A never ending love story

Since my first visit to China in the spring of 1993 I almost fell instantly in love with China. Since then I visited China on many occasions for private or academic proposes.

Among the highlights of these past visits was a travel experience along the Yangzte River by a regular boat service from Nanjing to Chongqing in 1999. Travelling on the river from the coastal area to the interior regions of China it was like being swallowed up from the vastness of China's interior, comparable to the first drop of rain which is hitting arid land after a prolonged drought.

New Dandong [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Another exciting and memorable visit to China was when I cycled from Harbin to Hong Kong in 2007, until Shanghai accompanied by a friend from Ireland. Though I already had seen a good number of different parts of the country, cycling provided another intensive and interesting encounter as one interact much closer with the life in the villages and cities along the route. This in turn provided inspiration for my latest endeavour in China: following the Yellow River from its source to where it reaches the sea, from Xining onwards I intended to complete the journey on bicycle.

After some usually consideration like "am I sure what I am going to do?" I decided to do it. In mid-July 2010 I arrived in Chengdu and spent a week to acclimatise, though Chengdu is a city one would want to stay for longer. I also used the time to visit some famous places such as the site of the Grand Buddha at Leshan, or the Thousand Buddha Cliffs at Jialing River. The first part of my journey saw me travelling by bus along the Sichuan-Tibet Highway until I reached the small town of Maniganggo where I left the Sichuan-Tibet-Highway as my next stop was Serxu, before travelling on to Yushu in Qinghai province. As there was no public transport available I decided to try my luck in convincing a truck driver to give me a lift. Yet, as I do not speak Chinese it will prove to be a challenge, at least I thought. To my own surprise I managed almost instantly to find a truck driver who was willing to offer me a ride, albeit I was not really sure for how far as some translation issues remained.

As it happens, I got a lift for the whole distance and was also invited to stay overnight in a tent, as we arrived after midnight at the outskirts of Serxu. On the following morning, not without first being offered breakfast, I started walking into the small town. Two days later I travelled on to Yushu on a regular minibus service.

Arriving in Yushu one could clearly see the enormous devastation from the April 2010 earthquake and the challenges the local people have to endure in re-building their lives and their town. The next destination was Madoi from where I was able to travel on to the Yellow River Monument. Contrary to my expectations, no public services existed between Madoi and the Monument or the Ngoring Lake. Hence, once again I had to find my own transport, a sign indicating the distance, 92 km, and a road which was still in the process of being upgraded from, as it seems, an unpaved road to a paved road, did not really help to increase the prospect of reaching the place.

However, I started walking along the road and hoped that I could wave down any kind of transport going in the right direction. After walking for some time I started thinking this could develop into a serious walking experience, especially as there was not much traffic on the road. Maybe not really a surprise considering that the road was still in the process of being built. Then again I had luck as a car with a Chinese couple, with their own driver, stopped. Albeit there again were some translation challenges, we could communicate so far as that I recognised that they were heading for the same destination as I was and that they offered me a place in the care. Together we spent a great time and thanks to their help I could reach the official monument of the Yellow River. The landscape along the road was very impressive as was the Ngoring Lake.

Before heading to Xining, I decided to take a turn towards Darlag, a town on the head waters of the Yellow River as I was interested to see different stretches of the river in diverse geographic surroundings. Yet, it seems there did not exist any public transport between Madoi and Darlag either, and I had again to try may luck to persuade some truck driver to give me a lift. Once again I was successful in doing so and I arrived in Darlag on the same day; though not without learning how to replace a flat tyre on a truck. Anyway, it was worth doing this detour as from a hill outside Darlag opened up a fantastic view over the Yellow River. Though it would be a great place to stay, I had to move on, after all, I still planned to travel several thousand kilometres by bicycle.

A couple of days later I arrived in Xining, not without making some additional stops along the Yellow River. I first had to get a bicycle and some equipment for the trip. However, I already knew where to look, such as local markets, and after two days I had everything together, including tools for making small repairs along the way. Now the adventure could start. On the 5th August I started with the cycling trip and the trip almost ended at the outskirts of Xining, as a one-meter deep hole in the road surface just suddenly appeared, which I narrowly managed to avoid. However, it was a reminder that cycling on Chinese roads is not for day dreamers and that one has to constantly stay alert for all possible challenges.

The first leg from Xining to Lanzhou went without any challenges, overall it was mostly down-hill, with the wind in the back. This changed after leaving Lanzhou and heading to the provincial capital of Ningxia, Yinchuan. At first I had a long up-hill stretch, although a detour from Baiyin city to the Yellow River provided another interesting ride and one close to the river. On the way to Yinchuan I encountered some windy weather and rain. On one occasion the road was interrupted by a flooded stream, but local people showed me the way around. On another occasion when I was cycling literarily in the middle of nowhere it began to get dark and started raining as well. As there was no other place to hide from the rain I decided to use a bridge as a shelter which I saw from the distance. Yet, when getting closer I recognised that the place was already occupied by a team of workers who were taking care of the road. When I tried to explain to them that I would like to use another part under the bridge as a shelter, they insisted that I had to stay with them, which I did.

After arriving in Yinchuan I took a day's rest before continuing in the direction of Baotou, albeit I stayed on the southern bank of the Yellow River. Later on I decided to change direction towards Dongsheng. This was the part of the travel where one could justifiably say you could see what you breathed as the air was a mix of coal and road dust, enriched by other traffic emissions. The main source of this mix was an almost never ending column of trucks transporting coal in one direction and driving back empty on the other side of the road. Yet after a day I decided it was time to get away from this road and to reach the banks of the Yellow River again. I did so somewhere north of Hequ, Shanxi province, consequently following the road along the river to Fugu/Baode. After arriving in Fugu I took another day rest before taking on the next section of the trip which led me into hilly terrain for a couple of days with some very interesting views of the surrounding landscape, but also the sight of houses built literally into hills with their roofs often being an 'extension' of the nearby road. Hence one had to be careful of not stepping onto a roof of someone's house when taking a break along the road. To look out for a smoking chimney was a good strategy to avoid such a mistake.

Meeting friends. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Meeting friends. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

On the road. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

I reached Road 209 north of Lishi and followed the road until Zhongyang before turning towards Jiexiu. After reaching road 108, south of Jiexiu, is was almost plain cycling along the Fen He, down to Xinjiang before turning towards the Yellow River again. However, before reaching the banks and the river valley of the Yellow River I had to cycle down a quite steep slope. The rest of the day I spent cycling along the river valley's floor before turning uphill again before nightfall. On the way up from the river valley I had some great views over the river and the valley with the setting sun in the background. On the next day I reached Yongji. As there were clouds and fog during the morning, it was only when reaching Yongji that suddenly clouds and mist gave way to a impressive and breath-taking view, with towering summits of the Zhongdia Shan 1600 meters above the town. Following the road I passed the last big turn of the Yellow River where the river turns finally towards the sea. On my way to Sanmenxia in Henan province, I passed several canyons. Often one encountered those canyons almost without warning, as they just opened up in front of one.

I spent a day in Sanmenxia before taking on the last, or at least what I thought was the last, stretch of my cycling trip. After all the cycling in the hills of Shanxi province the way from Sanmenxia to Shandong province did not offer a real challenge anymore and I made great progress. Only the hot and humid weather was a bit of a challenge and I always welcomed some rain, despite it was occasionally accompanied by lightning and stormy winds as well. However, the rain also washed away all the dust from the road and made the air easier to breath. Six days later I arrived in Binzhou in Shandong province, where I crossed the Yellow River for the last time. It was also the place where I had to say farewell to the great river, which for a long time, provided an impressive and interesting guide to follow from the high altitude grasslands and mountains in Qinghai province to the low land plains of Shandong province.

Yet, it did not spell the end of my cycling trip. I still had time and energy left, so I decided to keep cycling to the Yalu River; another river of historical relevance albeit not comparable to the significance of the Yellow River. At first I followed the route to Yantai, however I almost was stopped in my tracks as I caught a cold, but I did not have the time to stay in bed. So I decided to make longer breaks during the day and cycle shorter distances as I normally would. This worked at least to the extent of keeping me going. It took me three days to cover the distance between Dalian and Dandong and I finally reached Dandong after forty days of cycling at the midday on the 14th of September where I finally completed the journey. I was just on time, as I was invited to present a paper on the role renewable energy sources could play to help addressing China's environmental issues at a conference at Beijing University, on the September 16th.

Once again, I had seen a great variety of landscapes through China, met many friendly and helpful people on the way, and got additional and interesting insights into the everyday life of Chinese people. I also enjoyed getting my breakfast somewhere with local peoples, somewhere next to the street, albeit I often generated some excitement when doing so.

Yet, there were also some rather depressing experiences, as it was the first time since I started to visit China in 1993 that I saw a young handicapped girl, who may have not been older than 8 years who had to beg on the street for food. There were no indications that she was forced by others of doing so, but it rather seemed it was the only option left for here. I sincerely hope that this is not an indication for things to come in the future. However, it seems that the Chinese government is already aware of such challenges as the plight of disabled citizens and children was also a concern during Premier Wen Jiabao's online chat in February of this year. I hope that this awareness will lead to concrete policy changes as ignoring such issues would certainly cloud the extraordinary achievements China has made over the last thirty years.

As for me, the "love affair with China" still continues and I hope I will be back soon to China again, after all there are still some interesting cycling trips to do. 

The author is an Austrian studying in Birmingham, GB.

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