The diary of a Scot in Amsterdam

So, we are here. I write from the haven of our tiny room in Mirador Mansion, Kowloon, a cell-like space illuminated by the warm orange glow of daylight seeping in through tinted windows behind me and the cold, intense radiation of a fluorescent tube above my head. In the corridor outside, a crazy American woman is talking to herself.

Grim as this may sound, it is about all we can afford here; this comes as quite a shock after China. But it is to that country that I must return in order to explain, and indeed to understand for myself, the extraordinary changes of the past week.

When I last wrote, we had just left Shaoguan, having arranged some emergency repairs to Astrid’s bike. The journey southwards from here towards the Hong Kong border was a surprisingly peaceful and enjoyable final chapter in our travels through mainland China – for not only was the weather warm and sunny, but the road was also much less busy than before. It snaked a meandering path through some beautiful mountain scenery, which became more and more green and spectacular as we made our way southwards towards the coast.

Inevitably, though, this could not continue for very long. Eventually, the hills gave way to a flat landscape of near-constant urban development, of towns, motorways, and factories, a scene which would only intensify as we approached Shenzhen, the huge city which adjoins Hong Kong on the Chinese side of the border. The image I had in my head of China before arriving was of a more or less endless sprawl of grimy, grey factories; while this has proven to be inaccurate up until this point, it was finally beginning to agree with reality.

As I have already written, a little money goes a long way in China. On the evening of the day before we crossed the border, it became apparent that it was going to be quite difficult to find a place to camp, such was the density and frequency of the towns along the route. We thus began looking for a hotel in which to spend our last night on the mainland, and quickly came across the “No. 6 Back View Mountain Motel”, a development which from the outside looked quite uninviting – more like a block of council estate garages than a hotel.

The reason for this is that each “suite” had its own garage, from the back of which a staircase gives access to the rooms above. Although it was a bit more expensive than the usual here, it took only one look to convince us that it was worth it: as well as a huge bed, flatscreen TV, and sofa, the bathroom featured an enormous built-in hot tub and a shower cabinet big enough for the whole family. This not only had two shower heads and a stone bench to sit on, but on the press of a button was transformed into a steam room. When we were asked what sort of breakfast we would like brought up to our room the next morning, I expected to be abruptly woken up from dreaming. Not only did they heed our request for something vegetarian, but even went out of their way to throw together a European breakfast for us – including cheese, a product which is almost impossible to obtain in China. I would have been quite happy with a plate of noodles, but I appreciated the effort all the same.

Very much refreshed and not really in the mood to leave the next day, we set off for Shenzhen. We had reached day 90 of our stay in China, which was the limit on our visa. To avoid some awkward questions from the authorities and the possibility of a substantial fine, it was thus time to leave. We had used up the last of our Chinese Yuan by this point, and so there was not much point in hanging around in the city; we headed straight for the border crossing.

This was to prove quite unique among the many (eight in total) border crossings of our journey, and certainly a contrast to the middle-of-nowhere rusticness of the last. We entered what looked very much like an airport terminal, with our fully-laden bikes, and proceeded along a bewildering series of corridors, escalators (no fun with a heavy bike), lifts, stairways, and checkpoints. It was quite a surreal experience.

After passing Chinese customs and receiving an exit stamp without problems, we were required to fill in a medical form and immigration card for Hong Kong, and pass through the second set of customs, before receiving an automatic 90-day visa stamp (180 days for me since I have a British passport). If only China had been so easy.

And then we were there – although still quite a considerable distance from Hong Kong city itself. It was then that we were confronted by quite an upsetting discovery – the border crossing connected directly with a station on the Hong Kong metro, and offered no other exit, besides back to China. The aim of this journey was of course to cycle the whole way, and not be forced onto a metro train at the almost last moment. But this was unfortunately our only option, aside from ramming the emergency exits. In any case, it’s not the first transgression of this commitment to purity - we were ferried across the Polish-Ukranian border in a minibus, and took a short boat trip across Lake Balkhash. The first of these incidents was once again entirely beyond our control, and the second actually resulted in more distance being cycled than if we had simply cycled around the lake. And out of 16 000km, I would hope that a handful by means other than cycling can be forgiven.

We got off the train at the first stop, and emerged into the town of Sheung Shui, strangely quiet under the comforting glow of streetlights and the warmth of the tropical winter. No-one sounded their car horns, no-one spat on the ground, there was no litter to be seen on the ground, and indeed a general air of calm and order prevailed everywhere. It was quite clear that China had been left behind for good.

This requires some explanation. Hong Kong is China, at least on the map – it was of course famously handed back by the British over 12 years ago. I had therefore naively expected it to be some sort of halfway house, a way of acclimatising to the West once again, more or less like the rest of China but rather more prosperous and less rough around the edges.

This is not the case at all. As far as first impressions go, Hong Kong is not in the least bit Chinese. The majority of its citizens may be of Chinese ancestry, and Cantonese-speaking, but everything about them is curiously European, and British in particular – it is fascinating to see them drinking coffee and eating scones, politely waiting in queues, not spitting (fine HK$1500), walking dogs (not seen since Germany), stopping at pedestrian crossings, and in general behaving quite unlike their cousins across the border. In a continuation of this quirkiness, they drive on the left. I found this very confusing at first, despite myself having learned to drive on this side of the road – for that was a long time ago, and we have covered a lot of distance on the right hand side since then. They also use the British-style square electrical sockets, and have toilets which can flush away paper (first time since Poland). Absolutely everything is printed and signed in English. Many if not most people also speak it, although in a way which is quite hard to understand. And place names are an odd combination of British imports and Cantonese – you have, for example, Percival Street next to Wong Nai Chung Road.

We spent a few hours cycling along the pristine roads of the New Territories (the area of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region adjoining the border) in search of a cheap hotel. It was then that we came across the least pleasant change from China – the fact that everything, from food to hotels, is at least twice and more often five times as expensive. Suddenly our days as rich celebrities were over; for the first time in months it was necessary to look at the price of things before buying. Also, no-one stares at us any more – we are just two among the vast sea of faces of innumerable nationalities present. This is certainly a blessed relief, although in a strange and quite shameful way I do miss being the centre of attention a little.

Upon approaching the reception desk of one hotel, I was surprised to see the man working there wearing a Celtic top. His English was not so great, and so when the conversation got a bit mixed up, he called up some help. There quickly appeared a “wee Glesga wifey”, fluent in Cantonese, who it turned out had earlier owned a “kerrie-oot shoap” on the Dumbarton Road. It was surprisingly comforting to hear a Scottish accent after so long, although since neither her nor the guy in the Celtic top were able to give us much of a discount, we had to continue on our way. In the end, it was warm enough that we could sleep quite comfortably in the open air under some trees. I do regret that we have not done this more often.

The next morning, we set off for the final leg of our journey – towards Kowloon, then over to Hong Kong island on the venerable Star Ferry, followed by a punishing climb up the ludicrously steep streets of the city and down towards the south side of the island. The idea was to end the trip on the beach at the water’s edge, in a suitably symbolic way; when the sand and the rolling ocean had been reached, there would truly be nowhere further to go.

Unfortunately, this turned out to be less straightforward than expected. I had for some reason imagined arriving at a deserted, windswept beach, rolling slowly to a standstill as the waves lapped around my wheels, and staring wistfully out into the unfathomable vastness of the ocean, contemplating the greatness of what we had done. But this was not what really happened at all.

The first problem was that of course the beaches on the south of Hong Kong island are anything but deserted, even in December. Secondly, the first few roads we tried did not even lead down to the shore, but simply ended halfway up the rocky cliffs high above the sea. By the time we had found a suitable candidate, it was already dark, and so we decided to treat ourselves to a night in a hotel, regardless of the cost.

It was then that a new problem emerged – Stanley, the village in which we found ourselves, does not have any hotels. In fact it appears that there are none whatsoever on this side of the island.

Faced with the long climb back to Hong Kong city, we decided to find a spot for our tent and camp one last time. The steep slopes on either side of the road and the density of the housing meant that it took several hours before we were able to do so, during which time it rained more or less constantly. The next morning, sweaty and tired, we finally made our way to the beach. We took some photos, jumped up and down a bit, hugged, and then went for a quick swim in the sea. It was not all that cold, and there were even warm showers on the beach for afterwards. Quite surprisingly, we were not even the only people swimming that morning.

And that was it. As can be expected, it was quite an anticlimactic sort of an ending, but I’d say there’s a lesson in that. It is often said that travelling is more important than arriving, and this has never been more true than in this case. I do not like melodramatic, contrived moments very much, and so I am a bit puzzled as to why I thought it would be a good idea to contrive one for myself. Of course, it is necessary to have some sort of concrete target, a line with an end which can be seen on the map, a point upon reaching which one can say “we have made it”. But expanding this arrival into a grand event, even one to be witnessed by no-one but ourselves, seems in retrospect to be quite silly. For me, this trip is not about the frantic afternoon upon which we left Amsterdam, nor about the morning I have just described on Stanley beach, nor about how many kilometres were travelled, borders crossed, months passed, or any other such static points, statistics, or milestones. It is about the everyday reality of being on the road, of living a life completely different from the one at home, of seeing and experiencing so many things about which I had earlier only read about, and most of all about gaining a new perspective on where I myself come from and where I live. But all the same, it is nice to be able to wrap up the whole experience in a way which makes some sort of sense, just as all stories must do to be satisfying for both writer and reader. But this is not a work of fiction; I can’t rewrite the ending to be suitably poetic. The truth will have to do.

And then it was time to turn around, head back up the hill, cross back over to Kowloon, and begin the search for somewhere to stay. Needless to say, there would be no steam room or hot tub this time.

Mirador Mansion, as may be gathered from my earlier comments, does not really live up to its name; except perhaps ironically. It is a maze of stairwells and corridors, which serve to link together a warren of dingy hostels, curry houses, Internet cafes, and above all innumerable windowless, almost Dickensian textile workshops, where workers busily cut, sew, and assemble clothes from dawn until dusk. Outside, on the street, it is impossible to walk more than a few metres without being offered fake Rolex watches, handbags, tailored suits, and weed. It is enough to drive you crazy, although I am slowly learning to ignore it. There is nothing much to be seen of the great global crisis here, as every street is packed with people buying and selling everything from worthless souvenirs to the most expensive fashion names. It is not hard to be parted with your cash here.

The scene which I have just described is quite illustrative of the nature of Hong Kong, as I have begun to understand it during these past few days. It is a place poised between riches and despair, between comfort and squalor, between accessibility and exclusivity. On the same street, glitzy and expensive hotels stand right next to the likes of Mirador Mansion and its even more downmarket neighbour, Chungking Mansion. Likewise, the metro and the fantastically quirky and picturesque Star Ferry are very cheap, while the most unlikely things are even more expensive than in Holland (€1 for four slices of bread in the supermarket). In contrast to China, which has largely abandoned communism at the everyday level in favour of more or less unchecked capitalism, Hong Kong has steered an unashamedly capitalistic path from the colonial period to the present day. It has reaped the rewards of this – it can afford to keep the streets clean, maintain a metro system which would be the envy of any other city, and built beautiful parks and monuments. On the other hand, it appears quite a harsh, unforgiving place, where everyone is out to rip each other off, and perhaps a little too preoccupied with making money to be bothered much with culture; while there are a few museums, it is hardly to be compared with cities of similar size such as London, or even with places much smaller. But then again it may be that I am being quite unfair, given that I have been in the city for less than a week.

And in fact, just as I am beginning to find my bearings, it is time to leave again – although only for a short while. The original plan, conceived by Astrid while sitting in an aeroplane more than three years ago, was to cycle to Taiwan. Clearly, this is geographically impossible, but we are going to go there for a few days anyway. It will be very interesting, having seen the part-of-China-but-not-Chinese phenomenon, to witness the “other” China – the one which, according to the communist authorities, is not a country at all but merely a “rebellious province”. We’ll be back in Hong Kong before Christmas, before finally returning home to Holland on the 5th of January. But for now, we shall see what is to be made of wee, mini, non-communist China across the water.

Well, we have made it.

After nine months, almost to the day, 16 000 kilometres (10 000 miles), and eight countries, we have arrived in Hong Kong. It’s the end of the road, the finishing line, and the conclusion to about the most exciting, eye-opening, and bizarre episode of my life.

There’s too much to think about right now, too many things to organise, and no space to do it in the frantic, overheated insanity of this most overwhelming, energetic, and capitalistic city. When I have returned to my senses, I will write something here. But for now, it is time to stop cycling, relax a little, and slowly return to normality. Although what that is exactly is very hard to define at present.

Of course, I should not have mentioned the improvement in the weather last time. Immediately afterwards, there followed three days of rain. Indeed it rained once again yesterday, although it is not at all cold.

Our nose-dive southwards has resulted in continuous changes not only the weather, but also in the landscape, food, and habits of the people we have met. About a week ago, we began to see bamboo growing and being used for all sorts of purposes, then today sugar cane, and a few days ago saw for the first time something even more tropical – banana trees. All my life I have been eating bananas and assuming that they grown downwards in bunches on the tree. In fact they grow upwards, or at least the ones I saw do.

In about three days we will cross the Tropic of Cancer. This is, I am told, the line of latitude at which the sun is directly overhead on the longest day of the year. In any case, it is a sign that things are getting warmer; I have just been cooking dinner outside, wearing a T-shirt, in a clearing under a canopy of bamboo trees. As I write, the sound of crickets drifts across the humid night sky. It is hard to believe that it is December.

We are now in Guangdong (otherwise known as Canton), the last province of mainland China. As well as the all lush greenery, we have at last encountered the famous parabola-shaped mountains which are so strongly associated with southern China and Vietnam. It is certainly the most beautiful part of China that we have travelled through, although a bit of sunshine would make it even better; it has sadly remained quite misty and overcast all week.

Since my last post, we have crossed the entirety of Hunan province, home of Mao Zedong and unsurprisingly thus archetypically Chinese. It plays host to plenty of the various recurring phenomena which are now firmly cemented in the image I have of China: little three-wheeled trucks chugging along the road at a slower speed than us, white-tiled flat-roofed houses with red-and-gold poetry above the doors, small children in special trousers which leave them naked between the legs (it is quite obvious why), huge blue-and-white painted slogans and advertisements on the sides of buildings, greasy roadside truck repair workshops, even greasier cafés with plastic toilet roll holders and throwaway chopsticks on the tables, and hordes of school children all dressed in identical shell suits. It is curious how these things are the most memorable, although none of them occur in any image of China that I had seen before. I suppose they are not so photogenic.

The further south we have travelled, the more densely populated the country has become. This is hardly surprising; there are well over a billion people in China, and since Xinjiang and Gansu are so empty, I guess they all have to live somewhere.

This has made it more and more difficult to find suitable places for camping. We had quite a shock about a week and a half ago, just before the city of Xiangfan. Having headed up a dirt track in search of a secluded spot, and then having set up the tent behind some mounds of earth, we were suddenly startled by the sound of some large piece of machinery approaching. It turned out to be a truck, which proceeded to dump its load of earth and stones alarmingly close to our tent. And it was not the only one; there followed about another eight or so other trucks at irregular intervals well into the night. Our tent survived until the morning, but we made sure not to camp again in such a dumping ground.

With an eye on the calendar, since out visa is valid only until the fourteenth of this month, we have been making quite rapid progress towards Hong Kong. We still had time to stop for a day last week in Nanyue, a town in the mountains of central Hunan renowned for its sacred mountain and enormous temple. The second of these is divided into two halves, one Buddhist and one Taoist. I can hardly imagine a half-Protestant, half-Catholic cathedral in Europe, but it seems that people here are a bit less rigid in their beliefs and can handle a bit of coexistence. It was very interesting to see the similarities and differences between the designs of the two half-temples: while both feature a series of courtyard spaces fronting a large space with an alter, the Taoist gardens were a bit rougher and more natural. In contrast, the Buddhists prefer delicate arrangements of tiny trees and rock sculptures, lovingly tended (and even dusted) by monks. There is a temple cat, which presumably keeps the place rat-free without the monks having to resort to killing anything.

The town of Nanyue is quite strange in that most of the shops there seem to sell nothing but huge incense sticks. I couldn’t work out where all the customers for these were, until we visited the temple. It turns out that believers, either out of piousness or in the hope of divine blessings upon their business, exams, or suchlike, buy large quantities of these sticks in order to throw them into a small stone building in the middle of the temple compound, in which a fire continuously rages. It is seemingly not necessary to unpack the incense sticks from their plastic wrappers, or even take them out of the plastic bag from the shop. Everything just gets hurled into the little fire-house. Now and then, someone throws in a few packs of firecrackers for extra sparks and explosive sound effects. It is a wonder that the whole place is not blasted to bits.

Late in the afternoon of the day of the banana trees, we suffered the worst bicycle-related disaster of the trip. There have been enough flat tyres, worn gears, snapped chains, and the like, but this was much worse. Out of nowhere there came a sudden horrible crunching sound, and by the time we had come to a stop, Astrid’s derailleur (the springy bit with two little wheels) had been torn in two and sat mangled and enmeshed between the rear gears and the chain. It was quite obvious that it was completely beyond repair, at least with what was available at the time. Unfortunately, we were at that point still around an hour’s cycling from Shaoguan, the next large town on our journey, and it was almost getting dark. The situation at first seemed pretty hopeless, but it proved possible to shorten the chain and fix up a temporary bracket, A-Team style, from bamboo and duct tape so that the bike could at least be used in one gear – which is a lot more than none at all. By keeping it slow, and getting off to push on the steep bits, we managed to get to Shaoguan and, exhausted, checked in to the cheapest hotel we could find.

The next morning, in the rain, we found our way via the suggestions and directions of various helpful people (a typical Chinese characteristic) to a good bike shop – one of three on the same street. They had a derailleur which would fit, but unfortunately not the bracket to hold it onto the frame. But this is China, of course, where anything and everything can be made. Myself and the guy from the bike shop popped round the corner to a small open-air workshop with the closest matching part, where a young lad with an angle grinder quickly modified it to fit. He refused all attempts at payment.

At one of the other shops, it was also possible to arrange some new gears, front and rear. In order to counteract the usual language difficulties, the owner called his American friend, Ken, who quickly arrived on the scene to assist. Ken speaks Chinese, and later invited us to dinner the same evening at the restaurant of a Hong Kong-born friend of his named Joseph. The restaurant had taken special care to arrange a variety of vegetarian treats for us, including fermented tofu (tastes like blue cheese), hundred-year-old egg (about as strange as it sounds), and a dish involving warm melon, some kind of mushroom, and some other indescribable but delicious elements. And for almost the first time in China, a decent glass of wine to go with it. It was also of course very interesting to be able to talk with two English speakers with a good knowledge of China and of Guangdong in particular.

If there are no further dramas, this should be my last post before reaching Hong Kong. It is a strange feeling to be almost, almost at the end of this long, long journey, within a week of the place which seemed like and indeed is the end of the Earth – for afterwards, of course, there is not much before the west coast of America. That country will have to wait for another trip.

I am excited, apprehensive, impatient, and at the same time regretful that the time which remains is so short. I am sure that I will soon look back with longing towards cold mornings in the tent, doing the dishes with cold water and scraping mud off everything. But there will be one or two more of those yet.

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.

The encroaching winter about which I last wrote has caught up with us. We have just departed from Xi’an, having spent three days comfortably ensconced in about the nicest youth hostel imaginable. And I must say that we had earned it.

Two days before reaching the city, the neighbouring province of Shanxi experienced the largest snowfalls in recorded history overnight, with this province, Shaanxi (note the subtle spelling difference) being not far behind. As might be expected, this has caused us more than a few problems.

That same morning, having camped the night before quite high up in the hills, we awoke to find our tent surprisingly warm. The reason for this quickly became apparent – a thick layer of ice had formed on the outside of the tent, acting as a layer of insulation. This was of no consequence in itself, except that the same thing had occurred to our bikes. So much snow had fallen overnight, and subsequently frozen, that the gears, chains, and brakes were completely stuck fast. This was a new and most vexing problem, for which there were no ready solutions. After an hour of hacking away with a tent peg at the ice, we could at least move, albeit with only one gear working on each bike, and one set of brakes. We gingerly set off up the remaining few hundred metres to the top of the mountain.

There had been no grit or salt spread on the road, and the large volume of heavy goods vehicles had thus reduced it to a river of brown slush and crushed ice. The second of these was particularly dangerous because it looked just like lumps of snow, until the front wheel hit it and suddenly skidded to one side or the other. This was quite difficult and probably quite irresponsible to ride on, and in any case the bikes both began to freeze up once again every time we stopped for even a few minutes. I must admit that we were totally unprepared for such a situation, since even the cold period at the very beginning of the trip was nothing compared to this. The seasons have truly come full circle, and a bit further.

An hour or so later, at a restaurant next to a petrol station, we were able to get some boiling water to pour over the frozen mechanisms. Unfortunately, the effect of this proved to be quite temporary, since everything would simply freeze up again once again shortly afterwards. It was just about possible to continue moving, but the pace was very slow. We decided to cut the day short, and check into the first hotel that we came across.

A shower (the first in a week), a warm bed, and and early night worked wonders for us, and a night indoors did the bicycles no end of good too. The next day remained cold, although not as much as the day before, and we were finally able to make it to Xi’an. We discovered that numerous guests at the hostel where we were staying had been stuck in the city for several days; the airport had been closed due to the bad weather, leaving tens of thousands of travellers stranded. It certainly made me quite pleased with our progress.

This cold snap was very sudden its arrival. Just a few days before, we had been comfortably sitting in the sun drinking tea in the afternoon, oblivious of what was to come. But now, with this ordeal behind us, we are prepared for more of the same, and worse.

In the first few days after leaving Lanzhou, we had actually experienced much warmer temperatures than before our arrival there. Despite this, I bought some thick long underwear from a market in a village on the way. This makes me feel like quite and old man, but does the job nicely.

In addition to this, I bought a huge green coat of the sort frequently worn here by motorcyclists. It is extremely heavy, and feels as if your are wearing a warm woolen blanket. It will be great for our arrival back in Holland in the middle of winter, and hopefully I will be the only person in Amsterdam to own one. I later bought a hat with ear-flaps to complete the outfit, making me look like an authentic communist soldier.

I am pleased to say that I managed to haggle a bit with both purchases – contrary to my expectations, it has proven to be possible to converse in Chinese at a basic level. The numbers are in any case quite straightforward, and hand signals can be used when verbal communication fails. The only problem is that when you get a few words right, they immediately start talking very fast as if you understand everything. This naturally leaves me open-mouthed and staring in embarrassed ignorance.

What I particularly like about my new coat is that, in contrast to all the high-tech composite-fibre silicon-coated stuff we have with us, it is completely low-tech – it’s just a whole lot of cotton. In this respect it’s a typically Chinese solution, one of many such ingenious pieces of technology I have seen recently. Another example is the solar-powered water cooker (see photo), which consists of something shaped similarly to a satellite dish but coated in tiny mirrors, with an arm and metal hoop to hold a big aluminium kettle. The idea is of course to focus the rays of the sun onto one spot, and so get boiling water for free. In one village we passed through, it seemed as though everyone had one. And for keeping the tea warm without the need for fuel or electricity nearby, there is a small stove consisting of an outer jacket of O-shaped ceramic bricks, into the middle of which is dropped a stack of red-hot cylindrical bricks which have been heated elsewhere. Whatever needs to be kept warm is simply laid on top, and stays hot for hours and hours.

The landscape during these days was quite stunning, as the road wound first up steep hillsides, before diving back down through steep-sided canyons and over high viaducts. We were luckily able to find our way onto the new motorway which ran parallel to the old road – in fact it was so new that is was not even open. We were the only traffic besides construction vehicles on this wide, flat road, which was a very refreshing change from the constant blaring of horns and potholes that we otherwise have to deal with.

Another advantage of travelling along this new motorway is that an impressive series of tunnels have been blasted through the mountains on the route, cutting out a lot of climbing. Along with the rest of the road, these are more or less complete but not entirely so, which left me a bit apprehensive about suddenly coming across a wall of rock as we dodged our way in the darkness past loose concrete tiles and teams of workers installing lighting. But in all cases, sometimes after up to half an hour underground, we emerged safely once again into the grey light of the Chinese autumn. It felt a bit like cheating to have dodged so many high peaks in this way, but we have certainly earned it after all the hills we have climbed on this trip. We love tunnels!

Our luck with this new road finally ran out after about five days, when we found ourselves on a bridge high above a river valley, with a section as long as a football pitch missing from the middle. The resulting confusion as we attempted to find another route caused us to become quite lost and cycle for serval hours up a hillside in the wrong direction. This was our second major wrong turning since Lanzhou, and the source of much frustration. We are on quite a tight schedule in order to reach Hong Kong before our visa runs out, and we cannot afford the time for such mishaps.

But unfortunately there would be one more such occurrence before we arrived in Xi’an, leaving us and our bikes caked in mud and stuck on some unpaved road somewhere in the suburbs of the city. But since then, so far, so good.

As we arrived at the Xiang Zi Men youth hostel in Xi’an, I was suddenly surprised by the presence of Humphrey, the English cyclist whom we had met in Kashgar. I had the suspicion that we may run into one another once again on the road, although I had expected it to perhaps have happened earlier. It was certainly good to catch up and swap a few travel stories. He’s also heading for Hong Kong, so there’s a good chance we will meet for third time, if we all make it there.

Xi’an is the biggest city we have passed on the journey so far. It is also the most westernised of any we have encountered in China, possessing more familiar brands than ever before, as well as a surprising number of English speakers. It feels more and more as if we are slowly creeping back towards the known world.

But of course, there remain many, many new and strange things to be seen. What I find the most endlessly fascinating about China is the constant surprises available to eat – there are so many delicious things that I have seen once, and then never again. Often it can be something quite simple – the other day, I ate a small circle of dough with fried egg on it, filled with spicy sauce and some salad. Delicious. Even simpler, today I bought a block of tofu from a stall next to the road, which had simply been sliced halfway through in order to create small blocks which could be torn loose with chopsticks, with a little chili sauce on top. Very quick to serve, and very welcome on a cold afternoon in the mountains.

The day before we left Xi’an, I took a bus to see the other great Chinese marvel besides the Great Wall – the Army of Terracotta warriors. Naturally the whole experience is greatly prejudiced by the its fame as the “eighth wonder of the world”, and the subsequent high expectations threaten to lead only to disappointment, but I must admit that it is quite stunning – especially the view when entering the largest hall, and being confronted by the vast army of silent fighters, thousands strong. No two are alike, and it is hard not to be impressed by the megalomaniacal scale of the enterprise. I think that it is fair to say that only in China could such a thing have been done. Once again, I feel very far away from home, and once again, I find it hard to believe that I got here by bicycle. It makes the world seem not so very large at all.

A month and a half after crossing the border, we have now reached Lanzhou, approximately the midpoint of our journey across China, or Zhōngguó, the “Middle Kingdom”, as the Chinese call their country. If you have reached the middle of the middle, then you really must have arrived somewhere.

The descent from the mountains into the city was suitably dramatic, as the road suddenly curved around a corner to reveal the city in all its high-rise glory, sprawling out into the distance on the far bank of the Yellow River. The sight of this mighty waterway, cradle of Chinese civilisation, is in itself significant. It is our first connection with the faraway sea, to which it eventually flows, and which will also form the end of our journey. But that is still some distance away.

Things have improved a lot since my last post. We have had no more trouble from the police, aside from an incident which I shall shortly explain, and it does feel as though we have found our feet a bit more in China. It would seem that the secret of avoiding great frustration in this country, as in any other strange and foreign environment, is to adapt to the norms and realities of the place, instead of trying to defeat or avoid them. People will stare unashamedly at us from the side of the road and through the windows of buses, but all I can do is smile back, wave and try not to let it bother me too much. And while such things as bread, beer, and coffee are available here, it seems better to avoid them since they taste so terrible. By eating and drinking what the Chinese do, you are much more assured of something good.

Our first stop after Turpan was the city of Hami, the last major town in Xinjiang. The journey there was quite a dry, dusty and monotonous one, interrupted only by our meeting a group of three English cyclists, also heading east. Two of them were being sponsored by Nokia and various solar energy companies to cycle round the entire world, in less time than it will take us to get across just Europe and Asia. We camped together for one night, before they headed off at the crack of dawn with the aim of cycling 150km the next day. I did feel quite a bit deflated in the presence of such sportiness, although on balance I still prefer our more relaxed tempo.

The day we reached Hami, we came upon quite an upsetting discovery. We were cycling along the motorway through a very empty piece of territory, when we saw what looked like a man lying next to the entrance of one of the many small tunnels which run under the road. We had seen numerous construction workers bedding down for the night under blankets next to the road, and so it seemed like this was just another one of them. But something seemed not quite right, and so we decided to investigate in case he was ill and needed help.

It did not need much close inspection to see that we could offer him no more help, at least not in this world. Indeed it was quite obvious that his body had been lying there for some time, perhaps because the position he was in meant that drivers of cars and trucks would probably not be able to see. Either that or no-one cared.

I was less shocked and horrified than I might have imagined, but all the same, the sight of what was left of his face is one which will stay with me for a long time to come.

Clearly it was necessary that he be dealt with in some respectful way and not left to continue rotting in the sun for months on end, but ensuring that this was done was not so straightforward. We cycled back along the road a few kilometres to the nearest motorway toll, and tried to explain the situation as best we could. Eventually, a small cheery fat girl came bouncing towards us and asked us in English what was going on. “There is a dead man over there”, I explained. Her reply was quite perplexing – “only one?” (is that not enough?) – and in any case no-one appeared very shocked by the situation.

We were kept waiting for some time for the police to arrive, of course not our first dealings with them in China but in this case voluntary. Thankfully the motorway toll canteen had some food for us, although I ate more out of hunger than appetite, as can be expected. Eventually we were allowed to go, and on our way passed by the man once again, this time surrounded by a group of perhaps eight or nine policemen, who appeared quite indecisive about what they should be doing. We waved, they waved back, and we left the gruesome scene behind us.

The physical reality of what we had seen was not much more shocking than seeing a dead dog or cat on the road (and the smell was about the same), but I did later feel quite down about the whole event. It was just so sad – this poor man had died in the gutter, literally, hunched into the foetal position, just as he entered this life. Didn’t he have family or anyone else who had missed him? How long would he have remained there if we hadn’t seen him? How many others had seen his body and passed it by as not their problem?

Later that evening, I am a bit ashamed to say, we sat in KFC in Hami eating fries and ice-cream for a badly-needed injection of the Western lifestyle. I kept seeing Colonel Sanders’ stupid little face everywhere, and thinking, why is his face on plastic cups from New York to Beijing and everywhere in between, while the man we saw today gets his eaten off by flies in the roadside? What did he do to deserve such a pitiful end?

But such questions serve no purpose. Life is not fair, and we will all die sooner or later, one way or the other. But before then, let’s enjoy things as they are. That is what I keep telling myself.

And the journey onward towards our next stop, the city of Jiayuguan, put me in better spirits. A few days after Hami, we were finally clear of Xinjiang province, and were moving down the long Hexi corridor towards Lanzhou. Firstly, however, we stopped for a few days in Jiayuguan, where it was possible to check e-mails and catch up on the news for the first time since Osh. It turned out that nothing much had changed in the outside world, and that all was relatively okay at home, aside from my grandmother having suffered a heart attack. This was quite upsetting news, although I was relieved to hear that she is recovering.

One more strange incident on the way. We had stopped for something to eat in a grimy little village called Xingxingxia, and were quite puzzled by the thick, heavy fabric curtains which were hanging in front of the restaurant where we sat. As soon as we were in the door, one of the women working there rushed to close the door and the curtain behind us, and insisted that we stay inside. She made a wide gesture with both arms and imitated the sound of an explosion by way of explanation, which made me think that she was perhaps expecting thunder. This was quite confusing, as the weather showed no signs of turning stormy.

A short time later, an answer to this puzzle arrived in the form of an enormous explosion which shook the whole building and threw up a huge cloud of dust outside. It turned out that there were workers close by busy dynamiting away bits of the mountains to make way for a new road. Clearly the residents of Xingxingxia were simply expected to deal with the resulting disruption as best they could. The general attitude to health and safety here is a bit different from home, to say the least, and in fact in sometimes appears that people almost wilfully go out of their way to do things in the most dangerous way possible. Truck operators in particular seem to take it as a matter of pride to overload their vehicles to the point that they are constantly in danger of overturning and crushing whoever is unfortunate enough to be close by, which will hopefully not be us.

In Jiayuguan, we took the time to be tourists for once. As well as visiting the city’s fort, symbolic western endpoint of the old Chinese empire, we of course paid a visit to the most important tourist site of all in China – the Great Wall. Except, of course, that it is not quite as might be expected. Contrary to the expectations I had of a magnificent turreted, castellated structure snaking over the hills all the way to Beijing, it is in most places quite dilapidated and was in any case never constructed as much more than a muddy embankment for most of its length. The section here was in fact completely reconstructed in the 1980’s, displaying the same heavy-handed approach to conservation that we had earlier seen at the Kizil Thousand Buddha Caves (front concreted over and doors installed). But it certainly looks like the real deal, which is the intention I suppose.

After Jiayuguan, there followed a relatively uneventful week as we passed through yet more tedious dusty terrain on the road to Lanzhou. It was during this time, and particularly the more mountainous sections, that we began to experience freezing temperatures for the first time since March. I had been quite worried about this happening, given that all our visa delays meant that we had arrived in China more than a month later than planned. The coming weeks will be quite hard, I am afraid, although there is some hope: shortly we will begin heading more south than east, as well as downwards as we reach the vast, low coastal plane which comprises the eastern third of China. In this way, we should have reached the warmest part of the country before the harsh winter sets in. But this is all just theory right now.

China is cheap. All the hotels we have stayed in up to this point have cost us around €10-€15 a night, which is a nice surprise after paying 3-4 times this earlier. In Hami, we paid even less for a room without a window (it was already dark outside…). We realised that we could afford to spend a few nights in the most expensive hotel in Lanzhou for less than the dirtiest and cheapest of hotels in Amsterdam, a chance which will not be available soon. We thus decided to splash out (€50 a night!) for some luxury in the Lanzhou Legend Hotel, certainly the poshest I have ever stayed in. We even ordered room service, which is of course a sure sign that you are rich and have made it. Just like the fake wall, it’s nice to pretend. There is a huge widescreen telly, complete with BBC News, an even bigger bed, a fantastic view over the city, and about the best breakfast yet. They clean the room twice a day, and the restaurant serves pizza at any hour of the day or night. And even the chambermaids speak English.

Tonight it’s back in the sleeping bags, waking up shivering to find that all our water is frozen and that the tent is covered with ice. Soon, though, we will be toasting our arrival in the sunshine of Hong Kong, if all goes well. It seems so close, but it’s a while away yet.

Due to the Internet shutdown in Xinjiang, this story and an older one have been posted simultaneously. See below for more.

Wherever you are, you are probably higher than we. We are currently residing in the Turpan depression, amongst the lowest places on earth. On the day we arrived, we bottomed out at 80 metres below sea level. This makes Holland look positively mountainous by comparison.

This peculiar geography means that the city of Turpan is very hot, even now in October. I write from my hotel bed with the curtains closed and the air conditioning on, although the climate is sadly not the only reason for my reclusiveness.

The honeymoon period of our arrival in China is well and truly over. We were both so excited to have finally made it here after so much difficulty and delay, but events of the past few weeks have left quite a sour taste in the mouth and a feeling of being anything but welcome.

The first few days of the long trek from Kashgar began rather badly, with quite a few wrong turnings (mainly due to the difficulty in reading road signs) and a day spent camped in a field as Astrid was ill. But all of this was nothing compared to what was to follow.

Our troubles started the next afternoon as we were sitting by the roadside, waiting for the tea water to boil. A group of men approached us, followed shortly afterwards by a police car. There was quite a lot of confusion before I was handed a mobile phone, with someone on the other end who could speak English. I was told that we needed to go to the police station and answer questions, although it was not clear at all why. We had little choice but to obey.

At the police station, there was quite a lot of hanging around and waiting while numerous photocopies were made of our passports (and photocopies of photocopies), phone calls were made, and a seemingly never-ending series of different police officers drifted in and out of the office. The little hammer-and-sickle flag on the chief of police’s desk reminded me that yes, China is still an authoritarian one-party state.

Finally someone arrived who could speak some English, and we were asked precisely three questions – where we were from, our ages, and our names. All of this information is of course in our passports, but it seemed a waste of time to point this out. Since it was quite obvious that we were not breaking any laws and were in the country legally, they were eventually obliged to let us go.

Needless to say, we were both quite upset by all this, especially since it appeared that someone from the police was following us as we continued on our way. This suspicion unfortunately proved to be correct later that evening, as we were busy setting up our tent in what we thought was a secluded spot. A man approached us and told us that the police would come and take us away, and just minutes later we could see the depressing red-and-blue flashing lights of the law in the lane next to us.

Now, we were quite aware that camping is not permitted in China, and that foreigners are obliged to stay in approved hotels, but up to this point we had been able to camp without problems. This time, luck was not on our side. The police (via another English-speaking colleague over a mobile phone) explained that we would have to accompany them to a hotel. Once again, there was little point in arguing, although we did anyway.

The hotel, thankfully just a few kilometres away, was quite the most disgusting that I have ever seen. It was the sort of thing you only see in films, even down to the flickering light in the bathroom and the countless brown stains on the walls and sheets. Another argument ensued as we insisted that we were not willing to pay for it, which succeeded in getting us the room at the police’s expense. But I can hardly say that we were overjoyed with the situation.

And much, much worse was to come. The next morning, as we left the hotel, we were dismayed to find a car and two policemen waiting for us. They proceeded to follow us at a not-so-respectful distance for the duration of the day.

I had managed to avoid getting too angry up to this point, but the final straw came as we stopped for a break in the early afternoon. One of the policemen stepped out of the car and gestured that we should not be stopping, at which I completely lost it, screaming at him to “fuck off and give us some damn peace and quite for a minute – we’ve got to eat, same as you pricks, understand?”. This had some effect, since they retreated out of sight while we ate our lunch. But of course we were not done with them.

As we got back onto the road, I did something quite stupid. I asked one of the policemen how long they were planning on following us, of which he of course understood nothing. He once again dialled the mysterious English-speaking colleague on his mobile phone, who asked me where we were going.

When I opened my big mouth and said “Hong Kong”, he became very agitated and upset. “You cannot do that! You must take a bus! It’s too far! You will be punished!” he screamed, to which I said nothing, hung up, and returned the phone.

We continued on our way, convinced that I had screwed things up irreparably. This seemed to be the case when we were stopped at the next roadblock (about the tenth since Kashgar), and told that we could go no further. Astrid was given the phone this time, and told more or less the same story. She replied that no, we would not be taking a bus, yes, we were allowed to cycle, and that no, we would not be punished. Unfortunately this was Sunday, otherwise we would have called the British or Dutch embassy immediately to ask advice.

And then, as inexplicably as just about everything else that had happened during the preceeding 24 hours, they let us go. But the menacing red Citroën which had been following us all day remained on our tail.

It was quite obvious that there could be no talk of camping that evening, and so we pushed on to the town of Bachu and checked into a hotel. The police accompanied us the whole way, and even checked into the room next to ours. Although we were both mighty tired of this harassment, we were by then a lot calmer than earlier. It appeared that a sort of stalemate had developed; while we were unable to shake off the police, they seemed to be powerless to do anything to stop us from cycling. The question was, when would it end?

There seemed to be three possible scenarios:

1. They would forcibly haul us off the road. This seemed unlikely, since if they were willing or able to do this then it would have likely already occurred.
2. They would follow us all the way to Hong Kong. This appeared highly far-fetched.
3. They would eventually leave us alone, most likely when we had left their jurisdiction. This seemed the most probable, although it remained to be seen if this would be the end of our troubles.

The next morning, before leaving Bachu, we rang the Dutch embassy in Beijing to enquire what was to be done about this outrageous situation. We were told that yes, the police had the right to do this, that no, they did not need to give us any explanation, and that trying to reason with them would have no effect whatsoever. The best advice was to stay calm, try to ignore them, be polite, and on no account offer any physical resistance. Although this did not help much in a material way, it did help to rationalise the situation a little, and give us some moral support.

The three policemen, all looking rather haggard (I did by this point have a tiny bit of sympathy with them), continued following us that morning, before eventually speeding off into the distance ahead of us. We assumed that they would be waiting at the next checkpoint, but this was not so. Finally we were rid of them.

But of course, we were hardly able to relax. Only after a few more days had passed without incident was I able to sleep well in the tent, and even then after we had taken quite severe measures to avoid detection – sleeping in tunnels under the motorway, diving behind mounds of earth during lulls in the traffic, and even cooking with the lights off. I was astonished to find myself longing for the carefree chaos of Central Asia, which had so recently been driving me nuts.

The road east across the vast territory of Xinjiang did little to lift the spirits, driving a course as it does between the Tian Shan mountains and the Takla Makan desert. This sounds like quite a picturesque route in theory, but the reality is day upon day of much the same, of countless dusty, grimy villages, trucks with blaring horns, roadworks, enormous empty petrol stations, and little to look forward to besides another sleepless night worrying about whether or not we had been seen as we left the road.

A few days later, we were cornered by the police as we entered a small town in the early evening, and were once again escorted to the nearest hotel. This led us to the conclusion that it was best to avoid towns and other settlements late in the day, since we could not really give a plausible explanation about where our destination might be. This, together with our extra-cautious behaviour whilst camping, meant that from that point until Turpan we were able to camp every night undisturbed. How long this can continue, especially in the more populated regions of China, is anyone’s guess. We simply cannot afford to stay in hotels the whole time. One crumb of comfort is that the situation may improve as we leave Xinjiang province in a week or so – although this is by no means certain.

In the meantime, we have notched up a few achievements. On the day we were first arrested, we reached a total of 10000 kilometres cycled since Amsterdam. And next week, hopefully, we will reach the longitude of 94.985°E. I am a little worried that I am in the habit of quoting far too many numbers here, but this one is important. Since Amsterdam lies at 4.985°E, this means that we will have cycled a quarter of the way around the Earth. And it certainly feels a long, long way from home.

For the first time on this journey, I have to admit that I have begun to feel homesick. It is not so much that I miss Scottish humour or Dutch cheese (although I do, very much), but that I feel suddenly so very isolated. There is me, Astrid, and nothing else which is not strange and opaque. Even in Kyrgyzstan, I could read enough Russian to know what a particular shop was selling, but the combination of Mandarin and Uighur here presents an incomprehensible wall of meaninglessness. It’s a sort of deafness and blindness, a deadening of the senses, in which information is replaced by noise and familiarity with randomness. The absence of any English-language media (aside from the occasional copy of the true-to-the-party-line China Daily), and above all the continued Internet blackout, make the situation even worse. Everyone I know could be dead, wars could have been declared, and I would know nothing about it.

On the evening after we coralled for the second time and escorted to a hotel, we went for something to eat a little further along the street. When we returned to the hotel, the sight of our bikes standing in the lobby, spattered with mud and grease, gave me a sudden warm and comforting feeling of recognition. I feel a little ashamed, although not surprised, to be affected in such a way by a piece of welded steel (not Made in China, but in Utrecht). These same bikes have got us here, and with luck they will get us to the end, too.

Walking along the street, the sound of people coughing up phlegm and spitting on to the pavement is relentless. No amount of cultural tolerance will prevent me from finding this a disgusting habit. There is nothing in the shops which is familiar. Everyone stares (and shouts) at us, and even the local museum will not let you in unless you are part of a pre-arranged tour group. It is hard to feel anything but a pariah and a member of an alien species.

But I do not want to be entirely negative. It is fascinating to experience the reality of such a different society, and the food continues to be a source of delicious surprises. Last night, we visited a restaurant where each table had a gas burner built in to it, all of which were connected together with what looked like garden hose. You get a large bowl with some salt and spices, which is filled with water and set on top of the burner. When this is boiling nicely, you make your own selection from the vast array of different items attached to wooden skewers in the fridges against the back wall. These are left to cook in the boiling mixture, and then eaten in a small bowl filled with oil and nuts, with the skewers being counted at the end to determine the price. It was quite a spectacle, and certainly delicious. Another favourite of mine are the stalls with tables on street corners selling delicious fried dough, dumplings, and noodles for breakfast. It’s all totally unhygienic and dangerous (more garden hose) and would never be allowed at home, but it’s a great way to start the day.

And in the end, I remain positive and optimistic. I hold out the hope that the “real China” is yet to come, and that Xinjiang is just a rather rough colonial outpost, neither authentically Uighur nor part of the heartland of Han China. I look forward to our second quarter of planet Earth, the second third of China, and better times to come.

Due to the Internet shutdown in Xinjiang, this story and a more recent one have been posted simultaneously. See above for more.

Having followed the white rabbit down the rabbit hole, Alice finds herself falling down and down through a surreal nothingness, before emerging into a strange and bewildering new world. Having descended through what has felt like just as much of a wormhole, to be spat out tumbling down the mountainside into the western frontier of China, I can understand how she must have felt.

For the route that has brought us into this country, almost at its westernmost point, has really felt like the back door, the most impossibly obtuse way to escape the clutches of the former USSR which have held us back for so long. But quite unbelievably, it has been the most logical and indeed the only option open to us.

The major culture shock of the journey so far occurred upon leaving Poland for the Ukraine. But, as I had expected, this one has been much bigger. Everything is different.

Firstly, the modest amount of Russian that I have learned during the past five months is suddenly not of much use any more, as the incomprehensible squiggles which comprise the Chinese writing system take its place. Curiously, there is almost as much Arabic script to be seen – although not the Arabic language, but Uighur.

Secondly, in contrast to the steadily wilder and more ragged state of affairs which has existed the further East we have travelled, everything is suddenly much more developed. Motorways, shopping centres, factories, and even street-cleaning vehicles which play “Happy Birthday” as they go are now present. I saw no street-cleaning machines of any kind in Kyrgyzstan.

And joy of joys, the most impressive change has been in the food available. I have only need to learn three words in Chinese – wǒmen chī sù – “we are vegetarian”, and we have been offered something different and delicious everywhere we have been. After months and months of fried eggs, mashed potato, and tomato-and-cucumber salad, this has been a fantastic breath of fresh air. Two courses mostly costs less than 10 Yuan (€1), and is accompanied by a huge kettle full of tea from which to help yourself. I just hope this continues.

Kyrgyzstan, beautiful land of mountains, seems very far away now. But I will retrace my steps back to Osh in order to explain what has been so strange about the manner of our arrival here.

We had read of and had been warned about the terrible road from Osh to the border, but such things only become real in the moment of your own experience. You can tell yourself “aye, aye, nae bother”, or else lose sleep over the thought of it, but in the end it is the doing itself which really lets you know what it is. I suppose that is really the whole point of this journey.

The first day or so out of Osh was a very gentle introduction, as the road (still excellent asphalt) climbed slowly towards the first pass of the route. It was here that the first faint glimpses of China became apparent – for the workers busy constructing the road which will eventually reach from Osh to Kashgar were mostly Chinese. In addition to the fact that they were working much harder than is normal here, the sight of them huddled in groups eating noodles at lunchtime made this obvious. It was also on this road that we first began to see Chinese trucks, although where they were going to is a mystery since I had seen none in Osh or indeed anywhere else in Kyrgyzstan.

And on this road, we also began to experience quite a disturbing phenomenon. The children playing in road, who had already been very enthusiastic in their waving at us up to this point in Kyrgyzstan, began to become quite hysterical in their behaviour. Screaming “bye bye! bye bye! BYE BYE! BYE BYE!” louder and louder as they ran towards us as fast as their little legs would allow, their faces twisted and their eyes wide, they would start making click-click motions as if asking if we wanted to photograph them (I didn’t). If you did not return their attention immediately they would continue screaming even louder and running even faster until we were out of sight.

I began to wonder what exactly was wrong with them. I guess since this is one of the few routes from Central Asia into China, they might see quite a lot of cyclists and other tourists, but this doesn’t explain the situation. Or perhaps it’s a sort of mountain madness. In any case, I was very glad when we began rising into the high mountains, to where there were less and less people.

After the first pass, the road did indeed become quite bad – although the worst was yet to come. On the third day after leaving Osh, we spent most of the day climbing slowly, slowly up innumerable switchbacks towards the Taldyk pass, at 3600m the highest point of the entire journey. Every few minutes, a truck would rumble past, throwing up a huge cloud of dust which completely blocked out the view ahead. We had to resort to wearing the surgical dust masks we had bought earlier in Bishkek to avoid choking.

When we had finally reached the top and had begun what we had hoped would be an easier descent into Sary Tash, we were dismayed to find that yet another pass first needed to be cleared. But thankfully this was the last.

And at the end of this exhausting day, we finally reached Sary Tash, the last settlement in Kyrgyzstan and the former Soviet Union. It was time for a final trip to a магазин, filled with the usual depressing selection of nothing much at all, and a stop at the only café in town for bread and some fried eggs, before heading east along the road to the border.

Sary Tash lies in the Alay valley, a high plateau at around 3000m above sea level. To the south rise the spectacular Pamir mountains, completely white with snow and rising in places to over 7000m. It was a stunning scene, and certainly a reward for all the hard work in getting there. Although it was never on our original route, I have no regrets at all about having travelled through Kyrgyzstan.

On our final full day in the country, six months to the day since we left Amsterdam, we found ourselves on a road yet worse than the day before – in fact it is hardly possible to call it a road at all, but rather a long and meandering scar where the side of the mountain had been stripped bare to reveal the hard rocks and grit below. We passed numerous large Chinese and Kyrgyz trucks which were moving even slower than we were over the tortuous terrain.

And then finally, at the end of the day, the road suddenly transformed into a sleek and modern highway of flawless asphalt which lead all the way to the border. It was hard to believe that such a road had been constructed, only to come to a sudden halt in the middle of nowhere. One day it will link up with the road to Osh, forming a proper link between China and Kyrgyzstan, but that day may be some time in coming and is in any case far too late for us.

On the morning of our final (almost, there’s still Hong Kong) border crossing, we set off very early. The Kyrgyz checkpoint was a predictably chaotic mess, with a horde of truck drivers (and us) crowding around a small window in the side of a wooden hut in order to receive an exit stamp in our passports. Thankfully enough the guards were nice enough to let us go first.

This was followed by a very wide, almost 10km, stretch of no-man’s-land, and the second Kyrgyz checkpoint. We then squeezed our way through the numerous trucks parked in the dust, as if all the victims of a massive motorway pile-up, before reaching the first Chinese checkpoint.

And it was here that this strange new world began. Everywhere were crowds of soldiers in the uniform of the People’s Liberation Army running around with great haste, enthusiastically moving wheelbarrows full of concrete. We were rather alarmed when two guards with rubber gloves, face masks, and riot shields approached us, although all that they wanted was to see what photos were on our digital cameras. Nothing incriminating thankfully, which was hardly surprising given that we had just arrived in the country.

We were then sent further down the road, to the Chinese immigration post. This huge building resembled something like an airport arrivals hall inside, a far cry from the dilapidated collection of huts and caravans on the other side. Here our passports were checked a further four times, we were asked to declare if we had any illnesses (of course not), and the contents of our bags checked, although somewhat superficially. Others were not so lucky – in front of us was a man with several huge (leaking) sacks of walnuts, each of which had to be individually X-rayed. Numerous boxes of sweets and catering-sized jars of instant coffee would follow.

At the desk where our passports were stamped, there was a little electronic box with four buttons labelled something like “excellent”, “good”, “checking took too long”, and “poor customer service”, by which you could give a verdict on the work of the poor clerk behind the desk. I did not find it necessary to push any of the buttons, although I later regretted not giving him an “excellent”. Although it is nice to see some concern for customer service after so long in an area where rudeness seems almost to be part of the job description, I would not like to be under so much pressure myself.

And finally, after less delay than I had actually expected, we were in China. We exchanged the last of our Kyrgyz Som for Yuan with a black-market money-changer, in full view of the police, before heading for our first taste of Chinese cuisine. As I have already mentioned, this did not disappoint, and was very welcome indeed after the monotonous fare we have been used to in Kyrgyzstan and before.

With the excitement of reaching China over, I became quite impatient to reach Kashgar, and see the country begin for real. This would have to wait, unfortunately, since a further three long days of cycling, thankfully over asphalt this time, would need to be completed first. But we got there.

Kashgar is quite an experience. It is a loud and chaotic collision of two cultures, Uighur and Han Chinese, quite literally next door to each other. In the old town, craftsmen are busy from dawn to dusk hammering at sheet metal, cutting up animal carcasses, baking bread, calling the faithful to prayer from the roof of the mosque (without amplification), carving wooden table legs, and even selling live chickens out of sacks slung over the shoulder. In the next street, high-rise apartment blocks are being constructed next to designer fashion outlets and coffee houses. It is hard to imagine that these two worlds can coexist without problems, which goes some way to explaining the recent unrest in this region.

Of this unrest we saw very little, besides frequent groups of army trucks parading slowly around town, filled with armed troops, and with large banners displaying messages in Chinese and Uighur hung on the sides. Needless to say, the subtleties of inter-ethnic relations in this area are invisible to us foreigners.

And we were certainly not the only foreigners in Kashgar. Paradoxically, given that this feels so much further from home than ever before, we have found ourselves as only two of many. This may be because the authorities require that non-Chinese only stay in approved hotels, which would tend to cause all foreigners to be clustered together.

We are not even the only cyclists. We met an Austrian couple, a French couple, and an Englishman, all of whom had come as we had on the one-and-only road from Kyrgyzstan. In many ways it is very nice to meet up with individuals who have shared many of the same experiences, but it also made me feel a whole lot more ordinary. But I was never kidding myself that we were really pioneers.

As mentioned, and in great contrast to Central Asia, there is plenty of everything – clothes, vegetables of every kind, and even proper jam (it’s been a while). In the centre of Kashgar, buried underground beneath a shopping mall, is the most enormous supermarket I have ever seen. Filled with a dazzling selection of food, most of which I was unable to even identify, it was truly an assault on the senses. To add to the visual extravaganza and array of exotic aromas, various assistants yelled special offers into hand-held megaphones, a trick that I had earlier also seen on the street markets elsewhere in the city. The megaphones even seemed to be operable by remote control and capable of playing endlessly on repeat, since they continued to blare out messages even in the absence of any human operator.

The Qini Bagh hotel was comfortable and affordable, and a very welcome point of rest after the road from Osh, but soon enough the feet became itchy and it was time to move on. It is a long, long road from here around the Takla Makan desert, and further yet after that.

One task remained before leaving. I had been unable to buy any real (not instant) coffee since Bishkek, and was running very low. This was a source of great concern, given my addiction to caffeine, and the fact that the shops in this country, the home of tea, stock only Nescafé. Thankfully, the very friendly Japanese owner of the bar next to the hotel, also a cyclist and appropriately named Hero, was willing to grind and sell some of his precious supply for a very reasonable price. He explained that doing business right now is rather difficult due to the Internet shutdown here, of which there is no sign of an end. Of course, it will also mean that this post will be rather old by the time I can send it. Meanwhile, we will continue our journey in blissful ignorance of the outside world.