We were up and ready for eager for today's ride. Our stay at the Yangshuo Resort provided a needed break from the vigilance required for riding in China. Our bike has seen cleaner days...
So we mounted our loyal but filthy steeds...
...and down the park road,
saying goodbye to the spectacular karst mountains...
and hello to the crazy Chinese drivers.
Some parting shots of the karst mountains.
We were traveling down the road, making pretty good time, when all of a sudden these men pulled a rope across the road and blocked our progress. They were preparing to bring down a tree across the road. Geez...we thought, we're probably going to be here for an hour or more!
But no - they cut the tree down with a chain saw and then a crew of about 10 workers...
limbed the tree and cut the trunk to pieces.
They pulled the branches to the side of the road.
and then a backhoe grabbed the large pieces of trunk and moved them aside.
We were on our way within 5 minutes.
This work crew was well-organized.
Unfortunately, we didn't get very far down the road when we ran into another roadblock. We waited while Mike and John scouted out various possibilities - either go around to the right or...
maybe we could make like a scooter and squeeze between the concrete blocks.
At first we though we might have to take off our panniers, so some of the guys started to take them off.
But David found there was actually just enough room to get by with an inch on either side. Success.
Soon we are back into traffic and all the craziness that it embraces.
At first glance, it appears as if there are snow covered mountains just beyond the polluted haze. But no, the mountains are being mined for the stone.
The mountains are literally being relocated to quarry lots.
We continue to see all sorts of overloaded trucks...
and other strangely-used vehicles...
and new ways to transport babies on scooter.
Our motorcycles proved to be popular with the young boys at our lunch stop (again).
It's always "fun" to follow the watering trucks and their waves of intentions mud - apparently they prefer mud over dust - oh well..
We haven't seen this type of utility vehicle before. It seems to be popular in this area of China - a real (slow) work horse.
Road construction throughout the day often forced us to use the opposing lane.
Early afternoon we came into the town of Guangning..
and to the Overseas Chinese Hotel. Another day successfully completed.
No comments:
Post a Comment