Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ing the brakes, we began to roll effortlessly downwards. Soon we were rocketing
along with the rush of air in our ears. After ten minutes the bottom was still beyond
view, so I stopped to put on an extra layer of clothes over my stiffened limbs. Never
had we encountered such a long downhill slope. An unspoken thought lingered
between us: This is it! This is the final plunge down from the plateau, safely into
the haven of warm weather. Surely nothing can stop us now! I turned off the video
camera. These were moments to savour.
Eventually, we hit flat ground and rolled into the fierce sunlight of the valley
floor. It was another world.
Aspen trees lined the road, their canopies thick with green leaves. Rice paddies
and crops of corn formed neat squares and cut a patchwork quilt into the land. The
road widened to allow for four lanes of traffic: two for conventional cars and the
others for hordes of cyclists, donkeys and carts, rickshaws, tractors and an array
of small engine-powered contraptions. On every spare space of concrete or tarmac,
people were spreading out wheat grain for drying and sorting. We were startled by
a fleet of motorbikes that zoomed past, each with about five live sheep strapped
onto the front and sides. Their legs and heads were dangling perilously close to the
ground and had been grazed on the bitumen, leaving a trail of blood.
It wasn't a town or a city, just a dense band of population. The land above had
been a comparable wasteland.
With spirits high, it felt like we could join the throng and be swept away to the
end; as far as we knew, it was only another 200 kilometres or so.
After a brief stop for lunch we hurried towards a halo of smog in the distance.
We weren't too concerned about the police anymore. If the law was widely en-
forced, then we wouldn't have made it out of Jining. Since then we had probably
passed 300 or so policemen, and most had given us a friendly wave. Presumably, it
was only a law exercised in closed areas.
By early evening we were beneath the smog and closer to the city of
Zhangjiakou. As we were discussing where to camp, a motorbike with two young
men pulled up. I recognised them as the pair that had been following us for about
three and a half hours.
'Hey, come, my home, you sleep there,' one of them said, pointing in the direc-
tion of Zhangjiakou. I thought it strange because it is illegal for foreigners to stay
with Chinese locals unless permission has been granted. But the idea of sleeping in
a bed and seeing the inside of a Chinese house was an inviting idea. 'What do you
reckon, Chris?' I asked.
