Great Big China

Apparently I felt the need to exhaust myself. I traveled west into the largest mountains I've biked in and now as I left those hoping for relaxing terrain I've entered the steepest mountains I've biked through. The views have been worth it though (on most days).

Terraced farms rise thousands if feet from the valley floor. It is harvest season and I see the farmers doing all the work without machines. There would be no way to get farm equipment into most of the fields. The air smells of burning corn husks. Grains are scattered to dry wherever flat solid ground is, many times that is the road. The whole community seems busy with the work.

More rock carvings have drawn me to them. I didn't realize I like them so much before this trip. I mentioned seeing the largest Buddha before but I was mistaken. I have now seen the largest carved Buddha. I was only as tall as its forehead and it extended down from there in a seated position. Just an enormous work of art and 1300 years old! A couple days later I visited beautiful and very well preserved carvings in a cliff side. They even had paint still on them. Buddhas were here too but not the highlight in my opinion. I liked the figures carved with many arms the most.

I continue south camping most nights. There are so many people it is difficult to hide from everyone. Whenever I am discovered though they are very impressed with my hammock.

Over the Great Wall

I've seen the great wall now. I believe I've crossed it 3 times. While still very cool to see it has deteriorated more than pictures had me believe. Now it is often just a dirt mound or even less in a lot of places. Where I crossed it for the final time a meeting and entertaining point had been maintained and restored. It was a large tower, the largest on the wall, where the Chinese met Mongolians and other foreigners to maintain good relations. In the pictures you will see it looks like a large building but like the rest of the wall it is packed dirt covered in bricks. It has no interior space except a stairwell. All this I learned from a museum on site.

After the wall I made my way out of the coal mining regions and into the apple orchard hills. I was so glad to be away from all the trucks and black coal dust that left me filthier than normal at the end of each day. In the orchard area I would follow rivers, climb 1200 foot hills past terraces of corn then arrive on a flattened out ridges full of apple trees. Each apple on every tree had a bag around it to keep the bugs away. After a few miles on the ridge I would get a long fast windy descent to another river. All this was repeated 2 or 3 times a day.

I made my way south in this same way but unbeknownst to me I entered a restricted area open to only Chinese citizens. Maybe there was a sign telling me this in Chinese, maybe there wasn't. On my second day in in that area a police car stopped me and gave me a photo copied paper explaining in English what I was doing wrong. I followed on my bike as they escorted me to the next town and its police station. There, just like everywhere else I've been in China, I was a celebrity. It was early morning and as I sat in their office I was given hot water followed by a very good breakfast. They had to confiscate a copy of my photos. As they put them on their computer I was able to tell them through the pictures about my whole trip. The couple of pictures of beautiful mountain valleys from the restricted area had to be deleted from my camera. I decided not to ask why it was restricted. They needed to inspect my bike and gear too. I like showing off my gear but they, just like everyone else, got bored before I finish. They didn't even ask about my guitar, which to me looks like it could be a rifle. I was asked to write an apology, which I thought was a funny thing to want but I made it sincere. I posed for a bunch of pictures with the police then I was escorted to the edge of town, shown the right way to go, and was sent off with a smile.

My next destination was the Terracotta Army. These are the clay soldiers that stand by the hundreds. At the base of a mountain they were rediscovered in 1974 when a farmer trying to dig a well found pottery fragments. It is a fantastic scene and I cannot figure out how it was able to be so completely forgotten. I suppose a lot can be forgotten over 2000 years. Upon arrival I posed for a dozen pictures and met more Americans than I have since getting to Asia. The clay figures are still being unearthed in 3 pits. No one was working while I was there but presumably they are still at it. Many of the soldiers are broken but a large section still shows the standing army and it is fantastic to behold. They are life size which makes the artists effort even more spectacular. I had fun miniaturizing them with trick photography though.

I am in Xi'an now and have more statues picked out for destinations. I hadn't known I liked statues so much before this trip.

Now China

I've made it to China and I am so glad to be here. I wasn't 5 miles from the border before I stopped to buy a cantaloupe and a watermelon. It's been so long since I've had fresh fruit. I've been eating in restaurants a lot more too. To order I wave both my arms in a gesture that says "Bring me everything". It has worked well so far.

I made my way to Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia, with plans of taking a much needed day of rest. As I descended through the mountains to the edge of town a man on a mountain bike stopped me to ask what I was doing. He is an English teacher at the local school so we were actually able to have a conversation. This began 3 days of pampering. He and his biking friends took me to breakfast right then. After eating he biked with me to a good hotel. Then his wife came to meet us and they took me on a tour around town. I took a few hours to clean up and then they came back to take me out for live music and drinks. The first song sang when I got to the bar was County Roads by John Denver. The next evening I was taken out for a large dinner with a group of friends. It was a huge hotpot meal which I would not have been able to figure out without their help. The best part is that he biked with me for a day and a half as I left town. Taking me out for dinner and breakfast along the way. I stopped to get a new shirt and he refused to let me pay for it. My shirt had recently passed being useful in any way except to trigger people to tell me to get a new shirt. Just unending kindness. It was so very wonderful.

From Hohhot I made my way east to the Yungang Grottoes. Here there are 40000 carvings of the Buddha in over 40 caves along a cliff face. The largest Buddha sculpture in the world is there. I stood at the base of it and looked up it's nose. Some of the sculptures date back over 1500 years. Many are deteriorated but many are still in very good condition, due in part to restoration and maintenance. Also on the grounds in the middle of a lake was a beautiful Buddhist temple. The whole scene was really incredible.

In the next big city of Shenmu I was again abducted by kindness. Having just biked out of town a car stopped and a guy my age invited me to eat. He drove just down the road and ordered me two servings of noodles and chicken. He didn't eat but only talked to me through a translator on his phone. I was invited back to town where I met his friends and a very kind bike shop owner. They bought me a hotel room next to the bike shop and upgraded my brakes, refusing to take money for either. That night at the bike shop about a dozen people came to drink and grill. The next morning two joined me to ride a few miles out of town.

I shaved my beard. It was not convenient for slurping up noodles, and I plan on slurping a lot of noodles while in China.