Day 3: Tongliao to (Unnamed City), Inner Mongolia

Distance: 205 km (127 mi.)
Expenses: gas 25rmb, hotel 67rmb
Events:

• Waited two hours for P's bike to be fixed at the Tongliao Feiying delearship. The repair job cost 1,000rmb.
• The Tongliao Feiying delear led us out of town with a bunch of his riding buddies on their tricked out bikes.
• Encountered massive construction on the road out of Tongliao, but decided to ride on. We found later that we were actually on the wrong road, headed the wrong direction.
  
• Rode, for the second straight day, in the dark despite warnings from some dump truck drivers. T easily convinced D and P to ride
  on after saying, "it's only another 20 km."
• A van full of construction workers, who asked us to follow them through the construction zone, stopped at a dead end, turned off their lights, and emptied the van to confront us.
• T lost his right crash bar as we drove into the city.
• At a later dinner, we ate our first potato chuan(r) while speaking to some drunken Mongolians.

Day 2: Baicheng to Tongliao, Inner Mongolia

Distance: 490 km (304 mi.)
Expenses: gas 50rmb, hotel 73rmb
Events:

• While riding in the dark, P crashed soon after advising D that "if you use your brights, you can go faster."
  

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

More on July 11

We knew before leaving that Inner Mongolia would be remote, with a lot of natural scenery and few cities. In fact, the route was chosen for these exact reasons. Every other route out of Harbin would have taken us through big cities, each being very similar to the last. The route has turned out to be what we expected and more. Conditions have been prime: pristine highways much of the way, little traffic, and perfect weather. However, things rarely go as expected, even with great conditions.


Day 1:

Tristan and I left East College and our students a little after 6 in the morning. Following a little pre-departure picture taking at the delearship, we were led out of town by the Harbin Feiying manager driving his Volkswagen. We quickly learned that we needn't pay tolls on the highways. Instead, we can just go around the toll stations without worry or a lighter wallet. We learned the stares from the toll workers were not because we weren't paying the toll, but because we were foreigners riding motorcycles.

We figured we would get better gas mileage than we really are. It seems we get around 200km for a full tank of gas, far from the 400-450 Martino said he got. The reason for the poor gas mileage might be our speed--80-90km/hr at 8-9,000 rpms. The bikes redline at 10,000 rpms, so we are pushing the bikes almost to their limit. It is hard not to go fast when you have well maintained, traffic-less highways.

The easiest way to find directions is simply to ask someone. Almost every highway, hotel, and city we've found by asking locals. Usually, they are friendly, and usually, they know at least the direction we should go. Before leaving we thought about buying a GPS, but decided against it thinking it wouldn't be that useful. Instead, for directions we have one full map of China in pinyin and "the paper." I bought the map online and had it mailed from the US. Pinyin is the Romanized form of Chinese that makes it easier for foreigners to read and speak the language. The map is fairly nice and we had laminated copies of it made. We also use "the paper," which is a list of cities on our route in both Chinese and pinyin. "The paper" has turned out to be our best tool for getting directions. We can show the Chinese characters to random people we meet on the street.

The map on the other hand has not been as useful. The pinyin doesn't help us decipher street signs. The map has also proven to be unreliable: the first day we found that a city called Songyuan was misnamed Fuyu (later we would find whole highways missing from the map). Lastly, pinyin doesn't help our pronunciation, so showing the characters is easier than trying to pronounce the cities name...usually.

The sights the first day, while interesting, were typically Chinese. Little villages separated by a tremendous amount of farmland. Coming out of Harbin, the land of concrete and taxis, this was a welcome sight. We all know that it will only get better as we enter the grasslands of Inner Mongolia and then the valleys and deserts of Gansu and Xinjiang provinces.

We made our way to Baicheng, approximately450 km from Harbin. Our goal was Wulanhaote (Ulanhot), the first Inner Mongolian city on our route, but it proved too far and the weather didn't cooperate. We slept in a guest house for only 27 yuan a person. Typically, these guest houses are just a room with a bed or two, maybe a window, and, if your lucky, air conditioning (not very comfortable). They do the trick though if all you want is sleep. We finished that night, tired and a little wet. We did have enough energy to go out for a few beers and chuar (grilled meat on a stick). It was exciting...we were on our way.

P (edited by T)

Day 1: Harbin, Heilongjiang to Baicheng, Jilin

Distance: 458 km (284 mi.)
Expenses: gas 75rmb, hotel 27rmb
Events:

• Gas tube problem on T's bike, repaired using one of D's zip-ties.
• Attempted to ride to Ulanhot (Wulanhaote), Inner Mongolia, but were forced by the rain and the coming dark to backtrack to Baicheng.
  

Our Horses: Feiying's 150-3

Chinese motorcycles are different from their American counterparts in both design and use. The affordable, easy to fix bikes are preferred to the expensive, hard to fix, durable type. Also, Chinese people don't ride their motorcycles fast or long. Mostly, they are around town utility vehicles, used by families to go to the nearby market, or as "motorcycle taxis." Motorcycles are banned from expressways, hence they're built for local speeds. A majority of motorcycles here have 125cc engines. If you don't know how much that is, many Harleys have 1000cc engines, or more. Our bikes have 150cc engines, which still isn't very powerful, but will provide decent gas mileage.

So far we have mixed feelings about our new ride. In the few weeks we've owned them, David's already broke down. When it happened, Feiying was immediately on the scene to mend his carburator. And, the next day they replaced the whole bike with a brand new one, without ever mentioning why. The front tire and its tread seem small, especially considering the terrain we intend to encounter, but the rear more than makes up for it in both girth and tread depth. As for Feiying, we don't know much about the company, or about any other Chinese brand, but from what we've read on Martino's blog, this is the bike for us. Martino rode over 10,000km around China on his Feiying 150-3. That's pretty reliable, not to mention, the sleekest Chinese bike on the road.

These are some of Patrick Martino's thoughts on the bike:
"Examining the bike from the advertisement, a stylish black FY 150-3, I became increasingly impressed. The bike had quality parts including a Yamaha engine, Yamaha shocks, and high quality tires from Taiwan. Better still Yu Jian told me the bike ran on specially designed oil which would last for 5,000 kilometers before having to be changed - a definite plus considering the oil problems I had with my last bike. The bike was also was comfortable to ride and just plane looked cool. It was black and looked like a small Yamaha Ninja. It also seemed, however, a little bit too cool and a little bit too expensive. Plus I had never heard of the brand."

P