The Last Medallions

A few days before arriving in Xi'an we all gathered on our way out of whatever town we had stayed in the night before for the obligatory group picture.  The original plan was to have an ancient fortress in the background but the taxi cab we had hired to guide didn't have a clue where he was going which was quickly obvious to all of us who had GPS mounted on our motorcycles - and we all had GPS's mounted on our motorcycles.  When we finally found the entrance it was locked as apparently the camel herders who had promised to let us in found something else to do that morning.  In the end we got our group shot in with a panoramic sweep of mountains in the background.

There was only one item on our agenda that first morning in Xi'an; get the bikes washed and packed for shipping.  All of which was accomplished in the typical and orderly fashion we had grown accustomed to finding in China.

That night we bid farewell to Kurt who was running away back to Thailand early with his wife who had come to Xi'an undoubtedly to make sure he made it home.  It was during Kurt's emotional final testimonial that night that it started to sink in that this trip was coming to and end.  And that sucked.

The next day was not surprisingly all about the infamous terra cotta warriors.  Our first stop was a plant where replicas of the warriors are fabricated.

Although most of the facility seemed to be nothing much more than one big exit through a gift shop - I bought a couple of the middle sized warriors and for some reason some collector stamp packages.  The next stop were the pits themselves and for the most part as impressive as all the hype would have you believe.

And that was it.  After riding just over 11000 miles (or 18000 km or those of you not living in the USA, Burma or Liberia) the trip came to end as the next day we all started heading home.

When Brian first tasked me with fulfilling his wish of distributing the medallions across Asia the only thing I was sure of was where the last medallion would be given away - at the terra cotta warriors.

There were a few other medallions left in China along the way..

For some reason it was decided that Helge, our fearless leader should have bestowed upon him the last medallion to be given away on the trip.  Although with all his bitching and moaning throughout about being unable to keep a medallion of his own to take home and having to give away the one he did have on his pocket I'm still amazed I was able to carry through with Brian's wish.

A few days after getting home I made a quick dash over to Victoria and delivered the new and improved Brian Rev 2.0 medallion, completing its and my around the world in 80-days journey.

Yin and Yang

In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang (also, yin-yang or yin yang) describes how apparently opposite or contrary forces are actually complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another. Many tangible dualities (such as light and dark, fire and water, expanding and contracting) are thought of as physical manifestations of the duality symbolized by yin and yang.  And such were the last two riding days of the trip.  



The ride from Lanzhou to Pingliang would be our last opportunity for traveling off of the designated route and we were looking forward to do so.  We were also getting well into loess terrain and would be riding through the Loess Plateau which I was particularly excited about and hoping to explore as much as possible.  A small group of us headed off to the North on a road that on the map looked interesting enough.  Finally getting out of the city and into the country side the road started to deteriorate to a point where we stopped and questioned going any further.  The consensus decision had us turning around and heading back to the main road where the conditions changed but were just as bad, only in a different way.  While some abandoned the adventure making a bee line to the expressway, myself and an other headed off to the South in search of whatever.  After about 100 miles or so heading South East we turned North and spent the rest of the day riding up and over and down and through and around terraced farm plots that covered almost every inch of ground on the flat valley bottoms and the surrounding hillsides.

That was a great day.

The last riding day from Pingliang to Xi'an was to be short and easy with a planned meet up early afternoon at the hotel to go and get the bikes washed before packing them into the containers.  The day started out well enough and we were making good time on the express way, at least until we were stopped by the Chinese traffic policeman who escorted us off the expressway.  Turns out that just as the signs have said all along, motorcycles really aren't allowed on the expressways in China.  Guess things are a little less laissez faire the farther East you travel - this is not necessarily only a Chinese affliction.  When I asked why we couldn't proceed on the expressway I was told it was too dangerous for motorcycles and that we would be much safer on the two lane national road.   I questioned the policeman's danger level acumen having likely never driven in Detroit - I don't think he understood the reference as he just smiled and pointed towards the exit behind us.  Sure enough within minutes of being escorted onto the national road we were faced with trucks traveling towards us at high speed in our lane around blind corners... this is what safety looks like on a Chinese road.   I made another attempt to get on the expressway a little farther down the road and was unceremoniously escorted off again.

At some point I entered into a small city and was vigorously waved away by a very determined Chinese traffic policewoman from continuing down my intended route.  Quickly checking the GPS I didn't think this would matter as there appeared to be ways back on the highway on the other side of the city.  Turns out there weren't so I headed up a steep switched back road that headed in the general direction I needed to go.  Up on the plateau the fog and drizzle moved in and I slowly poked my way around roads that did not exist on the GPS trying to maintain a trajectory back towards the route track.  As I approached the "black line" I felt better and figured I would be back on track soon, until the GPS showed me crossing over and passing the route and realized it was in a tunnel somewhere below me.  After backtracking down the off the plateau and through the city, this time ignoring the vigorously waving determined Chinese policewoman I was back on the right road, but now in jeopardy of missing the 3PM meet up time at the hotel in Xi'an for getting the bikes washed.

The fog and drizzle had followed me down from the plateau and the drizzle quickly turned to increasingly heavy rain.  With a now perceived race against the clock and the lousy weather I found little patience for slow moving traffic and proceeded to pass pretty much everything on the road.  As I was passing a slow moving bus a small dog was racing across the road in front of us.   On my re-entering the lane in front of the bus, the bus driver honked his horn which stopped the little dog cold in his tracks then turned and ran right into my path.  I looked back in my mirror and saw he wasn't moving.  I had a quick thought of stopping but it was mostly to give the bus driver a kick in the ass for honking his horn more than anything else.

The remainder of the ride was mostly spent figuring out how to navigate into and through the city of Xi'an with some extra time spent circling in a few round-a-bouts trying to figure out exactly which road was the right road to take.  If the waypoint in the GPS had been anywhere near correct I might have made it to the hotel before the 3PM meet up time, but as it wasn't and I arrived closer to 4.  In the end it didn't matter as the plans had changed (this is China after all), and the bikes would be washed on the way to the container the next day.

That was not a great day.

Gas, Food and Lodging

Just as in North America along the highways in China the services available at the next service area are clearly displayed on signs as you approach.  The problem is that whoever is responsible for making and putting up the signs is way ahead of whoever is responsible for building out the service areas.  Often and usually as the gas in the tank was running low we would come across one of these phantom service areas where there might be an exit ramp but the buildings were non-existent or in some stage of being built.  While a minor inconvenience it did promote getting off the dreaded highway and onto the roads and into the villages where the real China was to be found.   All in search of gas and food of course.

Getting gas on a motorcycle in China was sometimes an experience and a half.  In north west China the gas stations were all barricaded up behind barbed wire fence and manned gates.  The story we were given is that gas stations had been targets of Uighur islamic extremists and this was to protect against any further action.  A further complication was that motorcycles were not actually allowed to fill up at the gas pump.  There was a designated parking area where all motorcycles were to park and then a teapot was used to transport the gas from the pump to the motorcycle.  Now this might be fine for the local small motorcycles where not much more than a single teapot was needed to fill a tank but even the smallest tank of our group was going to require several trips to fill.  Not to mention the inevitable spillage out of the teapot while it was being walked across the parking lot and then poured into the gas tank on the bike.  But in China this was the way it was done because this was the "safe" way.  The only explanation I heard that made sense was the history of the local 2-stroke motorcycles blowing up while being filled at a gas pump.  Regardless this really didn't go over all that well with our group and there were several minor confrontations at gas stations that usually ended with us filling up at the pump.  One of techniques used successfully was to spill an excessive amount of gas out of the teapot as it was being walked over to the bike and as the bike was being filled.  It helped to make lots of explosion sounds and wave your arms around like a big mushroom cloud rising up into the sky.  Another technique that worked was to pay for each teapot with a 100 Yuan note and just smile as the gas station attendant had to provide another 93 Yuan in change.   They got tired of playing that game pretty quick.

After Jiayuguan our next extended stop was Lanzhou where we found ourselves in the middle of a huge modern Chinese city.  Even with all the modern conveniences and shopping malls there was still a night market where the streets packed up and the sights and sounds were endless.

There is even an attempt to retain some of the old.  You can visit a still functioning waterwheel and try crossing the river on an inflated sheepskin raft.

But mostly in China its bulldoze the old and build the new.