The Long Road Home

Wish I hadn’t mentioned the frog thing now! I tried but can’t face it. Sorry! And the waitress told me the ‘ants on the hill’ ice cream needs a team of five people. That also seemed a bit much so I’m having a ‘mysterious destiny fresh fruit punch’ which is tonight’s special. It turns out to be delicious so not worth ten quid really. But someone could donate ten quid anyway!

By the way, I should belatedly say a big THANKYOU to everyone who’s donated money already to the two Asian children’s charity projects we hope to fund. Thanks to generous individual people and corporate sponsors (THANKS and hello to friends at Deutsche Bank, Crosby Capital, ADM Capital, Prudential, Lloyd George Management, Virgin Atlantic and Kodak), we’ve together already raised over 50,000 USD towards the 140,000 USD target. Thanks a lot!

If you think your firm might like to join the corporate sponsors, then just write to me. If you feel like donating yourself, just click the Justgiving links on this site where you can make a donation by credit card.

Also on this site, you can read more about the two charity projects and what will happen with the money raised. Sorry Ben about the frogs and fruit punch! but actually THANKYOU for already donating, and also for all your work making the Long Road Home site so nice. Hopefully even if I can’t face frogs, we’ll reach the target, and 10,000 kids who survived the S Asian earthquake and 5,000 Cambodian street children will have a safe place to play.

Thanks! Good night!

Sue talks about the delights and disappointments of eating chinese food, sharing her food with a little boy and his dog, choosing the wrong cafe and joys of the readily available fruit.

 

 The Long Road Home #3 - A Chinese Dinner [6:02m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is where the Zhaoqing trendy crowd come. I’m on the main shopping street. Downstairs is a bowling alley. Here upstairs I’m in a coffee lounge in a deep sofa. The women staff at Bank of China recommended this place. It’s hung with red lanterns, and there are retro-look revolutionary paintings on the walls- muscly peasants riding on carts waving red handkerchiefs in bright sunlight etc. I’m having a coffee (two actually) and a massive plate of peanut butter toast. People are doing things on laptops and there are chaps in suits talking over cigarettes. On the menu is frog congee for 22 RMB or ricefield eel porridge also 22 RMB. There’s peanut tea with milk for 12 RMB hot, or 15 RMB cold. There’s a fruit drink called ‘the moonlight treasue box’ and an ice cream called ‘ants climbing the hill’. Think I’ll come back later and try a few more things out. Going for a walk on the main street now.

I was hoping to make it to Zhaoqing yesterday, but after 120km flaked out at Gaoyao, which is on the West River, directly opposite Zhaoqing. It was nearly 7pm and I didn’t want to cross the enormous Great West River Bridge in the gloom. So I stopped here at a hotel overlooking the river.

I had a huge tailwind all day, so bowled along, on winding minor roads the whole way. There was hardly any traffic, just a few folk on motorbikes, farmers cranking their way along on old bikes, some chaps driving little tractors carrying sacks of things. Apart from that, a few local buses, some goods trucks, and a few private cars. I saw one container lorry which had got itself stuck in a muddy hamlet on a tiny road, and was causing great interest for local people trying to help him manoeuvre. He got himself out of trouble and I watched him slowly wind out of the valley, and turn west towards Xinxing. Up till now, most vehicles I’ve seen are from Guangdong province, but now I start to see some trucks from Guangxi, Guizhou, and a few from Hunan. You can read it on the number plates.

The wind was REALLY strong. Sticks and twigs were breaking off and blowing up the road, and bamboos at the roadside were creaking, and the lines of willows along the roadside were rattling and bending. Thank goodness it was a tailwind for me. For the poor people cycling the other way it looked really tough - people’s straw hats were blowing off, and old blokes going home up the lane with hoes and ploughs on their back were getting blown around shouting ‘gam dai fong’ to each other.

Near Kaiping, I did see tons of watchtowers, in fact every village seemed to have at least one. All abandoned. A guy at a little roadside stall told me he was born in one, but now his family had built a nice new house next to it, so they don’t use their diaolou any more. The watchtowers petered out 40km north of Kaiping, and then there were just red earth villages, small towns, paddy fields, banana palms (no bananas, so actaully I’m not sure), bean canes and maybe courgette things (yellow flowers?), a few fields of pineapples. I ended the day on a tiny single track road which wound through hamlets north of Jiaotang town and dropped down to the West River. Then v tired. They have chips at this hotel so I had chips. Bad but good.

I’ve made it as far as Kaiping, a town in Guangdong province. I’m writing this in the Harbour View Hotel sales office computer, which they’ve let me use. Upstairs the restaurant is packed with local folks smoking, drinking tea and chatting (well, shouting actually). All very friendly, and very noisy.

It’s been hot - about 30 degrees in the sun every day, and I’m getting very sunburned. But so far so good. I had a strong headwind all day yesterday and today, so it was pretty slow going, and I have to just battle along in a low gear. Met some nice people - today had breakfast with a lady from Sichuan, lunch with some truck drivers from Guangxi, then soybean milk for an afternoon snack with a migrant labourer lady from Guilin, who was playing with her 1-yr old daughter at a roadside stall. I was thinking what a lot of migrant labourers there are, and then realised there’s also quite a lot in the UK, eg there are plenty of Mancunians in London, for example. Will be one more when I finally arrive. But that seems an awfully long way off right now.

From here, I’m aiming next for Zhaoqing. Probably will take me two days to get there, unless the wind changes round a bit. This area round Kaiping is famous for ‘watchtowers‘ built from 18thC to 20th C by wealthy people to safeguard their stuff. Lots (all?) now seem to be abandoned. I poked around in a small village off the main road this afternoon where there were several of them at the top of the village, each about 8 storeys high, with quite fancy stonework, but now bricked up with weeds growing everywhere. Some ladies chatting in the lane told me no one had lived in the towers for 30 years. Will try and visit some more tomorrow.

By the way, sorry about the washing machine on the podcast. I was still trying to clear up the flat.

A quick message for all of those friends and family who were at Wanchai Pier last Sunday and took photos of Sue embarking on her amazing journey.

Any quality or size will do. Just attach them to an email and send them to thelongroadhome@gmail.com.

Thanks

Susanna and some colleagues from the biking club on the ferry talking about the plans ahead.

 

 The Long Road Home #2 - Ferry Crossing [1:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Apologies for the audio quality. Seems despite the lack of gas, food and furniture. Sue still had her washing machine running on full

 

 The Long Road Home #2 - The night and morning before [2:11m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

It took me a lot longer to get down from the 26th floor of Hollywood Terrace than I had been expecting, having to unload to get into the lift and go up and down two lifts twice, but I did finally get my bike and kit down to ground level, and rolled slowly off down Queen’s Road to the Wanchai Ferry pier.

I was really stressed pressing on the pedals past Western Market and the tram stops in case something went wrong with the bike. But never felt lonely at all as Ka Kee met me for a rather rushed coffee, and then four cycling club friends May, Eliza, Seiman and Kitty arrived on bikes so we rode through central HK together. And a lovely group of well-wishers met me at the pier, so I said goodbye, feeling to be honest rather guilty to bring all these folks out, since of course I’ve not done anything yet apart from pack up a bike and roll nervously down one hill. Well, with Eliza and co, I then crossed into mainland China, and we bowled along a beachside boulevard from Zhuhai towards Zhongshan. Was just GORGEOUS to be out on the road. People were fishing for oysters on the beaches, or sitting with their girlfriends under palm trees.

After an hour or so, we turned away from the South China Sea and headed into the hills through woodlands, and I’ve now checked into a nice hotel at Zhong Shan hot springs. Eliza and the others headed back to Hong Kong. The bike seems OK. Of course! Thanks Luis and the folks at Beeline. I’ll check everything over tonight, but going to have a cup of tea and some chocolate first.

I’m in Cafe O on Queen’s Rd Central, Hong Kong. This is one of those places where foreigners eat eggs on toast and coffee, which is exactly what I’m doing. I’m celebrating the fact that my apartment is now empty, after a whole day of packing boxes for shipping back to UK.

Polly, who’s in the Reuters Equities team here, came round with her husband Rick to help out. I still hadn’t been able to get my RMB credit card, but Polly spent about half an hour on the phone and with a brilliant mixture of charm and persistence, managed to persuade Bank of China to let me pick it up, despite the fact I somehow hadn’t received the letter I should have received. The BOC people were finally wonderful and fixed everything. Thanks Polly, and Mr Mok and Florence at BOCHK Sheung Wan branch.

Now there’s nothing left at my place except my bike and kit; I’ve not even got a kettle any more so I’ve come down to this cafe. Well. I’m leaving HK tomorrow. No going back now. Better go and pump up the tyres…