Thursday, 17th December, 2015
- Day 107/298
- 35%
After a morning of large mountains and challenged expectations, I fall into a Zen state and end up in a new and unexpected town.
The Hanging Temple
The Hanging Temple as viewed from The Path…
I awake to the most beautiful sunrise, stretched over a long line of mountains.
Checking my bank balance the good news continues as I see payment for my earlier Mongolian efforts. Mentally subtracting tax and GST I feel much more flush but equally aware that this Get Out of Jail Free card will only work if I start sticking to a reasonable budget.
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You’re not on the flat lands now, Dr Ropata!
The road to the Hanging Temple consists of many turns.
A village at the foot of Mount Hengshan.
The Troll takes a well earned rest before descending to the main attraction.
Flying donkey?
The Hanging Temple as viewed from The Path…
No Hanging Temple for you!
Big wall near Hanging Temple.
Brief on Hanging Temple.
Region rich in culture.
Next up is a detour up Mount Hengshan, to check out the famous Hanging Temple.
The ride up the mountain is very busy and pretty sketchy. Large trucks struggle up the incline, leaving little space for sightseeing cyclists. I repeatedly pull over into the icy muddy sludge, then push the heavy bike back on to the road when the danger has passed.
At my destination I'm very happy to receive a discount at the gate but proportionally unhappy to then find out that the temple is actually closed due to ice or snow on the path, making it unsafe for tourists. I guess they don’t want to deprive me of the chance to visit the toilets and souvenir vendors in the adjoining courtyard!
But since I’m not phased by my expectations anymore, I concentrate on the fact that the sun is shining and enjoy the far less busy downhill back to town, stopping soon afterwards at a truck stop diner for lunch. The lady scowls at me as I enquire whether they are open, but relaxes as I order and consume the requested meat and noodles, the exact specifications which I leave up to her as once again I can't decipher the menu.
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Icy shoulder.
Many trucks.
Dirty trucks.
Audio inspiration.
Snowy fields.
Snowy paths.
Tree lined driveways.
Mountainous backdrops.
Sunset road.
After lunch the quantity of trucks increases again.
At one point I am riding alongside a convoy of trucks which extends as far as the eye can see, and probably two to three times further – perhaps a kilometre or more. Some drivers give me a warning honk and plenty of space, while others give me no warning and zero space. I wonder where all these big trucks are going!
At any rate I often find myself riding on the shoulder’s edge – or on the shoulder itself, in what I’ve come to call The Ice Field.
Thrice today I've wiped out on said ice: once a slow-mo fall where I just laid the bike down, once where I felt myself sliding, put the bike down and then kept sliding with my hand in the snow, and lastly a somewhat more embarrassing slide when I went to enquire whether a motorist whose van had broken down needed help, only to fall off right next to his van while attempting a u-turn, taking a while to then unpin myself from beneath my collapsed machine. On the flip side, every time I stopped in a drive way to avoid an ice field, I found myself looking at a really nice photo opportunity.
I had expected my riding over the largely empty steppes of Mongolia to put me in a Zen state, but I find that the combination of endless big trucks roaring past, determined concentration on an invisible line on the shoulder, and the accompanying inspiring audio book The Obstacle is the Key puts me in a far more meditative state.
My new lights work well and take the edge off the nighttime riding. When I reach Xi’an, I stop at the city limits to see if I can find a cheap hostel, hopefully somewhere which can at least match last night’s 60 Yuan cold-but-adequate room in the wops. Booking.com shows several options but I none that I can locate on my map.
It takes a while to figure out that I'm not actually in Xi’an, but in Ying, the former being some 600km away! I’d headed down this road in the hope of finding a really old wooden pagoda, but tired and hungry and with hands cold and sore from extended map usage, I now couldn't care less what's around and just want to unwind somewhere warm.
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Cheap and tasty!
Clothes horse.
Another hotel, another bathroom.
Dysfunctional TV, and computer.
Double bed with noisy headboard.
I head for the first friendly looking restaurant, venturing no further than is necessary as mourners (?) let off loud fireworks right in the middle of the street.
Luckily the food is delicious and at only 6 Yuan is almost a quarter of the price of my truck stop lunch (21 Yuan), proving that there really is no correlation between price and taste in China.
I then check into what I think is a cheap hostel, only to find that it's the standard 100 Yuan hotel. It's a pretty dysfunctional room, as neither heat pump nor TV work, and the bed head makes a terrible racket when leaned on. However I make up for its deficiencies by enjoying a long hot shower (my first since before Datong!), doing some sink-washing and cranking the heater-picture up to 30°C to dry everything out overnight. Crazy hot dreams ensue.
I’ve only ridden for 5 hours and managed 63 km. I want – need – to ride much farther, but 13 km/h seems like a safe limit for on-the-shoulder riding, so I decide that if I want to ride further I just need to start earlier.
Tomorrow I plan to head to Taiyuan, possibly via a few mountains of unknown dimensions.