Deutsch
China/Qinzhou Adventure travel 2008
5-27
Thoughts for a rainy morning as we sit in our hotel room as lighting and thunder crackle and boom overhead. The TV is still filled with images of the rescue efforts in Sichuan. Total communities have been destroyed and the provinces infrastructure decimated along with thousands of lives lost and hundreds of thousands injured and now homeless. How painful to watch the human suffering. The Olympics and the Torch Relay are lost as background noise.
Our ride yesterday again took us up out of the ancient village of Fenghuang into the surrounding mountains and villages. The road is well constructed, traveled by local buses and trucks which all toot and give us a wide berth if possible. As usual these days, we slowly putter up the snaking path only to zoom down feathering the brakes, calling out to Judee to apply the drag brake we call “Betty”. “Give me a little Betty!”
On this morning the farm land smells are pungent – lots of “night fertilizer” has been used. (Night fertilizer is human waste.) The other added treat is the huge piles of dung left on the road by the water buffalo. We are thankful we have fenders on Bici, even then our sandals sometimes get shined.
One of the things we are noticing as we move north, our hotel costs are increasing and the value for the increased cost is declining. We continue to eat breakfast in our hotel room, get a “bowl” of noodles mid-morning, snack around 1pm and have dinner between 6 and 7 pm. Dinner consists of three dishes: two of veggies and one meat with veggie accompanied by rice. Another treat is dumplings, steamed or fried with veggies or minced pork. We manage to scarf down a bamboo steamer basket full each! As we near Sichuan we are noticing the spiciness of our food increasing – hotter and hotter!
It continues to thunder and pour. We are getting antsy. Our thoughts are to train on to the city, Zhangjiajie, two hours up the track where there is a large UNESCO national park we might choose to explore. We have as yet to use the trains here in China. We have heard conflicting reports regarding whether or not we can take Bici on the train with us. If the train is a bust, we will be off to find a bus.
On the Train! Wow. Judee is wondrous as she disappeared into the bowels of the huge crowded and noisy cavern and out she came with 10:20 tickets. Then we had to unload Bici, go through the security x-ray machine, reload and push Bici out onto the loading platform. A discussion with the conductor explaining that in fact Bici would fit on the train car with us if we took the front off ended in our loading Bici. We then took our seats in the smoky car with 13 passengers taking seats in a car meant for about 60.
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May 24 China/Fenghuang Abenteuerreise 2008
Thoughts for a rainy morning as we sit in our hotel room as lighting and thunder crackle and boom overhead. The TV is still filled with images of the rescue efforts in Sichuan. Total communities have been destroyed and the provinces infrastructure decimated along with thousands of lives lost and hundreds of thousands injured and now homeless. How painful to watch the human suffering. The Olympics and the Torch Relay are lost as background noise.
Our ride yesterday again took us up out of the ancient village of Fenghuang into the surrounding mountains and villages. The road is well constructed, traveled by local buses and trucks which all toot and give us a wide berth if possible. As usual these days, we slowly putter up the snaking path only to zoom down feathering the brakes, calling out to Judee to apply the drag brake we call “Betty”. “Give me a little Betty!”
On this morning the farm land smells are pungent – lots of “night fertilizer” has been used. (Night fertilizer is human waste.) The other added treat is the huge piles of dung left on the road by the water buffalo. We are thankful we have fenders on Bici, even then our sandals sometimes get shined.
One of the things we are noticing as we move north, our hotel costs are increasing and the value for the increased cost is declining. We continue to eat breakfast in our hotel room, get a “bowl” of noodles mid-morning, snack around 1pm and have dinner between 6 and 7 pm. Dinner consists of three dishes: two of veggies and one meat with veggie accompanied by rice. Another treat is dumplings, steamed or fried with veggies or minced pork. We manage to scarf down a bamboo steamer basket full each! As we near Sichuan we are noticing the spiciness of our food increasing – hotter and hotter!
It continues to thunder and pour. We are getting antsy. Our thoughts are to train on to the city, Zhangjiajie, two hours up the track where there is a large UNESCO national park we might choose to explore. We have as yet to use the trains here in China. We have heard conflicting reports regarding whether or not we can take Bici on the train with us. If the train is a bust, we will be off to find a bus.
On the Train! Wow. Judee is wondrous as she disappeared into the bowels of the huge crowded and noisy cavern and out she came with 10:20 tickets. Then we had to unload Bici, go through the security x-ray machine, reload and push Bici out onto the loading platform. A discussion with the conductor explaining that in fact Bici would fit on the train car with us if we took the front off ended in our loading Bici. We then took our seats in the smoky car with 13 passengers taking seats in a car meant for about 60.
