I got my first inkling that the road I was about to travel wasn't a great road to travel on when I was in Dongshanba, and a local mentioned "natiao lu haoxiang bushi hen shun" (I think that road isn't very smooth). Understatement of the century. I got going at 7am on June 8 with the goal to make it to Le'an, a county seat 94km to the north (according to the map). On my map, it was shown as a provincial level road, meaning that it should be paved (all provincial roads are) and fairly nice to travel on. And it was - the first bit was very nice. I got to Luokou quite quickly (it is about 15km north of Dongshanba) where I got my back tire completely replaced (25yuan for both the inner and outer tire) - the person fixing it said that I probably didn't need to replace the whole tire, but I didn't care because this way at least I would be less paranoid that the tire would pop again. I also recharged my cell phone card, and got going. Up to Dongshao (another township), the road was nice and paved, but after Dongshao, something terrible happened. The road turned into a rocky mess. I knew it was going to be bad when I talked to one of the locals and they said that nobody can get through that road. She must have seen my shocked look because she backtracked and said that no cars can make it through, but that most motorbikes could make it though, and that my bike could probably make it. Ok.......
Anyways, off I went into the wilds of Jiangxi Province. This road was rough - like real rough. It was largely composed of large jagged rocks. Uphill, you had to push the bike. Downhill was a jarring and extremely slow process (my butt is still sore). Shortly after I got going, one of my bike pedals fell off. The bouncing was obviously too much for it. I would have been more ticked off if it was pavement, but given that I was really pedalling all the much here (mostly pushing the bike) I really didn't mind. In fact, I thought that it was fairly hilarious because I now realized how much my bike bit. Eventually, I made it into a village, where I found a repair shop and they reattached my pedal. While there, the owner gave his expert opinion on my bike - "It is fake".
So, with my fake bike, I left the village. I still had been making fairly good time - it was around 10am, and was still feeling pretty good, if not a little jostled. However, here I learned a very important lesson - always check the map! This little village was the last village for a long while, and naively thinking that there would be villages all along the route (I am dense), I only brought along 1 bottle of water. Naturally the sun came out (finally), and it couldn't have happened at a worse time. The "road" was extremely steep - large portions of it were washed out by previous floods (think the road to Gargantua post- 1995 flood), and I actually had to lift my bike over large crevasses. To make things worse, when attempting to cross a fairly large puddle, I was shocked to find that it was well over a foot deep, with thick oozing mud underneath - I didn't make it through, and actually was nearly dropped my bike in the muck completely when I lost my balance. So, now I was completely mucked up, dying of thirst, starving (I figured I could eat lunch at the next village.....but that village didn't exist), and stuck on this road in the middle of nowhere. To make things worse, there were multitudes of beautiful streams along the side of the road tempting me to take a drink.
Anyways, off I went into the wilds of Jiangxi Province. This road was rough - like real rough. It was largely composed of large jagged rocks. Uphill, you had to push the bike. Downhill was a jarring and extremely slow process (my butt is still sore). Shortly after I got going, one of my bike pedals fell off. The bouncing was obviously too much for it. I would have been more ticked off if it was pavement, but given that I was really pedalling all the much here (mostly pushing the bike) I really didn't mind. In fact, I thought that it was fairly hilarious because I now realized how much my bike bit. Eventually, I made it into a village, where I found a repair shop and they reattached my pedal. While there, the owner gave his expert opinion on my bike - "It is fake".
So, with my fake bike, I left the village. I still had been making fairly good time - it was around 10am, and was still feeling pretty good, if not a little jostled. However, here I learned a very important lesson - always check the map! This little village was the last village for a long while, and naively thinking that there would be villages all along the route (I am dense), I only brought along 1 bottle of water. Naturally the sun came out (finally), and it couldn't have happened at a worse time. The "road" was extremely steep - large portions of it were washed out by previous floods (think the road to Gargantua post- 1995 flood), and I actually had to lift my bike over large crevasses. To make things worse, when attempting to cross a fairly large puddle, I was shocked to find that it was well over a foot deep, with thick oozing mud underneath - I didn't make it through, and actually was nearly dropped my bike in the muck completely when I lost my balance. So, now I was completely mucked up, dying of thirst, starving (I figured I could eat lunch at the next village.....but that village didn't exist), and stuck on this road in the middle of nowhere. To make things worse, there were multitudes of beautiful streams along the side of the road tempting me to take a drink.
This was one of the small waterfalls along the side of the road. Very pretty, but also very tempting.
It took extreme levels of willpower to not run to the streams and just start drinking (the thought of diarhhea for a month was the only thing that kept me sane). Eventually, I made it to the pass, and it started going downhill. Now, after completely my hike up the mountain, it clouded over and began to rain, making my descent even more unpleasant than it would have been. However, I knew that downhill meant a return to civilization, and I was in quite good spirits. Before too long, I came into a village where I promptly bought 4 bottles of water, and immediately drank 2. It was so great. I was pretty dang thirsty. Anyways, once I hit that village, I kept going, but the road was still in rough condition. And my bike pedal fell off again!!!!!! It took me awhile of walking before I found a guy to repair it in a place called Pingxi. Luckily, at this point there was pavement, and I kept going until I made it to the first Township I found, called Zhaoxi. I was so happy to make it. The person at the hostel was so honored to have me as a guest that he wouldn't accept any payment! So I got a free place to stay. That cheered me up quite a bit. The people here were amazed that I made it over that road - it was by far the worst road I have ever been on. When I mentioned to the police that on the map that it was listed as a provincial road, he explained that they had the plan to make it a provincial road, but that it hadn't happened yet. Great map.
No comments:
Post a Comment