Giving Bikers a Brake on High Road in China

GUANGZHOU, China â€”  As we wobbled our bicycles around the parking lot of the Foshan Hotel, our guide kept shouting, “Do the brakes work? Does the bell work?â€�

Neither of the three of us had been on a bicycle in years, nor ever ridden a 10-speed.

Now we were embarking on a 200-mile circuit of Guangdong Province (southeast China, just upriver from Hong Kong), and our guide was fretting about brakes and bells? We were fretting about tipping over.

‘Keep the Van in Sight’

Satisfied that the cycles were in order, our guide hopped into the van. “OK,� he shouted, “follow me!�

“You’re not riding with us?� we wailed.

“No problem!� he shouted. “Just keep the van in sight!�

Out of the parking lot he roared, with three terrified tourists pedaling madly in his wake. In the teeming streets of Foshan, we discovered the teeth-clenching necessity of bells and brakes.

Oops, there’s a grocer balancing baskets of cabbages on his shoulders (brake!). Oops, there’s a weaving bicycle, its rear wheel surmounted by a mound of laundry (bell). Squawk! Laughing children chase a chicken into the road (brake). Two schoolgirls cycle abreast, holding up traffic. Want to pass? Use the bell.

To spend a week on one of China’s 600 million bicycles is to experience China from the ground up.

Our trip began with an overnight steamer up the Pearl River from Hong Kong to Guangzhou (Canton) aboard the Star Lake, which carries more than 400 passengers on its six decks. A top-deck cabaret rocked and rolled well into the night, and the middle-deck restaurant served an overflow crowd.

Crossing the Border

Our stateroom was roomy with twin beds and a full bath. Upriver we steamed, passing the New Territories to starboard, a blaze of lights stretching up Kowloon Peninsula to the China border. Then the shoreline darkened and China began out there in the night, unseen until dawn broke at the pier in Guangzhou.

At 8 in the morning, we gathered our bags and joined the throng at the gangway. Entire families were debarking, parcels balancing on shoulder poles. Our guide, Benjamin, met us, ushered us through customs and treated us to a breakfast of chicken feet, lotus-steamed rice, pork rolls and rice porridge with floating scallions. Into the van and we were off.

Bypassing Guangzhou, we soon reached Foshan, 10 miles west, where we met the stars of the show . . . the bicycles. We adjusted the brakes, tested the gears and bells, gingerly mounted the rock-hard seats and teetered off on a shakedown jaunt to Shiwan, a 15-mile round trip.

On that first short ride we learned what bicycling is to the Chinese--basic transportation. Major streets all have bicycle lanes at the verges, and bicycles carry everything: crates of chickens, bales of scrap paper, bundles of laundry, plus wives, husbands and children.

The streets are a cacophony, from the jingle of bells to the beep of motor scooters to the blare of trucks. To the Westerner, off on an exotic trip to the mysterious, enchanting East, the first impression is jolting.

The next day Ben drove us out of town, unloaded us and the bicycles, pointed west and said: “Next stop Zhaoqing, 60 miles that way!�

Inured to the Din

We pedaled onto the Guangzhou-Zhaoqing highway, two lanes of busy blacktop. Every vehicle honked, not just at us but at every bicycle, setting up a continuous clamor. But yesterday’s plunge into urban traffic had inured us to the din.

We settled into a steady pace, raised our eyes and looked about. Outside Foshan the country takes over. The town simply stops and the farms begin. But it is never bucolic. No rolling hills, no sprawls of virgin forest.

The Chinese cultivate every inch. We passed field after field of vegetables, continually plowed, planted, tended or harvested. Stand after stand of fruit trees, with bananas and oranges predominating. All of this agriculture is done by man, woman and beast. No farm machinery, no tractors or harvesters, just blue-clad farmers and gray water buffaloes.

For the morning half of the journey, the scenery was undifferentiated mile upon mile of low-lying, level fields. Around noon, hills and mountains appeared in the distance. We crested a rise and saw the West River below us, with grassy hillocks dominating the far bank. Across the highway bridge, Benjamin awaited us in a dusty field, a picnic lunch spread out.

There’s nothing romantic about wolfing down Chinese Spam on stale crackers, slathered with lemon and coconut jam, while sitting under a highway underpass, waving away flies and using a convenient hole in the ground as a . . . well, a convenience.

Soon we were back on the bikes, entertaining the grim thought that Zhaoqing was still 30 miles away. On the west side of the West River, the road narrowed, the traffic diminished and the landscape improved.

Babbling Ditches

We were on a country lane shaded by trees and bordered by babbling drainage ditches. The villages, instead of crowding the road, were separated from the highway by duck-filled ponds. The afternoon sun burned our faces, so we bought hats for 2 yuan (60 cents U.S.) each in the next village.

We had no idea what to expect in Zhaoqing. As we approached, the prospect offered nothing but another dusty industrial town. Suddenly we made a sharp right and found ourselves in a different China.

This was the China we had seen in silk paintings and scrolls: a lake dotted with islands and pagodas. Cliffs loomed. We would cross causeways and around crags. Pigs and chickens lazed in the road. In front of roadside hovels, families cooked supper in communal kettles. We rounded a curve and glided into the parking lot of the lakeside Song Tao Hotel.

We were at the Seven Star Crags, which rise perpendicularly out of Star Lake on the northern edge of Zhaoqing, marching along the shore in roughly the pattern of the Big Dipper stars. According to Chinese legend, the crags are the stars, which fell from heaven before time began.

For two days, timeless China held us in thrall. We wandered among the cliffs, explored caves and gardens, watched water buffaloes frolic in the mud. From the top of a crag we saw the willow-lined causeways make a lacework of the lake. At night we slept soundly, tired out from bicycling, but also luxuriating in that rarest of Chinese delicacies . . . silence.

After leaving the crags, we chugged across West River on a ferry and hit the road again, a 60-mile run to Xiqiao Mountain. The dirt road seemed bumpy, but we soon realized that it wasn’t the road, it was us. The springless bicycle seats were taking their toll. But Yankee ingenuity triumphed--we tied sweaters to the seats and learned to be wary of bumps.

Heart of Rural China

Less traffic here. Stopping was easier and the pace was gentler. This was the heart of rural China, where the bicycles rule and trucks and tour buses never impinge. We drove through only one “big� town. It had two-story buildings and side streets. Other towns were just a few blocks of single-story buildings, the street-fronts open to wind, weather and neighbors.

At dusk we reached Ziqiao, a steep, isolated monolith of a mountain, with temples, pagodas and one modern building, the San Hu Hotel, clinging to its side. It seemed hewn from the mountain rock, but the San Hu is a well-appointed modern hotel. The rooms have stocked refrigerators and the dining room turns into a disco at night.

We rose at dawn, breakfasted on fish-and-bean-curd soup, and then climbed Xiqiao Mountain, ascending stone steps carved into the cliff, then treading quietly along forest paths. The climb to the summit at 1,500 feet was an interplay of light and shade. We walked through forest shadows for a while, suddenly emerging on sun-splashed precipices, with Xiqiao Valley and its lakes and fields glimmering below.

After an hour’s steady climb we reached Heaven Lake at the summit. The concession stands and tea shop hadn’t opened. Nobody was there but us and the lake. And as the morning vapors swirled on the surface we saw a sea-serpent rampant, its scales glinting, tongue blazing out, rising from the depths. Only the most prosaic mind would call it “just a statue.�

By noon we were back on the road, and soon regained the suburbs of Guangzhou, nearing our journey’s end. We were old hands by then and grandly disdained a lift in the van. Our legs were firm, our lungs strong, our fannies numb to pain as we triumphantly re-entered Canton by bicycle, joining thousands of Chinese rush-hour commuters.

In Guangzhou we had to surrender the bicycles. We felt earthbound and bereft, like a Pegasus that had lost its wings. During the next day’s tour of Guangzhou by foot and taxi the emptiness persisted. We felt oddly civilized.

At the end of the day, as we boarded the sleek express train back to Hong Kong and the West, we couldn’t help but feel a pang of longing for our rickety 10-speeds. Yesterday we had been knights of the open road. Today, we were just . . . pedestrians.

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China cycling tours are operated by East Meets West Tours, 1314 Houston Centre, Tsim Sha Tsui East, Kowloon, Hong Kong. The U.S. representative is Kao International, 1007 Broxton Ave., Los Angeles 90024, phone (800) 421-7496 or (213) 208-6001.

The price for the “Foshan/Zhaoqing Explorer� is $659 for land arrangements (including all hotels, meals and transportation) and $910 air fare from the West Coast.

East Meets West Tours operates other bicycle trips, including the 19-day Zhaoqing to Guilin Explorer ($2,147 inclusive) and the 20-day Pearl River Explorer ($2,218 inclusive). Prices are subject to change.

The company supplies the bicycles, although you are welcome to furnish your own. If a rider tires, the van is available, which also transports luggage from stop to stop. Repairs and other emergencies are handled by the driver and guide. Arrangements for extended stays in China after the end of the cycle trip can also be made through East Meets West.

China Passage, 168 State St., Teaneck, N.J. 07666, (800) 247-6475, offers a Cross-China Express: 21 days by train and bicycle from Beijing to Hong Kong. Prices start at $1,995, including air fare from the West Coast.