Angels At My Table

Parts 1 to 3

I had no idea what to expect as I left the beautiful ancient city of Jianshui, and headed north.

It was hot and dry.

Once I navigated my way out of the back road sprawl, I passed through some farmland, and hugged the expressway and railway line for awhile.

The jacarandas are out! It's April, and spring has sprung.

I passed through some small towns, nothing large at all, until later in the day.

Eventually, after the obligatory sweaty climbs, I stopped for sugar, right here.

It's fertile country around here alright.

Leaning towers of peas

I eventually hit a forested valley, and began the biggest climb of the day.

Alt-rock

Waterfall

Local soaking up the view. The sign wishes people a safe journey. So sweet.

An actual servo, a petrol station

Huge potted trees. People are into that sort of thing here.

Another town, another gate

As I cycled close to Quilu Lake, and as the light faded, the whole area became a patchwork of super fertile farmland, packed with all sorts of food plants. It was also packed with people working the land during this slightly cooler time of the day.

The small settlements there were relatively new, connected to the fields by smooth concrete roads, it was sort of surreal.

Damn! What in cotton-pickin' hell is he doin'? Imagine loading it. And driving it?!

Unbelievable Hosts

I eventually stopped in a town called Naguzhen, which, to my complete surprise, had a few mosques around with traditional minarets, and, as I rode around, I noticed heaps of women in veils, and men with their haj hats.

Surprise surprise. A Muslim town way down here. It's pretty much the last thing I expected.

Muslims actually comprise about 2% of the Chinese population, around 28 million people, and are quite ethnically, culturally and linguistically diverse. The largest group is Hui Muslims, who speak the dialect of the majority Han group in their various regions. Uyghurs, who mainly live in Xinjiang, are ethnically Turkic. And there's loads of other Muslim ethnic groups.

Most Muslims live in the west, southwest, central, or northwest parts of this country.

Over the centuries there's been loads of tension and outbursts of violence between the Hui Muslims and the Uyghurs. Let alone conflicts with the powers that be.

But I have to be really careful what I say about what's happening in this space while I'm here. Including discussing my interrogation by the local forces when I arrived in the town. Suffice it to say that it's really not a good situation, with troubling recent events occurring right here in this town.

I found a hotel, and Na Hin, my host, a proud Muslim, immediately took me out for a meal, in his electric buggy.

Later, some of his friends came over, and it was on for young and old. We ate and drank, and ate and drank more. Delicious local tea, oranges, and fresh dates, sultanas and almonds, all the way from Xinjiang.

And not a drop of alcohol.

Of course, Google Translate played a big role again. With some dubious work ...

Na Hin gave me the best room in his hotel, for the price of his worst. And said I could stay for as long as I wanted for free. Unbelievable. He said he wanted to take me to the markets, and that I should be ready to leave at 9am.

He knocked on my door at 8, all ready to go.

Bless him.

Off we went to the local markets,with him describing everything to me, and walking around as proud as punch.

Local blueberries and cherries. Mmmmmm!

Rice and agave sweets

Na Hin. Looks a bit like a Chinese version of that incredible drummer Pete Wilkins.

Blocks made of tofu and peas

Their last High Threes

More fermented Century Eggs. They gave me six of them as I left, didn't they.

Root veggies

Dirty root veggies

I've started a chain reaction

Cured meats

Animalia

Na Hin bought us some fresh bread to snack on

Meaty smile

Creating elaborate head scarf decorations. Her assistant was resting.

Na Hin proudly took me into a regular run-of-the-mill supermarket, as it's new in town, and they've never had a big one like this before.

Then they invited me to eat the main meal of the day with them. Incredible.

Through my many travels all through my life I've come to the grateful realisation that the largest slice of hospitality seems to be reserved for the food table. The hospitable. There appears to be no limits to what people will offer me, in the name of service to their guest. It's incredible.

Whilst talking food the night before, I'd told my generous host that I was a vegetarian, but the information didn't seem to even go in one of his ears, let alone have the chance to slip out unprocessed through the other.

Na Hin's son and grandson. They brought along a duck. A dead one. They gave me some of the prized gluggy fatty bits, I didn't ask what part of the poor creature I was dribbling on the table.

The feast.

Na Hin and his wife. Angels at my table.

Tucking into ox tail. Sad but true.

The thing is, when you're a guest at a meal in Asia, people flop things in your bowl all over the Buddhamn place, and once they're in there, you can't just take them out and put them back in the shared bowls.

And around here no one leaves anything in their bowls at the end of the meal.

So I made a solid meaty effort to get it all in.

And it was pretty tasty too, I gotta say.

As I finally left to ride north I was handed fruit, eggs, and some special local tea, which Na Hin's son had gone off to buy for me.

I can't tell you how moved I feel after experiencing the incredible generosity and warmth of this amazing group of people.

I could go on and on about it, but I guess I already have. It's so beautiful.

This is the tea they gave me. It's pu'er tea, a variety of fermented tea specific to Yunnan province. It's really good for your health.

And the fermented eggs.

They'd make a good weapon, as they're super hard to crack, and are all sharp and lumpy. During fermentation, stored and covered in sawdust, the egg whites eventually become a transparent brown colour, and the yolk, well, it doesn't look good, I can tell ya.

But I ate all six, in three separate sittings.

And I survive to tell the tale.

Fuxian Lake

I could have stayed longer, but reluctantly left Na Hin and his crew as I have a few time limits, due to the crazily huge size of this country, and the relatively short length of my visa period.

And I have somewhere to be.

The top end of Quilu Lake.

I climbed a lot, as usual, and passed by Xingyun Lake.

Eventually I hit the western shores of the beautiful Fuxian Lake, an area well set up for tourists, although pretty quiet at this time of year.

The deserted back road hugged the lake for many miles, it really was a delicious ride.

As the earth spun to cut out the sun, I decided to stop at Luchong, a small settlement which looks as though it's pretty much been set up exclusively for visitors.

My destination

And my first stop, even before I had a chance to unload my bike?

My guest house owner led me to the friendly cop shop.

As her and I were walking there, she asked me something in Chinese, and it translated as ...

She'd actually asked me if I wanted her to come with me to show me places to eat.

Ok then. No sweets tonight. Normal night.

Not that I'm complaining.

And actually by the time I finally showered and went out everything was closed.

This was the best I could rustle up.

My guest house bathroom.

To The City

As I left my little guest house in the morning, the woman who manages the place gave me a massive bag of blueberries, and some super huge apples. My Confucius, the generosity is constant and unfathomable.

Not many left. There were millions, and I gutsed them all up, every single last scrumptious one.

The ride to Kunming was remarkably quiet, and not at all what I'd expected, given the size of the city. Those expressways really work a treat for us cyclists.

The last thirty or forty clicks into the city consisted of dedicated cycleways, a great treat. But unfortunately not all of them were that smooth.

I took a detour into the eucalyptus forest, but I got lost, and eventually had to make my way back to the paved cycleway, defeated gumnuts tucked up between my legs.

I did pass through a ghost village though, that was pretty cool.

Kunming outskirts theme park.

Looking at the world along rose coloured grasses

As I eventually hit the city I realised rather quickly that I'd better keep my wits about me in those cycle lanes. People whip by fast and close, and if I made one inadvertent swerve I'd quickly be noodle soup (as opposed to toast).

I managed to negotiate my way through the peak hour traffic and made it to my little room, a shoebox in an apartment in a very typical new-ish Chinese high rise apartment block.

My host was Zhou, and her two young daughters. Zhou's engineer husband is away in Colombia, building a metro in Bogotá, of all things. We chatted online. Zhou was really sweet, but was quite fearful, and I didn't really understand why until later.

An ad in the lift, for new high-tech sun-protection clothing.

The view of Zhou's apartment complex from my sardine can.

The hood

My fried noodles spot, cooked by this lovely woman from Henan province. I sat on a low plastic chair at a low and rickety plastic table. Tall chairs aren't a thing here.

Neither are long legs.

City sunset, as I went strolling to who-knows-where.

Checkin out the riff raff

I had some bready snacks.

Falling For The City Of Eternal Spring

Kunming is really a beautiful city. Considering there's a population of over 7 million, it doesn't feel at all congested. It's got loads of parks and gardens, interesting laneways, gorgeous temples and architecture, and, as I'd hopefully suspected, all the delectable trappings of a swish, modern city.

The food is unbelievable. As the capital of a province which is particularly diverse, there's a huge range of delicacies on offer, all over the place.

Electric scooters ply the bike lanes, there's wide pavements for pedestrians, an extensive and growing metro, frequent pedestrian overpasses and crossings, and everything's organised so people can get around as easily and as quickly as possible.

My first task was to buy a train ticket. While I would absolutely love to ride the whole length of China, from southwest to northwest, there's no way I can do that on a 60 day visa. It's possible to extend the visa, but even then I wouldn't have enough time. I also have somewhere to be in a few months, and it'll take me awhile to ride there.

So I bought a train ticket to Lanzhou, in Gansu province, a long overnight journey from Kunming, and my intention is to ride from there all the way to the Kazakhstan border. If possible. The train company doesn't accept bikes, unless they fold up, so Bewdy and I will be going our separate ways for awhile, I'll have to freight her and all my bike panniers separately. It's not expensive.

The reason I chose to take the train for this portion of the trip (as opposed to elsewhere on the route) is because I've already explored northern Yunnan and Sichuan on a previous trip, so, while there's incredibly beautiful places in those regions, I wanna save my precious visa time for new spots.

So I got my ticket. Unfortunately there were no sleeper class tickets available, I had to book a hard seat, which will make for an interesting 17 hour overnight journey.

Next task was to service Bewdy. I've ridden over 1500km to get here since her last service in Hanoi, and she's definitely in need of attention from someone, given how inattentive I am. I'm such a bad husband.

So I rode her to a bike mechanic recommended to me by someone on a Whatsapp group, it turned out to be a really good tip. She needed new brakes, a new tyre, a full body scrub and a thorough deep tissue cleanse.

Bewdy was gone for the day, so I was on foot.

Ethnic minority clothing store. Yunnan is home to a huge number of different ethnic groups, and is one of the most ethnically diverse provinces in the country.  Historically, due to the huge size of many Chinese kingdoms, when various conflicts erupted in other parts of the country, waves of refugees or migrants would arrive in unaffected provinces like Yunnan.

So, for example, there was a huge wave of migration of Han people into Yunnan during the Japanese invasion of eastern China in the 1930s.

These days ethnic minorities account for 34% of Yunnan's population.

Yunnan is also recognised as the first place to discover the pleasure of a cup of tea. And it also happens to be the region of origin of the plant genus cannabis. Never knew that.

As the bike shop was close to Green Lakes Park, I walked there first. It's a beautiful and peaceful area packed with small lakes, a few temples, and some cafés and restaurants. But mainly it's a whole series of beautiful walkways lined and arched by hundreds of old and beautiful trees.

As in every park in China, everyone exercises there, especially in the mornings and evenings.

I had a long stroll, then sat to have a tamarind juice at a quaint little café. It was quite hot.

My tablecloth.

I had to do a double-take.

This gal was the bravest squirrel I've met. She wasn't timid in the slightest.

Bonsai is big here. Well, big but small.

Love-ly staircase

Some of the lovehearts had things like, "I want to be brave, like a warrior," and other inspiring wishes pasted on them, but most just had the names or nicknames of the lovers (or wanna-be lovers) written on them, like Sunshine Boy, or Princess Guangling.

Fermented pu'er tea icecream. Yummmm.

Dragons all over the shop.

Ok, that's it. Bugger riding a bike across China. I'm gonna take this, and a bunch of friends.

More grilled tofu

Elaborate painted gourds full of whisky

Costume fitting

Oh to have wardrobe space

I eventually left the park and went wandering wherever.

The city's a complete mix of old and new, but of course the new highrises dwarf the old stuff.

Everyone gets around looking smooth, sleek and spotless. Not a hair out of place. Needless to say, I stick out like a grain of truth in a Donald Trump speech. It's been over 3 months now since Frankie attacked me in India with his hair scissors (twice), and now my thinning locks are again wildly reaching for every random corner of the universe.

Given the eternal focus on people's appearance here (everywhere?), it's not a surprise that there's ads like these all over the place.

The Asian Holocaust

I checked out the Sino-Japanese War Memorial, outlining the brutal history of a series of horrible historical conflicts between these two powerful neighbours. The timelines on the display were intertwined with the founding and rise of the Communist Party, and it's eventual takeover of China in 1949.

As Japan industrialised in the 1930s it needed raw materials, and invaded the Chinese province of Manchuria in 1931 to get its hands on them. Over the next few years it brutally occupied huge swathes of Chinese territory, a whopping 25% of it in fact, including the whole of the northeast, all of the major eastern and southern port cities, Taiwan, and huge inland parts of the southeast.

Japanese rule in China, and in other parts of Southeast Asia, was one of the most brutal in modern history, and the result has been referred to as the Asian Holocaust. It's hard to wrap your head around this, but an estimated 4 million Chinese people alone died as a direct result of actions by the Japanese during the occupation period. Millions more died of famine.

The numbers in Southeast Asia were similarly huge.

One of the major atrocities in China during this period was the Nanjing Massacre of 1937-38, when Japanese forces massacred around 300,000 people just in that one city. And that's just one example of the hundreds of massacres that occurred. The Japanese forces found new and innovative ways to make people suffer, and the occupation in the 1930s and 40s was just another chapter in a history of previous Japanese aggression on Chinese territory.

As a result, resentments between Chinese and Japanese people are alive and well to this day, although polls suggest that ill feeling has been declining over time. Some modern political opportunists, however, utilise memories of the brutal past to gain support for their own nationalist movements or political parties.

The inscription reads, "The People's Heroes Are Immortal."

A Train Beckons

I've got some more time to spend in this beautiful city, and then I'll be naked again, without my bike and all my stuff. Just a little overnight bag and my guitar.

Lanzhou, a city of 4 million, is up the road, and will be the starting point for my very long ride northwest, to the Kazakhstani border.

It'll be the first time I've ever been to Gansu, the seventh largest province in China, and one of the poorest.

The area is rich in Han, Tibetan and Muslim culture, and was a major through route on the ancient Silk Road

And of course, I can't wait to wrap my eyes around it❤️

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