Biking in Jianshui
We wake early in Jianshui with two missions: bicycles, and breakfast.
Breakfast is easy. Around the corner from our guesthouse, we find a man selling bao zi, steamed stuffed buns. We order several: pork, red bean, and something that tastes like rose water and almond paste. We eat them as we walk the cobbled streets.
This story is the continuation of a series that begins here.
Bicycles are more of a challenge. We have a plan (more printed satellite-image maps) to catch several historical sites along the flat distance of the river valley in a long loop.
Ert has asked the woman at our inn where we might find bicycles for rent. We walk across town at her direction, past the temple for Confucius.
In the park around the giant statue (Confucius, enormous, reading a book), the elder population is out in force, with a set of women dancing in synchrony, another set moving in tai-chi like motions with paddles balancing balls, and old men mostly singleton, cracking whips to keep tops spinning. The tops hum as they spin.
Past the park, we turn into a small courtyard. The bike shop is quickly identifiable, an obvious purveyor of wheeled conveyances, but the wares don’t match the Schwinns and Giants in our heads. Arrayed in front are child-sized wheeled things with pedals in the shapes of cars and horses. For adults, there are carts with benches to hold six. Each has two steering wheels and four sets of pedals. I sit on one and can barely pedal; in the small frame, my knees tangle with my elbows.
Another shop is similar. Still another has beautiful bikes in the window, but is barred closed. Finally, a woman Ert asks for ideas pulls out her phone and has a brief discussion with someone. Her friend, it transpires, owns a bike shop. They are generally for sale, but she thinks he might have some for rent as well.
We followed her directions (by this time hungry again enough to stop into a bakery on the way), and sure enough, at the back of a rather nice bike shop is a row of well-used mountain bikes.
Our American bodies are much larger than those of Chinese people on average, but both we and the bikes are capable of adjusting to a compromise position. We bring up the seats. The shop owner adds air to the tires. We practice biking around in the back courtyard– the frames are too small, but it’s not too bad. By the time all five of us are outfitted, we have attracted a small crowd of onlookers, some taking pictures. As often, I wonder what’s strange enough to watch: foreigners on bikes? Foreigners too big for bikes? Foreigners, at all? We don’t mind, though– after all, we came all this way to see things that are completely ordinary to them; we may as well return the favor. We set off.
The first thing I notice biking on the street is a lack of grip between tire and paving stone. It wouldn’t be too hard to lose grip, helmetless, slip sideways and fall. But we don’t have time to think about it, because there is the traffic to consider.
Traffic on Chinese streets can be challenging even as a pedestrian. There are mopeds everywhere, including on the sidewalks, at varying speeds. Generally, you ride on the right, but this is treated as a guideline for some vehicles. Speeds vary, and right of way is mysterious to me. When we cross streets on foot, there’s not usually a traffic gap. We have to trust that the vehicles will go around us- so far, they do. And now that we are vehicles, we have to make sure not to hit anybody ambling across a street.
Within the first block on our freshly acquired bikes, we launch into the biggest traffic circle in town. We cut over the sidewalk and navigate through pedestrians. Cars, carts, mopeds, people engulf us, and then we emerge into traffic down the street. It’s doable. Not completely terrifying. There is a flow to traffic based on everyone making their intentions clear.
We make it to the edge of town and turn onto a much smaller road that parallels the river. There is only the occasional vehicle, so it’s a peaceful ride. The water is running high, so waterfalls are rushing at points of small elevation change. The banks are cultivated with bush-cut bougainvillea interspersed with some orange flower. On the other side of the road, farmers tend lush fields.
The river leads us to Double Dragon Bridge, more than 100 years old, arched across a wide stretch of reflective water. Further on, by a much older covered bridge, there’s a huge herd of quacking ducks. You might expect several hundred ducks to be an uncoordinated mess, but their minders run them in tight, perfect unison using shouted commands.
A train station by the road stands out of place further on. The defunct stop is in the middle of rice paddies, and the tracks don’t seem to go anyplace. Historical Chinese writing on the walls sheds no light here, but answers questions I hadn’t asked, identifying the French style of the architecture as evidence of our proximity to Vietnam.
Our furthest destination is an old town where villagers sit weaving small round cushions out of grass. We poke through a courtyard complex. Ert says it’s not rude in China to look into people’s houses if the door is open. Proving this true, an old man returns home as we look at his baskets and wok, his goose in the pen. He nods, smiles, and passes us through his doorway.
In another village we explore a temple: hall after hall of giant Buddhist statues extended back, all with altars of fruit and burning incense. In the garden, plastic lotuses with solar panel tops chant tinny low-voiced prayers through embedded speakers.
A separate courtyard of the same temple has a set of halls dedicated to Lao Tzu and the Taoist panoply; apparently it is not strange for Buddhist and Taoist temples to share space.
Our way back leads us through a thin path between lotus paddies. Jon and Eileen (perhaps disenchanted with following questionable trails through paddies) decide to ride around the way we’d come; Ert, Rick, and I (refusing to learn from past mistakes) opt to try the trail. We agree on a meeting point on the map and split.
The trail is not good, but it’s passable. We only have to carry the bikes a little bit, and we don’t get our shoes wet. But when we arrive at the meeting point, we realize our named meeting point is ambiguous. Ert rides back up the road to find Jon and Eileen at the other likely endpoint and bring them back.
After a few minutes, I hear my name shouted across the fields: Jon and Eileen have followed the path after all, but are stuck in the lotus paddy trails. They need help solving the maze to get back to the road.
Rick now rides off in the direction Ert has gone, to let him know he shouldn’t wait for Jon and Eileen. But after a long while, Rick comes back without Ert. We decide we should all probably stop moving around.
Finally, Ert appears again across the fields; he’s ridden the entire two-mile loop again to make sure no one is lost.
By now, we’re a bit worried about getting back on time to return the bikes and make our train. We decide we’ll have to swing by our hotel, pick up our packs, and bike with them on back to the shop. We fast-pedal the a long straightaway by the river, all the way back to town.
We’re more confident now with our bikes. In town, after the shortest possible pause to get our gear, we weave through streets and traffic circle. Heavy packs throw our weight as we bump over pebbles and wind around carts – but we make it back to the shop, and catch a ride directly to the train station. Our rest day – not too restful. But we get to our train on time.
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