Ellen has these rules of the road to share.
Stay out of brown frown towns. In doubt – are there abandoned blue trucks – if so, keep moving. Don’t talk to men unless they look to have a western influence, know some English, or are accompanied by a woman. Stop your bike when drunk motorcycle men are following and harassing you.
Ellen says
I think it’s funny that the town last night is called “really old town,” I’ll stay away from places with “really old” in the name. I rode away from that place faster than I rode in.
I don’t really know where Ellen is right now. When I asked her, she said “Out in the middle of Nowhere.” She’s been staying in little courtyard rooms houses lately. These places operate as a guesthouse and charge anywhere from 20-40 rmb. That’s about $3-$6. It more of a glorified campsite. Anyways, she says this.
I rode with a college student this morning for about 45 minutes. He had a mountain bike. It’s so much easier to keep a fast pace with someone else. We were going at 26km/h but I stopped to take a photo and he went on. I’m also taking photos of all these weird ass rooms I’m staying in. The lady that runs the place gave me a bucket to piss and poo in. Ugh. And I could smell natural gas all night. I’m seriously getting stuck in David Lynch movies and I wake up confused as to where I am.
One of the joys of touring is that you can basically eat whatever you want and not gain any weight. In order to cram in the calories that Ellen needs she’s been eating cheeseburgers every once in awhile. Yes, Ellen is vegetarian, but since it’s not always easy to get vegetarian food in rural China, she’s eating whatever. Plus, most everything in China has a bit of pork in it, be it big chunks of pork or cooked in pork fat. What she has also been eating while on rest breaks is peanut butter. High in sugar and calories, which makes a great pick me up on the road. But peanut butter can be expensive in China. Mostly, she’s been eating Chinese food. You can get a plate of stir fried greens, or a meat dish for 5-8 rmb in small family restaurants. With the current conversion rate of 6.8 rmb to the dollar, that’s less than a dollar a plate if you’re just eating veggies.
Ellen’s has been making pretty good progress lately. She’s heading from YuTai to Liangshan today. She stayed 2 nights in Yutai. Since she’s been steadily doing 150 kms a day, she took 1 day was a recovery day. She explored the city, drank a lot of water, talked with some local women, ate a sandwich with them, and a lot of other random things.
Ellen wanted me to tell you all that it can be difficult to find a good place to pee while riding along the grand canal. Riding will suppress your urge to pee. So all of a sudden, you’ll really need to pee. China is big, but there always seems to be someone around. So Ellen has been hopping into the dried up offshoots of the grand canal. Apparently it’s a 5 foot deep ditch and it provides a bit of privacy. She says that climbing out of it was a bit of a struggle at first, but she now has the technique down
