Made in China

For those of you who think that pictures are delicious food for the eyes be warned that this entry will be nothing but a dry bready word-fest. We are without digital camera now which means that I must attempt to describe the last days to you using only the power of words. Illiterate readers are advised to look away now.

We spent 3 long long weeks in Ulaan Baatar and Thomas assures me that it was quite like the plot of "In Bruges" starring Colin Farrell. I have not seen the film myself but if it is anything like those three weeks then it is boring and would drive you to madness. The city itself is not really that big but we were waiting to receive some bike parts so we could continue on our journey, and we became very familiar with its layout. The highlights were our visit to "THE BLACK MARKET"(much less sinister and illegal than it suggests), and my being ejected from the holiest place in Mongolia for refusing to pay. The latter wasn't as barefaced as it sounds, they were only charging foreigners and they pestered me for a while before stopping and then a guy physically tried to get me out so I left. It was the Gandan Monastery which is the centre of Buddhism in Mongolia.
The former was very enjoyable as you are expected to barter the price of anything you buy. As it turns out Thomas and I are not very good at it but we tried our best. I was reminded of the scene in the Life of Brian, so poor were our efforts.
We spent some evenings sharpening our strokes at a table tennis hall which might give you an idea of how much we exhausted the city of its entertainment offerings.
After what seemed like months of waiting we finally got moving out of UB on the 14th of July 2009(now to become an annual celebration for me and Thomas), and with our visas for Mongolia expiring on the 18th we had very little time to get to and take on the Gobi Desert. To cut a long story extrememly short we realised that it was not possible in such a short time and took the train in order to arrive at the border in time. The sand was at times 5 or 6 inches deep and we agreed that at least a week would be required for such a feat.

That brings us now to China where we are currently. The town on the Chinese side of the border was huge despite it appearing tiny on our map, which gave us an indication of the scale. The greatest relief about arriving in China was that the roads were good again. Really good. After weeks of corrigated sand we were back on tarmac. The scenery didn't really change for 3 or 4 days as we were still technically in the desert but the sandy arid plains slowly gave way to grass and hills, and yesterday rocky mountains. We have found the Chinese to be very friendly and funny so far and they seem to love cyclists. The strangest thing would have to be the 字母表(alphabet). We rarely have a clue of what is going on but it is a nice change from the cyrillic alphabet which we have been reading for the last 2 months.

Yesterday we visited a cafe for breakfast and were presented with an entire chicken carved into several pieces. When I say entire I am not kidding. Talons, the head, indistinguishable organs, it was all there. Thomas tried to gnaw into the head to get the brain but was unsuccessful in his endeavour as the cranium was too hard. He initially thought that the comb of the head was a fin and that some of the meat was actually fish.

Something else to note about China is that this very blog is censored by the Great (fire)Wall of China and due to the immensely political nature of it I can see why. Thankfully I have used some ingenuity to avoid such barriers and update the manifesto.

We are sitting in an internet cafe in Datong surrounded by gaming youngsters. The city is also huge, but barely looks it on our map. Only London would be bigger in the UK. Directly after this we are heading to see some Grottoes on the Silk Road and our route will take us to Beijing via the coast at the Gulf of China.
I hope that without pictures it was not too dull and I will update again in the next 10 days or so.

Bye Bye