A small ride in China

After a long cruise, we arrive on our bicycles to Tiananmen square! We stay for a couple of days in Beijing, ride along the Great Wall of China before heading to Hohhot, capital of Inner Mongolia.

Bike route 2 236 212 - powered by Www.bikemap.net

After a 24-hour cruise, a 2-hour bike ride between ports, then again 24 hours on a ferry, we step on Chinese soil in Qingdao, well-known for its malted beverage.

The international ferry "Utopia", flying the Panama flag

Our travel companions on the ferry

Immigration procedures are done without problem. We were a little bit worried about it, after the troubles we went through to obtain the Chinese visa (because of some allegedly missing document, the consul forced us to apply through a travel agency).
First impression, that will be confirmed throughout our journey in China: the country is a huge construction set. 30-story buildings can be spotted everywhere. We are welcomed at the port by friends of Akira's parents, and are invited in an excellent restaurant. They also help us to buy the bus tickets to Beijing.

Discovering Chinese cuisine with Mr. and Mrs. Mo

We leave our bicycles at the bus station luggage service. Two hours later, through the window in the restroom, we notice that employees of the bus station are joyriding on our bikes, just to kill time.

This is what happens if you leave your bicycle to a luggage service

Chinese buses are rather comfortable, each passenger having a berth. At 3am, the bus stops at the side of a large avenue. We have arrived in Beijing, at least to its suburbs. We think that it's just an intermediate stop, that the bus is going further to the bus terminal, but no, it's the final stop. Finally, one passenger speaks little English and propose us to go to a McDonald's (open all night) with her and wait until dawn.

Getting off the bus at 3am, Beijing

With Luna and her mother at dawn

We ride in Beijing in the early morning. Bike lanes are everywhere and are as large as a bus lane, which is rather nice. Still, we have to remain on guard because they are used in every possible direction. There are very few bicycles but an impressive number of electric scooters and tricycles.

Arriving in Beijing on a bicycle

We pass by Tiananmen square. This gigantic square, that opens onto the Forbidden City, is a key place of Chinese history (for events like the 1989 demonstration that was brutally cracked down, resulting in a bloodshed). The dimensions of the square, of its surrounding avenues and buildings are simply... communist. There's no other words!

Two tourists on Tiananmen square, Beijing

We stay for about ten days in Beijing. We are lucky to be welcomed magnificently by Thilan and her daughter Ana. We take Chinese lessons, wait for Uzbek visas and prepare our journey.

Ducks are patiently waiting for their turn

Mrs. Bai invites us to taste the 152'342th duck of a famous restaurant in Beijing

With Thilan and her daughter Ana

We need a lot of patience to receive our Uzbek visa. Each time we show up at the consular section (we went there 5 times), it's always the same chap (fortunately for us, he speaks English). His favorite sentences are: "30 days? Maybe 15. 15 will be enough" (his favourite joke, he cracks it every time), "No political issue, only tourism, right?" (now this one is not a joke, and we have to restrain ourselves from laughing), "Come back ziz afternoon!" (the embassy is closed on afternoons).

We leave Beijing on June 25, in a nice weather. We are finally back on the road, after too much time without riding. Exiting the capital is surprisingly easy, thanks to large bike boulevards.

The Olympics area, Beijing

Close to Badaling, the road begins to climb steeply, we arrive in the zone of the Great Wall. Indeed, it's not just one Wall, but multiple sections of (very long) walls, some with a few hundreds kilometers between them and built during different eras.

Great Wall of China, close to Badaling

We take a cablecar to the wall at Badaling, which turns out to be a very bad idea. The place is packed with tourists (all Chinese, but since the country has 1400 million inhabitants, it's still adds up to a nice crowd) and a thick fog is all around us. However, this doesn't seem to ruin their pleasure and we stay for more than an hour observing them. Conclusion: mass tourism is definitely not for me.

Electric ambiance on the wall

The following days, we ride through a region full of coal mines, coal power plants and coal trucks. Fortunately, it's just a necessary evil to reach Inner Mongolia. But the crossing of this industrial region is unanimously elected as the creepiest of our journey. In one single day of riding, our clothes turn black and it's not just figurative. We are literally covered with coal.

Welcome to the empire of coal!

Akira passing a difficult puddle

Exiting Zhanjiakou

The mud guard's showing its limits

Almost every Chinese hotel is forbidden to foreigners, and we are not really motivated to camp in such an industrial environment. In each city we sleep, we therefore struggle to find a place sheltered from coal. In Xinghe, we find a hotel that seems to accept foreigners. But in the afternoon, the manager comes to tell us that the police stopped by to check the guest list and we have one hour to leave the hotel. "For your safety"... because they will come back in one hour to expel us. Fortunately, there is an other hotel (that is obviously more expensive) in town.

That's what a Chinese construction worker leaves when he's done eating

When we exit Xinghe, vast grasslands appear: we finally made it to Inner Mongolia! It was worth persevering.

Yurts. We're finally in Mongolia!

Every road sign are in Chinese and Mongol

Bivouac in Inner Mongolia

One morning during breakfast, we are approached by a herd of very curious cows. They seem to appreciate very little the presence of two intruders in their pasture and surround us while rubbing the ground with their feet, what surely isn't very reassuring! Fortunately for us, the shepherd arrives and makes them scarper with a kind of whip.

Troops getting into position before the assault. 

Chinese are building towns in the middle of nowhere

Pass at 2000m, Inner Mongolia

Couple of days later, we meet Chuan Fu-Dong, a Chinese cyclist. He invites us to eat delicious Chinese dumplings stuffed with mutton. We then ride together to Hohhot. He goes at full throttle (35 km/h with a headwind) and we have to hang on to keep up his pace.

Chung Du, cyclist and road construction worker

Downhill ride to Hohhot

Shepherd with his herd, Inner Mongolia

Now here we are in Hohhot, not very far from the Gobi desert. We are going to cross China on a train, in order to continue our ride in Xinjiang province, Western China.