City streets are often divided into lanes using small plantations are barriers. In the centre should be the cars, buses, trucks, and other motorised vehicles. Separated from the motorised traffic by a plantation of shrubs should be bicycle lanes. On the outside of all this should be a raised footpath or sidewalk for pedestrians. Well, that’s how it should be. In reality, the sidewalk is used for bicycles, bicycle parking, car parking, vendors selling products, and (often) pedestrians. The bicycle lane is usually choc-full of parked cars and trucks, pedestrians (they can’t fit on the sidewalk), and vendors. I usually ride along the lanes reserved for the motorised vehicles. I can do this because I’m a foreigner. I’ve been pulled over by the police on occasion and have been able to get away with it by telling them I don’t speak Chinese and I don’t speak English either. “Tim-bu-dong” (“I don’t understand”) is an essential word for those wishing to scale the ramparts of Chinese officialdom.
We spent the night in an hotel owned by a Chinese biker whom Aaron had come to know via the Internet. China is Internet savvy, to say the least. Although most Chinese are not able to afford a computer, let alone an ADSL or DSL connection, of those who are connected to the Internet more than half have broadband connections and use the Internet in many aspects of their lives. Most clubs not only have an Internet site, but have formed because of the Internet site. Aaron wanted to meet bikers in Shaoxing when he moved there from Hangzhou, so he started a bikers website (the one your at now) and waited for people to find him. It was no more than a week and he’d organised the first ride. When Chinese ride to another city they search for a website in that city so they can make contact with the locals. That’s how Aaron made contact with the biker who owned the hotel.
After arriving at the hotel in Shenzhou we showered (this time with hot water) and then went out to eat. Restaurants in China can be fairly rugged affairs. Often they are a shop with no windows, lots of table and stools, and walls that have been washed at least once in their lives. Hunger can make you disregard many things, including the walls. We ate fried noodles – much more filling than noodles served in soup. Aaron thought so too, because he ate noodles in soup and had to go out again at nine for another meal.
Next morning we ate “Ro Bou” – steamed buns filled with pork – and wonton. The owner of the hotel treated us to breakfast for no other reason than we were fellow bikers. He then rode with us along an extremely busy road so we could successfully get out of town. China is being built at the speed of, well, faster than the speed of being built extremely fast. And that’s really, really fast. Sometimes a road can be built in less than a week, and another can disappear in less than a day. Maps are kind of useful, some of the time. Unfortunately, once Chinese maps have been printed and distributed they’re out of date. Chinese roads are changing even faster than computer hardware and software. I’m serious. So it was necessary for the hotel owner to guide us out of town so we could start on our way back home.
The Hotel Owner Says Goodbye
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