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“Our moral nature is such that we cannot be idle and at ease” - Leo Tolstoy

“It is an unnatural business to find yourself in a strange place with an underutilized brain and no particular reason for being there, and eventually it makes you go a little crazy” - Bill Bryson

Inland China to Hong Kong

Rob Lilwall
2007-12-01 14:39:44

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move is not a good way to live for too long. It has been refreshing to have time off the bicycle; it is a privilege to get to know people for more than one or two days; it even feels fun to do some voluntary work. Probably, missing out on being able to build deeper friendships and not having a purposeful job is what I have been missing the most over these last eleven months. It is so easy to take such things for granted.

Once I leave these shores, I realize that I will be forced to stop even pretending that I am heading towards home. I am heading south and into (what I expect will be) the toughest adventures since Siberia? through the perilous high seas (with pirates), across the exotic spice islands (with corrupt bureaucrats and mountainous jungles) and down to the mysterious land of Oz (with poisonous snakes and strange Australians). (joke)

As always, many, many thanks for your kind emails, prayers and donations to Viva Network. In Manila I will be spending two weeks working with the children at risk projects they operate there ? more info to follow.

I think this one requires a little explanation! It actually has to be my most stunning "Mr Bean of global cyclists�? moment of the journey thus far... AND it was caught on camera. What happened was this: having been hosted by some wonderful Chinese friends at a university for a few days, it was time for me to make my noble departure... the group gathered to bid me a safe, grand and victorious journey, and I positioned my camera to take a final "self timer�? shot. I set the timer going and ran to pick up my ludicrously heavy bike... then wheeled it hastily over to join the line up... then realised I was moving far too fast and had far too much momentum to stop in time... and (o how foolish) that I could not reach my breaks in time... and thus (as you will by now have worked out) I crashed into my unsuspecting friends in their behinds (rather to their bewilderment)... and - of course - at that very moment - the shutter clicked. Ooops.(!)

...and finally, here is a funny Bill Bryson quote to make you smile:

"Prolonged solitary travel, you see, affects people in different ways. It is an unnatural business to find yourself in a strange place with an underutilized brain and no particular reason fro being there, and eventually it makes you go a little crazy. I?ve seen it in others often. Some solitary travelers start talking to themselves: little silently murmured conversations that they think no-one else notices. Some desperately seek the company of strangers, striking up small talk at shop counters and hotel reception desks and then lingering for an uncomfortably long period before finally departing. Some become ravenous, obsessive sightseers, tramping to see everything, Me, I get a sort of interrogative diahorrea. I ask private, internal questions ? scores and scores of them ? for which I cannot supply answers. And so as I stood by a greengrocer?s in Thurso, looking at its darkened interior with pursed lips and a more or less empty head, from out of nowhere I thought, ?Why do they call it a grapefruit?? and I knew the process had started." (Notes from a small Island)