The route thus far

For those map/google earth geeks among you, thought I'd post a little info on the route thus far with a few missing photos as my patience is running out...

I left Beijing on Monday 10th March and headed south to Xingtai where I got a train to Xinxiang. In Xinxiang I had a day off the bike and went in search of tombs (another goose chase that saw me taken to a village in the middle of exactly NOWHERE before taking a detour via the university to find a translator...).

Leaving Xinxiang was the nightmare that saw me end up on the motorway. After a failed attempt to leave the motorway and find the side road I rode for about 10k before wussing out entirely and flagging a ride at a toll stop. The most ridiculous thing about this little escapade is that people were directing me to the motorway despite the fact they could see I was riding a bike(including the police I might add) but then this is China...

I got a ride to Xingyang and crossed the Yellow river (the first time, or second if you count the train ride from Hong Kong). From Xingyang I headed west, crossing the Yellow river to a place called Pinglu (a name that has given me endless amusement solely because it sounds like the penguin!) and rode along the northern bank on a smaller (and hillier) road. This is me looking puffed half way up about the 15th valley of the day.

The landscape along this road was incredible, and well worth the extra exertion. Huge yellow clay hills, valleys covered in man made steps cultivated with crops and hundreds of caves carved out of the hillside.

I'm not entirely sure what the caves were for. Some were empty, others had doors and windows, some were stables and others were storehouses and I'm not sure that there weren't people living in a few of them.

From there I lost myself on the map (either the map was wrong or the road had disappeared, or I couldn't find it - all of which are equally plausible). Luckily finding the river wasn't such a challenge. Finding a bridge across it was another story. I took a 10k detour through a hutong trying to avoid what looked like a motorway that everyone kept on directing me to。 Eventually I found a very nice lady who rode the motorway road (nothing like my first motorway experience) with me, after I packed a huge sad at the gathering crowd of people gawping at me - this being the third such crowd on the same stretch of road in the space of half an hour.

From there I took another road that wasn't on my map (the joys of heading west). This one was mostly unsealed and by the time I reached the mountains of Huayin the bike was looking a little grubby. Huayin turned out to be a little like a Chinese version of Tongariro, with lots of Chinese tourists making the pilgrimage. I have no idea which the sacred peak is, but it looked pretty impressive nonetheless.

From Huayin I biked the final 120kms into Xi'an yesterday under glorious sunshine. By the time I reached the hostel the speedo stood at 950kms.