Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
'Why not?' he replied, shrugging. Everything else had gone our way for the day,
and this just felt like a well-deserved ending.
A few hours later our patience was at breaking point. It had already been a long
day, but the extra thirty to forty kilometres through heavy traffic had taken its toll.
What was more, we still didn't have a place to stay! First the men had taken us to
a house where an old man yelled angrily at them. Then they drove to an expensive
hotel. After several hours of this, we began to question their intelligence. When we
finally decided to cycle out of the city into agricultural land to set up camp, they
were still following.
Just outside the city centre we stopped to say goodbye one last time. One of the
men motioned that we should make camp on the concrete embankment of a nearby
river. It was surrounded by busy streets and tall buildings. When I declined, he
grabbed me by the arm. 'No, you stay here camp! Money and no policeman. You
go and very bad, very bad!' he said, visibly angry and pointing at a police station
across the road.
'Sorry, I don't understand. Goodbye, we are going!' I replied.
They began to yell in Chinese. One man grabbed my shoulder to prevent me
from cycling off, while the other sprinted towards the police station.
'Bugger off!' I yelled. I turned and thumped him in the stomach with my elbow.
His grip relaxed and I pedalled away. I dropped over a kerb, swerved into the busy
traffic and was gone, pushing at the cranks like my life depended on it.
'Chris, let's get off the road and hide. Let's get off the road!' I yelled. He was
somewhere behind me, but in the pitch black I couldn't see a thing.
Is that their motorbike coming? When will a police car give chase?
I called out to Chris again. 'Well, let's get off the bloody road then!' came his
reply.
I turned into the darkness and ploughed straight through a garden bed. When the
wheels ceased to turn, I dropped the bike and ran blindly until my legs gave way. I
fell clumsily into a ditch; Chris promptly followed.
We sat panting heavily and peeping above the line of the ditch towards the
traffic. There was silence for a long time, until our heart rates fell back to a more
leisurely pace. At some stage, a police car drove by with its lights flashing, and our
'friends' in tow.
At first we agreed to stay another half hour, but in the end even the ditch seemed
inviting. It was just deep enough to lie in and be hidden from view. So, squeezed
between a busy major road and a field of lettuce, we settled in for the night.
