Saturday, March 11, 2017

World walk blog China 20

Update: 12,570 kms walked in 319 road days on www.myworldwalk.com

> As I wandered through towns and villages in southern China I continued to get a great kick from the people. Their warmth is infectious. I particularly enjoy playing with the children. Often it's a big enough shock for them just to hear a foreigner speaking ' funny ' without one who pulls faces and goes through the whole gambit of animal noises! Sometimes I screw off the orange cover of my plastic beaker and hold it between my teeth to cover my nose, orange nose. That always gets a laugh, from the young and old.
> After a 47 kilometre day I was walking long into the evening. I was wondering where I would stay that night. Just then I came to an illuminated hot springs resort which had a large car park. There was nobody about so I decided to pitch my tent in a quiet corner. Just as I was setting it up a security guard came along. He phoned the manager. My luck was in for the friendly manager of the Yu Long Hot Springs brought me inside for a free session and then later I was given a comfortable bed in a VIP lounge, luxury!
> I left pretty late the next morning. For the next three days drizzle was to accompany me towards Duyun. I walked over muddy potholed roads,
> Splashed by trucks and several times Karma saved me from slipping on the greasy surface. Sometimes she is like my Zimmer frame! I had to be particularly careful when walking down steep hills.
> China has been pretty much like one big building site, so much construction and modernizing going on. I understand that many new treasures and archaeological sites have been discovered in the process.
> After my session in the hot springs I was jaded on the road the next day for it took a huge effort to walk my 32 kilometres. Perhaps I didn't drink enough water during and after the session. I also went through a couple of days where I didn't get good quality food, for I made bad choice stops in some eateries where the food was cold or not palatable.
> But I was soon  back to form, I was turbo charged for I pounded out a mud soaking 57 kilometres over a 13 hour day. I only stopped once, for a late lunch. That was in a town with a name which has to be pronounce carefully ' Fuquan! '
> Well it was that kind of a day and evening. I walked past several villages where dogs barked me down the road. Dogs here are not really kept for pets, they are always kept outside. More like cheap alarm systems. I was wondering where I would stop for the night. Just then I came to a place that looked like a grocery store. It was also a restaurant and doubled up as an inn with a bed for the night. What luck I got a clean bed in a basic room for little more than the cost of a coffee in Europe. Dinner cost the same. The old man gave me a basin of hot water to wash myself and then another to soak my feet.
> Further on down the road I met a couple of English cyclists who had just cycled from Hong Kong. Pam and Steve were on a six week cycle holiday and they spoke of the axles and gear mechanisms on their bicycles getting clogged up with the mud.
> I noted that Steve rode an old classic bicycle, a Hollingsworth  which he rode to India on over forty years ago. He also rode from the UK to South Africa.
> Just like for me, Steves inspiration was Dervla Murphy, the Irish woman who cycled to India on a three-speed bicycle in the '60s.

Tonight, Saturday, tired and wet I got five refusals in Duyun before I finally found a hotel that would allow me to stay.
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