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Our first leg of the journey from Beijing to Hong Kong is now complete.  Yesterday we took a ferry in from Shenzhen 深圳, the border city to Hong Kong.  Unfortunately there is no way to cross the boarder by bicycle so a ferry was the only option.  From Beijing to Hong Kong I (Adam) have taken three ferries and one subway.  The rest of the was completely powered by rice, which ended up being over 4,300 kilometers on my bicycle’s odometer.  The three ferries were unavoidable, one to cross the Yangtze 长江, where the nearest bridge allowing cars was miles and miles up-river out of the delta, and two in Shanghai 上海 to cross the Huangpu river, one to get over it, and one to get back.  Strangely enough there are no bridges in downtown Shanghai, only tunnels for automobiles that go under the river dividing the bund and downtown Shanghai.  Jim and I had to cross the river in order to get to a bike shop and purchase the bandwagon.  In Guangzhou 广州 after Kevin’s wedding there was a reception at a bar about 6 kilometers from our hotel which most people took taxis to.  I was unsure about where it was and did not want to risk locking my bike outside on a street-post and having it stolen so Pete, Nakia, and myself took the subway.  Jim and Drew were out running errands and stopped by on their bikes.  In order to keep my “no automobile use” record going I walked back, the rest of fueledbyrice decided to join me, making us truly fueled by rice. 

Unfortunately Hong Kong is not a city developed with bikers in mind, in fact the roads are very narrow, steep, and people drive on the left side of the road making all of our instincts wrong.  In fact the steepest hill we have climbed so far has been the last hill we rode up to get to the Maryknoll house overlooking Stanley market.  Maryknoll, the organization Pete previously had taught through in China, and the organization Kevin works for graciously has let us stay here.  We will be highlighting some of the interesting people we meet here in the future.  We are also in the process of getting visas right now for SE Asia, our Vietnam visas should be done today.  Patrick Leung, a Hong Kong resident and St. John’s alumni organized a benefit dinner for our cause which will take place Saturday night at the Royal HK Yacht Club.  Money will go towards some expenses for the trip and the charitable organizations we have chosen to support.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 29th, 2007 at 1:49 am and is filed under Group 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.