Happy, optimistic, and having no idea that I was to become lost in the mountains and spend the night in a brothel.

Discovering that I have a moderately serious continuous oil leak.

A repair shop. We didn't need them thank goodness. Looked like their favorite tool was a sledgehammer.

Getting out of Beijing. Did I mention the traffic? We motocrossed out of this jam by going around in the dirt and over the railroad tracks. Many cars followed suit.

Labor day weekend traffic to the mountains.

I'm writing this from a brothel in a town two hours from Liajang, which was the town I was aiming for once Datong was out of the question. I lost a good hour because it's likely that these peasants have never been more than 10 miles from their villages. Ask three peasants which way is Lijang and you get three answers. Went up one road that was so bad I thought it couldn't be it. Then down another that was just as bad. The only other choice was the road back to Beijing so I just stuck with the one I was on at sunset. I waved down two cars full of Chuppies on holiday, or maybe they were rich students. They wouldn't tell me where they were going but they did help me wave down a trucker who said this was the road, indeed.

Most of the day I thought “yeah, this is good .... good roads at least if not good signage.” But then I started running into rough spots, reall four-wheel drive material. Then well after dark I passed primitive villages full of people strolling in the warm evening, cooking fires in the streets but lights glowing from the windows of their low brick houses. I wanted to stop but was sure there were no hotels. By 9:00 I hit a good-sized town by what looked like (in the dark) it might be in a beautiful river valley. Figured it might be a vacation spot, bull of hotels, but no, just one, and a brothel. Giggling girls, a young guy in a thredbare pinstripe suit with a flatop trying to charge me 200 yuan when it's actually 20. I am too tired to be jerked around, especially with no water for a shower. After everyone gets over the initial entertainment value of a foreigner on a motorcycle I get a basin and a huge thermos of hot water from a giggling main/prostitute and some peace and quiet, at least in my room. I fire up the laptop and think if they could only see what I was doing now -- with the computer and the digital camera, they wouldn't leave me alone all night.

Except for the trucks rolling in now and then it's quiet enough, too. I've covered the bike, put one of those hotel alarm breakers in my door, locked my computer to the table, and now I'm going to put in ear plugs and sleep. But here are some photos about my ride and the great sendoff by my Chinese biker friends.

GO TO THE CORRESPONDING CHAPTER IN THE BOOK.

Beautiful mountains, green peaks stacked flat against one another in various sizes of pyramids. And a light rain that only lasted about a half hour.

Before the Ming village we stopped for lunch. This dish is carmelized potatoes, served with a bowl of cold water to dip them in so you don't burn your mouth.

We take a tour of a famous Ming village in the hills outside of Beijing city, though three hours' riding we are still in what is officially called Beijing. This is fairly remote countryside and the road to the village is five kilometers of dirt and ruts and people mining coal and rock by hand.

A doorway with the scarey characters to frighten away any evil spirits who might want to come in.

This device is an ancient method of crushing grain. You put the grain in a hole and it falls through to the table. We thought it was quaint but a few hours later I was to see one in each village, in full operation.

Writing on the wall. I don't know what this was about but it sure was pretty.

And then there was one.

I had no idea how many vast and empty spaces there are in China.

Goodbye from the send-off team. From left to right: Mr Jiang (Jiangshan), Lee Wei, Yang Xiao Jur, and Liu Wenyi.

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