Old but new to you Qinzhou (56k get a sandwich) **Pics Fixed

[Suprsignet]

My name is Mike Gibson. I exploit my nationality's perceived ability to teach English as a second language and use that money to finance my excursions all over Asia. Now I'm 29 years old and seem to be getting older all the time. I have been in China for about 4 months during this trip. Altogether I think I could say I've spent about one year of total time to date in the beautiful big red machine. I have limited speaking, writing and reading Mandarin capacities (anyone want to give me a real job?) and I use these to aid my travels throughout china.

At Present in China I have visited,

Shanghai, Suzhou, Xuzhou, Suqian, Handan, Beijing, Jinan, Qunzhou, and now I am living in Qinzhou.

If I have time and if my memory hasn't been damaged badly I will try to add my thoughts about these cities along with some pictures that I snapped along the way. However this blog will primarily be dedicated to recording my travels through Guangxi, Yunnan, Hainan, and Guangdong on my 48cc Chinese motorcycle.

The beginning of life in a new place, I have landed in Qinzhou a small city on the coast of the gulf of Tonkin, 75 km North East of the Vietnamese border. Life here is good. The pace is relaxed and the people are friendly. The thing that amazes me the most about Guangxi in general is the clean and clear skies. I really never thought I would find anything like this anywhere in China, let alone in a city centre. Every day holds a hundred pictures to take and it seems there are really not enough minutes in a day to suck in all its beauty. The question most often asked of me is, "Where the hell is that place?" Well hold on a minute and I'll show you.


Qinzhou itself is a really unique place. The city itself is a minute of the old, the pseudo new and the very new. All three parts are in different locations and will be chronicled here through a photo diary. I have had my camera out a few times since arrival but I've been too busy sucking in the sights to bother wanking on my magic picture box. My following entries will provide more details about this amazing place along with, I hope some reasonably nice pictures.


I will try my best to keep this blog updated on a daily basis. I need a venue to share my experiences with everyone instead of calling my friends all over the world to tell them about the amazing life they are missing.


Qinzhou is one of these rare finds, rich with tradition and amazing architecture (amazing in the fact it is about 80 years old and never been renovated or painted). Now don't get me wrong the whole city is not some old dilapidated shit hole waiting to fall down and keeping people needing daily tetanus shots, but unlike most Chinese cities is the old is left to the old, the reasonably new is left the reasonably new and the new is just that new. In most cities in China a lot of the cool old shit most people come to China is being ripped down at an unrealistic pace. Places like Beijing have there small little preserved districts, but the heart and essence of the old city has been lost and turned into a tourist mecca that is now being used to suck money out of people's pockets and portrait a false picture of how life in this place actually functions. It is kind of like a Disneyland for tourist6s who want to come to China and take some pictures with out really coming to China. I'm sure most of the stuff you could experience in a place like Beijing or Shanghai could be experienced in most China towns in most places of the world.





Qinzhou on the other hand is unique. All sections of the city function as one, not changing for the sake of tourists (yet). The old city is a time capsule, unpainted and surreal. It is like a weird movie set or really like stepping back in time. People go about their daily business there as if nothing has changed in 80 years. It is refreshing not to be hounded by people trying to sell me fake Rolexes and fake bags. Really when I am in the old city it is like walking though and old photograph.












You can even grab a shave right on the street for 2 rmb (about $0.30 US)





One of the problems with deciding to live anywhere in any part of the world is transportation. Larger city centres like Seoul, Korea have excellent mass transit systems to shuttle people from their over crowded, small apartments to the Korean companies that exploit them like slave labour until they have a nervous breakdown, die at work or through some miracle of life actually reach retirement. However in a smaller city like Qinzhou transportation is soon realized to be something we had to often taken for granted.

By Asian standards Qinzhou is a small city. although not really geographically small the city comes with a small population of about 260,000. This is a little hard to believe when you venture into the city centre and find streets upon streets upon streets to purchase the necessities one can't possibly live with out, but the many kilometres of streets seem empty in comparison to even the smallest Chinese cities I have visited. Buses are here and are cheap, but seem to move at a snail's pace. Taxis are also here but are few in numbers and waiting for one in the centre of the city is an exercise in one of the best ways to waste one's time. The other option is a Cheap taxi which is basically the front of a motorcycle with the rear of a small truck. You climb into these things through the back and pray that their lack of suspension will not break your back while travelling to your desired destination.



My choice of these three was obvious, none of the above. After all this is China and things are cheap. I thought it might be worth my while to take a trip to the local pawn shops and check out the motorcycles that people have ransomed to fulfill their majong debts. well a white face in a Chinese pawn seems to be nothing more than a big money sign and I couldn't seem to find anything I wanted at a reasonable price. Most bikes in these shops were alright but nothing to get me excited and the prices were about the same as buying a cheap new motorcycle. So I decided to talk a walk though the new motorcycle district and found the perfect little Guangxi cruiser, a 48cc moped-esq bike with a real 4 speed motorcycle transmission and a top speed of about 80km.
Now I know what you're thinking. You're probably thinking, "How can a grown adult that is 183cm look cool riding this bike?" Well I'll tell you how. The bike new cost me 1800rmb that works out to about $250-$270 USD comes with a one year warranty and a year's insurance for no extra cost and because it is under 50cc I don't need to go through the process of getting a Chinese driver's license, pay any road tolls or get a license plate for the bike. Pretty cool huh?

After 3 days of riding the bike now had 470km on it and had achieved near 70km per litre of fuel. 70:1 is pretty good.

The bike also affords me the freedom of going where I please when I please and not having to worry about taxi availabilities or overly slow an inconvenient buses.

Ok... Onto trip one

Sunday July 22nd. The date of my first 48cc journey. Sadly I didn't take the camera with me on this one because of the rainy weather forecast. At 10 am I hopped on my bike and began the 80km journey to a reportedly nice beach. Now I live near the ocean and I really love to sit and relax on a nice tuff of white sand and go for a nice swim in the ocean. The day before I had asked my coworkers where I could find a nice place to relax and the answer I got was San Yuan Yan.

The ride to the beach was amazing, a little rain to keep me cool in 35+ degree heat and long empty smooth roads in front of me. I couldn't believe the beauty rolling by me as my 50 chewed up the Guangxi roads. Trees, greenery, hills that look like Shriner's hats, rice patties, Chinese field cows, Chinese field cow shit and a few old buildings to round out the works. What an amazing ride. Sure I got a little wet, but the sun came out and I was dry in no time.

Upon arriving at the "beach" I was once confronted with the new China's lust for the Red Mao Head (the 100rmb note). For me to even pass through the gate I had to lay down a good 30rmb per person (enough to feed myself and a friend for a day), but I thought I rode all this way and it can't be much worse on the inside. Well I was wrong, upon entering the gate and riding my bike 1 km to the beach I was bombarded with people selling things, trinkets and souvenirs. My lunch set me back another 80 rmb for and then when I wanted to relax on the beach I had to pay again. What an uncomfortable experience. Trying to put all the greed behind me I decided to hop back on the 50 and try to find a nicer place, one with out the ridiculous amusement park prices.






The ride home was much the same as the ride there, beautiful scenery and few to no cars on the road. At least on the bike I had found peace for a few hours, but that peace came at the price of the worst motorcycle tan I have ever experienced. My chest and back are now the colour of a tub of glue while my neck arms and face will leave you wondering about my ethnicity. Now I have a new reason to find a comfortable beach and that is to unify the colouring of my body.

I'm sad to say that after 480km on the road I still haven't found the place. I've read about one and I'll let you know more about it later

Trip #2

If you leave the school's main gate and turn left and proceed to drive straight along one road for about 2 hours at 40-50kmph you'll reach the Chinese Vietnam border. I have looked at Google Earth extensively and I do know of one beach that lies between myself and Vietnam, now I just need to find the road that gets me to that beach.

This trip was uneventful. Nothing more than kilometres and kilometres of fresh new tarmac. I saw a few small Chinese towns and after about an hour and half and looking at the map and realizing I was no where near my intended destination I decided to head back towards Qinzhou and check out the coast line closer to the city. So I turned around and headed back up the road until I got to an intersection and decided to turn right an head to the coast. Upon reaching the coast I was a little disappointed but at the same time impress by the old fish farms and large seawall I was presented with. I then proceeded to ride along the seawall the rest of the way back to Qinzhou. Sadly I can't seem to find the pictures from the trip, but I will be going out that way again just to take some pictures.

[Suprsignet]

Trip # 3

Today was my third long distance outing on my trusty Chinese 48cc horse and I must say that the little thing is a real delight to own and ride. I'm extremely happy with the purchase, even though I had to spend the better part of last Saturday in the shop repairing a final drive bolt that had worked its way loose and decided to rip up my beautiful chain guard. After a bucket of free new parts I was presented with a new top box for the bike and tank net at no cost but my troubles and began to plan my next big trip.





Most of my outings to date have been in search of the magically untouched beach which I am really begging to believe doesn't exist in this part of China. That isn't really a bad thing, I mean unless you're Korean you're not going to get angry at your kids for scoring 99% on their math test right? Right. This place is still as near perfect as I could have hoped for and the search for the beach takes me to many places where the only white faces the locals have seen are on the magic electric picture box.





After studying my map closely and thinking about things thoroughly and even talking to some Chinese coworkers I was told that Longmen might be the place I have been looking for. So I hopped on my bike today at 11:00am under a sweltering 39 degree sun and headed down the Guangxi coast towards the Vietnam border. Longmen on the map is roughly about 90 km of road from my door step in Qinzhou and it is basically and Island containing a fishing village and possibly a beach.






The first 50km of the ride were nice and smooth, (Guangxi has some of the smoothest and nicest new roads I have ever had the pleasure to ride on) uneventful and filled with an air on anticipation of what the road ahead holds. I must say that riding a bike on open roads with a nice breeze on me is one of the best ways I know to relax. The 50 ate up the first 50km and was hungry for more when I suddenly ran out of road. According to my map the city/town/village/ island I was trying to find was dead strait ahead of me and since I had the Ocean to the left of me I thought I could press on down this shotty dirt road that lay in front of me. I mean, how long can a shotty dirt road really be?






Well to answer my question I would have to ride about 25 km over ass breaking potholes large enough to loose an average sized Japanese man in and fight through spoke filling mud (it's the rainy season now). The road although in rough shape was sidelined by some really beautiful scenery and in my thoughts I tried to make my brain realize that if the road to this place is really this bad most people wouldn't even bother visiting this city and maybe, just maybe I could find the beach I have been looking for.



Well 25km of hemorrhoid inducing fun later I hit another patch of Guangxi butter pavement. New road sprung up out of the ass wrenching horror I had just transversed and I couldn't really understand why. Maybe it was pity someone has relished upon the poor souls who dare ride the road to find the fish, or maybe it was because they had just connected this city to the new Guangxi highway network.

Upon arriving in Longmen I was faced with a city trapped in time. At this point in my life I'm not to familiar with Chinese time lines, but I would probably place this about 30 years behind the rest of the present country's state of growth. Old pictures of Mr. Mao's big bald head and commy slogans dotted the buildings providing a nice atmosphere and pulling me out of the humdrum I'm confronted by on a daily basis. The town itself wasn't much to look at, an island full of old 80s-esq Chinese homes and storefronts, flanked by ocean and lots of fishing boats.



After riding around the city snapping pictures for about 40 min I sat down and grabbed a Guava juice and tried to chat it up with the locals. Not being able to speak the Guangxi language I am usually forced to use a small child as a translator between myself and the adult I wish to communicate with. However, today I was lucky. The shop owner who sold me my guava juice spoke decent putonghua and we were able to have a decent conversation. It turns out there are no beaches in Longmen, just a lot of fishing boats and fishermen and their wives, parents and kids. Most people in this city had never seen a white face in person before and after about 10 minutes I had a group of about 30 people standing in front of me trying to make sense of the poor Chinese words spilling from my mouth. Longmen was a nice place, full of warm people, nice sea and good guava juice, but sadly there was no beach. So, I hopped back on my bike and headed home to get some dinner back through the ass breaking road and back to my home.

[Suprsignet]

After about 4 weeks of searching I managed to find the beach I was looking for. About an hour and half ride through beautiful junge and amazing views.

It is nearly empty all the time, with huts in the tree line that'll bring you an ice cold beer for 4rmb and let you hang in the hamocks all day.

[liverchip]

Welcome and nice report, however some of the photos aren't going though!

[Suprsignet]

they a work for me, which ones aren't working? copy and paste the link and I'll fi them

[liverchip]

Originally Posted by Suprsignet

After about 4 weeks of searching I managed to find the beach I was looking for. About an hour and half ride through beautiful junge and amazing views.

It is nearly empty all the time, with huts in the tree line that'll bring you an ice cold beer for 4rmb and let you hang in the hamocks all day.


My friend Scott from the States. He rides a Qingqi like Carl's

These ones.

[katoranger]

I wasn't able to see any without cutting and pasting.

Nice report.

Thanks, Allen

[ambassador]

Nice Report,
Some pics are not going through, the ones that did are Great...

[Suprsignet]

Working on it now. If you guys are looking for a place to host photos, don't use pbase.com

[katoranger]

You can sign up for a gallery here or I like www.allyoucanupload.com

Allen

[Suprsignet]

Thanks, I have a lot of photo hosting accounts on different websites, just I've been having trouble uploading today

[Suprsignet]

Pics Fixed

[mrhyak]

A great read, looking forward to more...

THANKS!

[liverchip]

Awesome photos! Not sure if I'd be brave enough for the old street shave there.

[warrior91]

Nice ride report....Seems like guys in China really tell good stories.
Awesome pictures...all worked for me.