The sights of China

The landscape thus far has been farmland, lots of people tilling the soil (is that what you do to soil?), and flat. The flat is a bonus, but comes with its drawbacks. I think I'm basically skirting down the western edge of China's populated eastern industrial plateau which means the air stinks. Every time I think its getting better I'm mistaken. But I think I am now over the worst of it (just over 400k south of Beijing). Other than that there have been a lot of dried up river beds and mountains of plastic bags abandoned among the rubble (am trying my best to stop them giving me plastic bags, with limited success).

On the way out of Beijing I gave Tiananmen a miss after my efforts to see the Mao-soleum the other day I wasn't rating the chances of a photo in front of the famous Mao portrait very highly. So I left Robyn's bright and early

and headed for the Marco Polo bridge. The bridge was awesome, although one would hope that Marco Polo had a clearer view over it than I had. In the middle you can see the original stones...no I didn't ride my bike over them, figured there'll be more than enough opportunity for riding over craters over the next few months.

From there I was headed to the Western Qing tombs, but didn't make it because there were no sign posts (except one to Daxing Country seat...) and I really didn't fancy losing myself on the map quite this early on. Also I was quite keen to put some k's on the clock.

So I've just been headed south on the same road ever since. I think I will probably stick with this road as far as the Yellow River and then hang a right and head over the hills into Xi'an. Some of the signposts are still in pinyin (although fewer and fewer) and the road is relatively well sealed - with some notable exceptions...