23rd June to 19th July 2016

Japan is quite rightly proud of its unique culture and traditions. As an island country it’s managed to preserve its identity (helped by being cutoff from the rest of the world for two hundred years) while the rest of Asia gradually grows together. It’s a fitting place for us to be while we wait for the results of the referendum to decide if our own country will return to being independent of its continental neighbours.

As the swingometer leans in favour of the ‘leave the EU’ option we watch Facebook fill up with the shocked response from our friends back home. They’re waking up to the news that Brexit is going to happen and the general consensus is that this is a very bad thing. We’re shocked too. The world has changed a lot since we left home in 2014 but this event will have the most immediate effect on us right here and right now and in a terrible form. Thanks to the sudden drop in value of the pound our sushi will cost us 14% more and so we’re crying into our macha tea.

Having the run of Mark and Miki’s house for a few days makes for a wonderful break from the routine of the road. A hi-fi and a huge stack of CDs puts a big smile on my face as it’s been so long since we’ve been able to enjoy the simple pleasure of sitting and listening to music for a few hours.

Hayama is a lovely little town only an hour south of Tokyo by train but a world away from the big busy city. The Emperor has a house here for a good reason. We swim in the sea, explore the temples of nearby Kamakura and try some local sashumi while enjoying the relaxed atmosphere of a beach community.

It’s hard to ignore the lure of Tokyo though so we head back up there a couple of times on ‘days out’. It seems to be a city that offers something for everyone, no matter how obscure your interests are with quirks and cults taken to levels of obsession. One example of this is the rise in popularity of fixed gear bikes. On street corners  cool hipsters prop themselves up against meticulously assembled track bikes and street racers. We stumble across a specialist ‘fixie’ shop on Cat Street where for ¥40000 ($400) you can select the colour of each and every component on your new bike. There are 300 different saddles to choose from alone including some rather smart Harris tweed options. All very tempting.

One of the more eccentric sights is the Tokyo Rockabilly Club. This long standing institution has been jiving in Yoyogi park every Sunday for decades. Kirsty’s mum saw them when she was here in 1985. With greased back hair, full denim outfits and moves straight out of Blue Suede Shoes this collection of 50’s throwbacks put on a great show.

The main reason for heading up to Tokyo though is to go for a paddle on the 1964 Olympic rowing lake. As the guests of Partez Rowing Club we’re  assigned a seat in two different quads and enjoy an evening racing up and down this historic stretch of water. Unfortunately it’s not up to scratch for modern competition so won’t  be used when the Olympics return in 2020 but it remains the home of some of the top clubs in the country. Partez make use of the Mitsubishi boat house, an enormous building with racks of boats, a gym, a canteen, dormitories. Many of the multinational Japanese firms support full time athletes in various sports so it’s possible to get a job purely on the basis of your athletic ability. I quite like the sound of that so if any British companies need some professional cycle tourists to represent them then please get in touch. The outing ends in a  typically Japanese way with all the rowers stood in a circle and we take it in turns to say what we enjoyed about the evening. Finally we all bow and say ‘arragatto’ before heading home.

Another uniquely Japanese activity that we wanted to experience is Keirin racing. Gambling is hugely popular here and it seems every small town has at least one Pachinko hall full of very loud, very bright gaming machines. Anything that can be raced can be bet on, from boats to horses to bikes and Keirin cycling is one of the most popular sports to have a flutter on.

The Tokyo oval feels more like a dog track than a high performance cycling venue. This is a far cry from the kind of place knights of the realm like Sir Chris and Sir Bradley would race. Groups of men are hunched over pages of names and stats, studying the form and digging into their pockets for their next bet. Soon a tuneful fanfare signals the countdown to the next race. The riders appear wearing colourful outfits, looking like jockeys but puffed up with protective padding. A ‘hare’ in the form of a pace rider is attached to his start gate while the racers line up 10m behind. Then they’re off! The pacer winds up the speed over several laps, just like the durney in the Olympics, then he peels off unleashing the pack for the final sprint. Despite the low key atmosphere these guys are quality athletes and ride fast and hard to earn their living and it makes for entertaining racing. As they cross the line my man fades back into the pack while Kirsty’s hot tip gets pipped at the post. We both tear up our slips, ¥100 ($1) down the drain.

But the show’s not over. Remember when Wiggo stood on the podium on the Champs Elysees having won The Tour de France and announced he was about to draw the raffle? Well here the winner does actually draw the raffle. The crowd jostle for position on numbers in front of the podium and after a short speech the fastest man pulls out a few tickets and t shirts are handed out. Lucky for us one winner isn’t so keen on his prize and hands it over as a gift. Mark also gets given one as we’re leaving the stadium. It’s a fine way to spend an evening and everyone has been very friendly as well as offering commiserations over the Brexit vote. It’s news that the whole world seems to have taken an interest in.

With another day to prep the bike, fitting new tyres, trueing the rear wheel and checking nuts and bolts we’re almost set to get going again. First we have one last trip to Kamakura where we meet up with an ex colleague of Kirsty’s. Muk has been following our journey with interest since the very beginning and it’s great to meet up with him  over a dinner of fresh tuna throat and local beer. It’s interesting to hear his comparisons of the working conditions in Japan compared to when he was in Bristol. Working 9 – 7pm often with compulsary overtime on top makes for a tiring existence and explains why most people seem to be snoozing on the train when we head back to Hayama.

With heaps of thanks to Mark and Miki and feeling relaxed, well and rested we’re ready to hit the road again. Just as we’re getting back into the swing of things though, thick fog delays our ferry across the Bay of Tokyo from Kurahama by half a day. It’s only a slight hitch and with all four legs motoring for two days we race up through Chiba to Oarai to catch our next ferry to Hokkaido. As we’ve come to expect from this part  of the world on board there’s a hot bath to dip into and a comfy mattress on the floor to sleep on for the 21 hour voyage.

Hokkaido is the northernmost island of Japan and has enjoyed independence and occupation in various forms over the years giving it a more unique flavour than other parts of the country. The population is spread more sparsely amongst the mountainous landscape creating more remote regions and a complete contrast to the mania of the Kanto region we’ve just left. It’s also the home of around 2000 bears so although we don’t want one in the tent with us we’re really keen to try and spot one from a safe distance.

Moving north at this point in the year is perfect timing as the rainy season on  Honshu ends and with typical Japanese precision a hot sticky summer begins at the start of July. The climate on Hokkaido however works differently so is milder and more comfortable. Our first animal encounter occurs in a park in Tomakomai when a fox tries to steel some food from the porch of the tent then stands as bold as brass looking at me when I shout at it. Hopefully the bears will be more timid.

Our route has been cobbled together based on other blogs, recommendations from Mark and a desire to get to Shiretoku at the far north eastern corner. Moving north we quickly find ourselves in amongst forests, fields and rolling hills giving the impression of a European countryside view. The deep blue sky seems huge and we breath in the clean air. Into the Ubari region we stop for supplies and find a supermarket selling some of the region’s famous cantaloupe melons. At $160 for five small fruit it would have to be a mighty fine melon to justify the cost and it’s something we decide we can live without.  We’re the kind of people who spend the night in the lobby of a public loo so perhaps not their target customers anyway.

I should point out that Japanese toilets are unlike any others in the world. We bumped into a spanish cyclist in Korea whose first comment when we told him we were going to Japan next was “they have great toilets there”. Without exception public facilities are immaculate, always well stocked with paper and are often heated and have electrical power points. Electricty is important as the toilets themselves often have an array of controls for washing, drying and heating parts of the body that come into contact with it. There’s sometimes a button for activating a discreet running water sound for those who are shy about the noises their bodily functions make too. It means that toilet blocks are cosy homes for tired and thrifty cyclists. One word of warning though, it’s not always clear what all the buttons do so if you’re not careful you may set off the panic alarm, in which case, move on quickly.

After a 90km stretch of wilderness without a single shop or single bear sighting we return to civilisation at Iuano and then further on pass through Nakafuano, famous for its lavender fields and brightly coloured flowers that colour the hillside. To our right there are snow topped mountains and after rounding Asahikawa we head towards them.

The road narrows down into a gorge with waterfalls cascading off the cliff edge. Unfortunately it then disappears into a tunnel so we are deprived of any more views for the next 3km. Once we’re back in the sunshine we begin climbing with the highest road on the island up ahead, the Mikuni pass. There’s no doubt that ice cream tastes better at altitude so the cafe at the top is a welcome sight where we sit down to rest and replace lost calories. The views over the forest below are spectacular and we can see our descent snaking through the trees and in places taking tree top bridges over small valleys.

Thanks to a tip from a Hokkaido resident’s website (www.14degrees.org) we turn off the main road part way down and venture deeper into the woods on an unpaved track. We’d heard noises outside the tent the night before and there are various signs warning about the wildlife so we make sure we make plenty of noise with singing and shouts of “heeeey bear!”so that no one gets startled. It’s great to be away from any traffic even for only a couple of hours.

We make it back onto asphalt safe and sound and before long we’re on our way to the northern coast of the island at Abashiri. Passing wild horses grazing and fields of wild flowers with the sea on one side and volcanic mountains on the other this stretch makes for a great day to be on the bike. During a rest stop a lady gives us a punnet of fresh strawberries to help us along. We’d met her on the ferry and even  though she’s travelling by bus we’ve managed to get here in the same time as her. Perhaps we’re not as slow as we thought.

The coast curves round alongside the Sea of Othosk and takes us onto the Shiretoku Peninsula. I’d first heard of this place from Neil, who we’d met at the NLCS on Jeju. He’d told me that locals fish alongside bears in a unique relationship where neither side is threatened by the other. It’s also a region that has one of the highest population density of bears in the world so this seems to be the perfect place to come for that elusive sighting.

Half way up the penninsula the road turns inland and we ascend the Shiretoku Pass. Foxes and deer watch us as we grind up the hill but nothing larger. At the top we’re rewarded with views of Mount Rasu Dake and out to sea Kunashiri island hogs the horizon. This is an island under dispute as Russia claim it’s theirs but Japan thinks it should belong to them. As it’s only 16km from Hokkaido but several 100 km from the Russian mainland you can see why the Japanese are a bit miffed about the current situation.

A few people are training enormous camera lenses on the hillside but judging by the level of excitement there doesn’t appear to be much to watch so we drop down the other side of the pass. Just before Rasu we pull over and wander into the woods for a bath. There’s a natural hot spring, the Bear Onsen, tucked amongst the trees though luckily it’s not bath day for the bears.

There’s something about reaching the extremities of an island that sits at the extremities of a country. We felt it when we rode up to the top of Unst in the Shetland Isles and also out on Uto in Finland. It’s as if we’re riding to the edges of the world with only a raging sea to contend with once the land stops. It’s no surprise then that Shiretoku actually means ‘edge of the world’.

We ride up to the end of the road on the east side of the peninsula and camp amongst ramshackle fishing huts and a few houses that sit on the edge of a gravel beach. They have to take the full brunt of the Pacific during the winter and most of them are showing signs that they’re only one more big storm away from being claimed by the sea. There’s another onsen built into the beach which provides a lovely setting for our early morning bath. As we’re towelling off a Swiss couple arrive in a camper van and we exchange a shared amazement for the hardy community that lives out here. They ask if we’ve seen any bears which of course we haven’t. “That’s a shame, we saw one crossing the road in front of us on the pass just yesterday”. I guess it’s all about being in the right place at the right time.

We make our way down the east coast and then come inland onto the flatter southeast corner where the land is mostly taken up by dairy farms. Hokkaido is where the majority of Japan’s milk products come from and is also where our favourite (and only) Japanese cheese is produced.

Further inland we ride towards Lake Kusshara where the hills reappear and one of them appears to be on fire. A boiling hot sulphur spring sits at the base of Mount Io with bright yellow rocks and clouds of steam .There’s more hot water to be found at the lake itself with a beach where you can dig in the sand to make your own onsen, then further down a more formal bath built out of rocks on the edge of the lake. Watching the sunset while soaking in the warm water is one of our most pleasant evenings so far.

A tip from Mark sends us up to Lake Akan but he hadn’t warned us this would involve a 750m climb. The lake is famous for what must be the only algae in the world that is deemed to be a tourist attraction. Unique green balls called Marimo form on the lake bed and are said to look ‘cute’. This isn’t the destination Mark had recommended though and there’s more climbing to be done first. A left turn takes us higher up whereby Kirsty submits and sends me on alone. Up past a blue green lake before a turning onto a rough trail eventually brings me to another onsen. This one is a bit special as it sits at the top of a waterfall of hot water. Scrambling up alongside the steaming cascades I find the pool tucked in amongst rocks and trees and ease myself in for a dip. Mark was here 25 years ago and says he’ll never forget sitting in the hot water while it poured with rain overhead. I suspect I’ll take a lasting memory away too.

After collecting Kirsty and camping in a car park we begin rapidly descending for the entire next morning. Even when the hill peters out we continue south at speed on nice flat roads surrounded by fields of sweetcorn and a few vineyards. Our target now is the southern cape at Erimo.

We reach the south coast at Hiroo and can’t resist following signs to Santa Land. If you’ve ever wished it could be Christmas every day then this is the place for you. It’s a suitably surreal Japanese experience walking into a room full of Christmas trees, nativity scenes and miniature Santa Clauses in the middle of July.

Several tunnels punctuate the headlands as we follow the coast. In places the old road that hugs the bottom of the cliff is still visible and we try to take this to avoid the longest, 5km tunnel. We swerve round an unintelligible sign and have a great ride with the sea spray being flung over the wall by the side of the road. It all comes to an abrupt halt after 4km where the sea has reclaimed the road and forces a u-turn back to the mouth of the tunnel. I guess the sign said road closed.

Once we arrive at the tip of the cape we’re almost blown over. The view is magnificent but it’s blowing a gale. No wonder this is the home of the Museum of Wind which sits buried safely in the ground to stop it being sent skyward.

The villages along the south western edge of the cape are reknown for their kelp harvesting and we see tons being hauled out of the sea and laid out to dry. Erimo Konbu is the best in Japan for making seaweed soup and is very valuable. Unfortunately we don’t get to try any and to be honest the slimy green-brown strips don’t look all that appetising.

As we make our way up the coast we bump into another tandem crew. Mark and Mio are spending a few weeks touring in Hokkaio and are also flaunting the anti-tandem laws. In fact their bike is made in Japan, presumably only available on the black market from dealers who operate in dark alleyways.

We’re now in an area popular with race horse stables and I chat with a trainer as we rest outside a 7-11. He speaks good English as he’s spent a few years in Cambridge and his knowledge of British geography is determined by the location of various race courses. He can identify Bristol quite rightly as being between Bath and Chepstow. There’s time for one last Onsen, this time in a smart spa-type building. It’s another unusual experience sitting in a sauna watching the sumo on TV. These enormous wrestlers seem to spend more time dancing, slapping their thighs and trying to psyche out their opponents but when they do eventually come to blows it’s usually a brutal and short-lived fight.

We get wind assistance all the way back to Tomakomai although the final afternoon includes a soaking when the heavens open. It doesn’t matter though as we’re coming to the end of the Japanese leg of our journey so can hide in a cafe for a while to dry off. We spend a day collecting packing materials for our flight – polythene sheeting for the bike, sacks for the panniers, re-waterproofing the tent and enjoying the tastiest Japanese delicacies that we’ll miss.

On the morning that we’re due to fly out we arrive at the New Chitose Airport nice and early and set up shop in the corner of the check-in area. The soggy tent comes out to dry after another rainy night and the bike gets partially dismantled. The security guard isn’t too impressed but a smile and a ‘non understanding foreigner’ act is enough to persuade him to leave us to it.

Ahead is a gruelling 21 hour journey that will take us to Shanghai before another flight brings us back over Japan and on to Vancouver. I’d looked into taking a container ship to get across the pacific but the logistics and cost were prohibitive so unfortunately we’ll have to endure this pair of flights instead. But still, the prospect of a new continent is exciting and there’s a whole lot more riding to be done if we’re going to be home in time for Christmas. Aragatto Japan, you’ve been amazing and Hokkaido in particular has been a highlight. We’ll be leaving feeling cleaner than ever but unfortunately without a bear sighting. That doesn’t matter though as apparently there are bears in North America. Let’s hope they have hot baths too.

Just before we left Bristol, Freecycle brought cycle touring guru Tom Allen to our door. He needed a phone and we had a phone we didn’t need. Once we’d explained why we were having a clear out he offered the sage advice that the best way to plan our trip was to not make too many plans. Anyone who’s seen his film Janapar (and if you haven’t  you really should watch it here) will know that his own journey took a wildly different direction from his original detailed plan thanks to some unexpected events, and very much for the better.

As we sit in Japan with our toes on the edge of the Pacific our next step was always going to have to be by plane and the plan was to head south from here. But accepting that we have to fly opens up infinite other options and the continent on the other side of this huge ocean has come into view as one of those possibilities.

 

With that in mind and with our original plan lying on the grass outside the window we’ve decided to continue east instead of the disjointed leg down under. For all those friends in Australia and New Zealand who we were looking forward to visiting, consider this a postponement rather than a cancellation. We will head down there and help you fire up those extra coals that you’ve been stock piling for the barbie. Just not quite yet.

Instead we’re going to jet over to Vancouver next week for a short visit to British Columbia then we’ll drop down to begin the not inconsiderable challenge of the Trans Am route across the USA. This is one of the world’s classic cycle journeys and it seems fitting to ride it this year as it celebrates its 40th birthday. Taking in 10 states, some spectacular national parks and a few mountain ranges over its 7000km length we’re going to need every one of the 90 days the US government will allow us to stay without a visa to complete it. 

Then it’ll be another hop over to Europe and the final push for home in time for mulled wine and mince pies (depending on any new visa restrictions for British citizens). Lap one rounded off nicely yet still plenty to explore when we go round again.

So that’s the rough outline of plan B but we’ll leave the fine details to fate.

“Irasshaimase! Irasshaimase! Irasshaimase!”. Every member of staff gives a cheery welcome as soon as we walk in the door of the shop. A small robot then tries to sell us a mobile phone. As we start to fill up a basket with tasty sushi and ultra rare porridge oats, a man walks round with a hand bell yelling out the daily specials. Among the shelves are TV screens advertising products we don’t want and from somewhere an instrumental version of “Day Dream Believer” is playing on a continuous loop.

We reach the till to be greeted with another “Irasshaimase!” from behind a surgical mask then the price of each item is called out as it’s scanned through. Finally there’s the ritual of the credit card. I pass it over with two hands and it’s received by two more with a shallow bow and dignified “aragatto”. “I’m looking after your card” we’re told, “I’m taking 2450 yen”. Then the card is presented back to me and we’re sent off with our shopping with a deep bow and another “aragatto gozaimasu!”.. Tesco could learn a lot about customer service from the Japanese.

4th June – 22nd June 2016

We ride out of Osaka through some quiet back streets that feel more like a village than a megacity. Then the road heads up and over a ridge before dropping us down into Nara.

Japan has had more capitals than a teenager’s text message and Nara is one of the many towns that has had its turn at ruling the country. Among the ancient temples, tame dear hassle the tourists for snacks and pose for photos. The main attraction is an enormous wooden hall that houses an equally enormous bronze Buddha. As we enter he looks down on us with enlightened serenity. In one corner of the hall a group of schoolchildren are squeezing through a hole at the base of wooden pillar. Legend has it that the hole is the same size as one of the Buddha’s nostrils and if you can fit through it then it brings good luck. I’m just a bit too big and not as supple as the kids, so have to settle for only partial good fortune by sticking my legs through.

Just up the valley is another former capital which we reach by following a winding, riverside cycle path. Kyoto is one of the busiest tourist destinations in Japan so there’s plenty for us to see but we’re up early thanks to the 5:30am train to Osaka that rumbles past a few metres from our tent porch. It’s tricky to find city centre parks so we have to put up with the inconvenience of the rude awakening for the convenience of a secluded patch of ground.

Getting an early start has its advantages though as we get to the very popular Fushimi Inari Shrine well ahead of the crowds. There are hundreds of bright orange torii gates leading off up the hill behind the temples and we’re lucky enough to be able to wander through the tunnel that they form with barely anyone else around. It offers a sense of peace and tranquility that will shortly be broken when the busloads of visitors arrive.

We’re not so lucky for the rest of the day as Kyoto is well and truly in full swing after 9am and we’re swimming through crowds at Kizomizu Temple and the Golden Pavilion. Usually getting around by bike is an advantage in this sort of place as we can cut through the traffic and park easily but in Japan things aren’t that simple. There are designated places where bikes can be parked, especially in cities, and if you leave one outside of these places then it could be taken away. At the Kizomizu Temple we’re shown to the appropriate place to park and then told we have to pay to leave the bike there! It’s not much but I’ve always objected to being charged to park a bike as cycling should be encouraged by being as low cost as possible. With a huff we find a side street and take our chances with the bike police, locking it to a lamppost just in case they try and take it away. Luckily it’s still there when we get back leaving us 200 yen richer and a whole lot more smug.

From Kyoto we climb over a small pass and are reacquainted with the train service as the railway line runs down the middle of the street, right alongside us as we approach Lake Biwa. This is Japan’s largest lake and stretches on for 65km in front of us.

We take up residence in a quieter lakeside park only for the peace to be broken by my ranting and raving when I discover our Leatherman penknife is missing. It was last used in Nara to take apart a tent pole that was being furnished with a new section to replace the one that we broke in Korea. I’m fairly sure that it’s still down there. Every now and then we talk about how far back we’d be prepared to ride if we’d forgotten something somewhere and the answer is always dependent on the value of the item and how hard the ride would be. In this case it would be a day and a half of riding round trip for a $110 penknife. That’s assuming it’s still there and not been snatched by a dog walker or crafty deer. I rant and rave and ponder and consult the map. The solution comes from a rumbling train in the distance.

So another train related early start sees me running to catch the 5:50 from Karasaki to Nara and by 10am I’m back in Karasaki again clutching the trusty knife triumphantly. It was exactly where we left it in a park near the temples. In most countries it would probably have been long gone but this is Japan where people think differently and wouldn’t even consider taking it. Almost every day we see people leaving their car running while they pop into a shop. Try doing that next you go to Asda and see if it’s still there when you come out.

Back on the bike we follow the lake shore then over a bridge that crosses its narrowest point. It’s a beautiful body of water so we can’t resist a lunchtime dip. In the distance we can see the hills are becoming mountains and it’s towards these that we turn the next day. We’re now in the Gifu prefecture famous for being the start of the Japanese Alps, but before we head upwards we stop to be given some energising sour plums by a local artist. We’d met Taka in a supermarket and she invited us back to her house so we can see some of her work. While we admire her watercolours she brings out a plate of home grown plums that have been soaked in salt water. It’s a popular snack here and is also a popular test for foreign visitors. We’re supposed to run away crying at their sourness which brings amusement to the Japanese tormentor who offers them. Unfortunately for Taka we actually quite like them and gratefully take the bagful that she offers us. Before we leave she asks for our address and promises to send a book of her paintings for us to enjoy when we get home. Hopefully she’ll include some plums too?

A river cuts into the hills making our life relatively easy for the next 50km as we pedal along the road that hugs its banks. This seems to be a very popular place for people to stand in the river as for this entire stretch there are fishermen every 10 or 20m. We don’t see anyone having much success but I guess the actual catching of the fish is only part of the appeal of this sport.

The easy gradient couldn’t last though and soon we’re clicking down through the gears and turning on the power to winch up to 950m. Eagles wheel overhead, unfazed by the traffic and probably having more success with the fish in the river. Grassy ski runs have static chair lifts sitting idle up alongside them, waiting for another winter to arrive. Down the other side we speed past huge reservoirs surrounded by dense pine forests and arrive in a village full of wooden houses with steep thatched roofs. This is Shiragawa and the image of the chalet-like buildings, blue green river and wooded mountains gives the impression that we’ve dropped into Austria or Switzerland. This is exactly what William Gowland, the “Father of Japanese Archaeology”, thought when he explored the area and christened these the Japanese Alps.

We climb steeply out of Shiragawa for 10km then roll over the top of the pass for a lengthy, high speed descent into Takayama. It’s still June so still rainy season, though we’ve been lucky to have great weather for the last few days. But having not made it all the way through the hole in the column in Nara our good luck was limited and in Takayama the rain returns. We wake up to find we’re in a very soggy tent. The groundsheet is no longer as waterproof as it was when we started so the overnight downpour has seeped in. In situations like this we just have to hope there’s some sunshine later in the day so we can get everything out to dry.

There’s no danger of getting cold, even in the rain as it’s still 20 degrees and there’s another long climb ahead to keep the blood pumping. We’re now getting high up into the mountains and arrive at the spa resort town of Hirayu where hot water is pouring out of the ground and into troughs beside the road. There’s a foot bath that we decide works just as well as a full body bath so get fully submerged while no-one is looking. Clearly a breach of etiquette but luckily no one sees us to be able to tell us off. No one spots us moving into the generously sized wooden hut that houses the toilets either so we avoid another potential soaking in the tent.

The next day we’re on a mission. From Hirayu we have access to the highest road in Japan and of course we’re keen to climb it. Setting off early we steadily pedal up the first 500m knowing we need to save energy as there’s another 1000m after this. There’s dense white fog ahead and out of the gloom a man with an orange baton jumps out in front of us with his arms crossed to form an X. I play chicken and keep riding straight at him but he holds his ground so we have to stop. After some heated discussion, neither side understanding the other, he runs to his hut and returns with a sign in English saying the road is closed to cyclists because of the fog.

Having come this far we decide to sit it out, but after 2.5 hours if anything it’s got worse. In the meantime a man on a trials bike turns up, a saddle-less bike with a tiny gear that is even more inappropriate for climbing a mountain than a fully laden tandem. Then a couple of roadies arrive who’ve ridden up from Takayama. We’re all turned away though, and despondently we drop back down to Hirayu and take the alternative road over a lower pass. The skyline pass will have to wait for another time.

Snaking down the hairpins on the other side of the climb then winching up a long steep tunnel we arrive in Kamikochi where the alpine views unfold in spectacular fashion. Around us the mountains rise to over 3000m and wear snowy caps while forests with 100 different shades of green decorate the steep hill sides. A sign in the visitors’ centre warns of a bear sighting near the village that morning but we take our chances by pitching the tent on the river bank rather than the $20 per head camp site. In the morning it’s a lovely hike up to the Dakesana Hut and on to the snow line for a high rise view of the valley below.

 

Out of Kamikochi we return back down the steep tunnel then continue to descend for most of the rest of the afternoon. There are tunnels aplenty as we cruise from light to dark to light then over a huge dam before continuing down and down and from light to dark to light. By the time we reach Matsumoto we’ve dropped 1500m but only had to climb 150m which makes for a nice change of ratio from the previous days.

We set up camp close to the famous Matsumoto Castle which bears very little resemblance to what we’d consider to be a castle by European standards. There appear to be no portcullises, draw bridges, death holes or archers slots. It is very pretty though and in Japan aesthetics seem to take precedence over protection. Our complacency over the apparent safety in this country takes a knock when our camera battery charger gets taken from a socket in the public loo. I really should have made more of an effort to crawl through that hole in the pillar.

And the rain returns to keep us cool while we climb up and over a toll road through Ueda and up again with the road skirting around Mount Asama, the most active volcano on Honshu. There are fields of vegetables as far as the eye can see, no doubt making use of the fertile volcanic soil.

The volcanic activity inevitably brings with it a hot spring town. In Kusatsu they have more hot water than they know what to do with and a steaming hot river right through the town. It seems a shame that this energy isn’t being harnessed more productively than just for bathing. But seeing as they gone to the effort of building several public onsen we hop into one and enjoy a soak and a scrub.

Once again we’ve been earning plenty of altitude so can cash it in for an afternoon of descending now, freewheeling almost all the way down to Nakanojo. Which leaves us with one final hill that will take us out of the Alps and onto the Kanto plain. It’s the biggest of the lot as we gain 1200m in one hit. Actually it takes two hits as bad light and low energy levels force us to stop just before the summit

We’re asked to move on quickly in the morning as it turns out the nice lakeside spot we’d chosen is private property, so we scoff our porridge and head for the top. At 1800m it’s the highest we’ve ridden since India which seems surprising given the distance we’ve covered since then. With this much height to lose we know we’re in for an easy morning. I check the brakes and we take off down the mountain, at one point giving a cautious Ferrari a run for it’s money as it tentatively negotiates the hairpins.  

Coming up the other way are dozens of motor bikes and road cyclists. This isn’t far from Tokyo so is a popular destination for a weekend escape from the city. The town of Nikko also brings in the crowds as it’s yet another former capital with more exquisite temples and shrines. Unique to this one though is an imperial horse which occupies a sacred stable in the temple complex for a few hours a day. On the stable is the original three monkeys carving struck in the pose of ‘see no evil, hear no evil,speak no evil’. They are there because there used to be a belief that monkeys could cure sick horses, equine nurses take note.

When the temples were built in the 1600’s the feudal lords were asked to help pay for them. One lord who couldn’t afford to make an offering decided to plant some trees instead. He put in 40,000 cedars on the road leading out of Nikko and 400 years later there are still 16,000 of them left. This makes it the longest tree lined road in the world. It’s an impressive road to ride along with the cedars towering overhead and this avenue leads us out onto the Kanto plain for our final run into Tokyo. This huge flat region is home to 42 million people, nearly ⅓ of the population, so our expectations are for a busy last 100km before we reach the (current) capital.

In fact what we get is a wide strip of green land bordering the river Tone with a traffic free cycle path running alongside. This helps us speed into Tokyo largely unhindered other than a bit of resistance from a pesky headwind.

The last time we paid for accommodation was in Tianjin just before we left China so we’ve promised ourselves a night in a hotel to reward ourselves for having made it all the way here. But being Tokyo there are numerous quirky options for places to sleep. Fancy a night in a hotel where it’s Christmas every day? Or how about a Hello Kitty themed room? Or being woken up by Godzilla? We opt for the relatively tame option of a capsule hotel where instead of a full size room you spend the night in a narrow compartment no bigger than a single bed and with barely enough height to sit up in. The capsules are stacked two high along the length of the room giving the impression of a pet shop with human exhibits. The original concept was dreamed up to cater for hardworking businessmen who’d missed the last train home and just needed a simple cheap bed for the night. Many are still men only but a few, including ours, now allow women to stay too. It’s a popular tourist gimmick that we enjoy buying into.

Before settling down for the night we head over to the Shinjuku area to wander among the bright neon lights and enjoy the atmosphere of the bustling nightlife. In an ironic twist though we miss our last train so have to get a very expensive taxi back to our capsules.

All through Japan the main staple has been seafood. Apparently 6% of the world’s fish harvest is consumed here, and a third of that is sold through Tsukiji Fish market in Tokyo. 2000 tonnes of scales, fins, tentacles, blubber, roe and shells pass through the doors of this the world’s biggest fish market each day. It takes an early start (too early for Kirsty) to get there in time to wander around and peer into the polystyrene tubs to see what lurks within and the manic buying and selling activity leaves very little room for nosy spectators. Several times I nearly get run over by a turret truck on its mission to collect some frozen tuna.

We’ll be back to see more of Tokyo in a few days but for now we’re continuing on south and have to battle through the streets of adjacent Yokohama without the luxury of a cycle path. It’s a stressful journey that we’re keen to get away from so we stop in what appears to be a quiet park and decide to settle there for the night. Unfortunately our quiet park is also floodlit so once it gets dark our tent is lit up like a beacon. We decide to take our chances and stay put, but once again luck is not with us. At 9:30 we’re woken up by some commotion outside and when I peer out of the front door I’m met by three policemen. Have they finally caught up with the riders of the illegal tandem? No, they’re more concerned about us camping in their park and tell us to pack up and move on to the nearest hotel. Kirsty has a rule that once our mats are inflated then no-one is going to make us move until morning so I’m obliged to argue our case. I present our magic letter that explains who we are and why we might be camping somewhere unusual and it seems to have the desired effect. They make a phone call and ask us to wait. A few minutes later and after another call they ask us what time we plan to leave. “6am officer” I reply, “Make it 5am and you can stay”, “Deal”.

By 6am the next morning we’re on our way again.

We end up in the lovely seaside town of Hyama as the guests of Mark and Miki. Back in the mountains in India we spent an evening with Mark and his friend John sharing one of the finest camp sites of our entire trip. We exchanged stories of touring exploits and triathlon racing endeavours and before we parted company Mark left us with an open invite to stay with him once we got to Japan. It’s now that we are able to take him up on that kind offer. Their home is just the refuge we need after being on the go for over a month and we plan to spend a few days off the bike to recuperate. When we’re ready to move again we have one more island to visit, Hokkaido up in the far north which we’ll reach by ferry.

This leg through Japan has been full of wonder and so far it’s been a country that sits high on the list of favourites. The run of misfortune with the weather, the forgotten knife, the stolen charger and the encounter  with the police has been playing on my mind though.

Should I have tried harder to squeeze through that hole? Then it hits me, Kirsty didn’t try crawling through at all! No wonder we’ve not been more blessed.    

Japan is a very photogenic country so there are lots more photos in our Japan Gallery.

It’s often hard to put into words exactly what we’re feeling, seeing, experiencing as we roll along each day which is why we like to take plenty of photos. As the saying goes a picture paints a thousand words. My cousin Margaret once asked me if our trip inspired us to be poetic which is an interesting idea. We have given it a go by documenting the adventures of our friend from Limerick, Willy, with several verses but beyond that our creative skills haven’t been fully harnessed. However Japan is the land of the haiku so in an attempt to fully embrace the culture of our next destination we’ve decided to try and capture our thoughts using the format of three lines and 17 syllables.

Country forty two
The land of the rising sun
What will we find here?

16th May – 4th June 2016

For some reason we arrive in Fukuoka 2 hours before we’re allowed to disembark. Japanese efficiency again I suppose. While waiting I watch the dock workers going through some synchronised morning exercises to warm them up for their day’s work. I can’t imagine many dockers in other countries wanting to do star jumps and stretching together. I also get to watch the rain lashing against the windows. Rainy season starts in June so the thought crosses our minds that this could be what we’ll be faced with for the next month, and it’s not a happy thought.

Once we’re released we get to role the bike down a pristine white corridor into the terminal building while soft and gentle music plays on concealed speakers. A fitting welcome to Japan. There’s always plenty of adjustments to be made when arriving in a new country and here one of the biggest, at least initially, is to concentrate on riding on the left rather than the right. We splash through to the town centre and hole up in a coffee shop for a few hours before setting ourselves up in a park for the night. We’d been warned that the Japanese are diligent rule followers but are also incredibly polite. These two traits are in conflict when someone sets up a tent in a park as they know it’s probably wrong but don’t want to cause offence by telling us. Many cycle tourists have been known to take advantage of this and enjoy some unchallenged ‘park life’ so we decide to do the same.  Around the edge of the park a 2000m running track is being well used by some swift athletes right up until we go to bed and is busy as soon as we get up the next day too. Running is a popular sport here and everyone looks to be very good at it.

Thankfully the sun has made an appearance so we begin to explore this strange new place by making our way north from Fukuoka towards the top end of the island of Kyushu. We’re using a route laid out by Japan Cycling Navigator that promises to connect lots on interesting places from here all the way to Tokyo.

This is a land of easy living with convenience stores (or ‘conbinis‘) every 2 or 3 km and if your caffeine and nicotine addiction is too strong to go that far then don’t worry as you’re never more than 100m from a vending machine selling coke, coffee or cigarettes. It also seems to be the case that things are better if they’re cuter. Cars are little boxes on wheels, pets should be fluffy and portable, shop signs should definitely include a cartoon character as part of the logo. Even the road works use plastic rabbits or pandas to hold up the barriers.

Seven Eleven
Everything we might desire 
Never far from sight

After Kyushu we cross the Kanmon straight on a bumpy ferry to our next island, Honshu – the largest part of Japan. On the other side a cheerful man calls us over with great enthusiasm brought about by an afternoon drinking tinned lager. He knows enough English to understand when we tell him where we’re from and instantly becomes our best friend, buying us drinks and frequently shaking our hands. His invitation to stay at his house is well meaning but given the state he’s in we decide it’s probably wise to continue on so offer an arragato (thank you) and a bow then move swiftly on.

From Shimonoseki we work our way up and over route 242 and a surprise awaits us on the top of the climb. Once we emerge from the woods the landscape opens out into a rock strewn moorland that reminds us of Dartmoor. Not what we expected Japan to look like. Dropping down to the north coast of the island we arrive in Hagi where Japan takes on a more traditional appearance with an old town of Samurai houses and immaculate gardens.

We’ve been on the road for longer than most now, over 19 months at this point, but there are  a handful of cyclists out there who have committed even more significant chunks of their lives to two wheeled travel. On the road from Hagi we find Adela and Kris coming up the other way. They left their home in Poland 6 years ago and have been travelling ever since but say they are ready for the home straight to cross Asia back into Europe. They plan to take another 4 years to complete their journey. To put this into context, when they set off smartphones were very rare and the first time they saw one was in Africa some time later. They wondered why a man was stroking his phone with his fingers and just thought he really must like it! Don’t worry Mums we’re not planning to be away quite as long as them.

We’re savaged by flies one evening then see a sign warning of bears so feel slightly grateful our attackers weren’t bigger. The road back south across Honshu takes us alongside a pristine, clear river that cuts an impressive gorge through the hills.

Everything in Japan seems to be clean, crisp and tidy. The roads are perfect without a single rut or pothole. Where roadworks are being carried out a man with a flag is employed to wave us through with a deep bow as if to say “sorry for causing a delay”. We haven’t seen a scrap of litter which is amazing given that there are also no bins. Apparently the Japanese don’t like to eat while out and about so there is very little need for bins. There are places to put cans and bottles but anything else needs to be taken home  which is fine unless you’re a cycle tourist without a home to take it to. We have to tie our rubbish to the bike and spend most of the day looking for somewhere to put it.

No Bins in Japan
Take your litter home with you
But we have no home

Back on the south coast of Honshu we scurry along the busy route 2 to Miyajimaguchi and catch a ferry across to the small island of Miyajima. As we cross the narrow Onoseto straight the huge vermillion wooden Torii gate that marks the entrance to the Itsukushima Shrine stands in the sea in front of us. While Kirsty goes in search of a place for the tent I’m busy watching one of the tame deer that roam the streets when someone calls out my name. It’s a voice that I last heard on the side of a road near Larissa in Greece back in February 2015 and it belongs to fellow cyclist Eric and with him is Charlotte. After 16 months our paths have crossed again and purely by chance! It’s amazing how small the world can be sometimes. We swap stories and, although they are taking a break from cycling just now, there’s every chance we’ll bump into each other again somewhere up the road. When and where we just don’t know though.

There seem to be as many shrines and temples in Japan as convenience stores. Climbing up Mount Missen we pass several more and then enjoy great views of the Inland Sea and Hiroshima. There’s also the Daishoin buddhist temple where we spin prayer wheels and find hundreds of tiny statues lined up looking thoughtful. Shinto and Buddhism seem to co-exist and in many ways complement each other so allegedly 80% of people would say they are buddhist while 70% say they are shinto.

That view of Hiroshima comes a bit closer once we leave Miyajima and continue up the coast. It’s a city that if history had taken a different course would probably never have gained much interest from anyone outside of Japan. But because of one horrific event in 1945 it’s now as familiar a name as Tokyo.

Riding down Peace Boulevard we arrive at the Peace Memorial Park and visit the Peace Memorial Museum, a place that brings home in graphic detail what happened when ‘Little Boy’ was dropped on Hiroshima. North of the Park is the ‘A-bomb dome’ the remains of a building that stood near to the hypocentre of the blast and has been left as a poignant reminder of what happened. As we walk around there are police everywhere and all the manholes have been sealed up in preparation for a visit by Barack Obama in a few days time. He’ll be the first American president to come here and pay his respects to the victims of the bombing, but he’ll also be followed by a man carrying a suitcase containing the command codes for launching his own nuclear arsenal. The overriding message from Hiroshima is a call for peace and nuclear disarmament but there’s clearly a long, long way to go before that happens.

Lessons from history
President Obama Please
Don't press that button

We leave Hiroshima by boat and cross to Etajima to pick up a cycle route that takes us through sleepy fishing ports and past dozens of oyster farms out in the bays. It doesn’t have the big tourist attractions of nearby Myajima and so is a much more relaxed and quiet island.

The islands are tightly packed here so once we’ve made our way round Etajima a bridge carries us over onto Kurahashi for a short while before a tiny ferry brings us back onto Honshu where we ride up to the town of Kure to spend the night overlooking the shipyard, safely guarded by submarines and battleships.

Japan is made up of 6,852 islands and over the course of the next day we cross 11 of them. Hopping from one to another along the chain that stretches out through The Seto Inland Sea makes for very pleasant riding. Bridges get us over the wet bits all the way to Okamura where we arrive just in time to catch the boat to Omishima. Like all transport in Japan, these ferries run to a precision timetable so there’s not much time to get the bike onboard before we’re steaming out of the harbour. In front of us the captain pushes the throttle control forward and stretches a piece of rubber over the handles to make sure they stay in the ‘full steam ahead’ position. There’s no way he’s going to let two cyclists make him late.

Tandem travellers
Island hopping through Japan
See beauty each day

A few islands later and we end the day on Yuge where a bus shelter provides our accommodation for the night. That’s not as bad as it sounds as the little wooden building has a toilet, table, flower arrangement, air conditioning and a picnic table outside. It’s more glamping than tramping and it makes for a cosy home from home.

While having breakfast in the morning the shelter returns to its intended purpose by filling up with people waiting for the first bus of the day. They’re not bothered about us being there and someone even stops to give us grapefruits.

By bridge and ferry we continue to work our way across three more islands. With the sun on our backs and the sea by our side this area is living up to its title of being a cyclists’ sanctuary. It understandably attracts cyclists from all over the country as well as foreign tourists like us with the popular main route from Omonichi to Imabari following the Shimanami Kaido – the highway over the sea, using an impressive network of dedicated cycle paths and over the massive bridges linking the larger islands. The blue line that marks the way is reminiscent of the Korean paths and I should think their engineers came here to get some ideas for their own network.

We have one last ferry to catch from Iwagi and we arrive in the harbour just in time to watch it disappear out of the harbour. Of course it was going to leave not a minute later than scheduled. A lengthy wait for the next one delays our arrival in Imabari later that day but luckily our hosts don’t mind.

A strict timetable
These boats wait for nobody
Please don't arrive late

We’re treated to a delicious spread of red snapper, sea snail, rice and a dozen different side dishes. Tsuneto and Akiko love to have people staying and have hosted 356 guests over the last two years who find them through Warm Showers like us as well as Couchsurfing and Air B&B. It’s actually their son Fumito who introduced them to Warmshowers as he made use of the site while riding to Indonesia for his honeymoon.

Their beautiful home is very traditional with tatayami mats on the floor, futons to sleep on and paper screens dividing up the rooms. Completing our cultural experience is a visit to an onsen hot spring after dinner that is tucked away in a bamboo forest. Well fed and fully cleansed, we sleep like enlightened buddhas.

We arrived in Imabari over the 6.5km Yoshiumicho Fusuma suspension bridge and are now on Shikoku, famous for its 88 temples dotted around its coastline. Pilgrims come to this island to walk the 1400km that takes them past all of them and as we make our way down the West coast we begin to see a few. They’re distinguished by white shirts, conical hats and a stout walking stick. A small backpack contains their essentials including a book for collecting stamps from each of the temples that they visit (again, perhaps the Korean bike path designers took notes from here?). The island’s inhabitants support the pilgrims by offering them food and accommodation as it’s said that if they help the travellers they will gain favour in their next life.

Our pilgrimage is destined for the port of Nagahama where Kirsty is keen to catch the boat to a place that is close to her idea of Nirvana. Aojima is a tiny island with just 8 human inhabitants living there after most of the rest of the population left to seek their fortune elsewhere. There’s a small temple and a couple of shrines but this isn’t the reason visitors are interested in the island. This is also known as Cat Island as the humans are outnumbered by nearly 20 to 1 by their feline neighbours.

The boat pulls into a grey harbour and we’re greeted by a mass of soggy fur that comes running down the walkway to see what today’s guests have brought them. There are cats everywhere: Up on the roofs, on the piles of fishing nets, under the houses, along the sea walls and milling around our feet. This is a cat lover’s paradise and some of the other people have brought toys and treats to lure in even more moggies to play with them.

It’s a very unusual place and apart from the ferry, no-one seems to be making any money from the people that it attracts. There are no shops or cafes or souvenir stalls. There’s not even a vending machine. The residents like the cats as they think that by feeding them it brings the fishermen luck. A happier cat must be a luckier cat so if people want to come and entertain them then that’s fine by them.

Trip to cat island
Dozens of cats everywhere
One peed on Marcus

Nagahama is famous for it’s thick sea mist which clings to the hills and sits in clumps in the estuary as we set off back along the coast. We climb up and over to Yawatahama with a 2km tunnel truncating the top and providing some shelter from the rain. Despite being wet it’s still warm so we keep following the narrow road as it winds its way south through tiny picturesque ports and villages. On the steep hills to our left there are orchards growing oranges and lemons. Rails take small motorised trolleys up between the trees to make it easier to collect the fruit. Like in Korea, fruit is very valuable here and these oranges will sell for $2 a piece.

Eventually we turn inland and winch up the Nakao Toge Pass and down into Seiyo where we collect a drawing pin in the front tyre, our first puncture for months.

The interior of Shikoku is mountainous so now we’re away from the coast there’s plenty of climbing to be done. Our road follows a steep sided valley lined with thick pine trees and with a crystal clear river running through it. The road builders have done their best to make the route easier with plenty of tunnels cutting through the steeper sections and chopping off the tops of the hills. There are now terraces of tea plantations, perhaps the source of the bright green matcha tea that we’ve been enjoying?

Tunnel up ahead
From sunlight into darkness
Cars sounds like monsters

We’re been riding across the south west corner of the island and when we drop back down to the coast on the other side it’s a significant moment of the trip. The body of water in front of us is the Pacific Ocean and it’s the first time either of us have ever seen it. This really is the edge of the Asian continent and the moment is inevitably marked by a leisurely swim.

From Kochi we turn inland again with the road taking us from sea level up to 400m then down again while we search for the entrance to the ‘Hidden Valley’. Supposedly a hiding place for the fleeing samurai of the defeated Heike clan from centuries past who lived in the middle of the island hidden in this beautiful but secluded valley. It’s no longer a secret though as the power companies seem to have found it and spoilt the view by building several hydro electric plants. The single track road winds up and up with mirrors on every corner so we can see if anything is coming round the tight bends. A statue of a boy peeing into the gorge is one of the famous sights of Shikoku as are the vine bridges further up. But what we are really keen to see is an unusual village that sits at 900m.

As we approach we can see some figures fishing in a small stream. Getting closer we can see that they are not what they seem though, they are life sized stuffed dolls, fully clothed and arranged in realistic poses. Further on there’s another doll attending to a vegetable patch, a crowd of them fill a bus stop and there’s even one attempting to chop wood with a chainsaw. We’ve arrived at the village of the dolls, a project that began when one of the residents returned from living in Osaka only to find that almost everyone else had moved away. She wanted to make the village look busy again so began filling it with dolls. It must have been a huge amount of work, and it’s ongoing as she adds more and repairs or replaces some of the older ones.

This is symbolic of the problem that is common all over Shikoku as younger people leave for the bigger cities on Honshu. We’re told that property is quite literally given away if anyone wants it. Buy a house and get another one for free alongside.

The dolls are interesting but just a little bit creepy too so we continue on and find a mountain hut to spend the night in then finish off the climb in the morning. It tops out at 1400m and we’re rewarded with an expansive view back down the other side. A perfect stop for a picnic.

From sea to summit
Through forest and up valley
Pedals keep turning

We plunge down the mountainside. Again the mirrors on the corners give some reassurance that there isn’t a truck coming up the other way but our brakes are squealing too so everyone has good warning that we’re approaching at speed. We’d expected this to be a descent all the way to the sea but somehow a bonus hill stands in our way so we click back down through the gears and crawl over it before the true final descent into Tokushima.

We head straight for the ferry port and arrive just in time to catch the boat to Wakayama. Shikoku disappears behind us and once again Honshu looms up ahead.

One of the most frustrating thing about cycling in Japan is the number of traffic lights. Every single junction seems to have them and they take an age to change from red to green. Wakayama to Osaka is effectively one continuous city and along the length of the road there must be at least 100 junctions. That’s an awful lot of stopping and starting which makes it a fairly awful ride. We manage to break it up by visiting the home of the biggest cycle parts manufacturer in the world, Shimano, and then the nearby cycle museum. Our knowledge of the history of the bicycle is improving with every country!

Approaching Osaka itself, the roads become a tangled web of bridges, flyovers and tunnels but there are plenty of other cyclists and the traffic seems accommodating enough to give us some space. Even so we’re glad when we arrive at our host’s house and can park the bike up.

Audrey lives in a traditional Japanese ‘mansion house’ which translates as being a block of single roomed appartments. Originally from the North of France, she’s here to improve her Japanese and immerse herself in the culture. Her tiny flat is soon filled with panniers and tandem riders so we apologise for taking up so much of her precious space and suggest we go out for dinner in town.

Here are the bright lights and bustling streets that we’d been expecting from a Japanese mega city. Huge plastic sea creatures hang off the restaurants with moving claws. Neon signs advertise hostess clubs that are stacked up over several stories. In the maze of alleyways there are standing  bars that accommodate 4 or 5 people at most yet somehow stay in business. We tuck into some freshly cooked Takoyaki octopus balls, an Osakan specialty, and watch the craziness all around us. Japan has a lot to see and there’s plenty more on the road ahead.

A place of wonder
Everything feels so different
This is the far east

Japan is a very photogenic country so there are lots more photos in our Japan Gallery.

28th April – 15th May 2016

After a short spin from his flat Elbert delivers us to the blue line that would lead our way out of Seoul and all the way down to Busan. The next two or three weeks ought to be easy with the route largely dictated for us by the network of bike paths that follow rivers and valleys all over Korea. All of it is well sign posted, the main route has a painted line along its length and there are toilets and camping areas at convenient intervals. Along each of the routes there are phone boxes where we can stamp our ‘bike passports’ as an incentive to ride as much as possible. It’s billed as being a cyclist’s paradise.

We begin the journey alongside the Namhangang River that runs right through Seoul, collecting Tara (www.followmargopolo.com) before making our way out of the city. There are few hills, it’s 20 degrees C and the river meanders through some lovely countryside. This feels like a holiday compared to a lot of the places we’ve been to in the last few months. We’re lucky with the weather as Korea is usually plagued by dust clouds and pollution at this time of year, blowing over from its huge neighbour China. It’s not often I’d be glad to have a headwind but if it keeps the skies clear then maybe it’s the lesser of two evils.

As promised, finding somewhere to camp is easy with open meadows and covered shelters never too far away. Koreans seem to love camping and we’d seen lots of tents alongside the river in Seoul at the weekend. The path has its drawbacks though, by staying near the river we’re kept away from villages and towns which is great for avoiding traffic but means we don’t pass by many shops or cafes. It also means we miss out on seeing much of the Korean culture other than through meeting fellow bike path users. Instead of the usual nod from people coming the other way we’re given a full bow with a bend of the arms bringing their forehead down to the handlebars. I get used to doing the same and it’s like a spin class upper body workout when several riders come past at once. But one benefit from the lack of shops is that we can’t be tempted by 7-11s to spend all our cash. South Korea is an expensive country, especially compared to bargain China, so our daily food budget has leapt up.

It’s easy to get complacent with the blue line and signposts removing the need to think about navigating so when they occasionally disappear we’re a bit flummoxed. While consulting the map we realise that we’ve missed a turning but by chance we’ve arrived at a thermal spa. Free camping is great for the budget but not so convenient for washing facilities so a soak in a hot bath sounds like a great idea. We dig out swimwear and head inside with the girls heading left to their changing area while I turn right. The segregation is not just for the changing areas though and it’s quickly apparent that we won’t be needing bathing suits, just our birthday suits. It’s been a while since I’d stripped off and had a bath with total strangers but this is a popular part of Korean culture so I settle into the 45 degree water with the other men and try to relax. The water is naturally carbonated and once you’ve been sat still for a while tiny bubbles form all over your skin. Following the example of my bathmates I alternate from hot to cold to hot with a few minutes in the sauna too. There’s a barber in the changing room who looks a bit afraid when I ask for a moustache trim. Facial hair is not a common sight here so I suspect it’s not something he’s used to dealing with. A liberal splash of skin lotion completes the process and I feel like a new man.

Outside the girls emerge looking suitably radiant and it sounds like things were much more sociable on their side. Lots of chatting and laughter whereas the men just sat looking meditative.

The Namhangang river is well controlled with impressive dams and weirs at various points. The bike path is sponsored by K-Water and they’re obviously keen to show off their assets as the route crosses over the best of these structures so we get to take a closer look. After crossing one of these huge bridges we find ourselves alongside a rowing venue that’s busy with small boats preparing for a regatta. Our friend Mr Hung in Hanoi had told us he was bringing the Vietnamese squad to race here in the hope that he would qualify one or two boats for the Olympics. Frustratingly, we’re on the wrong side of the river from the racing and the boat house so can only watch the action from a distance. (We later hear that the Vietnam women’s double did qualify for Rio).

The Namhangang river path ends half way down the country and before we join the next river we have to climb up and over the biggest hill on the route. We winch up the 5km hill and are congratulated by several other cyclists once we reach the top.

Riding with Tara highlights the different dynamics of the tandem compared to a solo bike. She can tap along comfortably while we grind up the hills but then gravity comes to our aid once we start descending and get to stretch out a lead. This to-ing and fro-ing continues through this mountainous stretch as the path takes us up increasingly steep hills. A 25% ramp is at the very limit of what we can get up and is an absolute lung buster, thankfully just short enough for us to cope before collapsing in a heap.

This brings us onto the Nakdonggang river where things level out again. We pass rice paddies and hundreds of rows of polythene tunnels. There are very few people working the land as mechanisation and technology seem to have made farming much easier here compared to elsewhere in Asia. Like everything else in South Korea this is a far cry from the crowded fields we’d seen up in North Korea.

The investment in this path must have been huge and there is little expense spared. Some sections are on boardwalks standing on stilts in the river, other parts occupy the top of wide earth mounds. There are bike themed sculptures all along the route too and a bike museum at Sangu. The money seems to have been well spent though as there are thousands of people using it. Very expensive mountain bikes and carbon race machines pootle alongside families. Being away from the traffic makes it safe and easy for anyone to take up cycling. For us though it’s becoming a bit too mundane. The ease with which we’re able to travel without traffic or a need to navigate was fun to begin with but after five days we’re craving a change. Our excuse to leave the path and brave the roads comes 130km before Busan where we turn off and start to head down towards the south coast.

We’re now in amongst the cars and it’s clear that they’re not used to bikes. Lots of them pass a bit too close for comfort so I move out a bit further into the road to try and occupy more space. This tactic forces cars to wait for it to be clear on the other side before overtaking which may delay them a few seconds but gives us a bit more security. Things get a bit too hectic in Jinju when a car door opens right in front of us catching the bars and throwing us into the gutter. The occupant of the car just looks at the heap of tandem and crew at her feet and says “Ang yong ha se yo” (hello).

Our target is the ferry port at Yeosu which lies on a peninsula off the south coast. Without a blue line to follow we have to take our chances with our own route choices but on paper it looks quite straightforward. Our map shows a bridge that leads from the mainland onto a small island then we can hop over another bridge onto the peninsula. Easy on paper.

Once we arrive in Gwangyang the bridge looms up in front of us. It’s a huge suspension bridge, the 4th largest in the world, and although the rain that was pelting down earlier in the day has stopped, there’s still a howling gale. We begin climbing up and over it, leaning against the wind as it whips down the channel between the island and the mainland. The road sits 85m above the water but we don’t spend too much time admiring the view as it needs all my concentration to keep the bike upright. Luckily there’s not much traffic but there is a car following us very slowly. It’s the police. They don’t try and stop us but keep following until we’re safely over to the other side. Here they pull alongside and tell us that bikes aren’t allowed on the bridge but it’s a bit late to do anything about it.

We’re then in amongst a huge industrial area with pipes and cables and chimneys a blight on what could have been a beautiful coastline. Yeosu seems to be most famous for an Expo that was held here a few years ago. It prompted the building of the huge bridge and also a brand new port which is now used by most of the ferry traffic. We didn’t know this and arrive at the old port only to find a few shuttered windows firmly closed. In a side room we find someone who has enough English to help and tells us we should go to the new port to catch the ferry to Jeju. “It’s only 20 minutes away by bike”. Which is fine but we only have 30 minutes before the boat leaves. Usually when we’re told how long it should take us to ride somewhere the estimate is wildly optimistic, thankfully this time the guess was conservative and we drop down into the correct port after a frantic 10 minute blast across town. There’s just enough time to grab the tickets, load the bikes and then head for the on-board cafe for 2nd breakfast.

The volcanic island of Jeju is a popular holiday destination, particularly for honeymooning couples. We’re heading there to visit some friends of Kirsty who teach at an international school in the south west corner that is just over a day’s ride from the port. On the way we stop for the night just outside Jeju city and find a nice patch of grass outside a temple. We greet the monk in residence to ask for permission and after a call to his boss he tells us it’s fine. No sooner are the tents unpacked when he comes back to say it’s too windy to camp so his boss had told him to let us stay in their house. As it’s a sacred building I have to stay in a different room from the girls but we’re made to feel at home and get chatting with the monk. His reaction when we explain how far we’ve ridden and for how long is “Jesus Christ!”. As a Buddhist monk I guess he can get away with that!

In the morning the temple ‘grandmothers’ arrive and won’t let us leave without a huge bag of kim bop, seafood and rice rolled up in seaweed. Outside the temple we’re greeted by a familiar face. Elbert has arrived with his cycling team for a few days of riding round the island. Luckily we’d managed to get here at the same time so can ride with them for the day.

Jeju has its own blue line that leads cyclists round the island and like the mainland routes, there are stamps to collect and a shiny sticker in our bike passports if we complete the 230km loop. This is the last path that Elbert has to ride before he’s awarded the Grand Slam for completing every one of the Korean bike paths, an impressive achievement. We hop onto the back of his peloton and enjoy a sociable spin down the west coast.

Just before Daejong it’s time for us to peel off so we wave goodbye to Elbert and the team and head up to Alan and Judy’s house. Alan used to work with Kirsty but made his escape from the world of programming several years ago and he and Judy now both work at the North London Collegiate school. These franchised international schools are becoming increasingly common and offer a useful extra income for the parent schools back in the UK.

We’ve been asked to earn our keep by giving a presentation at the school the next day. Some of the staff are keen cyclists too so take as much interest in our stories as the children. The school is an impressive facility and commands huge fees for the privileged few who can afford to come here. There are only a handful of international schools in Korea so parents who want their children to gain internationally recognised qualifications, which can lead to a place at the world’s best universities have to pay a premium.

In the evening we join a staff outing on some of the school’s mountain bikes, our first ride on solo bikes since Siem Reap in February. Once again it’s almost like learning to cycle again, it feels so different!

It’s great to have time to rest and recuperate while staying on Jeju. It’s also a good opportunity to clean and fettle the bikes. While inspecting the frame I notice an ominous line behind the chainset and with the wheel off and a squeeze of the chainstay my fears are confirmed. It’s a crack in the frame. Not fatal, yet, but it needs welding before we can continue.

This is where being in a developed country is a disadvantage. In poorer areas of the world people have to mend and adapt things all the time so you’re never far from a mechanic. Here everything is newer, more reliable and largely disposable so a man with a welder is harder to find. I have to ride 10km to find someone but he’s more than happy to help out and within 15 minutes the crack has been welded up and we’re good to go again. This is why most people ride steel touring bikes, it’s a material that can easily be fixed.

In the middle of the island is the main volcanic cone of Mount Hallasan but there are also over 360 smaller volcanic craters, called oriums, dotted around it. Alan and Judy take us up to one near to their house and once we drop down over the rim and into the crater it feels like a tropical oasis full of wildlife, birds, butterflies and plants.

We’ve had a great stay and despite the gannet-like tenancies of 3 cyclists to clear out a house of food, Alan and Judy seem to have enjoyed having us. After a final hearty breakfast we say our goodbyes and head back to the coast to find the blue line.

We make our way round the island past black rocks, black sandy beaches and small fishing villages. Out in the sea there are flippers pointing into the air which then upend to reveal wetsuited divers. These are the haenyeo women divers of Jeju who have traditionally worked in the sea to collect shellfish and seaweed. Back on land the men stand around waiting for the women to come back with their catch and seem to have the better deal. It’s a dying tradition though and the average age of the divers is over 60 so this is a sight that will become rarer for visitors to Jeju.

Our last 2 days on the island are soggy. Our climb up the famous Sunrise Peak is rewarded with a view of the inside of a white cloud and we enjoy some shelter inside the lava tubes at Manjanggul-gi. It’s then another quick boarding when we get back to Jeju City to catch the ferry as again we arrive with 30 minutes to spare. This time we sail into Mokpo on the south west corner of the mainland.

As we make our way up alongside the Yeongsangang River on another of the 4 rivers cycle paths I’m finding it hard to stay enthusiastic. My mood has been on the darker side of glum for a few days now with several contributing factors. As well as the wet weather it’s as if our kit is rebelling as a tent pole breaks, then a brake cable, then I snap a tent peg, a handful of spokes loosen on the back wheel, then the chainring bolts come loose and we bend a chain ring. My body has joined in too as an infection on my cheek spreads to my eyelid to make me look (even more) gruesome. But nagging behind all of that is another feeling which became apparent when we were on the mountain bikes on Jeju: I miss cycling.

That may seem like an odd statement from someone who has spent the best part of 20 months sat on a bicycle but riding a touring tandem lends as much similarity to riding a lightweight road bike as driving an HGV does to driving a Ferrari. The process of turning pedals, changing gears and moving forward is essentially the same but the feeling of responsiveness and agilty that makes a road bike exciting is entirely lacking on the tandem. It’s not surprising or unexpected given how different a vehicle it is to the other machines in our ‘stable’ back home and not one of my other bikes would have allowed us to have the adventure that we’re having . But every once in a while I can’t help dreaming about flying along these roads on something lighter. A chat with Tara reveals that she has the same thoughts but is careful not to say such things within earshot of her bike ‘Dozer’. I should also be grateful that at least I get to enjoy some semblance of cycling in that I get to steer and brake and control the bike which is more than poor Kirsty gets to do.

We slog it out up the cycle path to Damjangdam then turn onto proper roads that throw some steep hills at us as we cross back towards the East side of the country. Another visit to soak in a spa helps to ease some aching limbs and we get given some melons by a friendly couple who guide us to a quiet camping spot on the edge of a small town. This gesture of kindness shouldn’t be underestimated as fruit is unbelievably expensive here. In Kyrgyzstan we were being given watermelons for free or at most spending 50c, here they cost $15.

We rejoin the main cross country path where we left it and complete the route down to Busan to make sure we have a full complement of stamps in our Bike Passports. This is important as once we arrive at the finish we are able present the books at the certification centre and claim our medals and certificates. They have some examples for us to pose with for a photo but the actual ones will need to be printed and engraved and sent out after 2 or 3 weeks. This is actually a relief as I don’t think we have room in the panniers for them!

We spend our last night on the beach in Busan, at the edge of the Eurasian Landmass. Behind us we can recall so many memories and trace so many changes of culture and landscape that we’ve seen gradually develop since we left England. South Korea has been the next cultural link to take us from China to Japan with elements of both sides apparent. To the outgoing attitude of the Chinese has been added some of the formalities and manners of Japan along with high tech cities and a cleaner environment.  Comparing it to what we saw in the North we can’t help but wonder what a unified country would have looked like and whether that dream for many will ever come true. It’s been an interesting country in many ways but perhaps not what adventure lovers like us would call a bike paradise.

From here we leave Tara as she heads back to Seoul then onwards to Melbourne for a working holiday planting trees and earning herself cash for more bike miles. We board an overnight ferry towards Fukuoka and in our first experience of Japanese efficiency and punctuality we’re made to board 3 hours before it actually leaves. The onboard Spa helps pass the time so when the boat eventually pulls out of the port we get to watch Korea disappear while we soak in a hot bath. Up ahead I’m ready to try and channel some zen calm and just enjoy being on a machine that takes us places rather than trying to think of what we’re doing as cycling. Besides, riding a bike with two people on it is technically illegal in Japan so it may be that we won’t be doing much riding anyway.

Looking back it seems silly that we had any form of trepidation before crossing into China. It’s been a country that, more than any other so far, has exceeded expectations.

We’ve found unbelievable generosity that goes beyond even the high benchmark set in the Muslim countries. Areas of the landscape have been unlike anything else we’ve seen, truly extraordinary. Food (on the most part) has been tasty, plentiful and cheap, and there’s always hot water and pot noodles available for a quick fix. The urban sprawl of the great plain has been relatively easy to negotiate thanks to huge roads and separate bike lanes, and camping has been possible even if suitable sites need some searching out.

Things have changed a lot in the last 20 years but there is still a level of control in the country that will be more obvious to the people who live there than for us just passing through. We were certainly being watched and had our photographs taken several times each day by cameras on overhead road gantries, in parks and through towns. Certain internet sites were blocked but a decent VPN easily gets round that to allow the all important status updates to be posted. Our main difficulty came when we tried to get our visa extended and that experience highlighted the lack of flexibility with anyone in authority. They are not prepared to risk their jobs by bending the rules so you have to accept them and stick to them or pay the consequences.

But all of this is wrapped up in a ‘world’s biggest’, neon lit, loud, rebuilt, crazy package that is uniquely China. Overall we’ve had a great time and the good news is that there’s more to explore another time. A lot, lot more.

Back in Beijing we’re reunited with our bike which had been kindly looked after by Ray and Florence while we were in the DPRK. When we arrive back at their apartment we find they have some other Warmshowers guests staying in the form of a family from France (https://leschamavelo.wordpress.com). Here is a good example of how having several children doesn’t have to be a barrier to adventures. With Albane aged 6 riding on the front of a recumbent tandem, Joseph (9) and Ines (11) on solo bikes with their parents Geraldine and Antoine, the Chamussey family have ridden from their home in Montpellier to Istanbul and then from Bangkok to Beijing. Next they’re heading into Mongolia and back into Europe via Russia. It makes any logistical difficulties with getting 2 adults on a tandem across the world seem tiny in comparison but they seem amazingly relaxed and organised. Schooling is provided as and when they find time but the education they will be getting from their life on the road must be invaluable. Chapeau et bon voyage!

Before setting off again we take a trip up to the Great Wall as it wouldn’t be right to leave China without seeing it. We’re joined by Karen, Tineke and Manuel who we’d met in the DPRK, as well as some backpackers from their hostel and together we take various buses and a taxi to find a section of the wall that is unrestored and empty. For our Colombian friend Manuel this is a seminal moment as it marks the completion of several years of travelling on a mission to visit all 7 modern wonders of the world. “This feels good, really, really good!” he shouts from the ramparts.

The next day we’re back on the bike, waking up the cycling muscles and working off the excesses of our 2 week break. It takes 2 days to make our way down past Tianjin and into the port of Tanggu. This is one of the largest ports in the world and somehow we need to find the ferry terminal to buy tickets to Incheon. It’s not where we thought it should be but we do find Mike in a nearby office and he makes a few calls and gives us directions to where we actually need to go. The Jinchon ferry company is well hidden on the fourth floor inside the hotel back in town and after buying our tickets they give us a good discount on a room for the night.

Tanggu is not a bike friendly place. In the morning we ignore the signs on the tunnels and flyovers that say no bicycles as otherwise we’d never have got to the ferry on time. No one seems to mind though as traffic rules are only loosely observed.

The ferry terminal is much like an airport so all the bags have to come off to be scanned, we then hang on tight to the bike on an escalator to get up to the boarding area. On the boat we get a cabin with a thin futon bed on the floor which serves us just fine. Even better is the fact that all meals are included though the scrum that ensues when the announcement that dinner is served is a sight to behold. We’re the only westerners on board as most people opt for the 1 hour flight from Beijing to Seoul instead of this 25 hour ferry journey but it’s a much more pleasant way to travel, especially with the bike.

After passing through an enormous lock that takes an hour to fill we arrive in the port of Incheon. Unfortunately their terminal isn’t as grand as the one in Tanggu so instead of an easy gangplank we have to lug the bike down several flights of stairs. The customs officer turns up his nose at the state of the bike and sprays it thoroughly with disinfectant but then we’re released to explore country number 41: South Korea.

It’s immediately obvious that this is a different country to China in that there are no scooters on the roads and we barely hear anyone beeping their horns on our way into Seoul. Our host in the capital city is Elbert who meets us in a lighting shop where we’ve been enjoying a coffee with the owners. They’d seen us loitering on the street and invited us in for a drink before calling Elbert to let him know his guests had arrived. It looks like there will be some similarities with China after all if Korean hospitality continues like this.

We are Elbert’s first ever Warmshowers guests and he’s keen to make us feel welcome so after dumping our kit in his smart flat we’re taken out for a Korean BBQ. We’ve seen this style of restaurant in most big cities in other countries but have been waiting for our first experience of one until we could get to the real McCoy. It’s worth the wait with a whole heap of tasty meat to cook on the hot plate in the middle of the table. Endless bowls of kimchi (spicy fermented cabbage) arrive along with cheese topped rice and soup all washed down with the local tipple, sogu. Elbert explains that there is a spiciness scale for Korean food with level 1 being plain and simple while level 10 could require a trip to the hospital. He suggests we’d be wise not to go beyond 5 given what we’re eating is definitely a lip tingler though not a tear jerker at a safe and sound level 3.

We have a rendezvous the next day with a certain Canadian we’d last seen on a mountain in India. Since we left her last September, Tara has ridden the Pamir Highway, jetted off to Greece, popped home to Canada then returned to Asia with exploits in Myanmar, Thailand and Taiwan. We’d suggested she joined us for a jaunt though Korea and the timing was right so she said yes!

First we have to find her though and we discover that our suggested meeting place of the entrance to the Olympic Metro station is flawed in that there are 10 different entrances. Eventually we spot a blonde girl jumping up and down on the opposite side of the street waving madly which is either someone doing their morning exercises or it must be Tara. It’s great to see her again and we spend the rest of the day catching up while strolling round some of the city’s attractions.

Where Pyongyang felt like a town from the 1950’s, Seoul is more like somewhere from the 2050’s: It’s clean, sharp and high tech. Roads are stacked on top of each other and where they’ve run out of room the road stands on stilts in the river. We get a better look at it from our bikes with Elbert the next day.

Our arrival in Seoul is perfectly timed to be able to take part in a huge group ride organised by the Korean cycle commuters club, so the panniers come off and the number boards go on. The ride leader introduces himself with several bows in a custom that we would be getting used to. We also have to get used to the frequent stops for group photos at various points along the route. Every landmark requires us to dismount and assemble for several snaps. The city sits alongside a bowl of hills which we climb up onto for great views and a fun descent back into the centre where we’re awarded t-shirts for our 40km epic. We feature a few times in this video produced by one of the riders. There’s also a photo book from our day out here.

While spinning past immaculate streets, sleek cars and busy coffee shops it’s hard to imagine that this was once the poorer of the two halves of Korea. A concerted effort to improve education and the rapid growth of their high tech industries has allowed South Korea to develop at a phenomenal rate. It’s now the 11th largest economy in the world (based on GDP nominal) and has a GDP 80 times greater than its northern sibling. This difference will cause a huge shock to people on both sides of the DMZ if and when Korea is reunited and is one reason why many young people in the south don’t want it to happen. The cost to the south will be enormous and could well cripple them for years.

We’re in an unusual position to be able to visit the DMZ from both sides now so we book a tour to return to the border but from a different direction. It’s a strict affair with two days notice required for security checks and a dress code insisting on a collared shirt and no ripped jeans. They’re afraid that the North will use photos of scruffy tourists for propaganda purposes.

On the way there we stop at the war museum which tells a very different story to the war museum we visited in Pyongyang. However it’s no less dramatic and the language used is equally as strong just replacing the North as the aggressors instead of the US imperialist forces. There doesn’t seem to be a balanced view on the conflict with both the North and South pointing fingers and laying the blame with equal levels of enthusiasm.

We stop once more before reaching the DMZ to view a railway bridge that ends just before the border. It’s poignant in that it highlights the fact that South Korea is effectively an island. Without the DMZ this line could connect with Beijing giving access to the whole of Asia and beyond. As it stands, the only way in and out is by boat or plane.

At the DMZ there are several passport checks and a clothing inspection. We’re then transferred onto a military bus to get to the joint security area (JSA) and escorted through a large building to arrive at the blue huts that straddle the border itself. South Korean soldiers stand with their feet wide apart, fists clenched and staring across at their counterparts on the northern side. We’re ushered into the central hut but unlike the last time we were here we’re not allowed to sit at the negotiating table in the centre and the atmosphere is much more tense. Our guide warns us not to get too close to the door at the far end “in case someone from the north opens it and tries to grab you”. We stood at this extract same spot when we visited from the DPRK but it’s taken half a day on a bus, a day on a train, two days of cycling, 25 hours on a ferry and 2 hours on another bus to be able to get here from the south.

On our way out I mention to our military escort that we’d been to Pyongyang and visited the JSA from there. He’s amazed and didn’t realise that it’s possible to get a train from Beijing to Pyongyang. He tells me that the North will always be a place of intrigue and danger that he’ll never be able to visit unless something drastic changes but from what we’ve seen the South are a lot more afraid of the North than the other way around.

Before we leave Seoul the bike needs some TLC so gets treated to a new chain and cassette, the last set having served us well for the last 13,000km. The bike shop is out of stock of our preferred Schwalbe Marathon tyres but I spot a pair that are hardly worn in a pile of used tyres on the street. They tell me I can have them for nothing which saves them having to dispose of them and saves us a stack of cash.

We also collect our Korean Bike Passports. Across the country are several purpose built bike roads and at various points you can collect stamps to prove you’ve covered a certain distance. Complete the length of one path and you get a shiny sticker in your Bike Passport. Complete the entire cross country route from Incheon to Busan and you get a medal and a certificate. With the challenge set and the reward waiting for us in Busan the three of us are ready to start collecting those stamps!

Writing about the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is not an easy task. I can tell you about what we saw, what we did, express a few opinions and quote published facts but unlike most other countries, as a visiting foreigner it’s almost impossible to get the full picture. My account of our trip should be taken purely as a personal travelogue covering a few days on a carefully controlled tour where our itinerary was set for us. We’re certain that some of what we saw wasn’t real and at times it felt like we were in The Truman Show as things took place with just a bit too perfect timing. But equally we got to see plenty that appeared genuine, particularly from the bus as we travelled between places and there wasn’t a single day that wasn’t surprising. The full story of the DPRK is very complex and includes some dark chapters which are well documented elsewhere. For now though here’s our account of what it’s like to be a tourist in the DPRK.

After a brief briefing meeting in Beijing by the Young Pioneers Tours team we board the sleeper train for Dangdong. Over 200 people are traveling with YPT and hundreds more will be using several other tour companies either by plane or train. The Pyongyang Marathon weekend is one of the most popular of the year for visiting the DPRK so we’re warned that things might be quite busy.

Back in March we entered China from Dondang in Vietnam so it seems fitting that we now leave it at Dangdong. After transferring to a different train we slowly roll across the river Yallo that forms the border. On the Chinese side sit huge apartment blocks, neon signs, busy traffic, on the opposite bank there’s a rusty ferris wheel, a factory, a few people in khaki on bicycles, dusty roads. We’re now in North Korea.

Before we can go any further the train is boarded by some stern looking guards in huge hats who’s main concerns seem to be whether any of us are carrying Bibles or cameras with a GPS feature. They soon lighten up when they find a copy of Cosmopolitan magazine (not mine) which requires further investigation by several of the other guards.

2 hours later, the checks are complete and we’re on our way again across miles and miles of brown landscape. It’s early springtime but nothing seems to be growing. The only colour comes from huge signs on the hillsides bearing slogans to motivate the farm workers. Portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il smile at us from every station we pass through, a sight that would become very familiar.

It takes most of the day to trundle down to Pyongyang where the low village buildings give way to high rise apartment blocks. Despite being a city of 2. 5 million people there’s very little traffic. Instead trams and trolly buses are crammed with passengers and there are hundreds of people on ‘sit-up-and-beg’ style bikes. Sitting next to me is Tom who tells me it reminds him of his childhood in East Germany. It looks like a town from another era.

After a night in the newly refurbished Songak Hotel, where the lifts decide which floor to take you to regardless of which button you press, we’re up bright and early for the race. It’s been nearly 2 years since I last pinned a number to my chest and this will be Kirsty’s first ever half marathon so we’re both a touch apprehensive.

In the enormous May Day stadium there are 150,000 seats and it’s over half full with conscripted spectators. It’s noticeable how drab their clothes are with khaki, grey and black the colours for this and every other season. We stare at them while they stare back. Although they’re here under duress it’s very much an unusual and interesting sight to have over 1000 foreigners in bright running gear to watch so it’s not a bad place for them to have to spend the morning. They even get some local football matches to entertain them while the race is out on the course.

After marching round the track for the opening ceremony we both get changed and ready but before we’ve had time to get back to the start line the starting gun fires. We chase down the surging pack of runners and we’re off!

It’s one of the strangest races I’ve ever run. There are groups of people watching at various intervals but they watch us trot past in silence. There’s the occasional gasp or some stifled laughter from the children but there’s none of the usual cheering and applause. The hushed atmosphere is broken by a van driving round with ceremonial music blaring out and a message of ‘Welcome to our foreign visitors!’. On a hill overlooking the course two huge bronze statues of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il watch the proceedings and look pleased. We run past massive and grand public buildings that house ice rinks, theatres and arenas. A hair pin bend brings us back past the largest triumphal arch in the world while groups of students perform synchronised semaphore alongside the road.

By the second lap the crowd have warmed up enough for some light clapping and some say hello. I even get to high five a few children who have tentatively stuck out their hands.

As well as the international field there are supposed to be 700 Koreans taking part. I try and encourage a few of the diminutive girls running alongside me but they don’t seem too keen to chat. Either too focused on the race or not wanting to get in trouble for fraternising with the tourists.

I’m more than ready for the finish line when it finally comes into view, coming home a creditable 8th place. Kirsty comes in a bit later with a hard earned PB. Back in the stadium there’s controversy when the lead pair in the marathon arrive. At the front, a young man from Tanzania emerges from the tunnel and turns left to follow the timing car when he should have turned right to finish on the 100m straight. By the time he realises his mistake, the 2nd placed runner from DPRK has got past and goes on to take the win. The crowd go wild for their local hero while the Tanzanian is inconsolable and sits with his head in his hands by the finish line.

Once all the runners are in and the prizes have been awarded it’s time for food and refreshments. A Pyongyang favourite is cold noodles, served almost frozen and made from buckwheat. They go well with the makgoli rice wine to replace lost calories and fluids.

Rehydration continues at a smart micro brewery later on. North Korean men are given a ration of 10 glasses of beer each month and can cash in their tokens on one of the 7 draft beers on offer here. There are no locals at the bar when we’re there though but it’s a chance to get to know our fellow travel companions who have come from all over the world. There’s a broad range of different travel experiences and all of us admit that we’d normally avoid a group tour at all costs, but we had to make an exception to be able to come here. It takes a certain kind of person to want to come to North Korea and as a result our group of 20 gets on really well.

It’s mandatory to have an official tour guide with us at all times while in the DPRK who have undertaken extensive training to be able to handle foreign visitors and the strange questions they might ask. During our stay we’re being looked after by Miss Kim, Mr Pang and Miss Kim (50% of Koreans are called Kim). We also have Troy on board, one of the founders of YPT who has years of experience from visiting the DPRK and can try and answer the questions that we can’t ask the Koreans. He’s got a very full week planned for us to try and squeeze as much out of our stay as possible.

Our legs have not enjoyed being made to run instead of cycle so stairs are an uncomfortable obstacle for the next couple of days. Luckily there’s not much walking as our bus takes most of the strain ferrying us from door to door for a tour of the city. Advertising is non existent and billboards display propaganda artwork rather than the latest mobile phone or car. There’s not much evidence of commercial activity either, other than a few pavement kiosks.

We’re taken to get a closer look at the bronze statues of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il on Mansudae Hill. It’s an uncomfortable moment for everyone when we’re asked to bow in reverence to the Great and Dear leaders that stand tall in front of us. It would be offensive to our guides and any Koreans watching if we refuse so a shallow dip of the head is a compromise we can just about live with. These statues are expertly crafted and come from a dedicated art factory that produces all the portraits, statues and propaganda for the whole country as well as many overseas projects. In fact the DPRKs number one export is it’s art with many African leaders ordering their own statues from Pyongyang.

In accordance with the rules of the country, our photos have to include the entire statue from head to toe. Any photos of the many portraits of the leaders that we’ve seen on every public building must also be in full with no cropping or blurring. These images are as good as sacred and the rules extend to newspapers which always include pictures of the leaders so cannot be folded, torn or thrown in the bin.

In a rare departure from the bus we’re taken into the Pyongyang metro. It’s deeper than any other subway in the world supposedly so that the stations can double as nuclear shelters. Most of the trains use old German carriages that were shipped over from Berlin, inside they’re still clad in wood paneling. Our fellow passengers smile and one or two try to talk to us but most keep their eyes down. It’s much the same reaction as commuters on any other subway really. The main difference though is that in any other country 99% of people would be glued to a smart phone. Here we can see only one or two people with them, a luxury for the privileged few.

Back at ground level it’s fun to watch the cyclists diligently following the traffic rules that mean they have to use the pavements and then carry their bikes down the steps of the underpass to cross the road. Traffic wardens in smart teal uniforms move like robots waving cars over junctions and occasionally saluting to government officials that drive past, recognisable by the number 727 on their plates. 727 is very important to the DPRK as July 27th was the date of the signing of the armistice at the end of the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War (also known as the Korean War). Everyone walks with purpose, often on their own, it’s as if they need to look busy to stay out of trouble.

 

It’s not all about work for the residents of Pyongyang though. There are several fair grounds, a water park, cinemas and theatres to enjoy during their one day off each week. They have their own tourist attractions too. A bumpy major highway takes us away from Pyongyang up to the cave that lucky citizens may be taken to see. For us it’s just another show cave with stalactites and stalagmites that look like things but for a North Korean it must make for a thrilling day out. The highlight for our guide is when she gets to show us various phallic shaped rocks and asks some of the men to point to the one that looks most like their own ‘secret place’.

We spend the night in a small town hotel with super-heated beds and a decor straight from 1977. The nearby was out of budget for us and just about anyone else if reports of its high rates and low occupancy are true. The most expensive rooms are $1500 a night, $300 short of the average annual income in the DPRK. The mountain scenery in this part of the country is very picturesque and it’s not the first time we wish we were on the bike with our tent to be able to fully appreciate it. The restricted view from a bus window is no substitute for the full panorama we get when pedaling although Kirsty appreciates not having my back in the way.

We’re taken to visit a restored Buddhist temple and a man claiming to be a monk explains some of the history. They have a room full of ancient scriptures printed using thousands of wood blocks. The printed scriptures are here while the blocks are in South Korea and it looks unlikely that they will be reunited any time soon. I ask Mr Pang how many Buddhists there are in the DPRK and he tells me “10,000”. I then ask how many Christians are there? “10,000” is the answer. Officially the country is an atheist state but in reality the leaders are looked on as near deities. They have each written books of teachings and anecdotes that read like religious texts. All citizens wear badges with their images as a constant reminder of their guiding wisdom. Kim Il Sung is the eternal President of the republic, forever always with his people.

Temples to the Great and Dear leaders take the form of two vast buildings named the International Friendship Exhibition. They house gifts from international visitors, diplomats and friends of the leaders. Kim Jong Il’s collection is much like a Bond layer, built into the side of a mountain and behind 4.5 ton bronze doors. Inside we’re shown an engraved rifle from Vladimir Putin, a photo of an ostrich that was donated by Robert Mugabe (now living in the Pyongyang zoo (the ostrich, not Mugabe)). Numerous elaborate gifts from Chinese investors including a massive wood carving from a financial institution in Hong Kong. Madeline Albright gave a basketball when she visited. Each of us looks for the section that reprisents our own country and we’re bemused by the UK collection. On a small plinth stands a coffee mug, a replica of the tower of London and a Bristol blue glass coaster. I’m surprised the receipts from the airport duty free shop wasn’t framed next to them.

Again the view is fairly bleak as we travel back to the big city. There’s a distinct lack of trees making us wonder how the villagers heat their homes during the harsh winters. A few tractors work the land, more than we’d seen in countries like Cambodia and Laos, but hand tools and ox are more common. Road maintenance seems to be long forgotten making the journey slow and uncomfortable even though we’re on one of the few main highways.

There’s been no expense spared at our next stop back in Pyongyang though. The Children’s Palace sits somewhere between Willy Wonkas chocolate factory and a corporate shopping centre. Marble floors and columns are offset by rainbow coloured lighting and garish murals. This is an after school activity centre of massive proportions with rooms full of children showing us their skills. In one a group of girls dance in perfect unison with fixed grins on their faces. We see an accordion lesson complete with a teacher correcting mistakes that we hadn’t noticed. Some incredibly fine embroidery is being carried out next door and along the corridor they’re practicing calligraphy.

It’s all very impressive but at the same time a little unsettling. This isn’t how children normally behave at such a young age and the building is just too smart, too clean and tidy. It’s less surprising that in every room the omnipresent faces of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il look after their young prodigy’s. Education of their citizens starts at an early age.

Our pre-tour information instructed us that we’d need smart clothing for the visit to the Palace of the Sun. This is the final resting place for Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il who now lie preserved and on view in glass caskets. Our limited wardrobe doesn’t really extend to much that could be classed as smart so I have to borrow a shirt and trousers from Troy and become almost unrecognisable. Even the beard gets combed.

We’re arranged into orderly lines and led onto a long conveyor that slowly moves us towards the building. Solemn music plays and on the wall there are pictures of the leaders giving expert guidance to food factory workers, military commanders and loyal citizens (fans of the website Kim Jong Il looking at things would enjoy this gallery). The rules state that we cannot walk or lean on the conveyor so we have to stand to attention and wait to be deposited at the end. We walk through several marble lobbies before arriving at the first mauseleum. In groups of 4 we step forward and bow (nod a bit) at Kim Il Sung’s feet, his left side then his right side. The figure in the box looks like a wax work and the red lighting adds to the surreal appearance.

The procedure is repeated in another room containing Kim Jong Il and between them we see dozens of honourary degrees, medals and accolades that they’d earned during their life times. The building is vast so seems to be built to accommodate several more generations if the monarchy continues.

We gain some understanding of how Kim Il Sung came to be so revered at the enormous Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum. A short video with the title “Who was responsible for starting the Korean War?” explains to us how the US launched a surprise attack on the DPRK in 1950, starting the Fatherland Liberation War (also known as the Korean War). Fresh from liberating his country from the Japanese occupation, Kim Il Sung drove back the imperialist US aggression forcing them to sign an armistice in 1953. Your understating of these events may differ but the message is very strong here in the museum: The DPRK were victorious as the US did not win. A captured US navy ship sits on the river nearby and several downed aircraft are proudly displayed with graphic images of the remains of their pilots. As we walk round a group of school children are a short distance behind, enjoying a field trip for their history class.

The museum is just one example of how the DPRK are proud of their achievements and endeavours. Another is the recently opened Sci-Tech Diffusion Hub. An atom shaped building that seems to serve as an education centre, a research lab and a science museum. The staff all wear pale green uniforms to make them look more scientific. In the middle of the central atrium stands a huge model of the Kwangmyongsong-4 rocket that reportedly launched the DPRKs first satellite into space earlier this year. There are hundreds of modern computer terminals spread across several floors, all running the state controlled intranet. We see a hand full of boys watching videos on their version of YouTube but most of the seats are empty.

The science museum area is a fun, hands on type exhibition where you can try out a flight simulator, fire a laser rifle or sit inside a miniature submarine.

Before returning to the hotel we visit a real shooting range. The activities on offer include firing a chrome pistol donated by Kim Jong Un himself or taking pot shots at pheasants in a cage with a rifle. One of our group decides to have a go with the rifle and hits one of the birds. It’s like shooting fish in a barrell so it would be hard to miss. He’s presented with the wounded bird in a plastic bag though it seems very much alive so he’s not sure what to do with it. There’s some joking about during which the stunned bird ends up on the floor so I take the opportunity to grab it and see what the damage is. There’s a slight nick on its shoulder but otherwise it looks fine so I unfold it’s wings and release it into the woods. Another DPRK refugee tastes freedom.

The Yangakto Hotel is a 30 storey tower on an island in the middle of the river. It’s the main tourist hotel in the city and is our guarded refuge each evening. In the basement there’s bowling, ping pong and karaoke where, after a few beers it’s easy to forget which country we’re in. There’s no mistaking where we are when we switch on the TV in our room and watch a rotund Kim Jong Un overseeing a huge military exercise. He laughs heartily as another wave of missiles can be seen firing into the sea.

The DPRK has the fourth largest army in the world and all men must spend 6 years in military service. Another rule that we’ve been reminded to obey is to not take photos of soldiers but it’s very difficult when every other person is in uniform. They’re trained to protect their home, the greatest nation on earth, from their enemies in the south led by the ‘US military aggression’. The tension between the two parts of Korea is never more apparent than at the DMZ.

The Demilitarised Zone divides north and south with a 4km wide area of no man’s land stretching 270km across the Korean peninsula. This is the most heavily guarded border in the world and yet once we drive past the concrete walls there are farmers ploughing the fields within the protected belt of land. It’s either one of the most dangerous or one of the safest places to work given the number of guard towers watching over them.

In a small building close to the actual line that divides north and south we see the desk that was used for the signing of the armistice. Our military guide shows us a battered UN flag that was left by the Americans after the signing process was over. He tells us that “The flag has faded but US imperialist aggression has not”.

Straddling the border itself several blue huts form the Joint Security Area, a place for negotiations between the two sides. We’re allowed into one and can merrily walk from the DPRK to the ROK (republic of Korea) by skirting round the negotiating table. This is the only place where we can cross the border and it’s only for a few minutes before we’re ushered out and back onto the safety of DPRK soil.

Not far from the DMZ is Kaesong, a city that used to be in the south but found itself in the north as a result of some border adjustments after the war. Many families were divided and for years lived in hope that this was just a temporary arrangement and they’d be reunited again. Like that battered UN flag, their hope must have faded now.

The long journey back to Pyongyang is livened up by singing and jokes on the microphone and a highly entertaining performance from Mr Pang. There’s more singing from the waitresses at dinner then we’re treated to a private viewing of ‘Order 027’ at a local cinema. This is a classic DPRK production featuring plenty of tae kwon do, and some inspired dialogue. “You must meet agent pomegranate at 0900 hours….”. The highlight however is that one of the actors joins us to introduce the film and answers a few questions. From Miss Kim’s swooning it’s clear that he’s quite a big deal here so we’re privileged to be able to meet him.

The final day of our trip is also Kim Il Sung’s birthday: the Day of the Sun. All week we’ve seen groups practicing performances, buildings being painted and repaired and flags being unfurled in preparation for this day. We climb to the top of the Juche Tower to view the city from high. Juche is Kim Il Sung’s ideology that the country is governed by. It takes elements of communism and adds an ethos of total self reliance which explains their strong desire to stay closed off from the rest of the world. The Korean Workers Party is symbolised by the hammer and sickle but with the addition of a writing brush to indicate the importance of intellectuals alongside the workers and farmers.

At the base of the tower we see a large mass dance beginning to start. The DPRK is famous for these synchronised performances and Mr Pang explains why they are so important to his country: “Only north Koreans can do this as we are all joined by a single hearted unity.”

It’s a national holiday so everyone is out enjoying the sunshine in the park. There’s more music and dancing which we get pulled into by some excited old ladies. Families are picnicking and wave at us with big smiles.

During the week it’s been interesting listening to everyone else’s views on what we’ve seen. There are a few Americans in the group who understandably feel intimidated by the strong anti-US language. Agie and Philip were born in Poland and, like Tom could see similarities with their communist upbringing although here things are much more extreme. Most interesting of all though is the conversion we have with Sarah who is South Korean but now lives in California. She was always taught to be fearful of her neighbours in the north and for the first few days didn’t want any of the guides to know she could speak Korean. The more she saw though, the more she realised it was a different place to what she expected. Once she began speaking to some of the locals they were thrilled to meet her and hugged her as their sister from the other side. Reunification is still the dream for most people in the DPRK and they long for the day that Korea is one country again.

The Day of the Sun ends with a huge firework display over the Juche Tower. We have more freedom here than we’ve had all week and mingle with the crowds. Once it’s over a man next to me quietly asks where I’m from but without wanting to make eye contact. I tell him I’m from England and he replies by saying “very good”. I want to talk more but he soon disappears into the dark and the crowd. Perhaps that was as much of a conversation as he could risk.

The train takes us back towarda Dangdong the next day. There’s another lengthy wait at the border while a few cameras are checked but it’s not as thorough as we expected. This time the guards entertainment is provided by a video clip of one of the YPT guides dancing in his pants that was found on someone’s phone.

We never expected China to be somewhere that would feel so free but being able to walk out of the station unaccompanied, to cross the crowded street, to take photos of whatever we like feels amazingly liberating. Instead of the portraits of the Kims there’s the face of Colonel Sanders on the side of a KFC.

All week the small matter of getting a visa to get out of the DPRK had been playing on our minds. Luckily Pyongyang is one of the easiest places to get a Chinese visa so with the help of miss Kim and an agent some new 7 day transit visas were bought and stuck into our passports by the embassy. We were free to go and breath a sigh of relief. 

There’s no other country quite like the DPRK and to have been able to visit it has been a remarkable experience. Our thanks go to Troy and the YPT team for laying on such a full and enjoyable week. Our guides, Miss Kim x 2 and Mr Pang worked tirelessly and managed to keep us all informed, entertained and out of trouble. We’re leaving the country with a new set of friends from around the world too.

There’s clearly a lot more going on behind the closed doors we weren’t allowed to open and we’re leaving with many more questions than answers but as weeks go this has been one to remember.

As always, there are plenty more photos in our North Korea Gallery here.

China is by far the noisiest country we’ve travelled through. Market stalls all have loudspeakers that shout out repetitive messages that probably say things like “Tuuuuur-nips, get your Tuuuuur-nips” or “Shoes, shoes, shoes, I’ve got shoes, shoes, shoes”. Calculators talk, street sweepers play tunes, there’s not been a single day when we haven’t seen or heard fireworks. But the most annoying noise comes from the constant beeping horns. It’s not unusual for us to be beeped at as most drivers in the world seem to enjoy a good blast of the horn. But in China the truck and bus horns are unbelievably  loud and have been tuned to the perfect pitch for maximum irritation. It’s not a good place to get a headache, and if you don’t have one now, you soon will.

11th March – 8th April 2016

The snow has all gone and there’s a hint of sunshine. Shirley escorts us to the outskirts of Yuanling along with two of Mr Tang’s cycling friends before sending us on our way with more food gifts. We’re following the valley of the River Yuan but up ahead are some sizeable mountains so the road soon starts ramping up.

We climb on to a ridge and find a small patch of level ground for a campsite with a fantastic view. The ridge is the first of several that we have to ride up and over before we eventually arrive in the city of Zhangjiajie. Out of the middle of the city a cable car takes passengers to the the top of Tianmen mountain. This cable car ride is notable for being the longest in the world at 7.5km but also passes over the most frustrating road in the world if you’re a cyclist. A squiggle of 99 bends has been carved into the mountain to take buses up to the ‘Heaven’s Gate’, a massive hole in the mountain. To ride this road would be a grimpeur’s dream with challenging gradients, incredible scenery then a high speed sweeping descent. Unfortunately it’s closed to public traffic so no bikes are allowed to climb it which is a travesty to cyclists around the world.

After the cable car station we shuffle out onto a snow covered walkway that has been pinned to the cliffs and runs all the way around the top of the mountain. For some sections the concrete is replaced with glass so we can see right down the 300m drop below our feet. Vertigo sufferers should probably avoid this one.

Sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for as after Zhangjiajie city we find ourselves with a mountain that we are allowed to climb. The tunnel we had expected to take is closed and the detour up and over the hill is steep and long. On the other side we arrive through a high sided gorge into Wulingyuan and find the entrance to Zhangjiajie national park.

Like everything else in China, Chinese tourists are noisy. At all tourist sites groups are led round by a guide shouting at them through a loudspeaker hanging from their waist. The guide is barely audible over the dull roar coming from their guests though. Even in a place as enormous and gob smackingly beautiful as Zhangjiajie peace and tranquility is not always easy to find. However, Chinese tourists also like convenience so the park offers many easy ways to avoid having to hike up to the best viewing places. A monorail bristling with selfie sticks ambles along the bottom of a valley to save walking. The world’s largest glass elevator hoists people up to the top of a 300m tower of rock to avoid climbing the 3978 steps. There are bus routes and cable cars linking up the viewing platforms and for the supremely lazy a sedan chair can be hired with two men to carry you along the paths.

What this means is that, with a bit of effort it is possible to get away from the crowds by actually walking. We pick a small path and spend the morning hiking up an incredible staircase with rock pillars jutting up into the sky all around us and barely see another soul. The park is marketed as being the filming site for Avatar and although this is a blatant lie you can see how there are a few similarities with the landscape that the dragons flew around in the film.

We get some warning that we’re near the top as the noise builds again. The bus has dropped the crowds off at a fantastic viewing spot that we’ve worked hard for 2 hours to earn. Then there it is, the final sacrilege on this area of outstanding natural beauty: The golden arches of a McDonald’s sit high on the mountain top. We barely hide our disdain and tut loudly as we purchase 2 McFlurries and quickly move on.

After a day and a half walking round the park we hit the road again. The mountains shrink down to forest covered hills and fields, all worked by hand. It’s noticeable that the average age of the rural population seems quite old. They call the young folk that move to the cities ‘Phoenix men’, looking for a new start away from their hard working parents. They’ll earn much more in a restaurant or factory than they would in a field but it must be leaving a huge gap in the country’s farming workforce.

We’re still drawing in the crowds whenever we stop. At a noodle shack Kirsty has her photo taken holding someone’s baby. There must be hundreds of selfies featuring us on WeChat now (Along with Google and Twitter, Facebook is blocked in China so WeChat is their equivalent). Our ‘magic letter’, which introduces who we are and what we’re doing, has been translated into Chinese and it gets a great reaction whenever we bring it out usually in the form of two thumbs up. One woman liked the letter so much she ran away with it and we never saw her or the letter again.

It’s still tricky to communicate sometimes though. In one village we try to buy some eggs and I unleash my best chicken laying mime to a small group of people outside a shop. They laugh then quietly disperse. Inside the shop Kirsty tries using our picture book which is more successful and she returns with 4 eggs. Meanwhile the group I had performed to have returned and one by one they present a handful of eggs each. We try to turn them down but of course they insist and we end up leaving with 16 eggs in a plastic bag hanging off the back of the bike.

We keep pushing north and after a ferry across the Yangtze arrive in Jingzhou where we have an important task to sort out. Our 30 day visa is coming to an end but we should be able to renew it by visiting a Public Security Bureau (PSB) which can be found in all major towns. From reports by other cyclists this sounds like a straightforward process involving a few forms, some passport photos and a handful of cash. In Jingzhou PSB we meet the duty policeman and he looks unhappy to see us. By chance there’s a girl who speaks good English who tries to help us out but the message she passes on is that they are too busy here and we should go to another town. Charming.

The next big town is Nanyang which is 330km away and our visa runs out in 5 days. If everything goes smoothly we should be able to get there in time to have a day or two to sort everything out but there’s not much contingency!

With a new sense of urgency we continue. As the day begins to draw to a close a van passes us slowly to take a photo before speeding off. Then further down the road we see it parked up and its occupants are waving for us to stop. “Would you like to take part in our bicycle race?” they ask after we’ve pulled over. It’s a tempting offer but the race is in 3 days time and we need to be in Nanyang by then so we have to decline. When they find out we plan to spend the night in our tent a phone call is made and then we’re told a hotel has been booked for us a few km up the road and they’ve already paid for it. Not only that but they want to take us out to dinner to meet the rest of the cycling club they’re all members of. It’s a great evening and we leave stuffed with beef offal, chicken feet, rice wine and with plenty of new friends. This could well be a worthy sister club to The Las Vegas Institute of Sport.

Charging along the road for three days we manage to get to Nanyang just in time to begin getting our visa application sorted out. The process requires us to be registered in a local hotel so we check in to the first one we find. We’ve just plonked our panniers down in our room when the owner knocks and tells us we have to leave again. He’s just found out that he’s not licenced to let foreigners stay but he takes us across the road and helps us check in to somewhere that can take us. It costs twice as much even after haggling but they do chuck in a free breakfast.

Bright and early the next day we ride out to the PSB and hand over our forms but there’s a problem. The hotel didn’t register us with the local police station so we have to go back and sort out more paperwork. This simple task takes most of the rest of the day as no-one at the hotel seems to know how and where to do it. After visiting the police station ourselves along with two of the hotel staff we finally get the pieces of paper we need, jump in a taxi and return to the PSB. But now there’s another problem. We’re told we either need a sponsor based in Nanyang who can vouch for us or prove we have $100 for each day we plan to stay in China. We anticipated this and produce a bank statement showing a healthy balance but they won’t accept it as it’s a UK bank. We point to our visa card and mime an ATM transaction: card in, cash out, but they won’t budge. The language barrier is making the whole situation frustrating for all parties so they call the local English teacher. He explains that what they want us to do is open a Chinese back account and transfer $3000 to cover the 30 days of our visa extension. We laugh thinking this is a joke but they’re all deadly serious. It’s also past closing time so we’re kicked out and told to come back to the morning.

It’s the last day of our visa now so after another complimentary breakfast we head back to the PSB to continue the argument. Various people get involved including the English teacher on the phone but the hours tick by and nothing happens. We keep getting told to “Just open a bank account and transfer the money”. We’re two foreigners spending a few weeks in their country with no fixed address, would a bank really give us a back account? Where would we get the bank card sent? Regardless of that, it would take 3 to 5 days to transfer the money and we have only a few hours left on our visas. Drastic measures are required and we’re getting nowhere here so we run out of the PSB and by 8:30 we’re in Hong Kong 1200km away.

We’d always hoped to be able to visit our friends Jon and Reena in Hong Kong at some stage on this trip but hadn’t expected to only be able to give them a few hours notice. By escaping to their apartment we’ve been stamped out of mainland China and avoided overstaying our visa but it’s cost us a flight to Guangzhou and a train ride into Hong Kong. It’s great to catch up with some familiar faces though and for an evening our visa woes are forgotten.

We have double entry Chinese Visas so can get back into China for another 30 day stay without any problem. However this uses up the second entry that we planned to use for our side trip from Beijing as we’d be leaving China and coming back in again there. The Chinese embassy in Hong Kong is supposed to be one of the more lenient ones but they’re not interested in our request to add another entry to our existing visa or to grant us a new one. “Nothing can be changed” is the stern response from the girl behind the bullet proof glass.

Despondently we book flights back to Nanyang and hop on the metro back to the train station but don’t get far. We’ve come all this way to Hong Kong but have hardly seen any of it! Realising that we’re rushing away for no reason we turn around and send a message to Jon to ask if we can stay another night. He and Reena are great hosts and we have fun looking round the city, proving our mantra that something good always results from something bad.

We finally get back to Nanyang late the following night after our 48 hour city break. We’d left with not much more than the clothes we stood up in so we’re relieved to find our bike and kit are safe and sound in the hotel where we’d abandoned it. We can now pick up where we left off.

We’re in the heart of China’s Central Plain now. A vast, flat region inhabited by 1 billion people making it one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Rice, soya beans and oil seed rape grow in huge fields between the towns and cities making use of the fertile land from the Yellow River.

The wind seems to get stronger as the day progresses and inevitably it blows from the north, right into our faces. One of the many tiny electric trucks are great for drafting behind to make things easier and we’re watched closely by the children riding in the back.

 

Our next destination is Kaifeng where we’ve arranged to meet up with Zhu, a Warm Showers host. After introducing us to his 100 year old mother we take a walk around the ‘ancient’ city. We’ve seen barely any genuine history in China. The few so-called historical sites we’ve been to have been immaculate reconstructions turned into shops and restaurants. Kaifeng is no different. The old streets are decked out in neon lights and there’s not a brick out of place.

In search of something more authentic we’ve decided to embark on a day trip to see one of China’s most famous attractions: the Army of the Terracotta Warriors. Leaving the bike with Zhu we catch an overnight train to Xi’an to take a look at the world’s biggest jigsaw puzzle.

1000 of the lifesize soldiers have been carefully pieced together and form an impressive sight, lined up in 3 pits under huge hangar-like buildings. It’s taken 40 years to get this far but there are still another 6000 generals, archers, infantry, horses and chariots lying in pieces behind them, each one with totally unique features. It looks like the archeologists are going to be busy for a while longer.

We opt for a ‘soft sleeper’ ticket for the return trip to Kaifong. It’s three times the price of the ‘hard seat’ carriage that we were in to get to Xi’an but the ability to actually get some sleep makes it well worth the extra cost. Back in Kaifong we meet up with Zhu and his friend Nana who load us up with food and cans of beer then Zhu leads us out into the wind for 20km before waving goodbye. Despite the breeze, the sun is out and warming us up nicely. We’re on the G106 and this road will take us all the way to Beijing.

Although most of the time is spent on the main road, occasionally we can drop onto a parallel minor road to look at life in the villages. Here all the men wear navy blue donkey jackets and mao caps, a timeless look that’s lasted decades. There are piles of rubbish by the roadside and everything needs a lick of paint. In the bigger towns there are teams of people sweeping the streets and tending to the communal parks but there’s no such luxury here in the countryside.

After a few days the wind finally turns round and blows in our favour. With this extra assistance we’re now overtaking the electric vehicles at 30kph. On a particularly gusty day we stop for lunch at a stall under a metal canopy. For dessert Kirsty pops into the next door shop to buy ice cream. Just after she’s returned the wind lifts the canopy, flips it over and brings it crashing down in front of the shop where Kirsty was standing a few seconds before. If she’d spent any longer in the shop she would have been crushed. Who would have guessed that being able to make a split second decision between a cornetto and a choc-ice would be a life saving skill? Luckily no-one else was hurt but everyone was a bit shaken up by what could have happened.

Back on the G106 we’re counting down the kilometres. As another cyclist once wrote “main roads lead to destinations, small roads lead to adventures”. We’re bypassing potential exploits in favour of getting to Beijing in good time. This could be any hard shoulder in the world as there’s not much to distract us from the task in hand. The only reminder that we’re in China being the deafening horns from the passing trucks and buses.

On our last morning before arriving in the capital we’re woken at 6am by hundreds of fireworks being let off not far from our tent. The patch of trees where we’d chosen to spend the night is near some burial mounds and it happens to be the day of the ‘Sweeping The Tombs Festival’. Traditionally people gather to tidy up graves and tombs, lay flowers and let off fireworks as a kind of spring clean for their deceased relatives. We’re just glad we weren’t blown up by a stray fire cracker.

Then we enter the outskirts of Beijing. It’s a massive city that takes most of the day to get into. Where London has one congested ring road in the form of the M25, Beijing is so large it needs 6 concentric expressways running around it.

At the centre of the city we roll up to Tiananmen square where we’re quickly surrounded by a crowd of people who want to take photos of us. There are soldiers everywhere and they don’t like the look of the mob that has formed so wade in and send everyone on their way.

It’s a great moment as we’ve now made it from Bristol to Beijing by bike, covering 30,397km through 39 countries in 600 days. It’s time for a short break we think!

After a free night in the Leo hostel, a favour from the sympathetic fellow cyclist behind reception, we make our way to the home of Ray and Florence, yet more amazing Warm Showers hosts. There are a few days of rest, admin tasks and sight seeing to be done before we leave for our side trip.

We’ve often used races and events as excuses to visit places that we might not have gone to otherwise. As a result we’ve been to amazing towns like Las Vegas, Klagenfurt, Bilbao and Llanwyrtydd Wells to take part in competitions. So when I read that there was a marathon in Pyongyang and that foreigners can take part it was just the excuse we needed to book a trip to North Korea. Through Young Pioneers Tours we’ve booked an 8 day trip to see various places around the country and will be able to take on a half marathon while we’re there. Travelling in  North Korea is very carefully controlled, independent travel without a guide is not allowed and taking the bike would be impossible so we’ll be spending the week on a bus.

Apart from coping with this lack of independence there is an area of even more concern as we’ve now used up both the entries on our Chinese visa. This means we’ll be going in without a confirmed means of getting out again. Not an ideal situation when visiting one of the most controversial countries in the world. This could be a very interesting week.There are  now a few more photos from our entire trip across China in the China gallery.

 

We first encountered China last year from behind the fence that had been put up along the border with Tajikistan. That was several time zones ago now. Since then it’s been lurking at the edge of all our maps like a big red shadow, nudging up against Central Asia, looming over India and Nepal, then pulling us north through South East Asia. We could have run away down into Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia but we were intrigued by China and riding across it would take us to Korea and Japan which we are also keen to visit. We had plenty of expectations but we tried to put them to one side and see what it looked like for ourselves, from the saddle of a tandem.

22nd February – 10th March 2016

As Vietnam disappears behind us the daunting task of crossing this enormous country lies ahead, blanketed in a big, grey cloud. Light rain is keeping people indoors and most of the shops are shut but somewhere fireworks are being launched as the tail end of the new year festivities go off with a bang. It’s all adds to the mystery that we often feel when crossing a border.

Kirsty has roughly plotted our route by picking a few towns and points of interest between Hanoi and Beijing. We have a finite amount of time as we need to get to the capital by the start of April to embark on a little side trip that we’ve booked so we can’t afford too many diversions. The first target we aim for is Nanning in Guanxi province.

After being chased by the toll booth staff when we try to get onto the expressway we turn onto a smaller side road that is more bike friendly (and more legal). This takes us up and over rolling hills packed with sugar cane plantations with truck loads of it being harvested by hand and hauled off for refining.

Like Vietnam, there’s not much land that isn’t being used for farming or living so the evening campsite search begins at 5:30 and usually takes us until 6:30 to find something vaguely suitable. Night arrives very quickly though so provided we’ve got the tent up just before sunset we know we’ll be hidden by the dark within about 20 minutes. One thing I love about our tent is it’s ability to turn even the most inhospitable patch of rough ground into a cosy home. As soon as it’s up and we’ve brewed our first cup of tea it doesn’t matter that we’re in the corner of a field or at the base of a quarry, inside the Hilleberg we’re warm and dry and have cake.

We’re certainly an oddity in these parts. Everywhere we park up people stop and stare and there’s usually a look of shock from the poor cafe owner whenever we try and buy food. Getting into the kitchen, opening pots and pointing to things we want generally results in a reasonable meal involving noodles and chunks of beef/chicken/pork/miscellaneous. There’s then amazement as we manage to tuck in with the chopsicks.

Quite often people try and talk to us, realise we don’t understand so then write it down instead which of course we still don’t understand. It’s not such a stupid thing to do though as Chinese characters are universal across all the different languages including Mandarin, Cantonese and the many regional dialects so although the spoken words may be very different everyone should still be able to understand something that is written down. Unless of course you are are stupid Westerner in which case the complicated arrangement of lines is a complete mystery. We have to try and see pictures in the symbols for important words, for instance ‘ladies’ looks like a girl crossing her legs, ‘gents’ is a man with a big square head.

As we approach Nanning the road broadens out to give several lanes for cars but also a wide lane alongside just for two wheeled traffic, separated by a grass verge. This bike road takes us straight into the city and makes the journey surprisingly easy. We had expected negotiating these vast towns to be a hectic and dangerous affair but in fact the bike infrastructure is better than just about anywhere else we’ve ridden. There aren’t a huge number of other cyclists though as most people are riding electric scooters. It feels very strange to be surrounded by scooters but everything to be so quiet, it’s as if someone has pressed the mute button and is a complete contrast to the buzzing from the swarms of petrol scooters in Hanoi.

We stay with Nancy, an American who has spent the last 16 years living in China and now works at the enormous university here teaching English. She helps teach us some Chinese and I discover that in my attempt to say ‘thank you’ I’d actually been saying ‘water water’ which could explain the confused looks. The sounds that make up the Chinese language are nearly as tricky to grasp as the written characters.

At the strip of food stalls that cater for the 40,000 students, affectionately known as ‘The Dog Hole’, we discover bubble tea (milky tea with pieces of jelly, custard and/or soya beans at the bottom) and jianbing pancakes and quickly develop an addiction to both.

The skyline is a forest of tall tower blocks with dozens of tower cranes constructing a whole lot more, continuing on for endless kilometres, long after leaving the city centre. China is a country under construction with cities like this expanding every day. I suspect you’ve never heard of Nanning but there are 2 million people living there. In fact there are currently 61 cities of over a million people in China, (compare that to only 10 in the USA) and the number looks set to rise as more people move out of the rural areas.

Once we’re clear of the city we pass through real forests and then onwards to Binzhou, a small provincial town of just 1/4 million people. We pull in to investigate a bike shop and the staff get very excited to see us. To brighten up the dreary grey skies I decide to buy some sunglasses with yellow lenses but the shop keeper won’t let me pay for them. I offer our now redundant 10mm allan key which they reluctantly accept then rush back with a multi tool, again as a gift. Meanwhile Jeff has arrived to see what the fuss is about. He’s an English teacher at a nearby school and is delighted to meet some genuine ‘ying guo ren’, English people so invites us to lunch.

As we enter the restaurant we think he asks “Do you like duck?”, which we enthusiastically reply with a nod and a “Yes please!”. But when the hot plate of meat arrives we realise he actually said something else that begins with a D and ends with a waggy tail. Out of a combination of courtesy and curiosity we try a few bits of this local delicacy but find that it tastes very bland and isn’t worth the inevitable guilt trip. After visiting Jeff’s school we’re sent off with a bag full of the unwanted leftovers which we promise to eat for dinner (or bury in the woods).

Once the sun drops then so does the temperature and by the morning the Garmin is showing just 4 degrees. It feels much colder though as a heavy mist surrounds us. We have to start the day without porridge as I’d let the fuel bottle run out so with numb hands we ride to the first noodle shack.

The karst hills have made a reappearance with the road slicing between spectacularly steep peaks that makes for a very bizarre landscape. Between the hills, small farming villages make use of whatever flat land they can find to grow rice and spring onions or for neat and orderly gardens. This seems to be a huge contrast from the modern wealthy cities. China has come a long way in the last 20 years but it hasn’t brought these communities with it. People wash in buckets outside their wooden houses and the roads leading off the main highway are just rough tracks.

We need to be able to cook our noodles for dinner so we pull into a petrol station and offer up the fuel bottle while pointing at the pump. But the attendant shakes her head and points to a sign which of course we can’t read. No amount of gesticulating seems to work so we ride on to the next one. The same thing happens: shake the head, point at a sign, no fuel allowed. By the third time we’ve guessed that they’re not allowed to fill up small bottles but I beg and plead anyway in a hungry two-year-old tantrum type way. Another customer calls us over, smiles and seems to want a photo with us which I’m not in the mood for so with a huff we ride off.

Three or four kilometres later the same smiling man appears alongside us on his scooter, waving a plastic bottle full of petrol. Somehow he’s managed to buy some and now wants to give it to us. I feel terrible that we’d ridden off now and let him take as many photos as he wants.

We pass through Liuzhou, another huge city that occupies about 30km of our route again with bike lanes to allow a speedy entry and exit. Then out the other side we’re amongst strawberry fields and clementine orchards, topping up our fruit supplies from the roadside stalls as we go. Hauling up and over a small ridge of mountains brings us to Yangshuo, the next pin in the map.

This popular destination sits right in the middle of some of the most impressive karst features we’ve come across. It’s almost ridiculous how the huge rounded peaks rise up around the town and from a vantage point next to the TV tower we get a great panoramic view of the surrounding area.

Through Couchsurfing we’ve arranged to stay at the Zhuoyue English College in a village just outside Yangshuo. In return for room and board we agree to help out with some classes so spend two evenings chatting with the students to help them practice their English. The class is largely made up of adults who want to improve their language skills to help progress careers or potentially to move abroad. It’s a really interesting and fun couple of hours while we learn a lot more about life in modern day China and the students ask questions about our travels. Kristin from Pensylvania is also staying at the college and helping out but plans to stay for a few weeks as part of her year long backpacking trip. A much better alternative to the usual hostel accommodation.

After Yangshuo it’s a short ride to Guillin where we abandon the bike in The Green Forest Hostel and head to the bus station. We want to spend the night amongst the famous Longi Rice Terraces but it’s in the mountains and off our route so we have to resort to petrol power to save time. While waiting for the bus we’re approached by a man who, after some very hard bargaining, agrees to drive us up to the terraces for a price that rivals the bus.

400 years of shovel work have resulted in an enormous area of terracing across several hill tops that is the largest of it’s kind in the world. We’ve arrived just as they’ve begun filling them with water in preparation for the next season of planting, the bands of silvery reflections stretch almost as far as we can see. Our driver introduces us to his friend who happens to run a small hotel amongst the terraces with an excellent vintage of rice wine and not so good boiled chicken that was clucking and flying just an hour ago.

The next day we’re reunited with the bike in Guillin then continue pedalling on. It takes 50km to get clear of the city though as it’s neighbouring towns are joined at the hip, merging into each other in a continuous stretch of activity. Kirsty then calls for a left turn and takes us off the main road and onto a bumpier route with a lumpier profile. But it’s a road lined with forests and is altogether a more peaceful and pleasant place to ride. Some lengthy climbs take us up past acres of bamboo then down into valleys crammed full of vineyards. We cross into Hunan Province then winch up past Langshan Mountain which is completely hidden in the clouds.

The instant celebrity status we’re getting feels a bit like India. Each stop takes twice as long as it should once the amassed crowd have taken their selfies and everyone has measured themselves against me. As soon as one person comes a bit closer to take a look it opens the floodgates for everyone to pile in.

In Wugang we get surrounded outside a bakery but get rescued when Zero steps in and leads us away to his parent’s coffee shop. Zero chose his English name as he thought it sounded cool. He gives me a Chinese name of Shan Gow meaning ‘tall bicycle’ then attempts to teach me how to write it in calligraphy.

He suggests we take a visit to the local English school as the children would love to meet some real life English people. The kids are wide eyed when we walk in and soon form an orderly queue for our autographs. Afterwards we’re invited to lunch with the principal and some of the teachers where Zero reveals that he’d been thinking about asking for some work at the school. Our visit has served as the perfect introduction for him and I’m sure he’ll be a fine teacher so we wish him the best of luck.

Back in the countryside our road winds through villages where we catch glimpses of card games and marjong through almost every doorway. Gambling seems to be a national past time. Every now and then we also see an expressway high up on a bridge over a valley or smashing its way through a mountain. They seem to be built by drawing a straight line between major cities and throwing an unlimited budget at the project. One dilapidated town has an expressway passing right over the top of it and an optimistic luxury jewellery brand has put up adverts on the concrete columns below. I suspect that the people using the rough road that we’re on would be more interesting in spending their money on car repairs and new boots than a pair of gold earrings.

So our expectations of China being a difficult place to travel through are quickly being thrown out the back of the bike. We keep meeting amazing people who want to do whatever they can to help. None more so than Shirley, Ronnie and Mr Tang who we find a few days later in the city of Yuanling.

It’s another cold, wet day. We’ve been missing our thicker quilt and waterproof gloves which were sent home before we flew to India, thinking we’d be skipping winter this year. After a night wearing all our clothes we find some £1 thermal gloves and push on but today our gears are playing up. On closer inspection I can see that the cable housing has split and I don’t have any spare. We ride 20km to the next city, stuck in one gear, then try and seek out a bike shop. There’s nothing obvious on the main drag so I run into a random shop to ask for help. Here we meet Shirley who makes a phone call, hops on her scooter and tells us to follow her. We end up at Mr Tang’s shop and he quickly fixes the cable then invites us to warm up inside.

We’ve discovered that people in this region stay warm by sitting at a table that has a quilt surrounding it that you tuck your knees under. Under the table is a fire. Now a burning log under a table with your legs inches away from it may sound dangerous… well it is dangerous but when it feels this good we’re prepared to risk a few singed hairs or some third degree burns.

To be honest Mr Tang’s fire table uses a ferocious electric heater but is no less cosy or potentially lethal. We get given plenty of hot green tea and try to explain our trip but soon it’s time to go again. Just as we get set to push off Mr Tang stops us and asks if we’d like to stay the night. Looking up at the black clouds, then down at our watches to see that it’s 4:30 already, then back at the fire table it’s an offer we can’t refuse.

Mr Tang and Shirley quickly make friends and some food is ordered for an impromptu dinner in the bike shop. Although they both speak a little English a lot of the conversation is conducted using Google Translate. We speak into the phone and a string of Chinese characters comes up on the screen, then they do the same with their phones and we get an English phrase to look at. It’s as close as we can get to a babel fish and is about 40% accurate. Sometimes we get asked weird questions like “How faithful is your artichoke?” and I guess the messages we’re showing them are equally confusing.

Ronnie arrives later and provides a more reliable interpretation service as he’s an English teacher and keen cyclist. We all head off to the town’s only coffee shop, run by an entrepreneurial former pupil of Ronnie’s, who treats us to drinks on the house. Then it’s time to turn in, but first we make a plan to meet up with Shirley and Ronnie in the morning for a pre breakfast walk.

The decision to stay with Mr Tang proves to be a good one as there’s heavy snow overnight. It makes our walk on Phoenix ‘mountain’ all the more scenic and we all practice Chinese voice exercises from the temple on the top. This essentially involves shouting at the top of your voice, or in Shirley’s case, singing.

Back in town we met Mr Tang’s brother and he buys us all breakfast. Each time we try and pay for something they refuse and we get told that this is the way they like to do things when looking after visitors. We don’t want to risk offending them by refusing the gifts but no matter how hard we try we can’t pay. We’re overwhelmed.

One small thing we can do in return is to visit Ronnie’s school to talk to his English class of 50 pupils. We dig out a few photos and tell a few stories which seems to go down well. They’ve been taught well by Ronnie, but for most of them this is the first time they’ve met a foreigner and heard a native English speaker.

The inevitable lunch invitation takes us to a restaurant round the corner with two other teachers and Ronnie’s wife where we pose for photos with the waitresses. The teachers are all amused by the attention we’re getting and one of them asks if it would be the same if they visited us in Bristol. Sadly I have to tell them that no it probably wouldn’t.

The unexpected snow soon thaws but by then Mr Tang has insisted we stay another night and in the evening Shirley cooks up a feast back at the bike shop where we’re joined by more local cyclists. We’re beginning to get big headed, like the symbol on the gents toilet sign.

All of this was down to that chance meeting with Shirley and perhaps if we’d stopped at the shop next door instead we’d have been sent away with a shake of the head or directed to a different bike shop. Our trip is full of ‘what ifs’ though and we just have to see what each decision brings. Luckily in this case we chose well and had a brilliant couple of days as a result.

We’re now nearly half way across China but there’s still over 1500km left to ride before we reach Beijing. We’ve got 3 weeks to get there which should be plenty but we now know that this country is full of unexpected surprises so can’t take anything for granted.

The speed of the internet is terrible here in China so I’ve not been able to add as many photos as I’d like. As soon as we get a better connection I’ll update the China gallery with a few more.

 

10th February to 21st February 2016

“Goooood mooooooorning Vietnam!“. Kirsty would surely never get bored with me starting each day like this? As we leave the border behind our legs are spinning like a turbine. The freewheel just won’t budge anymore so we can’t stop pedalling. I feather the brakes to keep things comfortable as best I can while Kirsty holds on tight. There are flags out to herald our arrival. The gold star on a crimson background is interspersed with the hammer and sickle and they hang from just about every lamp post.

The border guards had ignored my hints that we would love to get more than our allocated 15 days of visa excemption in the country. Either they didn’t understand or they couldn’t be bothered to enter into bribery negotiations. So we have two weeks to get to Hanoi, sort out our visa for China, rescue a couple of parcels and get out again, which should be plenty as long as everything goes smoothly, which it surely will?!

In the first town we find an ATM and become Dong millionaires. There are 22,000 Dong to the US Dollar so the notes have huge denominations. Most shops are shut as the Tet Lunar New Year celebrations are still in full swing but we manage to find somewhere serving tasty ‘Pho’ noodles.

Scooters are the transportation method of choice here, outnumbering four wheeled vehicles by at least 20:1. As they buzz past we get plenty of shouts of “Hello!” and one chap chases after us to give us some oranges.

Temples seem to be tiny affairs, more a shrine than a building, so we may have reached the end of our temple touring days for now. The land is well used too with anything that doesn’t have a building on it generally being a rice field several centimetres deep in water. However the rear of an abandoned house provides enough dry land and enough seclusion to get the tent up unnoticed on our first night. A frog chorus croaks away all evening from the fields in front of us.

Through Vinh we have to weave round the mass of scooters. Cars have to beep constantly to try and battle their way through the melee making the whole experience quite intense. We stop for coffee to help calm things down and discover that we’ve just been playing with the idea of what good coffee should taste like up until now. Served in a tiny pot that sits on your cup and gently drips the dark brown contents down onto a bed of condensed milk, it’s not a drink that can be rushed. But patience is rewarded with an extraordinary flavour, almost like bitter chocolate that makes a Starbucks seem like a supermarket instant.

Out of Vinh we search for some peace on a minor road that takes us round some rice fields, through villages and on to the coast. The rocky shore is shrouded in mist and dotted with people picnicking and enjoying the New Year holidays. It then gives way to a long sandy beach which we’ve got to a few hours too early as it would have made a great place to camp if we’d arrived at the end of the day. Instead it’s lunch time so we console ourselves with some fresh squid from a beachside restaurant. I go to fill up my bottle from the water container which causes a huge commotion as several people run at me. The container is full of vodka and not water! That could have made the afternoon more entertaining.

We emerge onto Highway 1a at Cau Giat where the noise of the traffic mingles with propaganda announcements over the town’s PA system. There are huge socialist posters and angular statues everywhere and Ho Chi Minh’s image is ever present reminding us that he won ‘the American War’, as it’s known here.

We spend the next two days on the highway. It has a good sized hard shoulder and most of the traffic is small so it’s not such a bad road to ride. The main risk is from side roads as no-one looks before they pull out. It seems to be the way things are done here but we nearly get caught out a few times and we see two separate incidents with scooters on their side and a dazed rider sprawled sprawled alongside. Expect stupid actions and stay safe becomes my policy.

The amount of cake and biscuits being bought for the New Year celebrations is phenomenal. Some people overdo it though and we find a stash of cakes and sweets in the middle of the road that must have fallen off an overloaded scooter. There’s no-one else around to claim them so we take the ‘roadkill’ and make sure it is very secure on the back of our bike. It should help add a bit more variety to our diet of Pho noodles which are now becoming a bit dull having eaten them three times a day. We get presented with a complimentary dragon fruit and a puff on an enormous pipe when we buy oranges later in the day which expands the variety in our diet a bit further.

For most of the last few days the landscape has been mostly flat but then we turn away from the coast at Nam Dinh and plunge between tall limestone karst hills. Stopping to climb Lying Dragon Mountain we get great views down to the waterlogged farmland below. Every square metre is being used, right up to the edge of the cliffs. Almost all of the roads sit on raised causeways between the fields of rice. Hundreds of thousands of people work the land, 60% of the national workforce, spending all day stood in ankle deep mud, planting, rotavating, harvesting. It looks to be a tough way to make a living.

Weaving through the karst mountains, the view provides a good distraction from the headwind. This smaller road, away from the highway brings us into contact with more people who are intrigued by the tandem and its riders. In the bigger towns we had found a few people who could speak a little English but here in the countryside communication is a bit trickier. We manage to translate the frantic waving of a man who had sped past us on his scooter and stopped by a house though. We wants us to pull over, so we do and he sits us down to enjoy a beer and then sends us off with a huge parcel of sticky rice wrapped in a banana leaf. Vietnam feels much more friendly and forthcoming than it’s neighbours and already we know we’ll want to use all of that 15 day limit to explore as much as possible.

The towns get bigger and busier until we finally arrive in Hanoi itself. The mass of scooters swarm around us and I have to control the space around the bike as best I can to try and stop them catching a pannier. Train lines cut between cluttered streets and a few modern apartment block stand tall in amongst older, colonial style buildings.

We make our way to meet Quyn, who has offered to host us for a couple of days. After a warm shower and putting almost all our clothes into the washing machine we sit down for some dinner and listen to some of Quyn’s stories about life in this rapidly changing country. Although the communist regime has loosened off since the 1970’s Quyn thinks they are still 10 years behind China in terms of their political and economic development.

And it’s China we want to see next so in the morning, as a chilly wind whips round the city, we make our way to their embassy. We’re armed with a sheaf of booking confirmations for flights and hotels covering our entire ‘intended trip’. This is one of the farcical requirements for making a visa application and we’d cancelled all of them immediately after booking, counting on the fact that no-one would check.

Earlier in the year there had been a timely announcement that China and Britain had made a reciprocal arrangement to give each other’s citizens two year, multi entry visas. With this in mind we hand everything over to the lady behind the bullet proof glass and she immediately crosses everything out that we’d asked for. “I can only give you 30 days and two entries”. It’s clear this is non negotiable even with a big smile and an explanation that we want more time to enjoy their country and more entries so we can visit Hong Kong and Taiwan. She doesn’t go for it and tells us to come back in four days to collect our passports. Looks like our Plan A is on it’s way out the window.

Despondently we venture out to see a few of the cities sights. Walking round Hanoi is very difficult. The pavements are packed full of parked scooters and any space left is occupied by street stalls with tiny chairs and tables for their customers to perch on. It’s easier to walk in the road but then you run the risk of being run over. There is an elevated metro line being built and by the looks of things it’s long overdue.

The $20 rear wheel has done us proud by surviving the last 900km to deliver us here. It may have shed a few spokes along the way and not being able to stop pedalling wasn’t ideal but it kept spinning which is all we ever asked of it. I have a good mind to send a congratulatory message to the manufacturer for building such a fine wheel for such a low price. The new hub has cost us many times more and we’re keen to get our hands on it to get it built onto the old rim. But Vietnamese Customs have got it and we’re waiting to hear where we need to go and how much we’ll need to pay to release it.

To pass the time we catch the 6am train to Hai Phong and then a hydrophoil to Cat Ba island on the edge of Ha Long Bay. Cat Ba town is an ugly concrete strip of tall hotels but it sits amongst one of the most beautiful collection of islands in the world. We go to find some 2nd breakfast and investigate our options for getting around the bay. While perusing the menu in an all fresco seating area there’s an almighty crash and we’re showered with dust. A brick has fallen onto the canopy from high up on the building site next door and knocked a speaker off the wall a few millimetres from my right elbow. A very close shave resulting in a very embarrassed café owner and a free breakfast. Escaping serious injury never tasted so good.

None of the multitude of tour boats on offer appeal to us so instead we book something a bit different. The next day we’re out on the water learning to use Stand Up Paddle boards (SUP) instead. With instruction from Max from Asia Outdoors we move from sitting to kneeling to standing to swimming several times before we get the hang of it. Then it becomes a very tranquil way to move between the massive towers of limestone that jut out of the turquoise water.

We move away from the busier parts of the bay and it feels like we’ve got the place to ourselves. We’re being watched though. High up on one of the rocks we hear the calls from a troop of Cat Ba Langar monkeys. These are the most endangered primates in the world with only around 70 existing in the wild so to catch a glimpse is an extremely rare treat. Overlooking us are 7-8 of them, 10% of the worlds population.

It’s a short visit to Ha Long Bay and by late evening we’re back in Hanoi. Quyn has been a great host but we’ve also been helped out by Nick who provided an address for our parcels to be sent to. He has invited us to stay a night with him so we pack up and trundle across town to join him for lunch. He’s just got back from a trip that covered about 10 countries in 3 weeks, the route determined by finding the cheapest flights between the most interesting places. While we chat and munch an email pops up on my phone. It’s FedEx telling me that our parcel has cleared customs so we can collect it. The bad news is that bike parts are slammed with a 45% import tax so the bill is enormous. An already very expensive hub is now costing us a small fortune but we either pay up or go without. At the depot a large chunk of dong is reluctantly handed over and in return I’m handed a box containing a very shiny new hub.

We also take delivery of some smart new merino jerseys courtesy of Vulpine, a long overdue wardrobe refresh.

In the morning we drop the parts off at the Hanoi Bicycle Collective with instructions to turn them into a working rear wheel and then make our way to a boat house on the West Lake. I’d been in touch with Mr Hung, the coach for the Vietnam Rowing team who train here, and arranged for a paddle in one of their boats. Vietnam don’t feature strongly in the International rowing scene but they did qualify a double scull at the London Olympics and it’s the very boat that was used in 2012 that we take out.

Being on the water again feels great despite some very rusty technique and some chop from a gusty wind. It’s very different to the sedate stand up paddleboarding but also a fair bit faster. Afterwards Mr Hung tells us that the squad will be racing in South Korea in April to try and qualify for the Rio Olympics. With any luck we’ll be there at the same time so will see him again.

The wheel takes all day to be built so our plans to leave Hanoi that day are scuppered. Instead we make a call to Nick and he very kindly lets us come back to stay another night.

It then takes two days to get up to the Chinese border. Along the way I try to give the old wheel to several bike shops but they all turn it away, clearly not knowing a quality product when they see one. Eventually a bemused man takes it off my hands along with the few remaining spare spokes. As the killometres tick down we take the opportunity for a last few bowls of Pho noodles and savour a final, oh so tasty, coffee.

It’s fair to say that we are apprehensive about China. We’ve heard so many accounts from other cyclists who’ve hated it for various reasons. It’s just so big and our map is covered with massive towns and cities with no obvious scenic route between them. With the limited Visa, our plan B is to aim directly for Beijing so we’ve drawn an arbitrary line across the Eastern corner of the country to get us there. It’s over 3000km that we need to cover, similar to riding from London to Istanbul.

At Dongdang a huge imposing wall looms up in front of us and after clearing the border checks we take a deep breath and ride through into our 39th country. Nihao China.