China blog #66
Today, Tuesday I
started walking from the south of a large city called Suzhou and
finished almost ten kilometres north-west of it. It was a difficult walk
in so far as there was much construction going on in the city and I had
to do a lot of walking around detours. At one stage the road I was
walking on disappeared 
See photo with the blocked up wall. That delayed me about an hour as I
had to find an alternative route to cross a bridge. As mentioned
before...Google Maps due to Google being banned here has some flaws.
Obviously, Chinese Transport officials won't be advising Google of the
construction updates and detours.
I read an article that in China when a structure is built that it can take weeks or even months for it to show up to the outside world on Google Earth.
When I run into this kind of hassle I usually navigate myself out of trouble like this: If I'm walking north and run into a closed section of road I then check my map and head out either east or west. I look for a parallel road to the problem one and hopefully, it will be a few kilometres long and enables me to get back further north on the section which was impassible.
In Suzhou, I stopped at lunchtime in a pretty park and then when I went looking for a toilet I saw a sign that directed me towards an 'emergency toilet' Not sure what that was about. A signpost beside a lake!
There was a lot of silliness on the road. One woman stopped her car at the end of a cycle path and blocked a lot of bicycles, scooters and me too! See my last photo.
Then further on up the road, a woman walked right out in front of a car which missed her by about a foot. She was looking at her phone and even after that she was oblivious to what could have happened. An hour later I was crossing at a pedestrian crossing on a green light when a woman devoid of common sense stopped her scooter directly in front of me as I pushed Karma, my cart. She blocked my way on the crossing as she waited for a traffic light to turn green in her direction.
Routinely vehicles don't stop to allow pedestrians to cross. Many break red lights and I have to be pretty assertive that if I hold back while crossing that I don't get stranded halfway across when the lights turn against me.
Oh for the tranquillity and civilised Aussie roads, road trains and all
I read an article that in China when a structure is built that it can take weeks or even months for it to show up to the outside world on Google Earth.
When I run into this kind of hassle I usually navigate myself out of trouble like this: If I'm walking north and run into a closed section of road I then check my map and head out either east or west. I look for a parallel road to the problem one and hopefully, it will be a few kilometres long and enables me to get back further north on the section which was impassible.
In Suzhou, I stopped at lunchtime in a pretty park and then when I went looking for a toilet I saw a sign that directed me towards an 'emergency toilet' Not sure what that was about. A signpost beside a lake!
There was a lot of silliness on the road. One woman stopped her car at the end of a cycle path and blocked a lot of bicycles, scooters and me too! See my last photo.
Then further on up the road, a woman walked right out in front of a car which missed her by about a foot. She was looking at her phone and even after that she was oblivious to what could have happened. An hour later I was crossing at a pedestrian crossing on a green light when a woman devoid of common sense stopped her scooter directly in front of me as I pushed Karma, my cart. She blocked my way on the crossing as she waited for a traffic light to turn green in her direction.
Routinely vehicles don't stop to allow pedestrians to cross. Many break red lights and I have to be pretty assertive that if I hold back while crossing that I don't get stranded halfway across when the lights turn against me.
Oh for the tranquillity and civilised Aussie roads, road trains and all
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