assume they get better deeper in.

Was quite sad to watch this duck struggle to escape, he was just part of the dinner shopping we saw when we went for breakfast.

One of the bamboo trail dead ends from the morning

Me giving it a go

"The Birds"

Mr. Zhu, The Zhu Machine and the QQ Enterprise

Some pics of that area

The dragonflies out there are mad. All different colours, blue, green, yellow. We had enough of them after the next day.

Dinner with the Zhu's

Mr. Zhu's dog was good for a laugh

We were pretty desperate to find some trails but most of the time there was nothing. This one was ensuite

This is the end of another one

And just over that mound...

.. a stream. I figured I could jump across but if I failed we'd never get the bike back out so we moved on.