Days 8 + 9

The past few days are going to be hard to describe. I left Xi'an refreshed but a bit reluctant to leave the comfort of the soft hostel bed and easy food. That soon disappeared as I left the city around 8:00am. A long stretch of villages was followed by the most beautiful mountain road I'd seen yet. Again following a river I wound through the range of narrow near vertical peaks along perfectly paved cliff roads and through long poorly lit tunnels. This lasted for hours as the sun slowly began to set. I found a nice campsite along side the highway blocked from the road by an outcropping. That night the sky looked clear enough so I decided to leave the rain cover off and fell asleep looking up at the first Maine quality sky I'd seen in a long time. 

The next day started off ok became amazing again and then terrible. So first I woke up before sunrise at around 6:00, packed my things and set off. After finishing the last 50kms or so of that last mountain range, RT316/310, the road I had been following became smaller and passed through a town before climbing to the ridge line of yet more mountains. Most of the morning I followed the ridge road, which was full of little potholes and without a centerline, at a leisurely pace. Once the road reached the peak, the views were again spectacular. Endless terraced fields of different shades of yellow-brown and green. Then in the afternoon I descended, had lunch and left my beloved RT316 and turned off on to RT212 which was entirely under construction. Not really construction in that I had to dodge big tractors or paving machinery all day but they had just decided to tear up the entire length of the road for about 50km leaving it very rough bumpy dirt and mud. I could go faster than most  but still only managed an average of about 30-40kmh (20mph). SO this was how the 2nd day ended. My goal had been to find a nice camp site near the city of Lixian but after a couple hours of this I was covered in dirt, sore and exhausted so I checked into a hotel maybe an hours ride from my goal.

It's been a while since I updated this. Internet has been scarce and unreliable and I'm about to pass into what I expect to be a near total internet blackout which Is really too bad because the most interesting things that have happened started happening after the period this post covers. I'll try to write more when I can. For now, I'm in a Tibetan village called Gangcha in Qinghai and tomorrow I'll try to make my way out of this cold rainy place and into the desert.

Camping and Xi'an: Days 5 + 6

These past two days were much better although I didn't really make much forward progress on day 5. That day I went about 400km in a half circle around the lake I stayed near last night. Day 6 was another 350 or 400km and I arrived mid afternoon. My ass is really killing me so I think I'll stay here for a couple nights. I have to see the terra cotta soldiers anyway.

Day 5 was all mountains, an improvement in some ways over the flat boring expressways of the past two days. The roads were mostly either under construction of needed to be so quickly my bags started riding forward and my ass pain grew. I think I have some bruises there now. But the views and the sections of well paved empty winding mountain roads made it all worth it.

At one point, I stopped to admire a view from a small dirt road at the top of the mountain. It was a bit rutty so I didn't go down the path and left the bike near the main road. When I started the bike again I started walking the bike back to the road and I dropped it. It fell hard on the right side bending my brake lever and breaking my mirror off. I couldn't pick it up with it fully packed. I would have to unpack everything. I decided this was too much and sat on a rock and had a cig.  Luckily a guy on a motorcycle came by a few minutes later. I flagged him down and he helped me pick it up. Now I know. I can't pick the motorcycle up alone.

At night I was determined to rough camp somewhere, anywhere. Throughout most of the journey I was spoiled for choice of sites so I would have to question my Indiana Jones adventurousness if I couldn't find something HERE . I gave myself 2 hours during which I decided that if I saw anything promising I would cut the day a bit short and check it out. After about a half hour I reached a point in the river that I was following through the mountains that was particularly beautiful and reasonably secluded. I found a dirt road that led towards it and carefully followed it about halfway before getting off and walking to the end. It was perfect. The road lead to a hill that overlooked the river and had plenty of flat places to camp and a parking lot. The view was amazing. Problem was there was a construction crew building a bridge at the end of the road. Probably why the road existed.. I walked around their work site for a bit and then asked if i could sleep there in my best sign language. They asked me some questioned and I nodded then told them I'd leave early and they agreed. Another worker had a tent set up there to guard the crane so we would share the view that night.

A bit later I met the guy who would be staying in the tent. He turned out to be really hospitable treating this little hill like his home. He helped me unload the bike and carry everything to my bit of flat ground. We then set up the tent together, got a big board for me to sleep on and he brought me some water. Since we couldn't communicate our attempts at conversation soon ended. He sat near by and watched as I cooked, ate, and brushed my teeth. Then we went off into our tents. Later that night I heard him talking to his wife on his phone. I could tell that he was telling her of his encounter with the strange foreigner who showed up at his remote work site on a motorcycle.

Day 6 started at 5:30am. I woke up before sunrise and quietly packed my things. The crew came back just as I was finishing loading up the bike and woke up my host. We said goodbye, took some pictures, and I was off.

The mountains continued and the weather was ideal. By now I was pretty high so I didn't notice the temperature. On the way down the mountains changed from pretty typical heavily forested mountains that you might see anywhere in the south of asia to ones that reminded me a little of Arizona. The all looked terraced but were too steep for that. The appearance came from bands of rock separated by short brush. It was starting to look like a desert. The mountains ended suddenly and I found myself looking over a long flat area. The temperature shot up to 35 degrees and I dragged myself the remaining 50 or so Kilometers to a hostel Xi'an. Now I'll have a nice two day break.

Looking for a camp site

The Fall Site.

I could never figure out how they got out there.

My host on the left

The crowd gathers

Days 3 + 4

Still haven't been able to camp. Today I tried for two hours to find a good place but this provence is still too crowded. So I ended up in a another hotel. I've finished my first 1000KM today!! Only 13 more to go. 

Yesterday, day three, was a short day and it rained almost the whole time. I said goodbye to my friend in Juijiang and took the expessway to Wuhan. There I met up with my friend and stayed in a hostel. In the hostel bar I met a guy who paid $2000 to volunteer to teach English in China which seemed a bit like a scam to me. He worked at a rich school and was told that it is very difficult to get a working visa. 

The Next day, yesterday, was quite boring. Cloudy all day and the land was flat. The motorcycle is holding up quite nicely. No Issues besides a missing screw and bolt. 

Today and tomorrow should be more interesting. Today I'll go back into the mountains and I'll stay off the expressways whenever I can from here on out. The next day I'll spend a couple nights in Xi'an. 

Day 1+2

So I'm now at the end of my third day. Sorry I didn't give any emotional parting words before I left. I had too much to think and worry about. Much of that now seems insignificant and silly now; Will I have trouble finding hotels?, Did I bring enough?, Will I lose the ability to speak coherently from lack of human interaction for weeks at a time?. So far I've learned: I have too much, Hotels are easy to find, and everywhere I stop, except huge cities, a crow gathers and interested people ask me a standard battery of questions. 

The first day called for rain all along my days route. It was 10am when I had everything packed and ready to go and the rain was supposed to begin before 11. It was 35 degrees and muggy but figuring that the rain would cool me off soon, I had on all my rain gear. This turned out to be a mistake. I drove for three hours in this heat before deciding to start taking off my rain jacket. Turning north into the mountains near Yiwu, it started to cool off but it stayed in the 30s all day. The rain eventually did come at 5:00 in the afternoon and lasted about 10 minutes jus enough to make the black tarmac steam for a while. At 6 I started looking for a camp site but couldn't find anything good, I still need to work on my rough camping skills, so stopped in a hotel about 150km short of my intended goal. 

The second day again called for rain all day but I had learned my lesson and packed my rain gear within reach. I started the day winding through mountains at 70kmh on a small road that ran along a small river. It was cooler and the roads were empty. Perfect. But soon I took a wrong turn and ended up on a 150km detour. I begin thinking that if this continued I'd have to add a month to my trip. At this point I had to start considering how i would cross the great Yangtze River. There were three bridges on my map. One lay directly on my path to Wuhan, the other was a little north and the other option was far south around the edge of a huge lake. The first two crossings were expressway bridges, motorcycles are forbidden to use expressways, and the large southern detour was a normal motorcycle friendly highway. So I headed south but along the way I ran across an entrance to the expressway that lead towards the first most direct route to Wuhan and decided to just try to sneak past. They caught me and made me stop but one of the women working the toll booth spoke English. This was my chance. So I went into my stubborn yet nice foreigner routine and soon convinced them to let me take the expressway. They gave me an orange police vest and I set off. So far Id been crawling along at about 50-70kmh but now, along the straight expressway I was averaging 100 to 110kmh which is around 65 to 70 mph. I was making up all the lost time of the past two days in hours.

Then along a long flat section I saw the sky darken ahead of me and lightning flashed in the distance. The cars around me began slowing. I wasn't ready for this. My rain jacket was packed behind me and my pants were rolled up exposing the tops of my waterproof boots. I couldn't stop here so all i could do was take off my sun glasses and lower my visor. As the thunder became audible, the wind picked up and sent me drifting about the lane. All I could do was slow to about 100kmh and lean forward on my tank bag to provide the wind with a smaller target. Then the rain came. It was a down poor and almost immediately I was soaked. I could hardly see in front of me so I pulled up within sight of a truck and followed him through the storm. This went on for about 30 minutes and then slowly faded away. After pulling over at a rest stop to empty my boots, I found myself at the great Yangtze bridge! 

The Motorcycle Club's Hangout

Within a few minutes of pulling into the city of Juijiang just before dusk, a representative of the local sports bike club found me and invited me to eat dinner with them. We had tofu, fried pork fat, chicken intestines (which were amazing) and some mysterious vegetables and then went for a ride. We drove like mad men through the darkened city weaving through the cars and mopeds traffic horns blaring all the way to the club's hangout spot on a long colorfully lit bridge. More joined us there and a wheelie lesson or demonstration took place. It was quite the scene. Ducatis, BMWs engines from 250cc to 1000cc. When it was time to go, we were the last to leave. I followed my host out and we were joined by a guy on a dirt bike at the tail of the pack. We didn't make it more than 500m from the bridge before the dirt bike ran out of fuel. Luckily I was abbot to save the day by giving him my camp stove gas, which is actually motorcycle gas. This bought me a second dinner of sea food: crayfish, snails fish soup and also a place to stay the night. The guy on the dirt bike called his mum and that night I stayed in their guest room. 

Preparing to leave Juijiang

Breakfast with my host Yoken

Preparations: My Driving License Experience

The Chinese Driving License

I came to China partly because I thought I could easily get a motorcycle driving license here and that would save me a trip back home to the states. I've never had a motorcycle license and the only thing I had with me was my old expired laminated style Maine driving license with a picture of me from when I was 16. Despite this little problem, I had read stories of plenty of foreigners getting a license with little issue so I wasn't too worried. Little did I realize how true stories of slow and frustrating communist bureaucracies were. Worse still, China's laws seem to change annually and interpretation of those laws and changes seems to be up to the local officer who is often  willing only to do what will take the least amount of effort. This made finding any information incredibly difficult. 

Theoretically, there are two paths to getting a Chinese driving license. If you have a foreign license, you only need to have it translated and take a computerized test. If you don't have a foreign license, you're supposed to go through the same process a chinese person would; driving school, and four tests including practical and computerized sections. All this has to be done in the region or county that you live in.   

My Experience 

Alright now for the story.  There are two major cities in my district; Shaoxing and Zhuji.  Zhuji was closer so I went there first. The first time there I went to a small desk outside of the main police station and had a friend who I had met a few minutes before translate my situation to the women there. They said that they didn't have the test in English, try Shaoxing. So I went to Shaoxing a few days later and was told that they don't give the motorcycle test in Shaoxing. I didn't know this but I think they ban motorcycles in that city. So I went to Hangzhou, the provincial capitol, to see if I could somehow get past the county restriction but to no avail. I needed to take the test in Zhuji but they didn't have the test in English. 

At this point it all looked pretty hopeless. My only options seemed to be to somehow get that residence paper for Hangzhou or try to find a fake. I took a week break and focused on other things. Then, sort of on a whim, I went back to the Zhuji traffic police and asked again. They remembered me and after laughing with them about my foreignness I was sent into the real traffic police station and led over to a very official looking man with two stars on his jacket. After looking through the rules for a while they said "Go to Shaoxing." I was alone and I tried to explain that I had been there before and they didn't have the test but he didn't understand and said that he had called someone there who could help me out. So that day I went to Shaoxing, about an hour bus ride and a half hour taxi to the traffic police. After waiting around there and meeting another two stared jacket guy, I was given the same answer as last time. No motorcycle tests. So I went back to Zhuji and arrived just before they closed. They laughed as I walked in out of breath and decided to help me out but I needed my documents translated. 

So as I mentioned, its easier if you have a foreign motorcycle license but I only had an expired car license with me. However, I had a plan. When I arrived at the translation bureau, I calmly told the translator in Hangzhou that I would like to have my motorcycle license translated and asked them to clarify the fact that It was for motorcycles on the translation form because I wasn't getting a car license. Then I distracted them by telling them about the trip using a map that they conveniently had in the office. They looked for a little while on the internet to confirm my claim and I acted disinterested, every so often telling them to try searching for things that wouldn't actually help them, and in the end they found a single sentence. "a Class C license is valid, with appropriate endorsement, for all non-commercial vehicles in this class." I pointed out that, "see my class C license is valid for all vehicles in the C class" and scrolled up to where it says a motorcycle is a C class vehicle conveniently ignoring the three important words in the commas. They accepted that and problem solved. As for the other issue, the expiration date, luckily the police in Zhuji didn't seem to care too much about that so for now, there were no more problems.

 I took the translated documents, now including evidence of a motorcycle license from the USA back to Zhuji, did the medical test, which was only an eye test, and signed up for the computer test. Finally after two months I had caught a break! On the day of the computer test, I went in with my helmet and jacket ready for the practical test afterwards, I had studied the 1500 questions thoroughly over the past few weeks and taken many practice tests, I waited in line and handed my papers to the women there and said the only chinese word I really knew for this situation "motoche" and did my usual motorcycle dance. I could see the testing computers! Then I was asked if I speak chinese. I said no. They sent me to a corner to wait. Then they took me to another room and started talking. More guys with stared jacked came in, I heard the word Shaoxing a few too many times and started to get nervous. Then I was told that they didn't actually have the motorcycle test in English. "No moto english, Goodbye." So back to square one. This was november. 

After this terrible set back, I really had no idea what to do. I looked into transferring my residence to another city that had the test in English, I looked into paying a company to bribe me a license but that turned out to be way too expensive. In the mean time I decided to try a new strategy with the Zhuji police. I went in every week or two and presented them with new plans every visit. 

"Maybe I can bring a translator?"

 "no"

"Maybe I can hire one of the police officers in the Hangzhou translation office to translate for me?"

"No"

"Maybe I can take the test in Hangzhou and they can send you the results?"

"No."

When I ran out of ideas I just started from the beginning of the list again, importantly, always with a smile and a laugh only occasionally showing a little frustration.

"Maybe I can bring a translator"

 "No" 

In January, I started showing up wearing my motorcycle boots and jacket and it became part of the routine for one of the officers to ask me if I had driven there. "oh no! of course not! No license." By this point, it seems like everyone in the police office knew me and my problem and I was always greeted with a sigh and a "No moto!" I smiled and excitedly told them that I had a new idea, took out my iphone and opened google translate. 

In March, I decided to try my luck in Shanghai. A guy that I met on mychinamoto forums agreed to put me on his apartment lease so I could get my residence transferred. I had serious doubts about this new plan though. I wouldn't be able to use my translation from the Hangzhou translation office so I would probably have to sign up for a driving school. A few other people on the forums were trying this same route but apparently laws had changed. No one knew if it was even still possible to get this type of license this way anymore but I had no other options. When I arrived in Shanghai, the guy wasn't able to meet so I decided to come back the next week. That night I was offered a choice by a couple of large well spoken Chinese men: the removal of a finger of my choosing or $800. After about an hour of negotiating, I choose to keep my finger. 

Later that month I went back to Zhuji for one final appeal. I really pushed the official or certified translator option and started to use the amount of time I'd been coming in to show how important this was to me. Soon the meeting moved into a back room and I spoke with a three starred officer. We then walked to the testing office, walked to another office, back to the small downstairs office and finally I got the google translate message I'd been waiting nearly 6 months for, "you can bring a professional translator." The test date was set for two weeks later. I was experienced enough with this whole process to not get too excited about this but slowly as the date approached, professional translator turned into a local police officer, saving me about $200, and I began to think that this really might be it.

On the test day, the police officer turned out to be the husband of my new friend at the traffic police. He spoke no english. He brought his computer in to the testing room and the three of us sat down to translate the test. There were 50 questions. By about the 15th, they started suggesting answers, and by the 25th the two officers and the testing supervisor were taking the test for me. So I passed!

Then came the two practical road tests. That day I came straight from work wearing my white button up shirt, pin striped jacket, sunglasses with my long blond hair tied in a pony tail. Not your average chinese motorcycle driver. I hate when this happens to me but when I arrived I watched the other drivers struggle with the pointless exercises for a few minutes before they rushed me to the front of the line and put me on a small moped. I went up the ramp, stopped, down and around the corner to the raised beam obstacle which i crossed like a pro. Then came the cones. I snaked around them flawlessly before coming to a stop near the crowd of waiting Chinese trainees. Impressed "wow"s were followed by a loud applause and cheers. I might have imagined that last part. I passed both driving tests later that day and now had only the last computer test scheduled for a few weeks later. This test also turned into a team effort by about the half way point and again I passed. 

So thats in. Persistence and a good attitude really go a long way in the chinese system. Now I just have to hope that this license will be recognized by the other countries along my route…