Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
our second visit to Ulaan Baatar, and she had agreed to meet us there - right there,
in the very centre, Tiananmen Square.
For the very last time, I climbed onto my bike and flexed my fingers around the
brake levers. Then, with a deep breath and a glance at Tim, I clicked my ragged
shoes into the squeaking pedals and pushed off into the crisp morning air.
The morning was a tumultuous blur of traffic, shops and people. Beijing was
the biggest city I'd been in by far, yet all of the millions of people seemed to be
crammed into a tiny space, one on top of the other. It was like a huge, bulging city
squeezed into the shell of what was really only meant to hold, at best, a large town-
ship.
We became caught up in a surging crowd of cyclists. There were thousands
packed across the road and taking up more lanes than the honking traffic. We darted
forward, from one traffic light to the next, while the buildings on the roadside be-
came taller and more sophisticated. We passed a McDonalds - the first we had seen
in (I counted back) about 10 000 kilometres and over a year - but it flashed by in
an instant and we were back to surging ahead with the crowd.
We didn't have a map of the city and we had no idea which road we were on,
but the direction still seemed good, and the buildings were getting more impressive
and city-like all the time. We pulled over and sheltered from the muggy heat under
a loudly vibrating overpass bridge. Neither of us had a watch - we'd been riding
without knowing the time for most of the year - but experience and the first hints
of fatigue in my legs told me that we'd been going for several hours already. It had
all passed in a flash of sights and sensations though, and I'd been running on ad-
renaline the whole time. It was only now, as we stopped for a breather and to take a
drink of water from our dirt-encrusted bottles, that my thoughts slowed enough to
return to the mood of the morning.
Was it possible that only a few weeks ago we'd pushed for days through the
heart of the desert without seeing another soul? Beijing was overwhelming and
confusing, and as much as I'd so often longed for the end of the journey, nothing
during the past year had prepared me for this mass of people. While I might have
found the experience of Beijing exciting another time, right now it represented a
huge transition, a new beginning and a final end.
I closed my eyes and wished I didn't have to be there. Just a week from now,
I'd be home with Nat, and only a week before we'd still been cycling. I longed for
both, equally. I was yearning for the past. And the future! I just didn't want the
now.
