In the summer of 2006 I again went to China. This was a set up as a motorbike tour through China/Tibet but there was also a possibility to start a week earlier and visit Beijing and some other places (Terracotta army).

Well, having been to Beijing and very much enjoyed it the last time I took the opportunity and extended the trip. One of the reasons I wanted to go back to Beijing was to see, how much it would have changed in two years as it was going to 2008 and the Olympic Games.

 We, the people that were going on this trip met at Schiphol airport (Amsterdam) and having at least one thing in common (riding a motorbike) it was a nice start. The flight was enjoyable and as we drove to the hotel, it turned out it was the same hotel I stayed in two years ago ! But it also had changed and a large section was built next to the main building.

 As I had already been in Beijing I decided to follow a program of my own. Okay, the forbidden palace is tempting, but I had been there twice already. Also the summer palace and The Great Wall I had seen. So I stayed in the town while during the day the others went to the familiar places where tourist go. For the evening I would follow the same program. And so we went one evening to a Kung Fu show and another to an acrobat show. And the last evening we went to the lake for a nice dinner.

 Okay, the first morning, I tried to find the places I had been to last time. I then had brought my GPS and obviously I did again, so it wasn’t really hard. I thought !

What had happened ? Well, there had been major changes going on. The old part, which had attracted me to come back here, were all but torn down. Heavy machinery, smashed houses and a lot of rubble took the place of what was the huton area. I was shocked ! Next to this miserable scene was the new scene with huge, “modern” buildings. But that was not the hardest part. Amongst this were the former (and still living) families, sitting on the “streets” and collecting things that were left in the torn houses. A terrible sight. Even more, when Richard – the guide in Beijing told us (as I had already suspected) that the people had not been given enough money to buy one of the new apartments. So they had little choice : stay in the middle of this mess or go to ....... ??

In my photographs I tried to let you see the miserable state at this moment. So I shot pictures of the old buildings, the work in progress, the new buildings and combinations of those. See and judge for yourself.

Well, I stayed in Beijing for a couple of days and then went to Lanzhou. There our bikes to be were and there we had to do our driver’s license “exam”. I left Beijing in the evening for a 22 hour train ride. Again I had done this two years ago and I had chosen to do it again. First the wait in the soft sleepers/tourist lounge at the station and then finding my berth in the right compartment. Again I enjoyed the ride, although there was less “amusement” than the last time.

And so I arrived late in the afternoon at Lanzhou, where the temperature was almost 40 C. And I couldn’t find the hotel from memory ! So I had to unpack to find the letter I had gotten. Terrible. Even then I couldn’t find it, because the instructions weren’t right. But with the help of some friendly Chinese people I, obviously, got there. But now there was another problem. According to the initial schedule our tour guide from Holland _Joyce- would join me two hours later. But then the schedule had been changed and we left Beijing one day sooner than planned, so Joyce would join me one day later. On the other hand, as I tried to figure out the schedule for the actual trip on the bike, she would be joining me today after all. I decided to check in and find out. So, when I sat down two hours later in the lobby, I would find out which one would be right.

It turned to be the second one. A bit later than planned I saw a young, white, woman with blond dreadlocks enter the lobby. There could be no mistake: this had to be Joyce. And she was. We introduced ourselves.

After Joyce had made the proper arrangements , which was hard – very few people speak English and administration is bad, we went out for dinner, which was nice because the food was good and I was in very pleasant company J

The next day, after having set a time to meet again, I went for a “tour” through Lanzhou. I tried to get to some places that were given to me by someone who lived in Lanzhou and who I had come in contact with through the internet (virtual tourist). Unfortunately, here the GPS was inaccurate (or the maps were), because when I tried to get to the yellow river, the GPS showed me that I had found, while I stood on a major road crossing and sight of a river. I then went into a park and had a nice tea. After that I stopped a taxi and showed the driver where I wanted to go. The first tourist attraction turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. An iron bridge, nothing more and nothing less. The second attraction was nicer. On the other end of the bridge was a hill and on that hill had been built a pagoda ((al the way up). Very nice.

Having made a waypoint at the hotel I checked how far away it was. 4km as the crow flies. Good enough I thought. But in reality it turned out much further. So when I finally got back I was exhausted and my legs hurt. On the other hand I met a nice man who wanted to have a talk in English, to update his knowledge. Normally those people are a bit of a pain, as they won’t let go of you. But this man was a nice surprise, cause at a certain point he told me he was at the place where he had a meeting and parted ! Next nice thing was, that I walked through the more smaller streets and in one there were many “restaurants” where cooks were busy making food in the street. And so I got a bit of an appetite and ordered a few skewers with meat. That was obviously not normal, because there were a lot of (friendly) laughs and a lot of (friendly) spectators. I didn’t mind. The meat was nice and my taste for a bite had gone.

(in due time photographs will be visible here)

The last three weeks we made a tour on a motorbike from Lanzhou along the border of the autonomic region of Tibet, along the grasslands where the Tibetan nomads are living. For a report on those weeks I refer to the contents of my "motor-page".