Bombay to Beijing by Bicycle

by Russell McGilton

  This wasn’t what I had imagined as I jostled through the crowds, trying not to fall into the deep unfenced canals. This was some kind of Chinese version of Disneyland and I wondered whether it becoming UNESCOxxx listed some years ago had created all the fuss.

  But I could see why it was so popular. Once the tourists began to fade away with end of the day, Lijiang revealed its 800-year-old self, though some of it had been rebuilt since a large earthquake in 1996.

  The Old City was like a miniature version of Venice with its small waterways, narrow cobbled streets and quaint arched bridges. Willow trees draped themselves over outdoor cafés, foreign-styled restaurants and traditional style teahouses adorned with red lanterns.

  ‘Russell!’ came a familiar female voice. I looked around and saw Analiese and Sylvia smiling and laughing at me in a small teahouse.

  ‘Where are you staying?’ I asked.

  ‘At the Square Inn. Meet us at the Korean Restaurant in the main Square,’ Analiese pointed somewhere behind her.

  I wheeled the bike into the Square Inn, lifting it over stairs and a small bridge. A stream ran through the middle of the hotel while my room was below the river itself, the constant sound of the water like that of a toilet cistern not refilling properly. I had a hot shower, washing away the grime and sunscreen of the past two days, and set out to meet Analiese and Margrit.

  But I got lost and never found the restaurant and in the end settled for dining alone in a Japanese restaurant while other travellers drank and laughed on other tables. In the morning I bumped into the two women.

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘I got lost.’

  ‘Hah!’ Margrit waved her hand dramatically to remind us that she had once been to Argentina, ‘I can’t believe you’ve cycled all the way from Mumbai and you can’t even find the restaurant!’

  ‘Why do you think it’s taken me eight months?’

  We went and had breakfast at an outdoor café, munching on bãbã (thick flatbreads filled with meat) while girls tried to sell us polystyrene boats to race down the canal. A line of women in blue capes and caps passed us.

  Christina grabbed her guidebook. ‘“The Naxi women here are powerful. The Naxi used to be matr … matrilineal. Meaning that that property was passed on from mother to daughter and women were also the main workforce and made decisions in the community”.’

  ‘As it should be!’ Margrit added.

  ‘I’m up with that,’ I said. ‘When I lived in Taiwan I had a psychology lecturer doing a PhD on the stress levels of indigenous tribes. One was patriarchal; the other matriarchal. The one with the most stress was the –’

  ‘Patriarchal!’ Christina interjected.

  ‘While the one with the least was the –’

  ‘Matriarchal! Whooah!’ hooted Margrit.

  ‘Why is there less stress?’ I raised my eyebrow in a mock flirty way, ‘Because in a matriarchal society … everybody gets more sex!’

  ‘Nooo!’

  ‘Yeah. Just ask the Tibetans. They were into polyandryxxxi – two husbands or more at the same time. Well, I don’t mean at the same time but you know what I mean.’

  ‘Yes,’ Margrit looked at me with her serious Swiss gaze. ‘But I think this also would be nice!’

  In the past, the Naxi did have somewhat ‘flexible’ relationships between men and women. They had what was called the azhu system – couples didn’t have to get married and if they had children, the mother brought up the child while the man provided support … well, as long as the relationship continued.

  Margrit and Christina left that morning back to Kunming where as I took the bus up to Tiger Leaping Gorge. At the town of Qiaotou, the jumping off point for the trekking trail, I let a stream of other travellers go ahead of me in an attempt to not pay the paltry 30-yuan ($AU5) park entry fee.

  I’m not sure why I was so tight-fisted but I suspect I was tired of paying fees for everything in China. What’s more, I kept bumping into Israelis who didn’t seem to pay for anything. So when Elan from Haifa told me how to get into the park without paying, I jumped at it. Also, there seemed something really exciting, indeed, something right about cheating Chinese officials (they just looked sooooo uncompromising). And anyhow, by the time I did get to the park, it didn’t look like they were spending money on it at all.

  I followed Elan as we snuck up a small inclined path that forked to the left of the ticket office, followed it to a wall, jumped into someone’s yard, then, over a ladder that crossed a stream, before slipping down a gully and on to a road.

  I high-fived Elan. ‘Yes! Australia – one, Israel – one, China – nil!’

  ‘You got through!’ It was Eli, a 19-year-old student from Melbourne I’d met at the Prague Hostel in Lijiang. ‘I got chased by the guards and had to pay!’

  ‘You know about this too?’ Elan looked suspicious.

  ‘Everybody knows about it.’

  ‘But this is the Israeli Network,’ his eyes narrowed, then smiled. ‘Only Israelis are supposed to know!’

  We followed the trail through terraced fields, zigzagging upwards through the ‘twenty eight turns’. Signs for one particular establishment littered the path over and over again like a bad song: ‘Sean’s Guest House’, ‘Sean’s Path’, ‘Sean’s River’, ‘Sean is a Trail Blazer’ and ‘Sean is Repetitive’. It was like being stalked by a sign-writer with Alzheimer’s.

  ‘I’m gonna slap Sean if I ever see him!’ I joked to Elan, which I would later regret saying.

  At the top of the climb we finally got a good look at the Tiger Leaping Gorge, one of the world’s deepest gorges. Above us, grey cliffs fell sharply into the turbulent Yangzi River below. As legend has it, a tiger, in a desperate attempt to escape a hunter, leapt across the river. Looking at the enormity of the chasm, I could only imagine that the tiger had been catapulted.

  That night at the Tea-Horse Trade Guesthouse, a 30-something Canadian, Jason, sat at the dining table in furious debate with a squat Greek woman in her later 50s, his cigarette smoke swirling around him like a force field.

  ‘Lady, you think you there’s no racism in China!’ he puffed fats clouds at her, ‘I live in Taiwan, right. We were staying at my girlfriend’s grandfather’s house when she hears the window smash. Now, I wasn’t there at the time, so my girlfriend, Xinchin, grabs her grandfather’s Japanese sword and races out of the house to see a guy throwing rocks at the window. The weirdest thing is he doesn’t run.

  ‘“Why are you throwing rocks at my house?” she asked.

  ‘“Because you’re betraying our race.” He then looked at her as if to say “What are you gonna do about it?” then left on his motorbike. When I get home we go to the police, give them the licence plate numbers. But instead of arresting him they give us the address and say “If you want to do something here’s where he lives.” So I grab a baseball bat, go to his house and see him through the window. He’s got a ponytail and is feeding his fish. I knock on the door, yell obscene Chinese at him and crack the door with the bat. And you know what he did? He just turned around slowly, looked at me with absolutely no expression and went back to feeding his fish. And that’s what scared me! It was like I didn’t exist. I got the fuck out. Later I found out that I was in a Triad area and his house was right next to one of the temples!’ He swigged his beer. ‘Yeah, no racism in China, lady! Bahah!’

  ***

  In the frigid morning air I set off by myself, following the trail towards the river to Walnut Grove. It was here that I got to meet the infamous Sean at his guesthouse. He waved his shrivelled left arm, a legacy, I was to learn, of being thrown in the fire by the Red Guard when he was two. They had taken their frustration out on him when they could not find his father. I felt awful for saying I had wanted to slap him. So I pushed him off the cliff instead! No, no. Just joking!

  I had a tea and got chatting to an Australian couple who told me that an Israeli woman had died recently. Apparently she’d had a fight with her boyfriend, set off by
herself, slipped and fell down into the gorge. So, aware of this fact, I walked ever so carefully … until I was able to hitch a ride back to Qiaotou on the newly blasted road.

  By mid-afternoon, I was back in Lijiang, my face burnt, body sweaty and clothes displaying a history of floral collisions. However, I was off again sooner than I had anticipated.

  ‘You can’t stay here,’ said the owner of The Prague Hotel, a place I had moved to before I left for the gorge. She was a small, sprightly woman with sticky-up hair.

  ‘But why not? I stayed here last time.’

  ‘The police,’ she said apologetically. ‘No foreigners here. I no licence.’

  I decamped to another hotel and left Lijiang early the next morning, my panniers filled with hot bean buns for the two-day trip ahead.

  27

  LIJIANG – ZHONGDIAN (SHANGRI-LA)

  Late October

  The Mid-October air was fresh and chilly, reminding me that winter was coming and I donned my woollen cap, gloves and jacket. This change of season did not bode well as I was heading up to the town of Zhongdian that was right near the world’s highest and largest plateau – the Tibetan Plateau – also known as ‘the roof of the world’. I wouldn’t be going anywhere near the ‘roof’; more like the first floor, the Dêqên Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.

  The bike slowed as I hit a climb on the 214 Highway that hugged the Jinsha Jiang River. Above, the Yun Ling Mountain range closed in around me. I clicked the gears down to the lowest of cogs – ‘Granny Gear’ – which was slightly faster than walking, my head bobbing up and down like a Texan oil pump as I tried to overcome the inertia of the climb. Just when I’d get some kind of momentum my trousers would bugger it up by getting themselves caught in the chain causing my right foot to slip off the pedal and nearly tumble the whole bike right over. So I’d stop, tuck them into my socks, start again, get some speed but sooner or later I’d feel a sharp tug and I’d be off the bike again.

  As it was autumn, the valley glowed with brightly coloured rust-orange and yellow trees while, through the dappled light, I caught a breathtaking glimpse of a towering snow-capped peak. It was so beautiful, I got off the bike and took a deep breath and only moved again when the heat from my body faded and I was forced to ride again.

  It was great to be alive.

  This was despite it being one of the coldest days I’ve ever had cycling and I stopped frequently to warm up my legs, trying to get my knees and toes from going numb. Worse, I had to … ahem … ‘massage’ my crotch because ‘the boys’ had also gone to sleep. This won me toots from truck drivers who yelled and laughed, though some shook their heads in disapproval. Perhaps I shouldn’t have done it so vigorously. Perhaps I shouldn’t have kicked my leg like a dog that was having its tummy tickled. Perhaps I shouldn’t have smiled so much.

  Another issue with the cold was it was difficult to regulate my body heat. Cycle up a hill and you get too hot and have to strip down. Meet a small descent you’re chilled into screams.

  I stopped at a shack, a restaurant of sorts. Inside, the slatted walls were lined with sheets of rainbow-coloured tarpaulin to keep out the cold. By a small table, a large bird in an extremely small cage squawked and flapped. A large wide-screen television filled up half the room while a boy watched a Jackie Chan movie.

  The walls were filled with kitsch posters of Western meals – two hamburgers on a plate, orange juice, coffee, knife and fork. I pointed to the picture to the owner indicating I’d like that. He shook his head and instead slopped a large bowl of oily noodles in front of me.

  After almost one hundred kilometres I made it to the town of Xingxin, ending the day on a stiff climb. The town seemed to exist for the sole reason of servicing the electrical sub-station that jutted out the side of the narrow valley like some kind of mutant ram with large horns. I got a small room in a hostel and tried, amidst the thick smoke of chilli burning somewhere in the kitchen of the dining room, to enjoy my dinner.

  It was odd being the only foreigner again, where suddenly you become socially disabled. Strangely, I was deliriously happy. I was loving China. Here I could cycle undisturbed, unlike India, which had driven me to short-tempered madness. Or rather my reactions to it.

  I was out of the tourist hub where an ‘authentic’ version of what you’re looking for was served up to you like fast food. Here in this town, there was nothing to ease my landing. Just mystery. This to me was freedom. A liberation from what you know. This to me was travel.

  The next morning I set off at dawn, trouser cuffs bound up with Gaffer tape to stop their chain-catching shenanigans. It was uphill which I thought was unfair for a cyclist first thing in the morning. I mean, the topography should just reset itself! Nice easy gradient that we cyclists can work up to. But no. At every turn I’d go ‘Aha! Surely, there must be a descent! That would be the right thing to do!’ Alas, it was up, up, up, all day long.

  The morning sun was already peeking over the hills, lighting up the valley, revealing army men in tents by the road installing cables. They waved and said hello.

  Outside a shack restaurant, old men sat on long benches wearing Russian-style fur hats, sunning themselves in the warm autumn sun and smoking long pipes. The owner of the restaurant invited me in and pulled out a wooden bong.

  ‘No smoke,’ I said, thinking we were up for a heavy mull session.

  ‘Shénme? (What?)’ He pumped the wooden bong, which made a dull sickening sound like someone trying to suck-start a goat. He then crunched up some dry green tea lumps, poured in a pot of boiling water and added butter. He pumped it again then presented me with a cup of butter tea. It wasn’t as bad as I remembered it in Nepal, though somewhat salty and fatty. His wife, a smiley happy woman wearing a Nike weathered parka handed me what I presumed to be bãbã – half an inch of thick round bread, the consistency and taste of car seat foam. I had to knock back some butter tea to get it down.

  Back on the road, the climb was arduous and I stopped every few kilometres, resting my sore butt, my aching knees and wretched shoulder, which had grown worse in the past hour. No seat changing or handlebar adjustment seemed to help and I was stuck with the pain all day.

  By 1 p.m. I had reached the top of the climb. My reward was a 30 kilometre descent and I flew down it with glee until it tapered out to flat plains, corn crops and large farmhouses that looked different from anything I had seen. They were more Tibetan in style, two-storey stone buildings with white painted windowsills and colourful patterned beams, and to mock the primitive style, a large satellite TV dish on the roof.

  Hungry, I searched for a restaurant but there was nothing. Instead I asked a farmer and he invited me into his house.

  I stepped through the wooden doors and up a flight of stairs to a large dark room with a large potbelly stove. The man asked me to sit by the fire; his wife wore what I took to be traditional Tibetan dress – maroon dress and apron. Though we were still in the Yunnan Province, these were most likely a sub-Tibetan tribe, as I was not far from the town of Zhongdian.

  The woman prepared me some butter tea and bread. The husband sat down and we smiled at each other trying to communicate the best we could while his wife breast-fed their small child. To show my thanks for the lunch I gave my Walkman and tapes to my host.

  I waved goodbye, sure in the belief that these good people would like Herbie Hancock and perhaps not, as I thought about it, the head-pounding techno of the Chemical Brothers.

  From a mountain peak I could see Zhongdian way in the distance and I realised I wasn’t going to make it by nightfall. Instead, I wheeled the bike down a gully behind some trees, away from the road, and wait for darkness. Foreigners weren’t permitted to camp in China though my biggest concern wasn’t the police but bandits. It would be easy to rob me or leave me here for dead.

  I waited for a farmer towing a trailer of people on the back of his converted farming hoe-cum-tractor. It was odd-looking contraption. A long handlebar extended to an engine on two large wheels
while a flywheel whizzed just above it. Of course, it made an awful noise. Once it was gone I went about setting up my tent, jumped in and settled down to a lovely dinner of hardened nut confectionary and two boiled eggs. Who says I don’t look after myself?

  28

  ZHONGDIAN – XIANGCHENG

  November

  By mid-morning, I cycled into the dusty town of Zhongdian and was chased by grubby and snot-faced children in their little woollen peaked hats. I had a slight headache, the effect of the 3200 metre altitude (or was it the screaming kids?).

  My first impression of Zhongdian was that it was a dull place, a shadow of Lijiang. One of its attractions was the 300-year-old Tibetan monastery Ganden Sumtseling Gompa. I didn’t get an opportunity to see inside as it was closed for repairs and to my surprise, by the Chinese government. Over 250 monasteries were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, so why was the government, that has never had a great relationship with the Tibetan people, repairing it? Well, here’s a clue.

  A year after I left China, Zhongdian was re-named Shangri-Laxxxii by the Chinese council having being inspired by the 1933 novel ‘Lost Horizon’ by English novelist James Hilton. Hilton described a place somewhere in the south west of China that offered ‘eternity, tranquillity and peace’ – Shangri-La. Despite the fact that Hilton had never set foot in China and that Zhongdian was a shithole, this did not dissuade the council from renaming it in the hope of attracting more of that filthy lucre. The plan worked. By 2005, the town had gone from 20 000 visitors to 2.6 millionxxxiii.

  ***

  That night as I toasted my feet by a potbelly stove inside the Tibetan Café, another generic travellers’ hangout, I sought advice from Chushi, a broad–shouldered, rough ’n’ ready Tibetan guide, over the coming road conditions.