On the 6th of April 2005, cousins Jamie Mackenzie and Ben Wylson set off on their bikes on a journey which will take them to over 50 countries and to every one of the worlds great continents, all without the use of an aeroplane.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005: a breath and a scream
Shafts of broken light flooded through the gap in the heavy curtains; the first splinters of sun we have seen for 3 long, grey weeks. A change in the wind, a change of weather, riding on a fresh breeze, our fortunes have new life. Our Laos visas have been granted, the Thai ones pending. The tyre is fixed and on Sunday 4th September FWE will rumble east towards Boten, Laos.
Limestone mountains, non-greasy food and psycho, screaming bandits with AK47's await; we can barely contain ourselves.
Saturday, August 27, 2005: jelly bean wash-out
After some fierce cycling, deathly scrapes with mother nature, persistent cloud and torrential rain, FWE arrived in their southerly destination, Kunming, late yesterday evening.
The road from Barkham, the valley-bottom dwelling, continued to weave a steady path through the deep, voluptuous gorge of the Dadu river in Sichuan for over a week, all the time following the river, all the time going down, down, down, all the time in a strong southerly direction. The wind was favourable and for the time being the tropical storms held their breath.
A new week brought new weather. A cold front washed in on a gathering head wind, wielding menacing clouds, threatening rain from dawn to dusk. On the fourth day the heavenly spew was released and havoc was wrought.
Upon arrival in a small village called Detoua near Gonga Shan, or Mt China as it is called, we descended a hill flanked by palm tree and banana plant to the west and river to the east. A haggard group of decrepit-looking locals stood like guardians of the gates of hell across the road. They gibbered away in customary fashion, gathering around, prodding and poking, then upon realising we didn't have any inkling as to what their incoherent babble was about, parted and pointed down the road. Except, there was no road...it had vanished. Where it once stood, a torrent of gushing, thrashing brown river water chewed further into the bank with every passing moment.
There was no way we could turn back so we looked around and decided to recruit some local help to aid in our continuation. Four burly-looking chaps were selected from the multitude; upon their backs they bore large wicker baskets with mares-tale shoulder straps. By shedding the panniers from the bikes and loading them into the baskets we were able to attempt a crossing. With the road gone we were forced to take to the steep, unstable jungle above the fall. Ben and I heaved the bikes across our shoulders and stepped out. Ben lead the troop, the four load bearers in the middle and Jamie bringing up the rear so as to prevent any deserting members from making off into the undergrowth with the valued possessions. It was a risky operation but was carried out with such military precision that no harm befell the party.
The following day the pair wanted to mount an expedition to Gonga Shan, but without money for guides etc decided to do it FWE style, i.e. little planning and no provisions. With borrowed wicker baskets from some kind folk in the local village we struck out. Hoping to camp somewhere on the mountain, we took our Terra Nova tents and Mountain Equipment sleeping bags and even took some hiking shoes instead of the customary flip-flops; the former we deemed especially worthy of inclusion as we would have to traverse a vast glacier to reach our destination. We hitched lifts as far as possible in trucks and cars but at 3500 metres the persistent thorn in our aching side returned; another road slide. In fact there were three. All had to be defeated in the same way as the first. Despite the cooling mist, the sweat ran in torrents from our every pore. It was at this poached and parched point the duo realised that they'd forgotten to bring any water with them. In fact food and drink had been entirely overlooked. 'Core wee, I'm gasping. what have we got in way of refreshment Jamie?' Ben said between breaths. 'Hang on, I'll have a look,' came the equally exasperated reply; 'half a pack of peanut flavor biscuits and 5 jelly beans,' Jamie continued. Foolish men, I hear you say, but all was not lost.
After some hours we came to a remote village and were thus able to buy some cold beers. After a short nap and eating two and half jelly beans each we attempted to scale the seven and a half thousand-metres mountain. Our enquires, however, were all cut short with the same answer 'no Gonga, no road'. It really was the end of the line this time. We were so proud of ourselves for attempting the ridiculous feat though, that we congratulated ourselves with another beer before heading back down to base camp.
The day and its events all happened at just the right time. Both of us were really starting to feel the strain of recent events. The cycling was harder than ever, the weather was shocking and morale was nearing an all-time low.
The cycling over the next few days then went from bad to worse. The road deteriorated to such a deplorable state that it was enough to make us cry at times. On our third day out of Xi Chang we crossed the mighty Yangtze and so entered Yunan, reputedly the most beautiful of all the Chinese provinces. Here the road climbed, I can't tell you how much it climbed. The altimeters on our wrists didn't know what to do with themselves. We started the day at under 1000 metres, then ascended at a rate of over 600 metres an hour. The head goes down, the teeth grate, clothes drenched in stinking sweat, legs and lungs burning; 'worse' then became unbearable. Pitted, loose rocks, boulders that had only recently fallen lying like sleeping giants in the road. At times it got so narrow a car could not pass. There was no barrier, just a vertical drop on one side and on the other, loose rocks and towering mountain sides. We were trapped, caught in a shrinking tomb of grey rock.
We toiled away, the daily mileage plummeting from the 80's to the 40's, the rain fell harder and soon the road became a swamp, pools of water spanning the width of the track with twisted, slippery bottoms. At times the mud swallowed the bikes to above the axles, shoes and panniers enveloped in the muck.
On the fifth day, the sun broke through and providence shone down. Ben's bike bust. His rear tyre blew out, leaving it in tatters. No loving care or gaffer tape could repair the damage. The replacment rubber met its demise a mile on amidst an explosion like a TNT detonation and a plume of smoke. We were forced, reluctantly, into an air-conditioned van with padded seats, that carried us up and out of the valley, tired and nearly broken men. Never has being driven felt so bad, yet so good.
On the brink of a new era in the FWE saga, we wait with baited breath to see the hand dealt to us over the coming weeks. But for now, a coffee I think.
Saturday, August 13, 2005: Golock slides like a killer bee
Since leaving Xi'an we have entered another world. It all began when we left the city of Lanzhou to cycle from 1000 metres above sea level to 3500m, into the altitude-sickness zone. The climb was wandering and tough. Above 3000 metres we experienced lactic acid build-up, headaches and our lungs felt like they were being burnt from beneath with lighters. We had half of our usual energy but persevered until we reached a plateau, the Aba Grasslands, a place very different from the rest of Sichuan.
The Grasslands are populated by a people called the Golocks: dark skinned, scorched by the high-altitude sun and often seen wearing flowing long-sleeved green robes with highly-decorated swords tucked beneath bright pink belts. They are a formidable sight. The Golocks are fundamentally Tibetan but still practise a primitive form of Tibetan Buddhism which to this day involves animal sacrifice. Regardless of their wild exterior, the Golocks were kind to us and as inquisitive as any other Chinaman when it came to the bikes and our journey.
The thin air, cold winds and the fierce, close sun have sizzled our skin and bleached our hair. The environment is harsh but not too harsh for dogs, yaks, mountain sheep - and Bees...
The bees are kept in hives by the hundred alongside the road. Daily we have to negotiate swarms of angry stingers. With heads down, breathing through clenched teeth, powering the bikes at top speed, we manage to evade most of them. Inevitably we have been stung many times, though. They most often get us in the neck for some reason. Many a roadside refreshment break has been spent extracting the stings with tweezers.
The dogs are twice the size of a usual mutt and have more of a resemblance to a hyena. The savage hounds lie in wait by the side of the road. When they see you the chase is on, slobbering, rabid jaws nipping at your ankles, all the while emitting fearful deep-throated barks and growls. We have taken to stocking up with stones which we stow on our bar bags, ready to pelt at the evil creatures. There is no telling when the attack will occur. However, they always seem to strike when we're exhausted and travelling up hill with minimal energy to outrun them.
Yaks are the most common animal here and are found in vast herds, their long, hairy tails swishing from side to side, nomadic herders watching over them from their sheltered black, Bedouin-like tents. Above the Yaks are the mountain sheep which seem to prefer the grass in the highest, most inaccessible places. Right up on the peaks of the rounded mountains they can be seen, little white specks like desiccated coconut sprinkled on a bun.
We arrived in Barkham yesterday afternoon following some hard, hard riding but surprisingly it was all down hill. The sun, so strong and intense, had melted the tarmac, turning it into puddles of glue, small streams, inky black liquid flowing down the road. Even while descending from on high we had to pedal hard to keep moving.
We crossed the aforementioned grasslands in three days, camping where possible come night. It's difficult to describe the scenery - it's just...indescribable. The plains, so lush and green after witnessing the barren grey mountains in the north around Lanzhou, stretch for miles on either side of the road, rivers, herds of live- stock chewing their cuds, leather-faced minders on horseback watching from a distance. Vast mountains crash down from the sky, thousands of feet up, smashing almost vertically into the grass, kites, eagles and vultures rising majestically on the thermals.
For six days we plugged away, turning the screws, chewing up the miles. On the seventh day we saw some westerners. They were a German couple; the man we had met in Xi'an, Sebastian, was another intrepid cyclist.
Two days ago FWE biked up a mountain that wound up and up back and forth to a height of nearly three thousand seven hundred metres; we crossed the pass, in doing so entering a portal into a different world. The countryside changed, the Tibetan people reverting to Chinese once more.
Sebastian and his girlfriend had passed along our intended track, the 209 / 317, only the day before we met them and aside from the pending downhill they also informed us of a land-slide that had occurred in the area. It appeared that the road may be closed. If it was true we would be forced to strike a course south east and head towards Cheng Do. It was not an option we fancied and decided to risk all and make for the ominous slide.
A sign in Chinese looked like it said something about road closure; we chose to ignore the characters and skirted around it. At every turn in the twisting road we expected to see a pile of rubble blocking our path. For many miles there was no sign of one. Then, we rounded a sharp corner; we could not have been prepared for what confronted our meek eyes. The full side of a mountain had collapsed, washing the road away in its entirety, spilling waste and carnage into the raging torrents of a stormy river at the foot. Heavy, heavy rain had menaced the area for the last week and this, the almighty landslide, was the result. A one hundred-metre-high by one hundred-metre-wide chunk of soil, trees and foliage had slipped away leaving a scar of utter devastation in its place.
A queue of cars was gathered at the bottom: what were they were waiting for? There was no way they were going to be crossing any time this day or for some time after. We indicated that we intended to cross the slide but our gesticulations met with chorused disapproval, shakes of the head and panicked looks. A single, rugged track had been forged by a bull-dozer, allowing the most hardy of Four-by-Fours to struggle across. As we were explaining to the crowd that we had no choice, that we'd rather take our chances than turn tail and climb back out and head towards Cheng Do, a terrifying rumble erupted behind us, a boulder the size of a mini came crashing down the slope and slammed into the river. FWE gulped and fell silent...but not for long.
Composure regained, the team idled up to the edge of the slide, checked up the bank one last time then in a high gear, heads down, went hell for leather on to the decayed track. It was loose stone, though, and the mud was getting deeper and deeper by the second. The bikes came to a halt right in the middle of the slide. 'Quick, get off and push!' Jamie hollered at Ben, eyes wide with terror. Dismounted and with all remaining strength, we heaved the bikes forward. 'My flip-flop, it's come off in the mud!' Ben shouted, high-pitched. It was like watching a painful scene in a horror movie: the victim is running from the ghastly monster that's bent on their destruction, but stumbles, trips and falls just at the vital moment. A low rumble ahead - there was a shifting in the slide. 'Leave the flip-flop, it's not worth it!' Jamie screamed but even as he said it Ben withdrew his arm and hand from the mud, clutching his right flip-flop. Another fifty metres and we were clear. Rocks and debris flowed down where we had been only moments before; a very close thing it was. Hearts were bumping, thumping in time, leaping in our throats, adrenalin racing around the visibly pulsing veins.
It was supposed to be an easy, relaxed ride into Barkham for our well-deserved day of rest. It was turning in to anything but. The road now followed the wild, swollen river for the entire distance to Barkham, descending into a deep gorge that as the day wore on went deeper and deeper. The cliff faces overhung the road, matted foliage, trees and shrubs crowding down to the road and river. Peaks all around, often directly above our heads, were hundreds of metres high.
The push south continues apace tomorrow. Landslides, killer bees, rabid dogs and electric storms aside, FWE will arrive in Kunming in the last week of August. We're still alive, folks...but only just.
Friday, August 05, 2005: happy birthday television
Since arriving in Xian we have had quite phenomenal media interest. The papparazzi somehow got wind of us. There have been photo-shoots in front of the city wall resulting in our appearance -once on the front page- of two of the best-selling provincial papers. I say 'we' appeared on the front page of one, when in reality it was Jack on his old banger, complete with handle-bar basket and shifty expression.. The imposter! Yes, he managed to cycle 700 miles without any training on a bike with all the quality of a Skoda, and yes, he does deserve some acclaim, but to push the very expedition partners out of the spotlight! Dearie me.
Our newspaper articles were soon followed up by interest from the T.V. There was a short discussion with a director and a pretty hostess and before you could say Happy Birthday to Jamie -who is celebrating his 20-somethingth birthday- we were in make- up having our faces powdered. "This talk show will go out to all of China!" we were assured. After being jazzed up, we wound our way through the maze that was the studios to arrive in a dimly lit room. One side was a news-reader's desk, on the other were three chairs on a blue carpet, three enormous cameras poised and a small coffee table with three glasses of water on it. It was Parkinson!
At Shaanxi Television studios we were made to gibber for an hour. Just before the filming concluded a cake was presented to Jamie and everyone sang Happy Birthday in Chinese. Jamie admitted that even though he had experienced 'a lot' of birthdays now, he has never been sung Happy Birthday on Chinese television in front of a potential audience of millions.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005: pigs ears & police
We have cycled for 11 days, covered over 700 miles, crossed 2000m passes, seen the most incredible scenery on earth...and the worst, have all crashed and fallen off our bikes (Jamie received surgery), have been followed for several days by a Chinese television crew who made a 30 min. docu on us, been escorted around cities by police cars with flashing lights, slept in the dirt, in concrete courtyards, locals' huts and 5-star hotels, eaten pig's ears and jellied weird things, and once again, as always, lived the best lives imaginable!
After a week's rest in the capital city, we tracked west to Laiyuan to commence the second leg of FWE; a jaunt south through spectacular scenery that will culminate in our arrival in Singapore.
We climbed and climbed, constantly grinding the low gears. Round and round the pedals turned, the bikes zig-zagging left, right, left, right, up and up we went, the world shrinking at our feet. Sheer drops of bottomless beauty cascading down into the misty clouds below; distant rumbles of approaching trucks far, far beneath. We scaled the summit, topping out at nearly 2000 meters, drenched in sweat, short on breath but with a view that stretched as far as the eye could see: in all directions mountains rising, mountains on mountains. Craggy peaks, knife- edge ridges, impossible faces, the likes of which only a child might imagine, reached yonder to the horizon. Below in the ravines and valleys birds soared among the wispy puffs of cloud. 'Hold on boys...we're going down' came the call from the head of the troop. Please take a moment to imagine the descent we enjoyed...enough said!
Come the evening, we would find a hut, village or anywhere else that looked like a nice place to stay. Entire families turned out to welcome us, offering beds, food and drink. It was quite indicative of the Chinese nature through our entire adventure to date. If we stop for lunch or to use the Katadyn water filter by a bubbling water-well, crowds of bemused people from nowhere descend on us. Vast numbers of people gather around, often their total exceeding 100 or more folk.
The days melted one into the next, up then down, up then down. On one particular downhill after a tiring morning's cycle in 35-degree heat, parched and with mild delirium setting in, FWE suffered its first 'incident'. 'Bump!' Jamie shouted, as he hurtled at 30 mph down a mountain. Jack , behind him, uttered a more than mildly audible expletive as he approached it, braking hard. Alas it was too hard: Ben went into the back of him and both, with their bikes, landed in a dusty, tangled heap in the road, carnage and wreckage, bags and blood stretching 10 metres back up the road. A miracle, therefore, that they were all right! Save for Ben's foot which took a bad knock and had a large patch of flesh removed from it, the pair were able to scrape themselves off the tarmac and even continue cycling later that very day.
Ben's mangled limb is healing nicely now but occasionally at night, in the small hours of the morning, the throbbing returns and he can be heard to say 'Oooh, these sheets really chafe on my foot.'
Several days after the first 'incident' FWE suffered a recurrence. Jamie at the rear of the troop, Ben leading the line at the front. 'Bump!' came the shout; Jack swore loudly and broke hard, too hard. Jamie's wheel became tragically trapped between Jack's wheel and the vicious bump. Everything seized, the wheel clamped, faltered and flipped, sending Jamie headlong into the rushing road. The bike ground into the dirt, black Ortlieb panniers snapping off.
Covered in black soot from the coal trucks that drive by, it was only when he was loading the panniers back on that Jamie was able to see through the ingrained grime, that his right hand was severely damaged and ragged. Blood seeped through, the skin hung loose over knuckle and palm. Can you believe that across the road and the closest building to the site of the fall was a medical surgery? Rushed straight through and placed on the operating table, Jamie received immediate attention. The hand was washed, sterilized in burning achohol and iodine, and swathed in bandages. The damage; four major lacerations, two minor and the sad loss of the nail on the little finger. The fragile digit had been dismembered, stripped clean of the shiny tip. Amazing, don't you think, that again in the face of such adversity, FWE was able to continue cycling a mere thirty mins. after impact?
In Linfen we had a day off, time to recharge the batteries. It was far from relaxing though. We checked into a dingy hotel, neon signs flickered in the alley outside, but were asked to leave for 'government reasons'. We refused, only relinquishing the room when the police knocked on the door and threatened us with imprisonment if there was any further non-compliance. The situation still remains a mystery.
The following day a television crew appeared at our door, cameras rolling, wanting to make a program all about our intrepid adventures. They moved us to a 5-star hotel that provided complimentary slippers, paid for fancy meals in swanky restaurants, drinks and anything else we desired, all the while churning out reel after reel of film. They drove us to exotic locations to shoot scenes of FWE 'relaxing' in their 'favorite' city. Interviews followed interviews and the days ran late. On the last day after the closing scenes were shot early in the morning, we were honoured to be presented with 'gifts' from the Chinese government, a token of their respect and good wishes for our future safe travel. A limited edition DVD will be released soon.
The final few days ride to Xi'an were in stark contrast to the heady heights of the previous few days. Filthy trucks belched and spat thick clouds of dirt and muck all over the determined team. Blasts from ear-piercing, head-splitting horns that made us jump out of our skins hounded us all the way to the hulking, menacing gates of the Old City.
We arrived late in the evening of the 1st August.
Several days from now FWE will become two once more. Jack leaves to complete his own adventure at Bristol University while Ben and Jamie will struggle on into the foothills of the Himalaya, peaks of seven thousand meters, glaciers and remote, uncharted territories.
Exciting times, exciting lives. Still dreaming, still cycling, still and always 'Free Wheel East'.
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