My muesli and bananas this morning was exceptional, as was the Nescafe I had. I’ve been away from really good coffee for so long that Nescafe is now about as good as I’m going to get in these parts.
There are coffee shops to be found in large cities with a few chains that do good business. Many of them have good Italian coffee machines, and I know that coffee beans are involved in their process, but seriously it’s closer to flavoured milk than anything else. I can’t get to Italy quick enough.
I checked out of the hotel – all smiles with the nice people, and as is now usual, more questions from the morning reception staff – where are you going, what are you doing… I packed the bike and left via the side lane. Gee I got some strange looks from the few people around at 9:30am. It was as if ET had strolled down the mall. Eyes and mouths wide open. I can only imagine what they were thinking.
The exit from the city was along a street with vegie stalls but I was quickly away and riding in the bike lane beside the G312.
I had rugged, snow capped mountains on my left today. That were stunning but too far away for great photos. Zoom in on the photo at the very top and you can see them.
After about 7kms, I noticed that there was a car driving 100m behind me and going at my pace. Yesterday the police came to visit at my hotel room where I answered a number of questions including – what time do you leave tomorrow ?
So I knew it was the police escorting me through here “for my own safety”. After a few more kilometres, I had to turn off the road I was on. I was unsure where to go, so I signalled to the guy that I was stopping and he got out to discuss the right route. “Follow me” was his suggestion, and he led me onto the G312 proper which is busy but has a good shoulder. It was very safe as there was a car blocking the lane behind me with a policeman inside.
And that’s where I stayed until the outskirts of Shihezi, 45kms later.
At the first town I encountered, my initial escort got me to wait so he could hand me over to the next guys. They followed for a while but disappeared, leaving me to my own devices.
At the next town, I grabbed a lunch of pork noodles. Lovely people. Really bad pork noodles.
Underway again, there was no sign of my escorts. I couldn’t have lost them. I’ve been on the same road all the time. At lunch, I even parked the bike out the front in full view from the road just in case they came past.
Not far along the road, a police car coming the other way, beeped at me and I wondered what that could mean. I found out a few minutes later as he came past beeping me and telling me to stop. He was gruff at first but warmed up quickly. He had a uniform and was a bit older, so I suspect he was doing his work and noticed an unescorted cyclist on the road.
He called another guy and we translated our chat for the next 20 minutes in the shade. The young guy turned up and we were off again.
I really felt sorry for these guys being forced to drive at 20-25 km/hr for so long.
The last guy left me at the outskirts of Shihezi where we shook hands and thanked each other and smiled. They’re all really nice, helpful people doing their job.
I found the hotel that I’d booked while having lunch and went there. It was the Shihezi hotel and there was a large arched entrance to an enclave that house three large hotels, all called the Shihezi hotel. I went to the wrong one at first and was escorted to the right one, the Shihezi hotel – what was I thinking ?
We did the check-in process but they insisted that the bike stays outside. No it isn’t, Yes it is, oh no it isn’t … So I cancelled the room and booked into a different hotel.
That’s the first time this has happened in China. This hotel wasn’t the shiniest of hotels and there was a huge ground floor where I could have left it inconspicuously. Their loss.
The next hotel had the issue of the English name on the sign not matching it’s English name in Trip.com. research showed me that the phone numbers were the same, so at least I was at the right place. This Moment is happily sitting in the room with me – we share everything.
This is another nice town of a mere half a million people. I had food options galore downstairs and a supermarket at the corner.
Yes, life is simple as a bikepacker and food is fuel.