Home » China » Great Wall

It took most of the afternoon to bicycle out of Beijing. After a morning of gathering everything we could think of, and swinging by Starbucks for a last cup of coffee for who knows how long, we finally started riding around one in the afternoon. At four, we were riding by the summer palace at the northeastern corner of the city. <br />

Great Wall

John Locke
2006-03-29 10:28:04

Displayed times (last time: )

http://www.freelock.com/

It took most of the afternoon to bicycle out of Beijing. After a morning of gathering everything we could think of, and swinging by Starbucks for a last cup of coffee for who knows how long, we finally started riding around one in the afternoon. At four, we were riding by the summer palace at the northeastern corner of the city.

We crossed a canal and left the bustling concrete behind. Now we rode down a tree-lined street, along the canal, around a pagoda-topped peak. Power lines lined our path. A steady stream of trucks, buses, and cars honked as they passed us, never too close.

About five o'clock, we reached the town of Wanquan, listed in our bicycle touring guide as "a possible overnight stop." But there wasn't any lodging here.

The guide, "China by Bicycle," by Ron Griggs, had a great phrase section, containing all the essential bicycle touring phrases missing from our other phrasebooks: "Where should I store my bicycle?" "Can we bring our bikes into our room?" "Can you please fill my water bottle with cool boiled water?" But its route-finding section consisted of merely explaining how to calibrate your bicycle computer so you could follow the tours in the book. And the tours in the book were not fully researched, as we found at our "possible overnight stop," and totally outdated in the four years since publication.

So as we pointed to the phrase "Can you please point to the nearest lodging?," the locals pointed back to Beijing. Uh, oh.

We decided to at least eat something and maybe we could find someone who knew of a place. Stopping at a dumpling house, we had our first confusing ordering experience. We ordered a little Chinese cabbage, and pork dumplings. Out of the kitchen came a huge tray of dumplings, perhaps 30 of them arranged on a 16" steamer. They melted in our mouths, exquisitely succulent.

Then came another tray, the same size. "No," ...