6th June - Huaiji to Butouzhen

Up about 8 and spent a while getting breakfast and packing up. I ended up faffing with my laptop for an hour or so trying to upload some things to this blog but my computer kept on hanging and so I gave up.

On the road for 11 (about 2 hours later than planned) and had another quick ride around town to make sure that my bike was OK before I headed off.


I had a small bowl of porridge for breakfast and I was quite hungry when I popped into a very cool looking place on the side of the road at 1ish. It is different to anywhere else I have seen so far when traveling in China. Very pretty. They have built huts on the lake for accommodation and have a huge hall for a restaurant. It was absolutely heaving with people so I thought it must be good.

I decided to order some food and just typed into my translator rice, chicken and vegetable. A feast turned up. It was very tasty and the thoroughly enjoyed it but I was not expecting to be charged £9! They did show me the prices on the menu and they were correct. Just a very expensive place and I was not expecting it. So far meals have been somewhere between £1 and £3. I thought it might be slightly more but not £9. Oh well. It was a lovely place and the enjoyed reading my China guide while having a relaxed lunch and lots of tea.


The ride in the afternoon was perfect cycle touring. The roads were great quality, with hardly any traffic and through really beautiful countryside. Most of the route was through mountains covered in deciduous trees. There is a new toll road which runs parallel to the road that I was cycling on. Most of the traffic went on this road instead leaving tractors, local motor bikes and me to the other road :-)


The route that I took was considerably more hilly though. The toll road went through tunnels under the mountains and also across bridges over the valleys. Personally I think it should be the other way.... cyclists are more likely to struggle with hill than fast cars etc. Therefore, only bikes and tractors should be allowed to travel on the toll road (for free of course) where as the others vehicles should have to go on the hilly road :-)


One very strange site was this hillock just by the side of the road. It is the type of hill that one associates with China. Covered in trees and just standing there with flat land around it. I am heading towards Guilin where apparently there will be loads of these types of hills :-)

I stopped off at a town about 6.15 to get some water etc still with about 25-30 km to go to get to where I was planning on getting today - a large town called Hozhou.


The locals tried to tell me that there was no other hotels between Botouzhen and Hozhou and that it was a 5 hour bike ride. I knew that this was rubbish as even with serious hills but I decided that rather than turning up past 8 when it would be dark I would just stop and spend some time catching up on old blog entries and get going early tomorrow morning.

It took a while to check into the only hotel in town as there was no one at reception. Yippee I have managed to find a flea pit to stay in! Much more in my comfort zone now. It just did not feel hard core enough staying in lovely rooms and having to pay for them. What a major difference between my room for £5 to night and the one for £6.50 last night. I do however plan on being back in the UK in Oct so that is about 100 more days. At a difference of £1.50 per day..... is it worth paying the extra?

The people at the hotel where very nice and several locals pointed to their hearts and then to the hotel and so it seemed quite safe. They even called in the English teacher from the local school to help with translation :-)


I went to a internet place only 2 minutes walk from my hotel and tried for 1 hour to get on their network so that I would have a fast internet connection to upload some photos. We did not manage to work out what the problem was and so I gave up and headed back to my room. It was interesting to see the internet place though. It was absolutely heaving with young lads watching movies and playing games. They were not just on the internet, they were using the machines as you would do a personal computer. Obviously they do not have their own machines at home.