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Day 2: Sept 17 2007

What a crazy week, but especially crazy last 2 or 3 days we had before setting out on our journey! Thanks to Matt and Austin’s generosity, the 5 of us had a place to stay in Beijing for a week of final preparations, and a starting point: Dong Zhi Men. We were 6 people in a 2 bedroom apartment, and Austin’s arrival made it 7. Add 5 bikes in the mix and all the stuff that goes with packing for long journey and you have…alot of synergy =)

We are now in the evening of day 2 of our expedition, having started a day later than expected, on Sept 16th, around 4pm. So far so good, besides biking through solid rain this afternoon and me getting the groups’ first flat tire…amazingly after I had put my bike into our hotel room for the evening.

Our delay resulted from a few challenges with packing instruments in addition to last min errands to prepare our bikes and our gear for rain. We were hoping to get a trailer for our instruments (2 guitars, 1 South African Bongo drum that Drew gave me after he studied abroad there, 1 Er Hu - a Chinese instument consisting of 2 strings played with a bow-, and 2 egg shakers). After not hearing anything from Extrawheel.com after applying for a free trailer through their sponsorship program, we were put in a bind with how to carry the instruments…in addition to our other things like cameras, a few clothes, sleeping bags, 2 tents, and first aid materials. After considering asking a Chinese welder to home-make a 1 or 2-wheel trailer, using a second Chinese bike attached to mine as a 1-wheel trailer, or using a heavy-duty 26-inch tricycle wheel I bought in Jilin on the back of one of our bikes and just putting the instruments on the back of someone’s bike, we opted for the last option. Unfortunately (or fortunately) the wheel rim was a bit too wide for my touring bike frame, so Andrew stepped up to use the heavy but strong wheel and carry the guitars. The wheel has 40 extrememly large spokes (36 is normal), and the tire says it can carry 300kg (600Lbs). It has held up well these first 2 days under its heavy load (Drew has too) and the woman who sold it to me in Jilin said it was basically impossible to break the spokes - a problem I had on my first multi-day bike trip in central MN in 2005.

Great, so we have a strong wheel. How were we going to attach the guitars to the back rack? Outside Matt’s apartment building we noticed huge saddle bags on the backs of several of the many bikes parked there. Some were used to deliever Beijing’s local news paper, others were used by the post office and everyone on the street and at the post office told us they were not for sale, only issued to employees. Finally, I called the phone number for the newspaper that was printed on the bags (something I should have thought of earlier). To my surprise, I was connected with a young woman who graciously said she’d help me and ask around if I could buy the bags.

In the excitement of having a lead, I forgot to write down the woman’s name when she called me the next day confirming that I could buy the saddle bags. I biked to the newspaper office, walked up to the 3rd floor like she told me to, and into a huge room of cubicles. I watched as dozens of heads turned around at my presence. Embarraced, I smiled, and explained to a couple of them closest to me that I was looking for a woman in room 305 who was helping me buy bicycle saddle bags. Confused, but very helpful, a young man led me to the room, which was full of people attending a training session. More eyes looking at me. “Shoot, I don’t want to be a distraction and create a scene…” Too late.

3 more people from the cubicles come over to offer more help, also curious about my presence. I again explain I’m looking for a woman that said I could buy saddle bags to use on a long goodwill bicycle tour. No one knows anything about it, 2 people go off to try to find this mystery woman. I called the hotline phone number I’d used before, but a new receptionist didn’t know anything about me or the bags. She said she’d try to figure it out and call me back. My heart sank. So close, yet still, we could be back without a way to carry our instruments. A couple of the employees insisted that I sit down for bit to rest while they figured things out. More people walked by and noticed me. More distraction, more disruption, more questions, more telling my story. Maybe this wasn’t so bad, afterall I was telling people about our trip.

15 min later, one of the employees comes walking in with a smiling young woman, obviously the one with whom I talked. She appologized, she’d been at another meeting and had forgotten about meeting me. She took me to the payment desk, I paid ($10), and then downstairs to the issue office, as if I were an employee. We waited, again they asked me to sit. And finally, a young man came out with brand new saddle bags, thick canvas, and big enough for the guitars and then some. At last, we had a way to bring the guitars, a key part of our “musical bike tour.”

A few more difficulties gettig the big and heavy load situated on Drew’s back rack. First, his feet hit the saddle bags while pedaling, adjust, second guitars digging into his back. “A trailer sure would be nice after all!” A trip to the local bike shop -again-, ask about bike trailers. No one in Beijing has such a thing (even child trailers) except one store, here’s the number. Call. “We sold our last one yesturday, and won’t have new ones for 2 weeks.” Ok, new solution. We see Nakia’s rack is positioned further back than Drews. We switch them. At last success, though Drew’s load (2 guitars, 1 Er Hu, his normal wheel just incase something didn’t work right with the industrial strength wheel) looks much more like the Beverly Hill Billies than a bike tour. Laughter, but it works. 4pm, Sept 16th, we leave, biking slowly and cautiously as we get used to the new handling of our heavy loads…through busy afternoon Beijing traffic. But, we’re rolling, finally. We’ve begun. Unbelieveable!

Biking from Dongzhj Men south, around the Forbidden City, past Tiananmen Square, from the heart of China, the center of Beijing, biking south towards Shanghai, towards Hongkong, it feels like we’re on a space shuddle during blast off, trying to break through the force of gravity. So much preparation, so much energy put into creating the momentum for out actual set off, yet moving so slowly, starting late, and then pedaling slowly through heavy traffic, stopping for traffic lights, starting, stopping, with heavy loads, we slowly are breaking the gravitational pull of Beijing. We reach the south 2nd ring road. We push on through cars, pedistrians everywhere, bikes, bike bells, my bike bell taken from the “old man bike,” Adam’s piercing single hit bell, street vendors, car horns, trucks, the rocket engines roaring, pushing, pushing.

We reach the south 3nd ring road, 4th. More enormous aparment buildings, new, building and road construction everywhere, more housing for the people, more road dirt. 5th ring, countryside-style housing mixed in with new high rise developments, more openness, only pockets of tall apartment buildings…poooof, we’re through, we’ve made it, corn fields, trees, traffic. A cluster of new high rise apartments, a suburban moon among many orbiting Beijing. Corn field, wide unbusy road, suburban town, new nice housing, countryside. Pedal on towards the 6th and last ring road of Beijing.

Darkness starts to set in. We’re safe in our reflective traffic worker (Jiao Tong) vests. We find a cheap hotel in a small town on the edge of the 6th ring. Home for our first night.

Whew…what a blast off!

Its day 2 of our bike trip and we are taking refuge in a cheap motel to ride out a thunderstorm that caught us an hour outside of the nearest town in Hebei province (we have officially left the provincial municipality of Beijing. Yatah!). We were soaked when we got here and then found out that they didnt have running hot water, leaving us in one big pile of drenched emotion and squishy clothes.

My stomach was hollow because we hadn’t eaten lunch (we got a late start after oversleeping and eating breakfast, and then the rain came). The time it took for us to wring out our soaked T-shirt and socks, and find a way to fit 5 bikes in a 2 person room (50 RMB a night. i heart China!) lagged, and i began imagining things like apples and bananas floating through vertical hoola hoops above my head. I felt wetter than i did when i took a shower last night. The skin at the tips of my fingers puckered in rejection of the cold moisture that was settling into my body.

Luckily, the people at our hostel think we are rock stars and helped us carry our bikes in. We sat down, ordered a feast, and ate anxiously (thank you Akiko for your generous donation) to relieve our quivering bodies. Tea leaves and a little hot water were the best thing in the world to me at the time.  So tired were we from having ridden all afternoon on empty stomachs and then having to battle against the psychological self-forbiddence of riding in rivers, we sat for 2 hours and talked and talked and talked about the rain about our feelings about the trip about new idioms to introduce into the English language like, “You’re pulling an Adam” if you fall asleep by 9pm, or “Don’t do yoga with the chopsticks” if you’re trying to do things in an unnecessarily difficult way.

The vulgar lethargy loosened us up for our first concert on the road. It was time to see if our water proofing had saved the guitars. We brought down the instruments and treated all who ventured into the hotel lobby to an unplugged, interpersonal jam session by the Shenme Shenmes! Our rock star status was sealed thanks to the lady in the lobby who came up to our room afterwards and dragged me out to take pictures (about 5 shots of the same pose).

The rain has lightened up outside but its fray threatens. I am uneasy about the possibility of waking up and getting wet again, and it is a struggle to remind myself to stretch my boundaries and push myself into handling less comfortable situations. My mind moves slugglishly through this panic. It tugs at my body like a coat hanger in my collar dangling me from a rack on wheels. I could go backwards or forwards or completely crash on to myself, a pile of ideals soaking up the muck from the tile floor.

SILENCEThe apartment is quiet at 5:30; peaceful with gentle early morning twilight.  I walk soundlessly to Nakia’s room and pause for a few moments to hear if she’s sleeping.  Silence.  Well, either sleeping or listening quietly to someone who’s up at this improbable hour.  I softly bring her door to a close, without pulling it shut all the way.  The click of the mechanism would terrify me.  It seems to be a fetish or condition I have with which I am not willing to part – I don’t want to wake others up in the morning.  Not only that; I’m paranoid and terrified that someone will wake up—like trying to land a bubble in your palm, not wanting it to burst…  It’s all about treading slowly and delicately, but quickly too, before the natural course of morning necessities stirs the bowels in the sleepers.  I take out my bike like I’m diffusing a sensitive bomb.  No sudden movements.  Gently, slowly…that’s it.  I cringe at the knocking of the pedal against the door frame.  Stop.  Proceed with caution.  A fetish.  Cherished.  My Chinese name is An Chen.  I am told it is taken from a Chinese cliché having to do with the intimate morning hours.  Perhaps my naming even hints at this my condition—the fear to break the silence. 

AIRThe air feels cool.  Almost too cool for my shorts and t-shirt.  I wrap my arms around my chest and go no-hands for awhile.  It’s hazy, I notice—a combination of moisture, construction dust, and pollution no doubt.  But the morning haze is calm.  I ride down wide roads normally full of traffic, now quiet, ready. 

ROADSo many roads are inviting before six o’clock.  They are shrouded in morning and seem tso empty, a bike could hum along beautifully… but I am interested in Hou Hai.  The lakes are in the center of

Precisely one day after I arrived in China, 0708.fueledbyrice.org and the site of our server provider both became impossible to access. It seems more likely at this point that it is not our site specifically that has been blocked, but all sites hosted by our server, Hostmonster.com. In any case, it is difficult to access our website in China, and nearly impossible to modify it. Hence the lack of updates or new photos or anything at all happening.

For those with technical knowledge, it is actually quite easy to defeat Chinese internet censorship. You can use one of many free systems that “anonymize” your IP address. This means most importantly that your physical location cannot be traced by someone electronically eavesdropping on your surfing. It also gets you past the f*rew*lls and censors that normally decide who can look at what sites in China. The only problem is that most secure logins (like the ones needed to login to this blog and our website) do not allow anonymous IPs for security reasons.

The only way I’m able to post this is that I have a trial version of an anonymizer that is specially set up to allow users to login to secure accounts. We now have to decide to do one of two things. We can buy the services of this anonymizer, which for a small fee allows us to modify our site with anonymous IPs, but still leaves the site blocked for most folks in China. On the other hand, because the problem is with our server and not with our site (we think) we can simply transfer our site to another company, one who’s servers aren’t blocked in China. This is easy to do, only slightly more expensive than buying the secure anonymizer, and would allow everyone in China to look at our site. We’ll see. The good news for anyone checking this site and hoping for more frequent updates is that either of these options will hopefully be in place by later today, and all of us will be able to once again be able to post blogs and pics.