the cruise will take 2 days to Chonqing.
We get thickes only on 3rd class (the lowest) and for two days we share a 4 bed cabin with up to 9 people at one time: smokers, players, screamers, families, kids and chickens!!!
At one point I find the whole situation just beautiful and at the least entertaining.

At six am 2 days later we arrive in Chonqing: a metropoly built around the river with a population of 30 milion.
Considering that it counts so many people (this is 1/2 of italy!) I find Chonqing a very nice city and not as crowded as shanghai often feels.
To get the bike out of the boat becomes the first real worry.
Our ship dock besides another ship which is doked to the peer.
The bike is on the opposite side of the boat so we have to cross 2 boats before we can load it on the rail system being built to climb the 50 mtrs to the top of the hill.

[....]

When we finally arrive with the bike on the peer Annouk is not there. The baggages are not there, and the boat close the peer is leaving.
Ready to jump on the leaving boat I just have the time to see that also our boat already undocked and is pushing away....
what the hell is wrong with these people!!!!!!!

Left Wuhan in a gloomy day, as usual I headed towards west...

My compass does not work. Well, I am not sure, but it indicates South-East all the times... and, even if this makes me feel good since this is the direrction I have to go, I know it is not the case... all the times!

At the hotel a driver gave me indications how to get on the right road and so I go.
After not so long rain starts again and this time heavier than the day before.
The sky is darker than usual and I know this is not going to stop.
I ride on and on and the rain with me for as long as I carry on, and at almost sunset I reach the doors of Yizhan.
Yizhan is an industrial city recently getting a lot of attentions for the huge dam being built not far away from it.

At my arrival into the city i was sort of welcomed by a group of moto taxi drivers. All very nice and extremely courious of my whereabouts.
One of them decides to make some money and escorts me around to check a few hotels.
Clearly his standards turned out to be quite far from mine. Not that I am fuzzy, but the two hotels he showed me had lobbies as dark as a carbon mine could be.
After checking on my guide I pint point an hotel that seems a good choice. Re ride on for a good 30 minutes. I never so such a long city! Growing along the shores of the river, it is very long and narrow and really seems neverending.

The hotel is a very simple tipical chinese hotel. The girls at the doors are nasty and unpolite, the guards very nice and curious about the bike and here ..... there was also a car wash!

In the past 50km to yizhan rain stopped, but wet roads and all the rain during the day made me very tired.
On the bac kof the hotel, under a cluody sky i decide to wash my bike as well.
The car wash is composed of 2 guys, some pipes for the water and a room built on the corner of that hotel's backyard.
By the time I unload all the bags and I am ready to have the bike washed the usual crowd has gathered around me.
The guards are actually very nice and take care to keep the onlookers away from the bike so that the washing could take place.
Both the washing guys decide to take care of business and I help them along and one of them starts talking to me in a mix chinese/english.
He never spoke to a foreigner before and he is quite exited and eager to get to talk to me.
We sort of exchange the basic information and he doesn't want to charge me anything for the washing.
He just asks me if I want to go out with him and his girlfriend that evening.
I smile and agree to the proposal.

About 10 kg of mud were stuck all over the bike! Bad roads and lots of water had trown mud on each corner of the bike and of the poor teddy bear. (my only travelling companion).
The security decides that the bike cannot stay outside for the nite and they find a place inside the hotel's boiling room.
I was happy of the arrangment even if I have to say I got a little worried about the fact that if the boiling room would blow up the bike would go with it as well!

Avening falls and by the time I make it to the room rain reaches Yizhan.
After 3 days of rain I am in no mood to go on the next day under the rain and I decide that if it rains I will stay in yizhan for a day.

So it went.
When I woke up at 6am the following morning rain was knocking at the windows.
The nite before I went to visit Xiao Wuan at the car wash and told him I was tired.
We renewed the appointment for the next day, so i went down to get him out of bed.
the room in the corner of the backyard is the car wash, his office, storage for detergents and tools to clean cars and home to him and his friend.
He jumps out of bed in seconds and some how decides he will take the day off to go around the city with me.
Under the rain he takes me around motorcicle shops to find handle gloves (this is a chinese invention unfortunately not yet known in italy) and waterproof boot covers.
Shopping is succesfull and i decide to invest also in a air drier. Not too much to dry my air but to dry all the staff that gets wet and that I have to wash along the way.

Riding under the rain is not fun even if sometimes can give you some mystical moments.
I tried to prepare my equipment and the bike the best I could.
Of all the enanchments the ones that turned to be so far the most useful I could think of have been the elongation of the edges of my riding pants to cover most of the shoes and the frame that has proven to be so far very good and flexible.

The addition of handle gloves and bootcovers will make for the missing parts.
It is mid day, Xiao Wuan and I have a quick bite and then I suggest to go see the new dam.
The biggest dam in the world.
A project that employees 30,000 workers and that when complete will create a lake of about 500 km long all the way to Chonqing.
Leaving aside the details of what happened in the 1 hour trip to get there the image of the dam under construction was impressive.
It is big and most of all once again it reflect the determination and ability of the Chinese to conceptualise and undergo massive construction project.
The dam is just under construction for a few years but the base structure is already terminated.

Back to Yizhan I tell Xiao Wang that i would like to go and find an internet cafe'. but he insists that we had dinner first.....
To my surprised he treated me for a dinner in his "home". He ordered 3 dishes and the rise, he cleaned the little table and prepared 3 chairs for me , him and the other guy.
I was very impressed by this and I could see the pride in his eyes.

During the day I wonder what to do the next day , when..... while driving along the river on the way to the dam I see a cargo ship on the river.
"Xiao Wuang, can i put my bike on a boat and go to Chonqing?", I ask.
After some research and a visit to the cargo port all was set.
If needed I had to go there the next morning at 7 and the guy at the port will take of care of the deal......
I could not see the boat he referred to but i sort of trusted the guy.

That day Annouk decides to fly to Yizhan to join me for the following 3 days.
Riding on to chonqing and eventually to Leshan is the idea, even if we both know that if rain persist boat will be the choice.
I am happy she arrives.

The next morning it rains.
The boat becomes the choice not to spend another day in Yizhan and to keep my schedule.
My visa to pakistan will expire at the end of may.

Arrived at the peers we find out the boat is a passenger boat. Mr zhang, the guy organizing the whole thing bribes the guy on the boat and we hire a few porters to get the bike on.
This is a passenger boat with no access designed for cars , motorcicles or anything with weels......
but in china miracles do happens....like when we had to get it off at destination.

the cruise will take 2 days to Chonqing.
We get thickes only on 3rd class (the lowest) and for two days we share a 4 bed cabin with up to 9 people at one time: smokers, players, screamers, families, kids and chickens!!!
.. and it was very cold too!!!

image

At one point I find the whole situation just beautiful and at the least entertaining.

At six am 2 days later we arrive in Chonqing: a metropoly built around the river with a population of 30 milion.
Considering that it counts so many people (this is 1/2 of italy!) I find Chonqing a very nice city and not as crowded as shanghai often feels.
To get the bike out of the boat becomes the first real worry.
Our ship dock besides another ship which is doked to the peer.
The bike is on the opposite side of the boat so we have to cross 2 boats before we can load it on the rail system being built to climb the 50 mtrs to the top of the hill.

loading an unloading of boat in china can be very chaotic and very fast. In a few minutes everybody is gone and the captain is in a rush to leave.
I am sitting on the bike now 1/2 a way along the side of where I had it.
the idea is to take it to the front and then some how all teh way around and up!
we hire 4 porters. they claim they can do it.
the bike is really heavy. I still don't see how this cn happen.....

Armed with banboo stick and nylon ropes here they go. I set the ropes in the key point and 2 on each side lift it.
"Magic!" , as I often say in China.

image

While we move the bike over obstacles, anchors, across the other boat and of the the stairs Annouk take care of taking photos of the process and of offloading the baggages.

When we finally arrive with the bike on the peer Annouk is not there. The baggages are not there, and the boat close the peer is leaving.
Ready to jump on the leaving boat I just have the time to see that also our boat already undocked and is pushing away....
What the hell is wrong with these people!!!!!!!

I start screaming at the guys who let the boat and I force them to show me where the boat is going.
"There." they say. "farther down the river where the gas stations are...."
I cannot see it.

Thank to technology and to mobile phones Annouk and I meet some time later. She is waiting on the edge of the road with all the baggages and helmets. I am happily riding along the city with no helmets in the sunny, foggy early morning.....

the two days boat made the trik. Rain seems to have faided for the time being and I did not lose two precious days.

sqm..
Restless Travellers