Yes, it really was like that. Somewhere along the Silk Road (the actual Silk Road) in China. I parked my RX3 when I saw the double rainbow, thinking someday I might use the shot in a blog about this adventure.
Almost 40 years ago, I saw my first Indiana Jones movie and it affected me profoundly. I started traveling the world stumbling upon lost empires. Things that have been swallowed by time, as they say. My motorcycle ride through Colombia had some of that. The Baja adventures have a bit of it, too. But none of the rides had more of an Indiana Jones flavor than did the ride across China. That ride was three years ago this month, and I still think about it every day. There were several things we saw in China that would have been right at home in an Indiana Jones movie. One was Liqian. I can best tell you about it with an excerpt from Riding China, the story of the ride with Joe Gresh across the Ancient Kingdom.
Gobi Gresh, aka Arjiu, stopping to smell the sunflowers in China.
The ride in the morning was just like yesterday. We rode the Silk Road at high speed, making great time in magnificent weather. I knew we were going to Wuwei (you could have a lot of fun with that name; it’s pronounced “woo wee”), but that was really all I knew about that day as we started out that morning. Boy, would this day ever be an interesting one!
It was to be a very full day, and Wuwei would be another one of those cities of several million people that seem to pop up in China every 50 to 100 miles. It was a huge city I had never heard of. China is an amazing place, and I was going to learn today it is more amazing than I could have imagined, and for a reason I would have never guessed. I’ve mentioned Indiana Jones movies a lot in this book. Today, we came upon something that could easily be…well, read on. This is going to be good.
After riding for a couple of hours, we left the freeway and entered a city called Yongchang. It seemed to be pretty much a regular Chinese city until we stopped. I needed to find a bathroom and Wong helped me. Wong is a big, imposing guy. He’s a corrections officer supervisor in Xi’an. He has a friendly look, but he can turn that off in a New York minute and become an extremely imposing figure. I saw him do that once on this trip, and I’ll tell you about that episode when we get to it.
Corrections Officer Supervisor Wong. He looks like a mischievous guy. This guy’s command presence was amazing. I saw him stop a car just by looking at it. Here, he’s enjoying the attention in Yongchang.
Anyway, I followed Wong through a couple of alleys and businesses until we came to an empty restaurant (it was mid-morning, and it had no customers). Wong spoke to the lady there, she nodded her head and smiled at me, and pointed to the bathroom. When I rejoined the guys back on the street, several women at a tailor shop (we had coincidentally stopped in front of a tailor shop) were fussing over Wong. He needed a button sewn on his jacket and it was obvious they were flirting with him. Wong seemed to be enjoying it. Like I said, Wong is a big guy, and I guess you could say he’s good looking. I think the women who were sewing his button on were thinking the same thing.
Beautiful young Chinese ladies. Mostly Chinese, anyway. The one on the left is entering my phone number in her contacts list.
Three teenage girls approached us and wanted to know about our bikes. Like many young Chinese, they spoke English (in China, you learn English as a second language in grade school; it is a strong advantage in Chinese society if you can speak English well). They wanted to practice with us. It was the routine stuff (“how are you?” “hello,” and things like that) until one of the teenaged girls looked directly at me and asked, “Can I have your phone number?” Gresh and I both had a good laugh over that. I actually gave her my phone number and she carefully entered it into her phone (and no, she hasn’t called me yet).
I was enjoying all of this immensely, taking photos of the girls, the seamstresses flirting with Wong, and the rest of China all around me. There was something different about one of those teenage girls. I couldn’t quite recognize what it was, but to me she definitely looked, well, different.
Yongchang statues. They don’t look as Chinese as you might think they should. There’s a reason for that.
It was at about that time that Sean approached me and said, “Dajiu, do you see those three statues over there?” He pointed to three tall statues that faced us, perhaps 300 yards away. I nodded yes. “If you look at their faces, you will see that they have Roman features.” Truth be told, I couldn’t really see it in the statues because they were too far away, but I grabbed a photo and later, on my computer, I could see something different. But before I looked at the photo, it all clicked for me. That’s what had my attention with that girl. We were literally in the middle of China and she didn’t look as Chinese as her two friends. She looked different.
All right, my friends, I need to go tangential here for a minute or two and share this story with you. Hang on, because this is real Indiana Jones stuff. No, scratch that. I’ve never seen an Indiana Jones movie with a story line this good (and I’ve seen all of them).
More than 2,000 years ago, before the birth of Christ, the two most powerful empires on the planet were the Roman Empire and the Han Dynasty. These two superpowers of their time enjoyed a brisk trade relationship along the Silk Road. Yep, the very same trail we had been riding for the last few days. Between them (in what became Iran and its surrounding regions) lay a smaller empire called Parthia. For reasons only the Romans understood, Rome thought it would be a good idea to attack Parthia. They sent several Roman Legions to war (and to put this in perspective, a Roman Legion consisted of about 5,000 men). To everyone’s surprise (including, I would imagine, the Romans), the Parthians kicked Rome’s butt.
Wow, imagine that. Rome, defeated on the field of battle by the much smaller Parthian Empire. To put it mildly, things did not quite go the way the Romans thought they would.
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All of this severely disrupted trade between the Han Dynasty and the Romans, and nobody liked that. “Why the hell did you do that?” the Han Dynasty asked Rome. “We had a good thing going and you screwed it up.” At least that’s what I’m guessing the conversation went like. You get the idea.
Cooler minds prevailed and the Romans realized, yeah, that was a dumb move. The Romans told the Parthians, hey, it’s over, let’s be friends again. The war ended, the Chinese were happy, the Romans were happy, the Parthians were happy, and trade resumed. All’s well that ends well.
Well, sort of. There was still that matter of those pesky Roman legions that had invaded Parthia. They didn’t come back from that war, and for two thousand years, no one knew what happened to them. The Romans probably assumed their Legionnaires had all been slaughtered. No one knew until an Australian dude and a Chinese guy, both University archeologist types (starting to sound a little like Indiana Jones yet?) put a theory together in 1957. Hmmm, maybe those Romans had not been killed after all.
The Parthians, being bright enough to defeat the Romans, were not about to let the Legionnaires go home and perhaps attack them again in some future war. They didn’t want to kill the Romans, either. I guess they were kinder, gentler Parthians. Here’s where those two Aussie and Chinese archeologists enter the picture. They hypothesized that the Parthians told the errant Legionnaires, “Look, we don’t want to kill all you guys, but there’s no way we’re going to let you go back to Rome. And there’s no room for you here, either. Your only option is to keep heading east. Go to China. Maybe you crazy warmongering Italians will find nice Chinese girls and settle down.” With that, and as one might imagine, a hearty arrivederci, the Romans continued their eastward march straight into the middle of China.
And folks, the prevailing wisdom today is that is exactly what happened (although the prevailing wisdom evidently hasn’t prevailed very far, as I had never heard the story until that morning in Yongchang). In fact, prior to this theory surfacing, folks wondered why the Chinese referred to the area around Yongchang as Liqian. That’s not a Chinese word, and it’s unlike the name of any other Chinese town. The folks who know about these things tell me it is an unusual word in the Chinese language.
Liqian is pronounced “Lee Chee On.”
Get it yet?
Lee Chee On? Liqian?
Doesn’t it sound like “legion?” As in Roman legion?
A Chinese man in Liqian. This guy could be the Marlboro Man for a Chinese cigarette company!
I found all of this fascinating. I saw more than a few people around the Liqian area that had a distinct western appearance, and they all consented to my taking their photos when I asked. They recognize just how special their story is. The Chinese government is taking note of this area, too. They are developing a large theme park just outside of Yongchang with a Roman motif. We visited that theme park, and while we were there, Sergeant Zuo gave a book to me (printed in both English and Chinese) about the place. It is one of the two books I brought back from China, and that book is now one of my most prized possessions.
Imagine that: Roman legions, resettled in the middle of China, in a town called Liqian. And I rode there. On an RX3.
Watch for our next Indiana Jones episode in China. It’s about the lost Buddhist grottos at Mo Gao in the Gobi Desert. There’s more good stuff coming your way. Stay tuned!
Want to read more about the ride across China? Pick up a copy of Riding China!
See that gap? That narrow space between the semi-truck hauling 20-foot long, 6-inch diameter solid aluminum rods and the BMW M6? I’m taking it, man, riding the horn button and twisting the throttle: zoom-zoom. See that intersection? The one with a whirlpool of scooters, three-wheeled single-cylinder diesel trucks and at least a hundred cars spinning left leaving eddys of pedestrians lapping at the edges? I’m a Hurricane Hunter riding straight into the maelstrom buffeted from side to side, tip-toeing around, swerving, cussing, sweating and focused, man, focused.
China’s city traffic requires all your intensity, taxes all your ability and is like nothing I have ever seen on the planet. There is no respite. There is no pause, You must lock on and track hundreds of individual trajectories from every point on the compass, constantly. Insane traffic scenarios unfold at a lightning pace, there’s no time to marvel at the stupidity. There’s only time to act.
The chaos is cultural: Chinese motorists drive like they’re riding a bicycle because they were only a few years ago. In less than one generation the Chinese have gone from pedals to 125cc Honda clones to driving millions of air-conditioned automobiles on surface streets designed for a sleepy agricultural nation. At any given moment dozens of traffic rules are being broken within 50 feet of your motorcycle. It’s a traffic cop’s dream.
Except that there aren’t any. For a Police State there are not many police in China. I’ve ridden entire days and not seen one Po-Po. My Chinese friends tell me the police show up for collisions but otherwise stay low-key. Because of this hands-off approach stop signs are ignored. Red lights mean slow down. You can make a left turn from the far right lane and no one bats an eye.
China uses the drive-on-the-right system but in reality left-side driving is popular with large trucks and speeding German sedans. Get out of the way or die, sucker. Painted lane-stripes are mere suggestions: Drive anywhere you like. Of course, sidewalks and breakdown lanes are fair game for cutting to the front of the cue.
China’s modernization process has happened so fast that the leap from two-wheeled utility vehicle to motorcycles as powersports fun never really occurred. In China there are millions of people riding motorcycles but relatively few motorcyclists.
If the cars don’t get you there are other strange rules that serve to dampen the popularity of Chinese motorcycling as a hobby. Motorcycles are banned on most major toll ways between cities. Law-abiding motorcyclists are shunted off to the old, meandering side roads. Which would be fun if they weren’t so infested with heavy, slow moving semi-trucks and near certain construction delays. In practice, since tollbooths have no ability to charge motorcyclists, Chinese riders blow through the far right lane, swerving to avoid the tollgate’s swinging arm. Ignore the bells, shouting and wild gestures of the toll-takers and roll the throttle on, brother.
Being banned from the highway is not a deal breaker, but being banned from entire cities is. In response to crimes committed by bad guys on motorcycles many cities remedied the problem by eliminating motorcycles altogether. Sales of new motorcycles in these forbidden cities is non-existent.
Rules designed to discourage motorcycling abound. Vehicles over 10 years old are not allowed to be registered, thus killing the used and vintage scene. Gasoline stations require motorcyclists to park far from the gas pumps and ferry fuel to their bikes in open-topped gas cans. Add to that the general opinion of the public that motorcycle riders are shifty losers too poor to afford a car.
So why do Chinese motorcyclists bother to ride at all? It’s not the thrill of speed; 250cc is considered a big bike in China and it’s really all you need to keep up with the slow moving traffic. I’ve spent a lot of time with Chinese riders and even with the language barrier I get that they ride for the same reasons we do: The road, the rain, the wind. After being cooped up in a high rise apartment (very few Chinese live in single-family homes) I imagine the wide-open spaces between crowded cities must seem like heaven. They did to me. Chinese motorcyclists and Low Riders ride a little slower, taking long breaks to smoke a cigarette, drink in the scenery or just nap. Every motorcyclist you meet is instantly your dear friend because we share this passion and despite all the minor regulatory hassles everybody knows love conquers all.
We’re Los Angeles Times subscribers. I tell you that not to imply I’m a well-read person who keeps up with things, and I’m certainly not bragging about the paper (in fact, I don’t think the LA Times is a very good newspaper). But this morning’s issue had an advertising supplement from China, and it got my attention. It’s one of those supplements where the advertiser tries to make it look like another section of the paper, except the whole thing was a big ad. What caught my eye this morning was the faux International Daily’s headline about Qingdao’s international beer festival.
I’ve been to Qingdao. I like the place. The story in the Times this morning immediately brought me back to the Arjiu and Dajiu China ride (that would be Joe Gresh and yours truly), a ride that was the grandest adventure of my life. It’s what Riding China is all about.
I’ve thought about this a lot, and you should buy Riding China (you can do so by clicking here or on the cover photo to the right).
Then I thought about it a bit more, and you know what? I’m going to share Riding China’s last chapter with you, right here on the ExhaustNotes blog. I think you’ll like the story on Qingdao, and I can tell you that the rest of Riding China (the other 26 chapters) is just as good. Like I said…you should buy a copy.
Enjoy, my friends….
Chapter 27: Qingdao, Our Final Destination
Qingdao (pronounced “ching dow”) means “green island” in Chinese. It’s on the eastern edge of China on the Yellow Sea, and it sure is green. It is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever seen, and it’s one with a storied past. Beaches, seafood, and more, the city has had more owners and rulers than you can shake a stick at. Like a lot of places on the east coast of China, it was controlled by the Germans in the late 1800s (you can see the German influence in the city’s architecture). The Japanese took over after World War I, it reverted back to Chinese control shortly after that, and then the Japanese took it over again during second World War, and then, well…it’s in Chinese hands now. But I’m getting ahead of myself yet again. Back to the ride.
The changing of the guard in Qufu, the birthplace of Confucius.
We started our morning in Qufu with a visit to a fort that is evidently a significant Chinese attraction. I didn’t understand too much about the place at the time we visited, but it made for some great photo ops. There was a changing of the guard similar to what might be seen at Buckingham Palace or Arlington National Cemetery, and it was exciting. I enjoyed watching the Chinese tourists take it all in even more. This is their country, and I could tell that what we were all seeing was of great significance to them.
A waterway in Qufu near the fort.A Chinese woman, standing on the pegs of Sergeant Zuo’s motorcycle, photographing the changing of the guard in Qufu.
After the ceremony, it was back to the freeway for the quick 200 kilometer ride to Qingdao. I was very excited about seeing Qingdao for several reasons. It marked the end of our ride. This had been a motorcycle ride like no other, and Qingdao was our final destination. For that reason alone, it was significant.
Qingdao is a city with a rich history, as I mentioned at the start of this chapter. Situated on China’s eastern coast, I was hoping that the temperatures in Qingdao would be a little cooler. On a personal level, Qingdao had a special meaning for me. It was situated directly on the Yellow Sea’s western shore. More than 40 years ago I had been a US Army lieutenant on the eastern shore of the Yellow Sea, in Korea, on a HAWK missile site. Our primary target line (the direction in which our missiles and radars were pointed; the direction from which we anticipated an attack) was not aimed at North Korea. It was instead pointed west, directly across the Yellow Sea, toward the People’s Republic of China. Yes, the spot I would be riding into this fine day was the very spot my US Army missiles pointed to more than four decades ago!
Ling, a great guy and a great rider.
Our freeway ride to Qingdao that morning was largely uneventful except for one thing: Ling’s RX1 ran out of gas. To me, it was amazing that this was the first time any of us had run dry. We routinely rode 50 or more miles after our fuel bingo lights starting blinking. Gresh and I never quite understand our approach for determining when to get fuel, or who called the shots on that topic. We didn’t know if it was Zuo on the lead bike, or Tracy in his car, of Qi and Ma in the chase truck. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Zuo.
Up until the point when Ling’s bike ran out, I thought the RX1 had more range than the RX3, because Zuo (who rode an RX1 on this trip), kept going long after I would have refueled my RX3. But Ling, on an RX1, was the guy whose bike ran dry that morning. Gresh was riding with Ling when it happened. Joe stopped and luckily he found a rope by side of the road, so he towed Ling along until the next gas station.
When the chase truck caught up with us at the gas station, Ma evidently said something to Sergeant Zuo in Chinese about waiting too long to refuel, and Zuo didn’t care for it. Sometimes we weren’t sure if the Chinese were upset with each other (we couldn’t tell from the conversation), but there was no doubt in my mind this time that Zuo was not taking what Ma said very well. A little bit of gasoline later (or oil, as the Chinese refer to it in English) and all was well.
As we approached Qingdao, Zuo was working his magic on his smartphone’s GPS, and we found our way through thickening Chinese traffic to the bay. A ferry ride across the bay was in our plans. This was good. Any motorcycle adventure always goes better with a ferry ride. It adds to the magic.
We took a ferry ride across the bay to downtown Qingdao.
We rode the bikes onto the ferry, parked them, headed topside, and were underway in minutes. I was surprised that we didn’t need to tie the bikes down, but they were still upright when we arrived in downtown Qingdao. Everybody was in high spirits. We were arriving at our destination, the city we had been riding to for the last five weeks. It signified the end of our epic journey. The cameras were out and we were all snapping photos. I took a photo of a Chinese man and his young son, and then the son asked me if his father could take a photo of me with him. He did so with his cell phone, and then I handed him my Nikon and he took the same photo with it. As Americans, Gresh and I were unusual sights on that ferry.
Qingdao has a population of 9 million people. Once again, I thought about how amazing being in this place was. I was the unusual American; I had heard of Qingdao before this ride. I only knew of it because of my Army days 40 years ago. Most Americans have never heard of Qingdao, yet we have only one city (and that’s New York) that has a population comparable to Qingdao.
With my young Chinese friend.Joe Gresh, somewhere on Qingdao Bay, as seen through Deng’s Canon.
We hit downtown Qingdao at rush hour, but the traffic wasn’t too bad on the elevated freeway that ran over the city. It was a Sunday afternoon, and that helped. Once we were into the city, though, it was the usual tuck and roll routine we always did when we blitzed through Chinese urban areas. That meant lots of weaving and bobbing, giving the horns a thorough workout, and a bit of profanity thrown in for good measure, directed at folks who most likely had no idea what we were yelling about.
Riding on an elevated freeway above downtown Qingdao. That’s Gresh and Zuo in front of me.
I realized I had become accustomed to Chinese urban traffic. As I worked more motorcycle miracles keeping up with Zuo and Lu, I thought about what it would be like to ride back in the United States again when I returned to California. I knew I’d have to dial it down substantially. No more missing cars by centimeters passing on the right and the left, no more assuming people will move over when we pass into oncoming traffic, no more passing on blind corners, and much less risk. I wondered if it would be boring. When our Chinese and Colombian friends rode with us last year on the Western America Adventure Ride, they told us the riding in America was less intense than what they were used to in their home countries. It’s only scenery in America, they said. Riding a motorcycle in the United States required no aggressive maneuvering with cars, trucks, buses, other motorcycles, and scooters. They said that the courtesy of American drivers made the riding less exciting. Riding in China, on the other hand (and Colombia, too) required absolute and intense concentration. It was stressful, exhausting, and exhilarating.
The dinner that evening was extravagant and exciting, as you might imagine it would be for a group that had just arrived at their destination after an 8,800-kilometer motorcycle ride across China. When the restaurant realized how many of us they had to feed (and they heard the story of how we made it all the way across China to Qingdao on our motorcycles), they wisely opted to move the tables to the parking lot in front of the restaurant and let us cut loose outside.
It was a grand dinner. The beer flowed freely. Where before our Chinese brothers drank beer from little juice glasses, tonight it was all pitchers of draft beer and mugs. And folks, these Chinese guys can put away the suds. Everybody was in high spirits. Ma and Zuo were good buddies again (they had forgotten all about Ling running out of gas earlier in the day). There was more beer and more toasts. Lu was spilling been all over himself as he chugged mug after mug. Tracy was telling Sean that he should shave off his goatee to be more popular with the ladies (bear in mind that Sean is Tracy’s boss). More beer. More toasts. Did I mention we drank a lot of beer that night?
Lu enjoying a beer, with a bit of help from Dong.
We stayed late and closed the place. It was one of the best dinners I have ever had anywhere. The food was outstanding (as it always was during the entire China adventure ride), but that wasn’t what made it all so grand. We had arrived. We would do a little more riding in and around Qingdao, and then we would all be heading home. Everyone realized that as the evening ended, and there was a palpable note of somberness as we called it a night. Everyone wanted to get back to their families and their normal lives, but no one wanted the ride to end.
A fine celebratory dinner in Qingdao!
That night ended well, and the next morning we were off for a publicity ride to Qingdao’s coastline. We met at the Qingdao Zongshen dealer where five or six guys on other bikes were waiting for us. One was on a Shineray 400cc single that looked more like an original Triumph Bonneville than do the current Triumph Bonnevilles. The company was one I had heard of but didn’t know much about. We say “Shine Ray” because that’s the way it’s spelled; the Chinese pronounce it “shin you way.” There were a couple of 250cc Suzukis and a couple of all-out dirt bikes (with no lights or plates) that used the Zongshen NC250 RX3 engine. The Zongshen dealer rode his 650cc CFMoto street bike (it’s a very large motorcycle that looks a lot like a Honda ST1300). Interesting motorcycles, to be sure.
It was to be one of the best rides of our entire China adventure. We were on the edge of Qingdao headed across the peninsula and there was very little traffic. As we rode, I saw a concrete ribbon off in the distance that snaked over a mountain, and sure enough, that was our road. It was a great ride. Zuo set a sensible pace, we crested the mountain, and then we descended to sea level. Soon we were riding the Qingdao coastline. It was a magnificent road. The road and the location reminded me of Italy’s Amalfi Road below Naples. We stopped for photos in several locations. It was definitely a tourist spot for the Chinese; there were lots of busses and more than a few cars with families. But it was not touristy. It was just fun.
Has China out-Triumphed the British?
At one of the stops I commented to Gresh that this was a great ride and I was enjoying the more relaxed pace. Joe laughed and said, “You’ve gotten too used to riding in China. We’ve been passing busses on blind corners and doing all the things these guys do. If you think this is a relaxed ride, you’ve become a maniac, too.”
I guess maybe I had, but unlike the other times, it wasn’t bothering me that morning. I guess you can get used to anything. I really enjoyed that ride.
Riding along the Yellow Sea coast in Qingdao. It reminded me of Italy’s Amalfi Road.
As we road along the coast, Lu saw an opening on the left that led directly onto the beach. He took it and we all followed. The beach was great, it wasn’t too hot, and it felt wonderful to be there. I parked my RX3 in a spot where there were rocks and the sidestand found decent support. Gresh was in soft sand and his sidestand was just sinking into it; there was no way it would support the bike. Dong was next to Gresh on an RX1 and he said, “No, Arjiu, like this,” and with that, he revved the engine, popped the clutch, and spun the rear wheel. The back of his motorcycle dropped several inches as the rear wheel excavated a hole, and when it was resting on the frame, Dong stopped, killed the engine, and stepped off. The bike remained vertical, held in place by the sand on either side of the rear wheel. Gresh did the same.
I walked up to the edge of the ocean and shot a few photos. Gresh was walking toward the water in a bright green floral pattern bathing suit. It looked brand new. “Where did you get that?” I asked.
“There’s a guy selling them over there,” Joe said, pointing to a shack, “and he’s got a place where you can change.” That was all I needed to know. I wasted no time in buying my own a bathing suit. I had been hot and sweaty for over a month. A swim in the ocean sounded like it was just what the doctor ordered.
It was wonderful. I was swimming in the Yellow Sea, along with Zuo, Ma, Qi, Gresh, and Dong. The water was warm for the first few inches near the surface and cold below that. The chill felt wonderful. It was lowering my core temperature, and I basked in the wonder of it all. It was the first time I felt that good in quite a while. We cavorted in that water for a good hour. I didn’t want to leave.
Dong demonstrates how to park a motorcycle on the beach.
The Yellow Sea. I thought about where we were, what we were doing, and what we had done. We had ridden across the Tibetan Plateau. We rode in the Gobi Desert. We followed the Silk Road and China’s Great Wall. We rode our Zongshen motorcycles in sweltering heat and in torrential rains. We had been terribly cold at altitudes as high as 14,000 feet. And now we were at sea level, swimming in the Yellow Sea.
This was not my first time being at the edge of the Yellow Sea, but it was the first time I swam in it. As I mentioned at the start of this chapter, four decades earlier as a young US Army lieutenant, I had stood roughly 700 miles due east of this spot on the other side of the Yellow Sea, ready to shoot down any Red Chinese aircraft that violated Korean airspace. Fast forward more than 40 years, and now I’m a senior citizen on a motorcycle adventure ride playing in the water with a bunch of Chinese tourists on the other side of that same body of water. Times change, I guess. In this case, for the better.
Lu grabs a selfie in the surf.
After our swim, we all rode the bikes into a line at the water’s edge so the video guys could do their thing. Our videographer, He, was running the drone and Deng was working his magic with the Canon digital camera. In the maybe 10 minutes we were there on the beach, I watched the tide move the water line up a good 10 feet. We had to keep moving the bikes to not let the water surround us.
The Yellow Sea is an interesting body of water. It was originally more yellow in color due to mineral sediments carried downstream by the rivers that feed it, but it lost its yellowish tinge (according to the experts) due to pollution. To me, the water looked about the same as any other place I’d ever seen the ocean. The most interesting thing about the Yellow Sea, though, is its extreme tidal variation. It has one of the highest tidal movements in the world. When I was in Korea, I was told the water level moved up and down vertically 30 feet every day (I later read it is actually 26 feet). Whether it’s 26 feet or 30 feet, that’s a huge tidal swing. I remember being in Korea and looking at the Yellow Sea when the tide was out. It was stunning. Where before there had been ocean, there were now miles and miles of mud, with the occasional fish flopping on what had been the sea floor an hour or so ago.
On the way back to the hotel on that next-to-last riding day, we were caught in a severe downpour. We were soaked, but nobody cared. We were China-riding veterans. It rains, you get wet. No big deal.
The next day, we all saddled up and rode to the freight forwarder who would ship the bikes back to Chongqing. It was a short ride, and we were in and out of the freight yard in less than 30 minutes. Gresh and I wanted to buy jewelry for our wives, and the Zongshen dealer’s wife accompanied us to downtown Qingdao’s jewelry district. She helped us score great jade necklaces and both Joe’s wife and my Sue loved what we brought back for them. We said goodbye to the Chinese riders at the freight yard, thinking that we would see them at dinner that evening.
When we returned to the hotel late that afternoon, we learned that the goodbyes we said to the other guys at the freight forwarder had really been our final goodbyes. While we were shopping, the Chinese guys left by air to return to their homes. King Kong was still there (he had gone shopping with us); we would drop Kong off at the Qingdao train station the next day. Joe and I flew home after we dropped Kong off. It was a long flight, but it was great to be headed home.
I had mixed emotions about not being able to say a proper goodbye to the other Chinese riders, but I was glad it worked out the way it did. I wanted to say goodbye for real, but I really didn’t want to say goodbye at all. A few days after I arrived home, I received a nice email from Zuo. He told me that he and the other riders had left while we were shopping because they, too, did not want to risk becoming emotional during our goodbyes.
