Chairman Mao

 

 

Despite the bad reputation Chairman Mao has in the West, he is still a big thing here. We see plenty of communist style posters, including this one of Joe Stalin, in restaurants and shops. Mao’s face is on almost every bank note. The communist grip on China is still very present in everyday life, whether it be the overly bias interviews on TV or the restriction of access to certain websites, its still very obvious who is in charge. On the flip side this central control has allowed China to experience massive amounts of growth and ambitious projects such as their roads.

The censorship should not be viewed as a reflection of the people who are massively generous and overly friendly. We have received amazing hospitality from the Chinese people.

Roads, roads, roads

Well, if there is one thing the Chinese know how to do its build a road. Their roads are a testament to engineering. When the Chinese come to a hill they dont go over it, they go through it. This photo is one of many tunnels, some several kilometres long.

A testament to my intelligence is that I tried to cycle through one of these yet to be completed tunnels that had no lights. About 1km into the tunnel my sense of direction started to fade, and I slowed drifted into the side wall of the tunnel. Crashing in complete darkness caused fits of laughter from Marie, and only minor grumbling from me. The damage to myself was minimal luckily.

Another tunnel was completely shut, meaning we had to go over the mountain. This resulted in a four hour detour, pushing our bikes up dirt roads and getting only mildly lost in the backwaters of China. As you can tell from the expression on Marie’s face, it was a character building experience. We probably easily pushed our bikes up over 500m of vertical climb – gutted. Some other cyclists about 20 minutes behind us were simply allowed to ride through the tunnel.

Food = Amazing

Since we have been in China, the food has been amazing. We have been eating like kings, 3 massive meals a day, all for a total of less than 2 euro!!! The street style cooking in the picture provides some of the tastiest and most interesting dishes.

Noodle soup is normally the standard dish though, and normally constitues breakfast and lunch. The endless number of ways they vary noodle soup never ceases to amaze.

Thrust back into civilisation

We crossed the border from Laos to China on the 20th and were quickly thrust back into civilisation, it was a slight shock after the super mellow experiences of Laos. The bright lights of Meng La (our first stop) were dazzling, so much so we  decided to take a rest stop to check out the city.

Being back in the city meant adhering to fashion guidlines, here Marie can be seen modelling the latest in Fashion ware – bathroom jandals, surreptiously borrowed from the Hotel.

Hotels in China are dirt cheap, which means we have been living the high life. We wouldn’t know what roughing it was if it slapped us over the face with a wet fish. Marie demonstrates this by sipping her morning coffee while sampling some fresh fruit from the local market, the perfect start to a hard days biking.