The Shanghai-Beijing High-speed train

Getting to the train station and on to the train was a bit of a nightmare due to the cumbersome bike that I was carting around. I had to drag the bag along the floor of the train station, and by the time I got onto the train, my hands were red and sore.

The train itself was a bit of a letdown. For some odd reason, they have the TVs at high volume for the entire trip! I was so irritated by this auditory intrusion that I complained to the attendant, who did nothing. I don’t understand why they bother. No one was watching the TV. Don’t they realize that they are just irritating people? It’s best to just mute the damn TVs and have head phone inserts. That’s what they do on planes after all.

Shanghai

After three weeks on the road, I finally made it to Shanghai. Towards the end of my trip, the biking became much easier. On the final leg, I made great time (five hours for 85 km), and could have gone much further. My legs no longer hurt, and I felt fine when I got off my bike. In order to avoid the problems I had on my first leg to Tianjin, I will have to train first next time I do a long distance trip like this.

Overall this was a valuable experience. I got to experience China at its most basic level, I got exercise every day, and I didn’t have to wait around for buses/trains all the time. Biking is the way to go on trip from now on!

Instant Cities

When I looked at the map book to confirm the location of my hotel in Dezhou, it seemed to be located in the countryside. On the internet, the map indicated a grid of streets. In between the publication of the map book (a year or two ago) and now, a new city has risen in Dezhou’s economic development zone.

In Changzhou, it was the same thing. My hotel seemed to be located very far away from the center of the city. As a biked through this new area, most of the buildings were recently built or under construction. There were lots of empty lots, a few people walking around. In a year or so, it would be full of people. In fact, once reaching Changzhou, the urban area never really reverted back to countryside for the remainder of my trip. All the way to Shanghai, was constant urban sprawl. In cities, it was apartment buildings. In the areas between, there was a lot of industry and even rural apartment buildings as well. With all the construction going in, I am really wondering how all these new housing projects can expect to find owners? I don’t think that poor peasants can afford them, and there is only a finite number of people. Perhaps people are buying them to rent out? I’d really like to know. Based on first-hand experience seeing all these new buildings, I can’t help but think it is unsustainable.

Anhui (~300 km)

The cities in Anhui do not merit their own individual posts. They are unattractive, underdeveloped and unpleasant. I had been warned about Bengbu from my dental hygienist, who had spent a summer there volunteering to fix people’s teeth. She did not enjoy it. I thought that it couldn’t have been that bad. On the map it looked like there were lots of parks. It was that bad. The parks were bad and the city half under construction. Dreadful.

The highlight of my time in Anhui was actually the route between Bengbu and Chuzhou. Unexpectedly, the road went through sparsely populated countryside that was heavily forested. Even many of the trees had clearly been recently planted, the countryside was beautiful. It was a pleasant change from the usual dusty countryside with people everywhere. Chuzhou was nicer than Bengbu, but really not very interesting. To be fair, I did not have time to visit Langya Shan (a mountain), the main tourist site in town. Perhaps had I visited I would have been more impressed.

In Chuzhou I stayed in five star white tile hotel for only $40 a night! Actually the rooms were quite nice, and very good value in my opinion, in spite of the ghastly exterior. The hotel was built in 1999, at the height of the white-tile craze that grabbed ahold of China for too long.

Dezhou - Again

Articles in the June issue of National Geographic and in a recent issue of the Economist both talk about the solar-powered hotel I stayed in Dezhou. The photo in the Economist article is of the bizarre-looking structure.

Xuzhou

I had never heard of Xuzhou prior to planning my trip. It does seem to be a pretty significant city though. The airport has international flights, there is a metro in the planning stages, and it even has a Starbucks (newly opened)! When I arrived at the hotel, I asked the receptionist about whether the hotel gets a lot of foreigners. She said that they did. They often had Koreans and Japanese and had an American a few days ago. She then lowered her voice and told me breathlessly that even had a black man stay there recently. I thought that I had it bad with the amount of attention I receive! I feel really sorry for any black person that travels around China.

Xuzhou actually was more cosmopolitan than I expected. At the Starbucks the next day, another foreigner was there, and later on when I went to the Carrefour, I saw a middle-aged white couple shopping in the imported goods section. If a no-name city in China is this cosmopolitan, think of what other places will be like in a few years. Previously horrible cities (like Suzhou), may become livable. While Xuzhou is somewhat cosmopolitan, it is still a very Chinese city at heart. Many ghastly white-tile buildings dot the skyline, although I did see a few which had been condemned. Massive new developments are rising in the city center. International hotel chains are moving in (Ramada). With a little bit of work, Xuzhou could be quite pleasant. It actually reminded me of Hangzhou, as it had a lot of hills rising above the urban area, offering patches of green.

On one of these green islands is located the Terracotta warrior museum. No, this is no the Xi’an museum of the same name, rather this is a Han Dynasty tomb with its own, smaller warriors. Unlike the warriors in Xi’an, you can actually go inside the tomb in Xuzhou, which is cut directly into the rock. The warriors are not as impressive as the ones in Xi’an as they are smaller and fewer. Nevertheless, in some ways I enjoyed these Terracotta warriors more. The natural setting was pleasant. There were fewer tourists, and there was no hype. In Xi’an, I was disappointed. The hype made me believe that what I was about to see would be incredible. But it really wasn’t. Sure, seeing legions of stone warriors in a big pit was impressive, but surely if the entire thing was excavated and you could walk next to the warriors it would be even better. Xuzhou is way off the tourist circuit, but for anyone adventurous, it is a worthy destination.

Qufu – Xuzhou (175 km)

That number (175 km) loomed in my mind as I set out extra early at 5 am from Qufu. Nevertheless, I set off with naïve optimism. Things went uneventfully until around 10 am when I stopped for a rest by the side of the road. Suddenly, I saw another biker stop by me. He also had panniers on his bike. Clearly he was also travelling a long distance. It turns out we were headed for the same place: Shanghai and had both come from Beijing. He was Chinese, and was planning to bike to Tibet after going to Shanghai. We decided to cycle together for the rest of the day to Xuzhou. We stopped for lunch near Weishan Lake where we had an excellent fish dish. Afterwards we continued on and arrived at the hotel at 5:00. Taking the lunch break into account, it took 11 hours of cycling to go 175 km! Strangely, I felt pretty good afterwards. It was certainly way better than the worst day so far, still the first to Tianjin.

The Cultural Sites of Qufu and its Surroundings

On my first day in Qufu, right after arriving from Tai’an, I set out to see the three Confucius sights spread around town. I had already seen these in 2005, but with the exception of the forest, had forgotten everything else. The temple was quite good, featuring a hall reminiscent of those built at the Forbidden City, and the mansions were also very interesting. The forest was as I remember it, but by then I was too tired to walk around much, and just went to see Confucius’ tomb.

The next day was perhaps more interesting, but rain put a bit of a damper on things. I biked the 25km to nearby Zoucheng, which was Mencius’ hometown. Mencius was another Chinese philosopher from around the time of Confucius, but his ideas did not gain the same traction. His temple was much smaller, and so were his mansions. I liked them better however, as I was the only person there and I had no blaring Chinese tour groups to contend with.

On the way back to Qufu, I stopped at Prince Lujian’s tomb. He was a Ming prince from the 15th century and his tomb is quite large impressive. Like the Ming and Qing tombs of Beijing, there is a large above ground portion of gates and other buildings. I was also able to actually go inside the tomb, which was very interesting. Alas, I would have liked to stop at Mencius’ forest on the way back as well, but there was no obvious sign indicating the turn-off and it was raining. Of course, the next day when I took the same route on my way to Xuzhou, I did locate the sign, which was minuscule. Oh well. Perhaps next time?

Tai’an – Qufu (75 km)

This was definitely the easiest day yet, and I arrived in Qufu at 11 am. On my way to Qufu, I met a hardcore cyclist who was going very fast. We chatted for a bit, and he told me he was going 170 km in one day, and that he expected it would take him six hours! Inspired by this distance, I’ve decided to challenge myself and rather than stopping in Zaozhuang for one night (and making a 20 km detour), that I will go directly to Xuzhou from Qufu. It is 165 km away, but I think it will be worth it in the end, because I will actually be riding less on the whole, and I will gain another day by skipping Zaozhuang.

Jinan – Tai’an (with a temple detour)

Although the distance was shorter than usual today, this was one of the most challenging days I had. The principal reason was that much today’s ride was uphill. Central Shandong is the only part of my route that is mountainous, and so the uphill was a new challenge for me. To make it worse, it was also very hot today. Everything was going reasonably well until I arrived at the turnoff for Lingyan Temple, an isolated temple that I wanted to visit enroute to Tai’an. The entire 5 km or so to the temple was uphill, and to make matters worse, I took the scenic route to the temple rather than the normal route. While the scenic route was indeed more scenic, it was also longer, and I walked much of the way covered in sweat. The temple was a welcome respite from the heat, and I enjoyed it. Especially interesting were the Arhat sculptures from the Ming Dynasty that survived the Cultural Revolution.

After leaving the temple, it took only about five minutes to get back to the highway since it was all downhill. The final leg of the trip to Tai’an was also a challenge, not because it was physically exhausting, but because I was having trouble with my eyes. My right eye continued to tear up and I had to blink constantly until I arrived in Tai’an. I wonder if there are special sunglasses one can get to avoid this problem? Mine don’t seem to work….

Antique Markets in China: A guide

Buying antiques in China can be very rewarding as long as you are aware of some of the risks involved. Firstly, most of the stuff for sale is fake. Even if something looks real, it’s probably fake. Unless you have some knowledge of the kind of item you wish to buy, you should assume that something is probably fake. Now this may be fine. If the item is pretty and has meaning to you, go ahead and get it. But when you bargain for it, make sure you pay the fake price for it, not the real price.

There are some easy ways to avoid buying fakes. One of the easiest is to buy from someone that has an actual shop rather than someone set up on the ground. But still be careful. Shops in tourist areas are still likely to be stocked with fakes. Go for the shops in actual antique markets as these are run by actual dealers. Once you’ve been around a few of these markets you get a sense of what the stuff is like. You often see the same stuff over and over again. That stuff is likely fake. The really unique stuff is more likely to be real.

On market days, you should look at what the person is selling and what the person is like. Some of the people are clearly peasants from the countryside and often have an eclectic selection of items. You can often get very good deals from these kinds of people, simply because they don’t know how much something should cost and they (in my opinion) are more likely to have real stuff than the city dwellers.

The best day to go to the antique market is on market day. Once a week, people without a permanent presence at the market will come and hawk their wares. For selection and deal-potential, this is the time to visit. Most markets are half-closed on other days. Also, some markets are better than others. For atmosphere, the Tianjin one is tops due to its location in the streets of an old neighborhood. For actual goods, the Xi’an market is by far the best. I was also quite impressed by the one in Xuzhou. Avoid Panjiayuan at all costs! Is now only for tourists. For a real experience in Beijing, go to Baoguang Temple.

Market Days (that I know of):
Beijing (Baoguang Temple): Thursday
Beijing (Panjiayuan): Saturday and Sunday
Changchun (Not sure what it's called): Sunday
Tianjin (Shenyang Dao): Thursday
Xi’an (Baxian Temple): Sunday
Xuzhou (Pubu Shan): Saturday

Other Antique Markets with unknown days:

Chengdu
Hangzhou
Suzhou

Dezhou – Jinan (125 km)

While I had seen a few other recreational cyclists the day before (about 5), today I actually spoke to one on my way out of Dezhou. He was a middle-aged Chinese man, cycling with his wife. They both had the exact same model of bike that I did and were both wearing helmets (only serious cyclists in China wear helmets). He told me he was from Dezhou, and seemed surprised when I told him that I intended to go to Shanghai, mainly because it was so far.

Later on in the morning, a young guy rode up next to me and began talking. He was going to visit his grandparents in a nearby village and invited me to join him. Intrigued at the idea of visiting a house in a rural village, I accepted. His name was Wu and he had just finished the university entrance exam and was waiting for his results. He hoped to study finance in Harbin. His village was pleasant enough. I first went with him to his uncle’s house, which had been modernized and had a fridge and nice white painted walls. His grandparents lived in an older building that had never been renovated and looked very peasant-like. A big jar on the table contained several gingko roots and a huge Kang bed was located in the dining room. Wu offered me lunch, and while I initially declined saying that it would be too inconvenient, he seemed insistent, so I had a simple lunch of fried ride and watermelon with him.
I didn’t stay too long, as I wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t arrive too late in Jinan. I gave him a US $1 bill as thanks for his hospitality.

About twenty minutes later, as I took a short break on the side of the road, I saw Wu ride up to me. He had come looking for me because he wanted to give me something. He took out five ancient Chinese coins. He said they were from the Tang and Qing dynasties and that his grandmother had given to him. I initially refused to take them, but he said that he felt I would value them more than him because I had studied history. I reluctantly took them, even though I did indeed really want them. The kindness of the Chinese people I have met continues to surprise and delight me.

Cangzhou – Dezhou (130km)

While not many people have heard of Dezhou, I had actually read an article in the Economist about a year ago about Dezhou. It seems that Dezhou is a center of the solar power industry and last year hosted an international convention about solar power. With this in mind, I decided to stay in the Solar Valley Micro E Hotel, a hotel that is entirely powered by solar energy and is part of the world’s largest solar-powered building.

As a city, Dezhou looked much like other Chinese cities on first glance. Ugly buildings and dusty streets did nothing to differentiate it from other places. However, as I went through the New Development zone, I was somewhat impressed. There is an almost completely new city being built adjacent to the original city of Dezhou. The streets are very wide and landscaped, and the area will soon be filled with fancy new apartment buildings undoubtedly. On the eastern fringe of this area was Solar Valley, as area with lots of solar powered buildings.

The Solar Valley Micro Powered E-hotel was like many Chinese hotels. On the outside everything looks great: nice lobby, nice room. But, once you look a little closer you will realize that this is a façade and in ten years the hotel will be falling apart due to cheap construction and poor maintenance. I got a very good deal on what is supposedly a five start hotel: $40 a night. There’s a reason why it was so cheap. Upon being shown to my room, I was initially impressed. It looked great! But then I noticed something was wrong with the windows. It looked like something was covering them. The window actually faced into the lobby and a huge sticker had been placed over the window advertising some fact of the hotel for people looking up in the lobby. The grouting in the bathroom was turning black, and in the morning my shower was lukewarm. No doubt because the sun hadn’t yet come out to make everything work properly. At breakfast there was a big pile of shit sitting on the floor in the middle of the restaurant. No, this is not a joke!

Tianjin – Cangzhou (115 km)

Cangzhou is a typical provincial Chinese town. On the outskirts were the typical signs of heavy industry, in this case what looked like an oil refinery. The town itself was unnatractive, filled with poorly designed low-rise buildings of recent vintage, empty construction areas and occasional pockets of old traditional housing. Despite the traditional housing being old, these areas were still not very nice.

Immediately after checking in, I went for a walk to see two sights: the Confucian Temple and large Mosque. However, my map was rather poor and I got lost. While wandering through an area of traditional housing after spying what looked like a temple in the distance, a woman asked me if I needed any help. I told her I was looking for the mosque. This woman was wearing headscarf, and was clearly a Muslim. In fact, many of Cangzhou’s residents were Muslim as evidenced by all the halal eateries and the caps worn by the men and woman. The woman offered to take me to the mosque on her bike. This woman was absolutely thrilled to make my acquaintance. I asked if I could go in the mosque, and she offered to give me tour. Of course, I didn’t understand much, but that didn’t stop the woman from jabbering away. I got the impression that she was quite pious. When she was talking about Islam her face lit up, and she seemed very happy. It was clearly very important to her.

After our tour, she invited me to have dinner with her friends! Of course I accepted and I met some of her friends and relatives all who were very nice. We went to a dumpling place where we first had sheep bones, a regional specialty (something I don’t need to eat again), followed by excellent dumplings. At the end of the meal, she told me not to thank her, but to thank Allah. In fact, all of her friends told that they wanted to give me a good impression towards Muslims. Well, they succeeded. I had a very special time in Cangzhou, and it was thanks to their hospitality.

Tianjin

The next day I woke up in considerable pain. In particular, my right hip was very sore and walking up stairs hurt very much. At this point I thought it prudent to take a two day rest in my journey. I will now continue to Cangzhou on Friday. At 115 km, it is 10 km shorter than the distance between Beijing and Tianjin, and so I hope that I won’t be completely exhausted after this segment of my trip.

Beijing to Tianjin (125 km)

Things started out well. I left shortly before 6 AM, before bad traffic and while it was still cool. I made good progress and finally left the built-up part of Beijing at around 8:00. I was on track to make it to Tianjin by about 14:00. Despite beginning to feel a bit tired over the next few hours, I soldiered on, stopping for lunch at 11:30, and still feeling pretty good. I was already two-thirds of the way there in about 5 hours, certainly I would have no problem completing the last third. Wishful thinking. As I arrived in the town of Wuqing, quite near Tianjin at about 13:00, I began to slow down considerably and feel more and more tired, taking frequent rests. By this time it was also very hot, and there was little shade. The next three hours of riding were very painful, and by the time I reached Tianjin proper I was on the first gear, down from six in the morning. The ride in Tianjin to my hotel was the most unpleasant of my trip, as the construction work taking place on the road left a fair bit of dust that blew into my mouth. By the time I arrived in my hotel at 16:15, I was filthy and exhausted. I went out for a quick dinner and was tired that I fell asleep at 18:30 and slept for 11 hours!

My big bike trip

I'm doing a bike trip this summer with the goal of reaching Shanghai from Beijing. Why this route? Well, I'd like to commemorate the imminent opening of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail service. I will travel the same route in one of the slowest ways possible and return back to Beijing on the train itself, going the fastest way. I view this as kind of a contrast between old and new. I will be able to experience China at its most primitive level (the countryside) and then at its most advanced on the train back. In between, I will stop at all the cities that have train stations on the route and spend the night in each one. How long will this take? I'm aiming for three weeks.

Transdniestria: The Country that Doesn’t Exist

While in Moldova I had the opportunity to visit Tiraspol, the capital of the self-proclaimed country of Transdniestria. After the breakup of the USSR, there was a brief civil war in Moldova in which Transdniestria declared its independence from Moldova.

While I had heard that crossing the border into the Transdniestria often involved confiscation of money and bribes, I was not too worried. I just brought a small amount of money with me, so there wouldn’t be much to take.

After a forty-five minute ride from Chisinau, we arrived at the border. First we were briefly stopped by a Moldovan guard, and then passed some soldiers and old fortifications. Finally we reached the Transdniestrian border post where we filled in an immigration form and stood in line to have our passports checked over by an unsmiling border guard. No bribes were taken and we were let through the border.

The first difference between Transdniestria and Moldova is in the language. Moldova uses Latin letters and its official language is Romanian. On the other hand, Transdniestria uses Cyrillic and the most used language is Russian. The landscape wasn’t much different from Moldova. Huge communist-era apartment building jostled for space with primitive looking houses.

The capital of Transdniestria, Tiraspol feels very provincial and sleepy. While there, I saw few people walking down the wide streets. Unfortunately due to a holiday, many of the stores were closed. However, I was able to change money into Transdniestrian rubles and bought some Cognac, a product that is supposedly famous in the ‘country’. For lunch, we went to restaurant that served sushi (I didn’t order that), something that was unexpected in a provincial place such as Tiraspol.


The Transdniestrian Ruble is completely useless outside the country – no other country recognizes the existence of the Transdniestrian Republic. It was quite amusing to see the place really trying to be a ‘real’ country. There were lots of flags, and signs, and there was even an Abkhazian embassy, another unrecognized ‘country’ in Georgia. The public buildings were small and ugly. There was a parliament building, a national theatre, a national bank and even a memorial from the ‘war of liberation’ form Moldova.

There was a significant military presence in the country, but if you look carefully at the soldiers you will note that they are actually Russian. Russia has a military base in Transdniestria and support its existence. There were various military checkpoints and poorly camouflaged military equipment in various places. I’m no quite sure why Russia supports the existence of Transdniestria, but it probably wants to project its power in a region that it used to control as the USSR.

After a few hours in Tiraspol, I had seen everything and was ready to leave. I don’t feel the need to return. While interesting due to the political situation, Tiraspol really has nothing interesting to see.

Moldova: The 'Bad' Country

Upon crossing the border from Romania into Moldova, I immediately noticed a change. There were fewer paved streets. The houses looked shabbier. Cars were older. The roads were appalling. The main highway to Chisinau, the capital, is full of potholes. No wonder Moldova is the poorest country in Europe.

Chisinau has a sleepy feel. There are few tall building and lots of shabby buildings the city center. Sidewalks are in poor maintenance. There is one mall in the entire country, built only a couple of years ago. There is not much to do in Chisinau except walk around, which I did. Like Romania, money changers are everywhere, indicating that much of the population has migrated.

While a democratic country, Moldovan voters have elected communist governments since the fall of the USSR. It doesn’t seem like the government has done much to lift the country of poverty. One a per-capita basis, Moldova is poorer than China and is at a similar level of development to some of the richer African countries.

When I took a taxi to the train station to catch my train returning to Bucharest, the taxi driver, who spoke some English, asked me what I thought of Moldova. I said I liked it. It was true, while boring, people were reasonably friendly, and visiting was a positive experience for me. The taxi driver told me he thought that Moldova was a ‘bad country’ and like many of his countrymen, he wanted to leave. I once read somewhere that Moldova was the least happy country on earth. I can now perhaps see why.

Fortified Churches: Biertan

I was disappointed to discover that the bike rental place was shut in Sighisoara when I went shortly after arriving. This forced me to take a roundabout route to Biertan (a fortified church, and supposedly the best) via train to Medias, followed by a bus.

When I arrived in Biertan at 12:45, I discovered that the next bus back to Medias left at 9:00 PM in the evening. This news was not unexpected, and so after viewing the church and having lunch, I decided to run the 10 KM to the nearest train station.

It is rather strange to see a cathedral-like building towering over a village of dirt roads and gypsies. As for the church in Biertan, it was lovely. Double-walls encircled the church, interspersed with imposing towers. Inside the church, there was a lovely altarpiece and a door with an unusual locking mechanism.

After finishing the church, I ran most of the ten kilometers to the train station. On the way, I went through an unusual village called Saros filled with gypsies who lived in a collection of shacks perched precariously along a hillside. The town also had a fortified church that was unfortunately closed.