2nd June 2014       16-24’C       291km Pingyao – Taiyuan – Great Wall – Daixian Last night was probably the worst hotel I’ve stayed at in China (so far). It was a family guesthouse, and while the proprietors were friendly, it wasn’t a great place.  The bed was covered in pubic hair before I even entered the room, the hot water didn’t work, and the bed was literally a piece of plywood with a sheet over it.  I slept ontop of the blanket, in…

5th June 2014      36’C       64km in central Beijing traffic Today was a planned rest day, and for me it meant maintaince on the bike.  The tyres I’d been using since Singapore were near the end of their useful life, and Mongolian roads will call for something more aggressive, so it was time to fit new shoes on the bike.  The front sprocket and chain were also pretty badly worn, so those needed a change also.  I’d been carrying a spare chain and sprocket…

1st June 2014        29’C         310km Yuncheng – Pingyao This mornings ride was boring, semi-industrial town after semi-industrial town, and the guide for some strange reason kept driving into the centre of the towns, and into thick traffic, rather than using the bypass roads that skirted the edge of each town.  This means it takes a significantly longer time to get anywhere, and also means spending hours fighting traffic.   After we stopped for lunch, and they got lost again leaving town…

4th June 2014            21-31’C             284km Yongyuan – Badaling – Beijing Another 280km down the roads of China, and towards Mongolia.  Today I visited a more touristy section of the Great Wall, at Badaling.        Before then riding into downtown Beijing in peak hour, and all the joys of riding in a city full of mad crazy drivers wanting to get home.  Actually, Beijing traffic was far more sedate than Chengdu, although I still had to…

3rd June 2014        21-26’C         298km Daixian – Datong – Yongyuan I woke up at 5am, so went for a walk around old Daixian town, observed the women doing their morning dances in the square and enjoyed the peacefulness of the Confucian temple. The hotel was located on a road of gearbox repair & earth moving equipment shops, and on the way back to the hotel, I stopped to buy some ATF for the chain. Riding out of Daixian, the guide got…