Getting out of Changsha took some doing. The streets were total pandemonium, especially at one point in the road where there had been --surprise---an accident. To avoid the main road and its inevitable honk-a-thon, we followed an alternate route through rolling hills and valleys full of soon-to-be-harvested rice. While the road was badly surfaced, the riding was glorious. We had a tailwind for a change and were sharing the road with far more bicycle-bound peasants than evil honking trucks. And the only traffic jams we had to deal with were caused by colorful markets in the centers of small farming villages.
At km50 we hit the main road just outside the hideous outskirts of Zhuzhou, yet another massive city I'd never heard of before this trip. We pedaled happily past a sign clearly forbidding bicycle traffic onto a long raised viaduct resembling the Chicago Skyway and continued onward on the freeway-like highway for the remainder of the day. \--And it was the best road we've been on so far in the PRC : wide, with a good shoulder for riding, nicely graded and --best of all--- hardly any honking trucks. With a continuing tailwind the kilometers clicked over quickly under our wheels.
At km100 we stopped at an exit to the sinister-looking town of Liling, wondering if we should stop for lunch and perhaps a bus to our night's destination. Both ideas were nixed, due to the perfect riding conditions. Exiting the highway also risked gettting flack from people at the tollbooth and being forced to take the old road, and at our current pace we could reach Pingxiang faster than any bus. A couple of scary tunnels brought us to the Hunan-Jiangxi border, where we stopped for a water break. After a few moments of playing coy, the people hanging around --including a trio of cops---gathered up the courage to approach us and ask a few questions.
Their accent was the strangest I've yet heard in China, sounding more like Finnish than Chinese, yet I managed to answer their most urgent queries, providing them with the usual spiel. For his part, Fred distributed postcards of comrade Mao purchased in Shaoshan, each of which we were both required to sign as a memento. Fred, given to hyperbole and generalization, claimed he already liked Jiangxi better than Hunan. 'People are friendlier in this province, ' he proclaimed, 'and they don't honk as much.' The remaining kilometers to Pingxiang were hilly and pretty. At the border the road had transformed itself into an ordinary highway so we were rolling right through villages and towns again, which meant there was more to look at and more to watch out for.
As on any long day of cycling, the last ten kilometers were the toughest. By the time we reached the outskirts of town we had a sizable escort, mostly on motorbikes, competing for our attention. The most persistent of these actually proved helpful, aiding us in finding a hotel in this big industrul town of one million or so. Pingxiang feels more provincial than other towns its size we've passed through. I doubt, for example, that there's a yuppie bar here. Even karaoke seems oddly absent. Instead, you have a more traditinoal, 'old style' Chinese city, slower paced and full of friendly folk.
The 'hello's' we get here feel less irritating, more genuine, somehow, and no one has made any effort to rip us off. After stuffing ourselves with a huge assortment of dumplings and other treats (only a buck for seven plates of food) we caught a micro taxi --actually just a 3-wheeled motorcycle with a fiberglass hull---to the train station for a masochistic bout with idiotic functionaries and impatient, shoving ticket-buyers. On our walk back a bunch of boys (we're convinced they're cuter here than in Hunan) strode alongside us, instant friends. They invited us to join them for dinner but we're too zonked, especially Fred, who snores in the bed beside me as I scribble these lines.