Leaving Xinyu this morning, we felt like salmon swimming upstream. It must have been rush hour, with a huge tidal wave of bicycles flowing into town --fifteen solid kilometers of Flying Pigeon-straddling commuters. Leaving civilization behind, we climbed up through forests of carefully arranged pine trees, then down through plantations of bushy plants that might have been mulberry for silkworm food. Back on the alluvial plain, rice was in the process of being harvested. The latter part of today's ride, though, looked like Nebraska or Kansas, with barren rolling hills and nary a soul in sight. We stopped for lunch in the nasty little railroad town of Linjiangzhen, watching villagers outside unload cages of dogs from atop buses.
They were of the big, German Shepard type, bred for their meat rather than companionship. The noodles we had ordered were so spicy as to be almost inedible, and we wasted no time getting back on the road. The wind had kicked up and was blowing straight at us, making the cycling no fun at all. It wasn't hard convincing Fred that we should bus it from the next town to Nanchang, Jianxi's capital city. An hour and a half later we were crossing a huge bridge over a huge river into the huge town of Zhangzhu (also known as Qingjiang --why do so many Chinese towns have two or more names ?).
Finding a bus took no time at all, and soon I was looking out the window from my perch next to the driver, very glad indeed that we weren't riding on such a busy road. Outside Nanchang the road joined a superhighway that looked like it was teleported from the future. When the town appeared Fred and I were stunned. It seemed to go on forever in every direction, with no apparent center. Is Nanchang the LA of China ? We rode into what people had indicated was the center of town, along a broad avenue filled with all kinds of traffic.
Nanchang is the kind of place that makes you realize that these people (i.e. the Chinese) will soon be masters of the planet. We stopped beside a massive square decorated with big balloons and giant portraits of Mao and Zhou En Lai. 'What\"s going on ?' I asked one of the many people milling about. 'It's National Day,' he reminded me in a tone usually reserved for speaking to morons (a tone I find myself using a lot in this country full of ADD sufferers). The same man told me that the best hotel in town was just down the street.
The Jiangxi Binguan is not only the best hotel in Nanchang, but by far and away the best place we've stayed in China. Built for communist officials in the '60's, the rooms are huge and solidly constructed, and it's the only place we've seen that features actual character. Add in great food, incredibly helpful staff and a whopping 50% discount (on the country's biggest holiday, no less) and you've got the recipe for bestowal of the BikeBrats Award for Excellence in Lodging. We had decided to join my father and Leslie in Hangzhou rather than in the mountains, due to our aversion towards climbing and lack of anything warm to wear.
So our main concern upon arrival in Nanchang was getting tickets out. Both the front desk and the business center told us that the first available train tickets they could find would be some six days later --not an acceptable option. 'What about CITS ?' we asked, referring to the Chinese tourist authority allegedly able to fix such problems. The response wasn't a welcome one : 'CITS has an office right here in the hotel,' the desk staff informed us, 'but they won\"t be open for another four days due to the holiday weekend.' The thought of a four-day weekend in this land of workaholics floored both of us.
We caught our breath and asked what we could do. They told us to try the train station, where we elbowed our way to the window only to get the same negative response. 'How about flights to Hangzhou ?' I continued to pester the receptionist. She told us that the only flight available was the next morning, but that they wouldn't take bikes. Some brainracking yielded the idea that we could ship the bikes by train and fly the next morning. As both of us were looking forward to a well-earned day of rest after three tough days of riding, we weren't exactly thrilled by the prospect, but we accepted our fate as the only one available to us.
We went upstairs, packed up our bikes with everything we wanted shipped, and went down to the business center to buy the air tickets. A last-minute call informed us that the train wouldn't ship our bikes without our possessing tickets, and we found ourselves back at square one. I put on my most pathetic expression and asked once more if anything could be done, to which the remarkably clever young woman behind the counter said, 'Yes, there is actually one possibility. Come back here at nine-forty-five and I'll know if we can find you some train tickets somehow.' Just how this 'somehow' works is a mystery to me in byzantine China, but I assume it has something to do with party connections.
In any case, we figured we were now entirely at this woman\"s mercy and went to one of the hotel's many restaurants for dinner. Here we ran into a large group of Americans adopting Chinese babies. One couple sitting at the table next to us were feeding a totally adorable little girl. 'Next time we're going to Vietnam,' her new mom explained, 'you can get boys there.' During our post-dinner walk around town we were overwhelmed by the masses of humanity. The town's central square was now jam-packed, as were all the streets around it. Thousands and thousands of people, and all of them Chinese.
It wasn't easy fighting our way through the crowd, but the diminutive stature and general calm demeanor of the people made the experience more bearable --festive even\-- than the expected claustrophobic nightmare. Nevertheless, we sought a quieter way back, wending our way through a labyrinth of narrow alleys and getting utterly lost. We made it back to the hotel just before the appointed hour, and the woman at the business center was wearing a big smile when we ran in, fairly panting in our anticipation. 'I found you a pair of tickets,' she said with a hint of triumph in her voice, 'but they're for tomorrow rather than the next day and they're in hard sleeper rather than soft.' 'We'll take them !' we chorused, and went upstairs for bed, sad to be leaving this interesting town a day earlier than we'd hoped, but happy to be on our way to see Jack and Leslie.
Both of us felt ready to see some familiar faces among all the alien strangeness of the Middle Kingdom. Boarding the train to Hangzhou I couldn't understand why all the fuss about getting tickets. Many seats were empty and there weren't that many stops before Shanghai at times folks could want to board. To further complicate matters Andy and I were in separate cars so I'd have to find my berth with my totally inadequate language skills. It was a little confusing because all the berths seemed to have the same number. A helpful guy saw my confusion and nearly grabbed me by the hand and led me to my place.
For \"hard sleeper\" it seemed pretty soft. I might have thought differently had I been in the third bunk up, but my ground level digs seemed do-able. There were a few things I worried about. First were the fluorescent lights that could not be controlled by anyone but the conductor. Second, a loudspeaker blared announcements and communist propaganda and it was located just above my bed. Lastly, most folks on the car had cell phones that they seemed to be constantly shouting into. Just when I had resolved that I'd be spending the night alone in this little nightmare Andy showed up and explained that he had negotiated berths together in his car.
There wasn't much difference in the cars, but we could at least play cards and backgammon together until we could try to sleep amidst the bedlam. Andy had made friends with the conductor of his car and she was determined to make sure we had a good trip; she even presented us with an enormous pomelo as a gift. We'd asked her if she could find us a place in soft sleeper and the answer was \"yo\" (yes). For something less than 100 agoutis we could turn off the lights and announcements; this seemed like a great deal to me. A few moments later we were snug in a quiet compartment and dreaming about seeing Andy's dad and his friend Leslie.
A nightmare I was trying not to consider was getting our bags and bikes from the luggage service upon our arrival. It had been a very Chinese experience getting them on the train in the first place. We'd arrived in what I'd assumed was ample time with more than an hour to deal with the baggage service. When we got there they did their best to ignore us in the little glass and iron bar lined cage that stood near the entrance of the warehouse. We rapped on the windows and shouted into the little air holes until someone emerged. A dozen forms and some RMB later the bikes were apparently on their way.
At the last moment there was some sort of a hitch. We'd have to take insurance on the bikes and bag and declare their value. Even though we discounted the value of the goods by 75% everyone was shocked and stared at us. \"No, it couldn't be that\", they kept repeating. We looked at one another and thought, \"then why ask us?\" Somehow the problem cleared itself up and they were taken away, only we'd forgotten to ask when they'd arrive. Andy went back to ask and found that they were sitting in a pile with a ton of mail. They said to him \"oh, would you like them to go on your train?\"
How he restrained himself from answering \"No, just grind them into bits, bake them into some mooncakes and send them to us during the next century,\" I don't know. He just said \"Yes\" and they were magically transported to the train. When we did arrive in Hangzhou getting the bag and bikes was not so difficult at all except that we were a mess. There is something most uncivilized about arriving at a destination before six in the morning. Further complicating things we were some distance from the center of town and Jack and Leslie's hotel. (We'd find out later that we were much closer to their hotel then we thought.) As the sun turned the sky from black to grey we batted mosquitoes off our extremities while seeking directions into town.
When we reached the lakeside and the location of their hotel Andy went in and asked if this was the Hubin Hotel. They said no and that there was no Hubin Hotel. He came out with a long face and explained the problem. Jack and Leslie were to arrive the next day and we had no idea where they were staying in this town of over 2 million people and probably as many tourists. Luckily there weren't too many occidental tourists. Trying not to panic we started canvassing every hotel in the area for a group of Americans whom would arrive tomorrow.
Sounds like an easy enough task doesn't it? Try again! \-- You must factor in the China factor. Many of the desk clerks were eager to help us, still others visibly wished we would die or evaporate and would do almost anything to be rid of us. After three hours search and a dreadful night's sleep on the train we decided to have a rest and checked into the most helpful of the hotels. There the front desk staff vowed to help us find Andy's dad. After a nap we decided to be tourists for the afternoon, thinking that it would be easier to locate Jack after he'd arrived.
We took a spin around the lake on our bikes, finding it hard to go wild over the scenery everyone had raved about. It was a charming location, with a big lake and pretty trees but the sky was so gray and obnoxious taxis and busses tried to run us down at every intersection. It didn't help that we had the task of finding those guys looming over our heads. They were to arrive the next day in the evening so Andy and I started canvassing hotels on bike after the front desk of our hotel reported no success in finding them.
We' thought we'd found a lead at one fabulous commie enclave. They were expecting 19 foreigners that night and we could call later when they arrived. We sat around our hotel room playing cards and calling every hour until at around 11pm a bus of Taiwanese arrived, smashing our hopes for finding them. We went to sleep utterly dejected, especially after knowing what we went through to get to Hangzhou. The next morning I asked the front desk of our hotel if they'd had any luck. No, but they'd try a few more hotels. While we waited they did and came up with nothing.
I pleaded \"is there some hotel you might have forgotten? Perhaps something near the railway station?\" Ding! The light went on in her head and she called the Crown Hotel, which miraculously had a group of Americans staying there, including Andy's dad. Our search was over. We arranged to meet them at the lake and join them on their day of tourism in Hangzhou. The first event was a boat ride around the lake, which turned out to be perfect opportunity to catch up with Jack and Leslie and meet their fellow tourists. They were on a tour of the three treasures of China -- tea, silk and pottery\-- with the University of Wisconsin.
Luckily the tour was led by David Buck and his sidekick Innes, both very calm and flexible people. They happily invited us to join their activities. After the boat ride and lunch we were off to a tea plantation to sample Dragon Well green tea. The tour of the tea plantation began amongst the tea bushes just next to where the bus stopped. A rosy cheeked girl of 25 with perfectly manicured nails, a broad smile and wearing tea collection baskets said \"Pleazascusamee, I speak eeengleesh only a little\" before powering articulately through a rather well polished speech about tea and how it is harvested.
She ended with an explanation of how her back hurt her after a day of picking tea. It was hard to believe from her appearance that she'd actually picked any tea in her lifetime. Next we were hustled off to a tasting room where a presentation more slick than the best infomercial sold almost everyone in the group a \$25 tin of tea. I marvelled at their marketing skills and then remembered they'd had centuries of experience with this sort of thing. The next stop was a silk factory. Andy and I had both anticipated seeing a huge room with thousands of cocoons and happy healthy worms being force-fed mulberry bush.
What we found was a little museum showing how this process worked, some examples of silk and a tour of a factory full of complex looms pounding out intricate silk cloth. One of the best displays in the museum was that documenting Clinton's recent visit and how they constructed the loom program that made a silk tea towel with his image. We wondered if they were working on a Monica towel in keeping with current events back in the states. We excused ourselves after the silk factory and rejoined Jack and Leslie for dinner with their group. Afterwards we'd promised to take them out for a fantastic pastry desert at the Novotel after a walk through the night market.
Jack and Leslie seemed a little bored by the market and our search for kitsch there. They'd seen one too many Mao clocks by the time we headed for the hotel. To make matters worse we arrived too late at the hotel and all of the pastries were sold out. A further search for the ice cream vendor we'd found the previous night on the lake was fruitless and we finally sent the exhausted pair back to their hotel empty stomached. We were satisfied and happy we'd finally connected with them and made plans to meet again in Shanghai.