The Bridge ....The End

Finishing our oversized gork at the bridge we headed south.

Mission was to try and find the small road across the valley from us, turns out you could only to it from the other end or direction…..about 50 - 60 km away….the one we didn’t take.

We still had a very nice ride, the part of the countryside was nothing we had seen before so worthy of the explore.

Finding our way back out onto the secondary roads again (not allowed and can’t do expressways) had some very nice scenery and awesome roads.

Stopping for lunch to get a direction and desto was a good chow down and off again.

The day was going great until a car came straight out from the right from a side road and he nearly collected us….gezzzuz…it was close.

Three other tin cage zombies had a go at us in typical blindfolded China style within the next ½ hour and I was thinking WTF?, we had our headlights on main beam so we were not invisible ….

Not five minutes later after shitting ourselves 4 times in a row already an expert pulled out from behind a truck and came head on to us, I grabbed both brakes with all the strength of actionman, the ABS chattering like fuck with both brake pedal and front lever hard on and we went slightly left then right under the heavy braking trying not to drop Xiao Lyu and us on the deck with the front tire starting to lose traction and squawking loudly on the tarseal.

Now somehow we stopped right on his bumper nearly dropping us as the suspension rebounded, the cunt was just smiling like nothing had happened, needless to say I was fuming and made him back up and get the fuck back on his side, I could have killed him.

Vietnam is our chance to see what humans do for their holidays so we will give it a crack and relax there.

Accordingly, this is my last ride report for China, I am not writing any more on our blog about China as I have absolutely struggled to write nice things when death is on the cards literally every day so it is not worth it, in my writing I have been excluding a lot of what has happened on the road to keep it positive but I know my displeasure has been creeping in and now it is too loud from my pen.

I feel I have lost my travel excitement in China due to being drained heavily every day just trying to stay alive and in one piece, at the end of each day my head hurting from overconcentrating on watching every angle all the time with no reprieve, I am not a headache person so I have to listen to the advice from within, Ellen concurs 100%.

See you in Vietnam..     

I will leave you with 20 seconds of what we have have to put up with so your can understand.

     

Huajiang Canyon Bridge

Huajiang Canyon Bridge

The bridge, nothing small about this, 1420 m or 1.42 km clear single span and 625 m or 0.63 of a km high, a piece of engineering and art with a night lights display to match.

We couldn’t get a place to stay in the village beneath as it was booked out (school holidays) so we opted for the cheap seats further back (cos we had no choice LOL).

Was pretty good actually, we were only 3 km away, was an easy ride then a broken concrete and dirt style to the top by the bridge abutments where we watched the light display.

It was pretty cool to get there, I am interested in the engineering side of things and it only took them 44 months to complete which is cool. Google Huajiang Bridge for all the stats and figure so I don’t send you to sleep.   

Pics and vids can do the rest of the talking.

The waterfall supposed to be twice a day, one in daylight and one at night but we saw it three times.

We were there.

Xiao Lyu deserved a shot

I was here

Columns with the waterfall behind, Xiao Lyu took the last bit in her stride easily 

The Canyon

Night time...obviously

Epic laser light display

More laser lights

Guiyang To Biachehe

Leaving Guiyang city, home for 4 nights was nice to get back out again…but with reservations as to the level of daily onslaught.

Our choice of destination didn’t quite work out, there was however a good lunch spot, the people were nice although the lady musta been half deaf cos she was yelling at us...but nicely…Chinese are already loud but she was at expert level LOL.

I parked the bike so we wouldn‘t get boxed in by a tin cage zombie …but they tried, now full cred to the restaurant people they came out a firmly pointed him along 10 meters, yeap 10, they will sit and wait or barge in so they don’t have to walk.

Anyway, we arrived at a place to Puding, missing one d there was none, but plenty of other puddings to choose from if you wish.

Puding old town, over 600 years old

Being a middle town of very little terrouristy stuff we used it as a stepping stone, again the hotel people were very helpful and nice, a common theme to be fair.

Having had our puding we set off in a known direction and an unknown desto, a coupla places along the way were ok but just were all very small town so limited accom and what was there was no air conditioning….at 33 degrees that is a must for sanity.

Coupla shots from along the way

We arrived at a cool place called Baichehe, stopped at one place which looked doge so we slicked off into town, the first few were full then Ellen found a good place, a few buildings back, quieter and a courtyard for Xiao Lyu to sit in ….it was nice and quiet.          

Hot pools, got my attention so we planned the following day to smudge back and relax a little. The afternoon we took off for a walk to a lookout, it was hot, sticky, steep and so nice to have a good sweat out.

We didn’t quite make it to the lookout as there was a section of the track that was in fact just the edge of the road which was…yeah….nah.

Fast Forward to said hot pools, the evening was pretty relaxed, we snuck in some red wine to slaughter and picked an ok temp to start in.

Ellen found a pool just a little further round which was warmer by 3-4 degrees ish …suited me fine loving the heat soon bringing the ol bod to “teenage mode enabled” and feeling looser.   

Some genral pics, the town clock

Water wheels the feature of the town          

Two nights went quickly and now with China tallest and longest bridge in our sights that’s where we heading. 

Some Shit And Some More Shit

Well, I am struggling to put pen to paper and I am extremely demotivated, to be honest it has been rough, very rough.

It started when we went to an “Old Town” terrorouisty spot, parked in the moto specific parking area, we came back to find a Tin Cage Zombie had parked DIAGONALLY into the moto park and right up to our left case so I couldn’t walk around it and made it very difficult to get to, further the people parked legally were blocked in and could not get out.

What will happen to fucken retarded wanker who illegally parked and fucked other peoples day…nothing despite all the cameras and rules.

I pushed our bike out slithering past so we could access our luggage etc, then the owner of a car on the other side came out and wanted to go tooting etc, I am like FUCK YOU you can wait now as I am in the middle of putting on my boots and trousers, Ellen then got angry at me and said I have to be polite and not cause trouble…..like the fuckwit who parked on top of us...yeah right.

Further up the road travelling on our way we pulled out to pass another Tin Cage Zombie and he pulled across in front of us right when we were next to his door, we were so close to railing off into the ditch it wasn’t funny and I don’t know how but I held it, had we gone in it WOULD have been the ended of our trip….and probably our lives.

He knew he had just committed a crime and speed off, we caught him up in traffic and we pulled along side, I punched his mirror flat to make him stop, right at the point was an exit to the right and he fucked off up there with haste, if he carried on in the traffic and stopped it would have been very very bad for his health and he knew that.

Despite that with our cameras on board front and rear the Police would just say drive carefully and you are still here so no charges against him….there would be no repercussions against him….fucken communism.

The day didn’t get any better as we were run off a corner into the veges by a truck on our side….COMPLETELY on our side….another episode of unless you die nothing will happen.

Fair to say the thought of rescheduling our flight home was looking like a bloody good idea and fuck China and their retarded Zombies that should not drive. Over the course of the day 3 times I had to take extreme evasive action of we could have been killed and many more evading stupid maneuvers.

It is wearing me thin, now with school holidays until the end of August it is worse and I am questioning why we are riding with the daily risks so high……time will tell.

We finally arrived at our destination, I was shaken, tired and ready to kill the next person who did something blatantly stupid, the place was unbelievably stunning so it calmed me down but make no mistake I was not happy.

I want to write good things and see the better side but I have to be honest and say right now the idea of coming home and forgetting China is high on my list but then I think fuck them why should they win and ruin our trip.

To cap it all off my Waterproof rugged phone which we rely on for Navigation etc is taking a dump after only 6 months from new, yeap, you guessed it Chinese, not so rugged after all but the price of the phone was comparable to a very good phone in comparison so it wasn’t a cheapy….will see what happens.

That is all I have to say for the last few days of travel and I hope it gets better.

Finally getting into Guiyang city as we need to get a niggling brake issue sorted we got to a Moto Club Hostel, we are now choosing these first as they are usually slightly out of town a little, quieter and just that little more pleasant and generally only moto travelers.

The extra expense is worth the sanity, the front brake hopefully sorted we are on our way tomorrow.

A few photos of the last few day to leave on a positive note.

Some ham legs that have been curing / drying for 3 years.

Cool array of lights in a cafe

The Tea plantations

The gorge we stayed for a night and an icefruit treat.

Top view of the gorge.

Stunning with the enormous abrupt cliffs.

The muppet show LOL.

One of the 3000 cafes here in Guiyang

Interesting, a 58 Corvette C1 ripoff brand new, a PHEV 

They almost got it but the front is altered and ugly IMO

Our accomodation in Guijang, excellent.

A feed we had with the girl who runs it and her man...good bastids.

Xiao Lyu getting a bath

To Menglun Then Puer From The Laos Border

To Menglun Then Puer from the border

Arriving at Menglun priotiry No1 was to wash Xiao Lyu, the radiator fan was coming on a lot so we figured the radiator was full of shit from the last few days in Laos.

I was right, I removed the mesh screen which stopped the big lumps and did a thorough clean, it was blocked buy a lot of fine mud that had set hard.

Botanical Gardens Ellen wanted to se as they had been recommended.

For me that wasn’t priority No1 which is unusual given a love gardening, I had some work to do so took the day out to do it while fresh in my head, Ellen went for a 22km long wet walk…with veges.

Our departure was partly dry then we got a bit of rain, our destination was Puer, the route took us along the G213 road which was cool, we came across quite a few fresh slips and small landslides covering half the road which made in interesting then the show stopper, a landslide that had bought down a tree, it was too big to Armstrong out of the way.

Ellen talked with some guys and a call had been made, we had past a small town about 5km back so decided to have some lunch rather than look at the leaves and trees.

Getting back to the town we talked with some locals and he gave us a sneaky little back road which was stunning but all that did was take us down the Expressway which we are not allowed on, we proceeded to the station as we were right there anyway and thought we would ask given the G213 was closed.

Stopping at the booth Ellen just said we want to get to Puer, the girl said no problem, give me your registration etc, we didn’t even have to plead that G 213 was blocked and closed so we wrote it down on their official sheet and off went where we weren’t allowed to go…or something like that.

It was about 70km long that we got to go on and it pissed down so to be honest it was quite nice for a change to smash some miles quickly.

Arriving at Puer which has an old town we got to our accommodation and we were wet having had heavy rain pumped in for over 5 hours, AC on and Chinese Laudramat in full form we hung everything out to dry.

That afternoone it slightly cleared so we headed to old town, the reason we went to puer, it was nice but very terrorouisty, funny enough the food was not badly priced I think because there was a lot of other venders, mid evening concluded the old town with bellies fulla fud.

Yuanjbiang our mid stop on the way to Kunming and east, the road was awesome and even dry, a few mudslides from yesterdays rains, no point in mentioning we nearly got taken out when a car cut clean across us at an intersection, the girl in the Passenger seat SHAT herself as we nearly intruded through her window, I could see right through the whites of her eyes to the braindead driver, I love Chinese drivers.

Yuanjiang, we got to our accommodation, a little bit out of town, we were upgraded from the std room we had booked to an apartment bigger than our place at home, see Ellens vid for that,

Our mission took us on a slight detour to Kunming, we still had a front brake shudder that needs sorting so we took her in to the dealership for a gork.

Now, an hour before getting in to Kunming it pissed down again...I know, never heard of that before, numbnuts sitting in the riders seat forgot to zip us his rear leg vents, such was the spray rolling around and the puddles/ponds quietly filled up my riding pants .....wet gruds and nuts for my act of unprofessionalism.

Ever cloud has a silver lining at the moto club hotel was outstanding to say the least, I am the only and first foreigner to have stay so the owner said lets have a party....hell yeah.     

The guys were excellent and a local restaurant cooked up a feast which we all chowed down, it was cool meeting the traveller guys, one dude on a BMW1200GS did 1700km in one day to get there....that normally take us 2 weeks!!

Some pics, young fella offer me a smoke, I said no thanks ...and jokingly if it was a gin I would be in, he came back witha  Bombay and said here you go...priceless. 

The Hotel front

The lads and ladessses

I was fleunt in chinglish after a coupla grogs  

The owner and us, very nice guy

Leaving Kunming we stabbed the map to a town that was about as far as we could make ground, Ellen found a hotel and we got to it only to find it was another moto hotel and the owner knows the dude in Kunming, unreal, good day to buy a lotto ticket.