The last straw came at about kilometer 25 - as I was coming down a gentle slow, I ran over something, and the back tire popped (this was the six time it has happened since I started riding it! - every time it has been the back tire, not once has the front one popped). I decided that this was a surefire sign that the bike was toast. I pushed it into the next village, found a villager and asked if he wanted a free bike with a popped back tire. He was a little confused at first, but after I explained that I was done riding it and was going to be taking a plane back to the United States soon, he happily accepted the bike. However - I gave it to him with one request - that he let me take a picture of him! He was a great looking villager - a little bit goofy looking, and wearing no shirt - I can't wait to get a good look at the picture on the computer when I get home.
The proud winner of the foreigner giving a broken bike away contest.
Anyways, after I gave the guy the bike, a bunch of other villagers came from nowhere (they just sort of appeared), demanding why I didn't give THEM the bike! They wouldn't have cared much if they knew what a piece of junk it was - they probably were thinking that the foreigner had some sort of awesome bike worth tons of money. Probably it could sell for about 40-50 yuan secondhand, which is about 2 days wages for an average uneducated laborer, so I suppose I can understand why they would still want it.
Anyways, I then took the next bus that came through town to Jiangkou, where I got a bus ticket to go up to Fanjingshan. Fanjingshan is about 2500m tall (7500 feet), which isn't super tall, but it is by far the tallest mountain in the area. It is a famous Buddhist mountain, and the top of it has a temple. Anyways, I got my ticket for the bus to leave at 11:50am, but the bus only showed up an hour late! The road to Fanjingshan is being repaired and the vehicles were blocked at a particular location for a long time, making the buses late. Anyways, at this point, people also had tickets for the 12:20 and 12:50 buses, making it so there were three times as many people waiting for one bus.......the result was chaos.
You would think that the logical thing to do would be to let the people who got the earliest tickets board the bus, but that is not how things work in China. The moment the bus showed up, people swarmed the bus, and the bus didn't even have a chance to park. A couple people jumped in through an open passenger window to guarantee that they would get a spot. This was one time where being a foreigner has an advantage, as the person running the bus company kicked someone out of their seat so I could have a spot (I would have felt bad for the person, but I saw that they had a 12:20 ticket, and I didn't feel so bad). Crazy. However, there were about 5 people with 11:50 tickets who didn't get on, who were really (and rightfully) ticked off, but it didn't matter - they didn't get a spot.
So, I was off to Fanjingshan. The road to Fanjingshan from Jiangkou is about 30km, which if the road was good, would take about half an hour. However, it ended up taking a little over two hours - about the same speed as I could make on the bike! Crazy. But eventually, I made it to the entrance. At this point it was a little after 3pm, so I was thinking that I would just sleep at a hotel and hike the mountain the next day, but after talking to some locals I found out that there are hostels all along the path, and so I decided to start hiking, and spend the night in one of the hostels.
Ok.....I'll unconfusion throws the garbage. Thank you total station of black gulf for showing me the way.
Hiking up through the clouds - this was kind of eerie.
Like most paths on Chinese mountains, there are stairs the entire way. 7860 stairs in fact, and there are signs all along the path telling you how far you have gone, which is pretty nice. I ended up spending the night in the hostel located at 6600 steps - it cost only 20 yuan to stay the night, but they more than made it up with the things that they sell you. A bottle of water was 5 yuan (usually 1 to 1.5), and my meal with two very cheap dishes (Tofu and Eggplant) came out to be 30 yuan (usually around 10 yuan). The weather at this elevation is much cooler, and in fact I was pretty cold there. Still the hike up was incredibly beautiful. I sweat a ton going up, but I was passing all the Chinese people - all this biking has made me buff!!!!!
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