Day 3 | Crossing the Yangtze

September 7th 2011

184km to 291km

It’s raining when we set off on day 3. We have breakfast at a little stall in front of the chemist and pack some take away baozi. At first we are indecisive on which road to take but with the rainy circumstances we punch forward and keep peddling along the big noisy road. So far our spontaneous navigation has not failed us.

We have a short break at a shop, where laoban helpfully searches on googlemaps and chooses the best route to cross the river. An extremely tall mans pulls over and invites us for lunch at his home; however we aren't hungry and want to get more miles under our belt before we munch on our yummy packed baozi. We hop back onto the banks of the Yangtze and casually cycle past cows, goats and birds. Our lunch is unpacked on the banks of the Yangtze under a self-made canopy consisting of our two bikes and a bed sheet.

After lunch and a little nap we pursue the significant event of crossing the Yangtze River. By accident we meander down a road that leads us right to the end of the queue of a ferry crossing, which leaves in 15 minutes. The other passengers - like everyone we meet - seem very keen to figure out the best route to get to Changsha, one gentleman helpfully suggests that we could take a plane and be there in only a few hours. We board the ferry with our friendly neighbours, one of which is a crazy lady holding two pocket size turtles in each hand. The momentous ride across the Yangtze on a floating rotating dance floor boat is soon crossed.

On the south side of the river the roads are steep, bumpy and dusty, but the mountain vista keeps us cheery. We pass a one-van band and village people walking their buffalo. The town we plan to stay in doesn’t have a hotel so we race to the next city before the night catches us like a great dark thing. Just in time we find a hotel in the city centre, which appears to consist of 50% concrete and 50% neon lights. A late night meal and an evening stroll leaves us ready for bed.

Day 4 | From the City to the Valley

September 8th 2011

291 to 328km

We decide to rest in the morning and clean up our bikes from the dusty roads we were on the day before. Also take this opportunity to update our blog. We have lunch at Chinese wooden restaurant, which gives us the feeling of being on the movie-set of a Jackie Chan gangster movie set in the 1930s Shanghai. Our nice Fuwuyuan (waitress) is very patient with our limited Chinese food vocabulary and serves us some delicious non-spicy, boneless beef with a side green beans.

After lunch we set out to a bike shop to fix Lana’s broken handlebars and loose foot stand. On our way out of the city we come across once again a MERIDA bike shop. Every time we have a problem with our bikes there happens to be a MERIDA shop in the town we are currently staying in - What are the chances!

Yesterday we said our goodbyes to our loyal companion and guide ‘the Yangtze’ and today we head into a mountain terrain. We cycle on good countryside lanes and through lots of towns which all seem to share one common feature; a steep hill at the town’s exit. The road is an up-down rollercoaster ride with buses overtaking lorries which are overtaking tuctucs which are overtaking motorbikes.

The late afternoon start allows us only to cycle for 40km before night pulls us back into a hotel. As we venture further into the countryside the amount of furniture in each hotel room decreases, but the quality of the Chinglish on headrest substantially increases - see last picture in the slideshow . We eat a dinner of cucumber soup and shredded potatoes (it’s the closest thing Neil can get to Fife cuisine in China, a dish consisting of half potato half grease) and then head to bed ready for a full days cycling tomorrow.

Day 5 | From the Valley to the City of Hot Springs

September 9th 2011

328km to 409km

We mount our bags onto our bikes and head out to find breakfast on the way. Only then do we realize that the villages are too small to offer any food service. As we cycle along a singing tuctuc sails past us selling crisps out the back of it. We shout after him and he lets us try each kind. We cycle to the next village where we stop to munch on our crisps. While Neil is off to the shop to buy some juice, an old man pushes his grandson in a pram over and stops in front of Lana. He asks her if she is Chinese. Once the neighbours realize that the aliens can communicate they slowly one by one move over, until the whole village is out chatting away to the old outsiders.

We cycle through the charming valley and admire the stunning scenery. For lunch we buy a bag full of sweets, cakes and mystery sausage and take a bypass off the main road to find a nice-ish spot to set out our picnic, but giant ants take infest our blanket and we revert to a standing picnic.

Our planned destination for the night will take the rest of the day to cycle to, so we head back onto the road. At the next big road junction we see our first road sign to Changsha! A very satisfying moment, especially since it proves we are going in the right direction. A few kilometres down the road we discover a road sign pointing to `The international city of Hot Springs’, located in an area the Chinese government has designated an ‘official tourism demonstration spot’ – with names as exciting as this we decide to divert from our original route and head into the land of hot springs and protesting tourists.

It starts raining soon after, and we arrive in the neon haze of the city in the early evening. After 4 days of villages and towns, the chaos of the city with its sea of taxis and lines of fast food restaurants strikes us a bit, but we soon adjust to city cycling again and search out a bed for the night. A street populated with clothes shops selling an array of wonderful Chinglish good leads us to a hotel where manage to find a room with internet. We unload our bikes and head back out for something to eat. At the edge of the shopping district we find a market with delicious looking food stalls, so we take shelter and enjoy a dinner of noodles, fried lotus flower, and chicken kebabs. With tired legs and weary eyes we decide against taking a walk to see the sights of the city and head back to the hotel to get a good night’s rest for another day of cycling tomorrow.

5 days down with 5 to go, and all is going well on the tour

Day 6 | Xianning to A Town Outside Chibi

September 10th

409km to 478km

Leave Xianning (International City of Hot Springs) at noon, at the city outskirts we stop for a bite to eat. Have tasty noodles and even tastier zhou. Having munched them down we head back onto provincial road G107 which will take us all the way to Changsha, and are pleased to find that is generally very smooth and not that busy.

We cycle through bamboo forestry with lots of old men chopping bamboo, and lots of young men loading incredible amounts onto flat-bed lorries. Saw world's smallest car. Cycle through lovely undulating bamboo valleys. Seems strange to see autumn coming; lots of yellow leaves on the ground. We arrive at the city of Chibi, but with time and sun still on our side, we carry on hoping to make the most of the day.

20km down the road in a small town a stranded Chinese cyclist waves us down, and asks if we can help him repair his puncture. We have the tools and experience from our training and so offer the young lad a helping hand. We get chatting and find out that ‘Tom’ is quite the cyclist and is also heading to Changsha. However he plans to complete the feat in only two days on his super-fast Chinese racing bike. Unfortunately the repairs to Tom's inner tube take quite some time and it is dark by the time we wave him on his merry way. Luckily for us there is a small hotel in the town we are currently in, so we push our bikes back down the road and ask for a room. They are happy to oblige and very excited to use their pristine, as yet unused foreign visitor registration book. They show us to our room which is nice and contains yet another excellent bed headrest.

We head downstairs looking for something to eat and discover they themselves are getting ready for dinner, and very kindly invite us to join. Spinach, lotus, chicken wings, and regional sticky spicy rice meat dish are indulged. The dinner conversation primarily consists of us either comparing national populations or price per kilogram of various edible produce. After running out of items to compare the dining party disperses and we retire to our room, where we write our blog while listening to Chinese karaoke through the wall.

Day 7 | From Hubei to Hunan

September 11th

478km to 577km

We are woken abruptly in the early hours by the townsfolk bawling their heads off, not sure if it was a major interfamily disagreement or simply the eccentric stall owners selling their wares in the market. Got up and loaded our bags back onto our bikes, said our goodbyes and headed along the road to look for something to eat. We manage to find a very small café (the owner's front room).

Stock up on water and head back onto out faithful friend the G107. We make good pace and wave goodbye to the sombre people of Hubei and hello to the hardworking people of Hunan as we enter the final province of our cycle. We immediately arrive in a town where every single person is either chopping bamboo, sorting bamboo or loading bamboo onto the back of a lorry.

After 3 hours trying to find a quiet spot to eat, we give up and have lunch at the entry of a roundabout in the centre of some city. We enjoy a banquet of jelly, Golden Monkey milk candy, rice cakes, BBQ beef Bugles, fake Pringles, mystery-meat sausage, salted peanuts, sweet Pocket Drink, apple wine gums and lollipops. We slowly gather a crowd of inquisitive locals. Lana has a chat with a man with an extremely thick accent making it impossible to understand what he is saying, but he makes his feeling known by giving the thumbs up and draws a heart on his chest.

The sugar rush kicks in and we are back on the road. We head into quite mountainous terrain but the dramatic scenery is spoiled by mines and the resulting numbers of vehicles on the road. The next 30 km are the noisiest and dirtiest we have cycled on so far. Coming across the next big town we try to escape onto a quieter country road. The map fails us, the signs fail us, the locals fail us and after half hour of cycling we arrive back on the same road we entered on. Not wanting the detour to be a complete waste of time we stop of at a nearby petrol station for a pit stop. Some unusually cheery chaps are driven over by their mate to have a chat. It's not until Lana smells the strong scent of baijiu (a Chinese spirit) that we understand the source of their outgoing nature. They alternate between telling us to ‘keep going straight’ and discussing the economics of modern China. They are then driven away while blowing kisses out of the window.

Failing to find an alternative route, we return on the G107, grit our teeth and head towards our destination for the night. We arrive in the lovely city of Yueyang with its unnecessarily wide roads and picturesque riverside views. We find a neat hotel in the traditional market quarter. We dine under the nearly full moon and look out over our friend the Yangtze River. It feels good to be back next to it and will be the last time we'll see it on the tour.

Day 8 | Stay in Yueyang

September 13th

150 km away from Changsha we spontaneously decide to take Day 8 to rest our legs and prepare for the final assault on Changsha. It is mid-autumn festival – a Chinese national holiday – so we also take the opportunity to gorge ourselves on mooncake, a tasty treat composed of a soft pastry shell and a mystery filling.

In the afternoon we decide to see more of the city with our unloaded bikes. We follow the brown tourism sign to the Yanshan Islet and come across an impressive bridge crossing the Yangtze.

In the evening we take a walk in the market quarter and pick up some tasty food on sticks for dinner. While we try to figure out what is being deep fat fried at the next stall, we are approached by a young Chinese guy with a London accent. We have a drink together and discover ‘Wayne’ has lived in England for the last 8 years, but has returned to China and is now living in Changsha. Our first Changsha friend and we haven’t even arrived yet. :)

Day 9 | From Yueyang to Miluo

September 14th

We wave goodbye to the lovely city of Yueyang, which we definitely recommend for a quick visit if you ever find yourself in China. We name it the Hangzhou of Hunan.

We head south away from the river and the temperate hills of northern Hunan and into the more arid centre of the province. The lush bamboo hillsides of the previous days are replaced by rows of grapevines and flat farm fields. There is also a drastic change in temperature compared to the last few days and during the midday sun our bike computers record a record temperature of 46 degrees.

We cycle through an increasingly arid and deserted landscape consisting of long stretches of tarmac and isolated pockets of buildings. The intense heat makes progress slow and tough, and after a morning of cycling we seek refuge under the cover of a shuttered shop in a village near the middle of nowhere. The shop opens shortly afterwards, drawing a variety of local characters, including one eccentric balding man who is very happy to chat away to us. He tells us tales while we recover our strength, and as we get ready leave he invites to look at his home. Being reassured it is only shortly down the road, we agree and head off.

25 minutes of steep country roads not in the direction of Changsha follow before we arrive at half-built house. The man informs us this will be his new home and shows us round; he proudly shows off the vents for the top-of-the-line heating system it will contain. Unfortunately Lana’s Chinese course failed to cover the intricacies of underfloor heating and much of his explanation is lost to us. He then shows us to his current house, where he swiftly introduces us to his mum and dad and shows us his various id cards before disappearing to another room. We spend an awkward half an hour alone drinking beer and eating peeled pear waiting for him to return, before we give up and decide to get back on the road. We find him, dad, and the rest of the village, outside examining our bikes – turning wheels, changing gears, ringing bells, patting panniers, and generally having a great time. We join them, say our goodbyes, and conclude our most bizarre detour of the tour so far.

Back on the main road and eager to make up for lost time we head off with gusto, but are swiftly halted after only a few metres by a flat rear tyre. We replace the inner tube with a new one rather than try to repair the puncture, meaning we are back on the road fairly swiftly, but we still lose time. Light is already beginning to fade, and we realise we will only manage to make it the 20km to the nearest city.

We arrive in the city safe and sound and find a nice hotel with somewhere secure to store our bikes. We had hoped to do more today, and are around 90km and a full-days cycle from Changsha. We have a bite to eat and head early to bed.

Both of us find it hard to believe that tonight will be our last on the road, and that we only have one day of the tour left to go.

Day 10 | Arrival in Changsha

September 14th

660km to 751km

We woke up early ready for the final day(!) of the Cycling for Butterflies tour. Quite a bit of cycling to do so we grab a quick breakfast of baozi and Chinese energy rice drink and head onto the road.

The morning cycling is similar to yesterday’s - so hot and hilly. We cycle confident of our well chosen route in our now impeccable navigation skills. It’s only when we stop off for water that we discover we have in fact been heading in the wrong direction for the last 30 minutes and am on a completely different road we thought we were. Not to worry however as we discover that this road also leads straight to Changsha. See man with a basket on his head walking a pig.

While cycling through the next city we spot two sporty chaps also on MERIDA bikes. Two students from Changsha on a cycling tour around the Dongting Lake. We team up and cycle together for a couple of hours, which is nice. Even stop to take the ultimate MERIDA promotional picture. Yet again it is extremely hot and we decide to pull over for a rest in a town 21.3 km away from Changsha. Being hardy Chinese the boys carry on through the blazing sun. Thus ending a brief - but great - chapter in the history of MERIDA bikes.

We take the advantage to get something to eat and pop across to the hotel where we enjoy the palest dishes available of rice, potato and cabbage. After Lana has a 5-minute power nap, we move out into the shade to adjust from the kong-tiao climate from which we move out into the roasting sun. We hop back on our bikes and start the final leg of our 10 day journey.

It takes us around 2 hours to get to the outskirts of Changsha. Like all cities in China the first recognisable landmark is a vast network of cranes on the horizon. We cycle into the city on wide empty roads towards our final destination.
As we enter the city centre the empty roads are replaced by chaotic traffic as we hit into rush hour. Of all the cities we’ve been in the motor population of Changsha are the ones who have most embraced the ‘do-what-ever-you-want’ principle of driving, making cycling both exciting and terrifying in equal measure.

We meet Alan, Co-founder of the Butterfly Home, who will join us on his bike for the final few kilometres. Alan already accustomed to the Changsha chaos whizzes us across the last junctions and narrow streets. We arrive at the Home of Lyn and Alan and the End of our Tour.
We will visit the Butterfly Home tomorrow but for now we unload our bikes one last time and put our feet up, celebrating a job well done. :D

10 days, 3 provinces, 1 bruised knee, and 751km (by the way we did not make this value up!) later, and the Cycling for Butterflies tour is over. Thanks to everyone who has supported us along the way and especially those who have also supported Butterfly Home by donating online – You are all excellent!