The diary of a Scot in Amsterdam

Just as suddenly as it came upon us, the winter appears to have been left behind. The reasons for this are quite simple: we have left the mountains for much lower ground, and have taken a sharp change of direction. Our route now follows a course almost directly southwards, meaning that we are within ten degrees of latitude of the tropics. Hubei province, which we have just left, experiences temperatures of around 45º in the summer; this luckily means that November, much less warm than this, is quite a pleasant month for cycling.

In contrast to recent times, nothing very strange has befallen us during the last week. It could be said that extremes, of one sort or another, have given way to a comfortable if unremarkable neutrality. The weather is but one example, with the dramatic landscapes of the proceeding months having also been replaced by scenery which is not so very different to the earliest weeks in Germany or Poland. Even Jingzhou, the city where we have just spent a few days resting, is notable only by its being in most respects identical to every other large town we have passed through recently.

It is also hard to stay excited about China, having already spent two and a half months in the country – although there are constant surprises, there is so much which remains the same.

That said, it’s not entirely true that things are no different here to the rest of China. We are travelling through an enormous country, as big as most of Europe combined, and naturally there are subtle changes to be observed along the way. The food available has undergone a series of variations, with more emphasis on spices here, as well as a lot more deep-fried food. I have to say that I’m more of a fan of the things on offer earlier, in Shaanxi province, although I remain in general very enthusiastic about Chinese food. Soon, of course, we will enter the heartland of Cantonese cuisine, the type of Chinese cooking most familiar in the West. We shall see if it can still throw a few surprises.

And I’m afraid to say that yes, the stories are true – they do eat dogs here. I saw them being weighed and sold in tiny cages last week, next to the chickens and ducks. And I was horrified to see one yesterday, skinned and hung up by its jaws in the street. Since I do not eat meat of any kind, I suppose this should not be any more upsetting than the regular graphic scenes of carnage to be witnessed at open-air butchers all over China, but to Western eyes such a thing remains quite shocking. The Chinese must find us all terribly soft.

But aside from this horror, the people we have met along the road have been universally friendly and engaging. The Chinese really seem to have a lust for life, and are able to stay cheerful under the most difficult circumstances. Life here is for most people one of meagre subsistence and hard, manual work. They are also quite absurdly stoical – sometimes to a degree which defies reason. In particular, they seem to prefer shivering in their jackets while eating to closing the door (or sometimes doing without a door altogether), and in contrast to Central Asia, do not see the need to use donkeys for pulling wooden carts. Instead, they prefer to pull them themselves. All this with a smile on their faces.

They are also very eager to please, and, famously, have an aversion to saying “no” in response to a request. This has lead to some quite absurd situations.

One incident serves as an example of this. We had arrived one evening in a small town named Xixia, and had quickly found a cheap hotel (we needed a break from camping). We asked if we could park our bikes in the lobby, for safety, a question which the poor girl working at reception had a hard time answering. Instead of refusing directly, she assured us that they would be quite safe outside, since there was a security guard present at all times. We were prepared to accept this, but locked the bikes all the same to a lamppost.

I was thus most puzzled and annoyed to be woken up in the middle of the night by the same receptionist, who had come to tell us that our bikes should now be moved into the lobby after all, “for safety”. I guess they thought that this would please us, and were probably quite surprised by my irritation at being dragged out of my deep, deep sleep. It’s a classic cultural misunderstanding.

This same hotel did have one much more pleasant surprise in store for us. When we enquired as to why there was no shower in our bathroom, we were told that this was because we could use the bathhouse downstairs for free. This turned out to be a Chinese variation on the sort of sauna we visited in Almaty – complete with steam room, huge hot steaming pool to ease oneself into (great for the muscles after a day’s cycling), and massage. If only every hotel we visited had this, I would happily accept being woken up at any hour of the night.

There are almost three weeks of cycling still ahead of us, and then the about same again having a little holiday in Hong Kong, but all the same our thoughts have inevitably began to turn towards life after this trip. All too soon we will be emerging, shivering, onto the tarmac outside Schiphol and cycling the last few kilometres home.

I am understandably suffering from mixed emotions about this. Although I am looking forward to the certainties of normal life, in familiar surroundings, without the constant language barrier, and most of all with time for things other than cycling, I am afraid that the novelty of homecoming will quickly wear off.

There are various irritations of the road which I will be glad to be rid of, but I am quite sure that the countless everyday irritations in Amsterdam, which I have forgotten about during all these months away, will be equally irksome. Things always look rosier from the perspective of distance and time; already the months in Kazakhstan seem like a golden and almost mystical period, although there were plenty of worldly troubles there. I expect that China will be the same.

I have found myself adapted to life on the road more completely than I could ever have expected. The physical burden of early starts, laborious and repetitive chores, and of course cycling all day almost every day, has been easier than I had imagined. The wearisomeness of constantly having to find things over and over again each time we arrive in a new place, the difficulty in communicating, and the shortcomings of countries much less developed than our own, all these things are bearable. Difficulties which would earlier have been overwhelming become just another inconvenience to be dealt with. But none of this is any indication that life will be easy back home. It’s another life, totally removed from the time before it, and one which will drift into memory when it is gone. I hope that there is something from it that I can take home.