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Like most mornings when you wake up and your sleeping bag is much warmer than the outside air (this particular morning it was only 45, but relatively cool all the same) staying in that sleeping bag is much more inviting than packing up your gear and heading on your way.  Nature generally does it’s part in helping you however, as it did this particular morning, so getting up no matter how difficult was at the same time relieving.

I emerged from my tent to an orange sun coming up over a freshly harvested rice patty.  We packed up our gear and made for the county highway we had been following the evening before. 

Just before we found our campsite the previous night we had come across a restaurant in the country-side, not far from where we had camped.  The red Chinese lanterns had called us in where we had a meal of beans, pork, and eggplant.  While eating we talked with various people, a few families, the workers, a pharmaceutical salesman, and a grade school teacher.  The teacher was named Mr. Zhan, he had a son who was 28, and a 3 month old grandson.  He taught in Mandarin instead of his local dialect.  He laughed at almost everything and loved to use hand gestures when talking. 

As we were mounting our bikes and preparing to leave that next morning he came walking down the road pushing a well used baby stroller with his grandson, and laughing loudly.  “Where did you guys sleep last night” he asked.  In our tents in that field we answered, it is relaxing, quiet, and free.  “Oh there was no need for that, you could have just stayed at my house” he replied.  He asked if we had yet eaten, a common question any time of the day in China.  We said no but were going to go look for a place.  He said we should go with him, ”dumplings, fried bread, steamed buns, it has everything!”  How could one resist.  We walked a short way and came across a number of stalls, he was quick to announce to his friends who we were and offer us breakfast.  Laughing the whole time and offering us more and more food we ate our fill, as usual for any group of people preparing to ride over 100 kilometers.  He offered to pay but we were faster than he.  He led us back out to the road pushing his grandson in front of him and wished us luck.  He did not have to work that day because it was Sunday, so he walked back home to rest. 

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 4th, 2007 at 7:24 am and is filed under Adam's Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.