A Little About Where We Are Riding And Why.

A little about where we are riding and why.

We are choosing to take back roads as there are less cars and people, less people means less chance of being taken out by lunatic drivers.

For my opinion, the sooner China has autonomous driving cars that take nutcases off the road the better, this to me, is officially the worst place to ride danger wise.

Thus sneaking around the back block means less of them and for me that means a slightly more relaxing ride although I still need all sensors on full alert all the time while traveling, to me this is a big downside as it has taken the shine off it.

So, we have learnt fairly quickly that back block places are still where the good shit is, the big cities and major roads are in “Lazy” places.

Furthermore we are not allowed on Expressways full stop, we are also not allowed on motorways as we are two up, perfect, this means we can ride (for the most) pretty reasonable roads and about 95% paved, bricked, stoned, concrete etc.

So far we have only ridden one true dirt road which funny enough we build by the Yanks to help China when the Japanese we invading, if it was wet it would have been a hell ride but it was only drizzling and misty so not bad.

Pics on the way to Mucheng riding along the Maynmar border, see the razor wire

The beauty of rice feilds 

This is an example of the small road, see the 500m scale and realize this has more corners than a bag of Twisties and in places with zig zags tighter than a fishes arsehole.

Mucheng is the town we are in, 1187m high, this is the town view from our accomodation

While some of these zig zags make the crown range terrace road look like a straight motorway this is where the beauty is hidden in plain view.

As we are here in rainy season we have had some seriously wet rides, it isn’t cold though which does make a huge difference to tolerating the wet cos you are not freezing your arse off, down side is foggy visors, can live with that.

Writing this today from Mucheng, Yunnan Province, right next to the Maynmar Border where there is km of razor wire fencing, probably the wettest ride we have had yet, lots of mud slides, rocks on the road and the usual assortment of rally drivers, for some reason rain seems to boost Chinese driving confidence and speed ….but not ability, rain seems to be like pouring petrol onto a bonfire and we have had to avoid a number of times cars drifting and sliding around corner at warp factor two.

That is part of travel in China and I pray to the Moto Gods that we don’t get cleaned up.