Even More on July 11

A few other things:

Before we left Harbin, the Feiying dealership rigged up some flags for us to ride with (see our pictures). These flags have served many purposes: to attract curious Chinese, to bring validity to our presence on China's roads, to make packing and unpacking our bikes a little more of a headache, and to promote Feiying motorcycles. The flags are already thoroughly roughed up. I lost mine on day two, but luckily the dealer had given us an extra.

On the highway between Songyuan and Baicheng my bike began to behave strangely, cutting the flow of gas to the engine as soon as I reached a certain speed. A quick once over of the bike revealed that a portion of the gas line had lost its clip and disconnected from its mount. David had bought zip ties and I used one to reattach the rubber tube. After twenty minutes we were on the road again. Comically, the bike continued to sputter, acting as though it was still having problems with gas flow. This worried me until Patrick suggested I close the choke which we had been playing with when the bike first began to have problems.

Coming in to Baicheng our plan was to continue to Ulanhot after we ate chuar and drank cokes and bought smokes--David smokes and Patrick is trying to get addicted. We were on our way out when it began to rain. Combined with the coming dark and a flash of lightning, the rain was enough to turn us around, and we scuttled back to find shelter in a lover's inn.

(What Patrick has called a "guest house," I call a "lover's inn," because typically they are places where young lovers go to escape their school dormitory buildings.)

T