{"id":983,"date":"2011-10-07T17:58:27","date_gmt":"2011-10-07T09:58:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asianomad.biketravellers.com\/?p=983"},"modified":"2012-01-15T04:57:10","modified_gmt":"2012-01-14T20:57:10","slug":"longquan-and-baigongyan-reservoir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/asianomad.biketravellers.com\/2011\/10\/07\/longquan-and-baigongyan-reservoir\/","title":{"rendered":"Longquan and Baigongyan Reservoir"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is about a cycle ride I made with three fellow couch surfers on another weekend here in Chengdu, China.\u00a0 Andrew is from America and cycled more than two years to collect funds for a school in southern India.\u00a0 I had originally derived inspiration from his example and planned my own cyclists’ charity ride around India — at least the idea was there.\u00a0 My ride never became manifest — Andrew’s ride with his brother did and it collected funds that were delivered earlier this year (2011).\u00a0 It was ironic that Andrew — who knew nothing of his inspiration to me — arrived at my door as another Couch Surfer I hosted here in Chengdu.\u00a0 We shared stories and compared notes — I had founded an orphanage for Burmese children in Thailand while working there as a teacher so we had experiences in common to discuss.\u00a0 We differed on our perspectives on faith and religion — not surprising in light of our individual experiences.\u00a0 Stefan from Amsterdam and Malwina from Poland were staying with me at the same time as Andrew visited me — on his return to Chengdu, the second time I hosted him.\u00a0 Stefan and I shared a dream — he related how he wanted to purchase a tugboat to live on and I told him stories of my life as a sailor and my own desire to somehow live on a houseboat or fishing boat somewhere in south Asia.\u00a0 We all decided to cycle together to a nearby town not far from Chengdu — about 25 kilometers to the southeast, to be exact, on just another weekend off from teaching at my kindergarten where I have been for the past two and a half years.\u00a0 Below is a map of the local area and the route we followed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Looking at this map, you can see how I planned the ride using Google Earth and Google Maps to print out a collection of ‘screenshots’ and tape together our route on paper.\u00a0 Andrew ‘beat me out’ as a leader for this ride, using his two years experience of around the world travel and his handy GPS mounted on his cycle to download the entire route from this website<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 I admit I don’t know much about GPS and am fairly suspicious about modern technology.\u00a0 I was left cycling in ‘Andrew’s wake’ as he would cruise ahead downloading the map and upcoming turns from the satellite — he often took shortcuts that weren’t on my ‘reality map’.\u00a0 I must admit that my ‘reality map’ was based upon personal memories of two previous picnic trips I had made to Longquan.\u00a0 My memory couldn’t compete with his GPS.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>However, now that I have been guided through a new cycling experience, the route is NOW FIRMLY in my memory for recall on the next trip to this pleasant town on the edge of the hills that lie to the southeast of Chengdu.\u00a0 Here is a picture of our destination — Baigongyan Reservoir — as it appears on Google Earth.\u00a0 I had planned my route on my dream cycle around India with just such maps and screenshots from the internet.\u00a0 I will still trust them — in a final evaluation — because I am not sure the internet will still be available when I do finally cycle in India and downloaded and printed out maps will be my guide along with local people I meet along the way.\u00a0 Andrew’s experience is VALID — it’s just not MINE.\u00a0 It is another different between us as individuals to APPRECIATE not argue about.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Stefan and Malwina were ‘good troopers’ on this ride as I had equipped them with my two BTwin cycles purchased from the local Decathlon while I tried out my new Trike Tadpole Recumbent (made in China but copied from Western designs) on a longer ride across the countryside.\u00a0 We managed to keep up with Andrew only because he would take pity on us and wait for us patiently from time to time.\u00a0 I can’t hope to ever compete with his experience of being a mountain bike racer nor his Rohloff hub equipped cycle.\u00a0 I did, however, find a trailer to compete with his — again, another Chinese ‘knockoff’.\u00a0 This is not to demean Chinese cycles — I have seen plenty in the shops around town that I would trust myself on in India.\u00a0 They are just heavier and would be harder to push up and down hills — not that my ‘trike’ isn’t heavy enough and no great hill climber.\u00a0 I will just have to plan my route to go around as many hills as I can.\u00a0 As it was, I could just keep Malwina in my sights — a nice view from my perspective (just joking, Stefan!).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>We managed to find the main road to Longquan heading southeast out of Chengdu by taking my ‘shortcut’ across the countryside and had a nice breakfast in a local village shop of steamed buns and rice porridge.\u00a0 Might I add I was struggling with my personal hangover from the Chinese liquor I had inbibed the night before.\u00a0 I guess I was the ‘reality anchor’ for this trip.\u00a0 Halfway to Longquan, we did stop for a mid-morning snack at the nice, new McDonalds on the highway.\u00a0 It had an actual ‘drive-through’ window — only the second I have seen here.\u00a0 It did take us three and a half hours to get there — we managed to cut an hour off that on the route back because we all knew the way by then.\u00a0 Upon our arrival at the hotel overlooking the reservoir, what did we encounter but a Chinese electric version of my trike.\u00a0 It was available for rides around the reservoir.\u00a0 I didn’t take the offer but just appreciated the ‘enclosed rainproof’ design and the power source.\u00a0 My legs were tired and in need of a cold beer.\u00a0 Of course, we had one at the hotel patio.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Baigongyan Reservoir is a nice lake park situated just outside Longquan.\u00a0 We cycled around it on the hill to get a view from above.\u00a0 It took all my strength to push that trike of mine up the slopes.\u00a0 I am seriously considering converting my trike to something like the Chinese one pictured above.\u00a0 I have been able to find a new version of an electric cycle in a local shop that has a lithium battery.\u00a0 It’s fine for flat city roads but the battery can not cope with the Himalaya.\u00a0 It does hide nicely underneath the rear rack but of what use is that?\u00a0 After going online and looking at the latest batteries and their accompanying technology in the U.S. designed to power trikes like mine and their price tag of several thousand dollars I am back to my tired old legs for the power source of my trike.\u00a0 Thus, my cycle ride routes for the future will be planned around the least number of hills I can encounter.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>We decided not to eat lunch near the lake.\u00a0 Andrew had to meet someone back in Chengdu and we had to leave by 1 p.m. to get back in time for his engagement.\u00a0 However, we did have time to try out the local go-kart track and take a little boat ride around the lake.\u00a0 The go-karts were FAST and Stefan proved to be the best driver around the little track on one side of the lake — Malwina was looking at my ‘ass’ this time!\u00a0 (Again, sorry, Stefan!)\u00a0 He also played ‘Captain’ when we took out the electric powered boat for a ride.\u00a0 Both rides were nice — but on opposite ends of the speed scale.\u00a0 In any case, I was too busy munching out on my ice \"\"<\/a>cream (my replacement for the missed lunch) to notice Stefan’s piloting skills (he’s the guy without a beard!)\u00a0 The weather was nice this day.\u00a0 It doesn’t usually cooperate with cyclists in Chengdu.\u00a0 The sky is more often than not overcast and winters can get gloomy here.\u00a0 The sun smiled on us this day and we hardly noticed.\u00a0 \"\"<\/a>On the way back to my apartment, we cycled past the huge Volkswagen car factory located on the northern edge of Longquan.\u00a0 It seems like the entire countryside between Chengdu and this town to the southeast are devoted to similar car factories.\u00a0 The Chinese are certainly busy enough building highways to and from everywhere for uncountable numbers of cars.\u00a0 Each driver has to have his own motor chariot.\u00a0 I prefer the cyclist’s alternative and always will.\u00a0 This is another aspect of technology that Andrew and I probably agree on.\u00a0 He has told me horror stories of the traffic in India.\u00a0 I will have some compromises to make in my future planned journey there — I hope to find the car abandoned tracks that lead from one village to the next.<\/p>\n

Perhaps I will yet realize my dream of wandering India and the south Asian subcontinent as a ‘holy monk’ of one sort or another.\u00a0 This day’s ride just proved to me that I still have the energy to keep up with younger companions.\u00a0 We will have to see what the future will bring before I can conclude if the feat is reproducible.<\/p>\n

Dhane Blue, 7 October, 2011<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is about a cycle ride I made with three fellow couch surfers on another weekend here in Chengdu, China.\u00a0 Andrew is from America and cycled more than two years to collect funds for a school in southern India.\u00a0 I had originally derived inspiration from his example and planned my own cyclists’ charity ride […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9086],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cycling-in-china"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/asianomad.biketravellers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/asianomad.biketravellers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/asianomad.biketravellers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/asianomad.biketravellers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/359"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/asianomad.biketravellers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=983"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/asianomad.biketravellers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":985,"href":"http:\/\/asianomad.biketravellers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983\/revisions\/985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/asianomad.biketravellers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/asianomad.biketravellers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/asianomad.biketravellers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}