Wow what a day. Our initial goal for today was to ride ~330km to some random town most of the way to Xi’an - however after rainy weather (and a very tiring morning), we decided to bend the rules…and ended up riding all the way to Xi’an.

Today’s route in blue

Per the usual routine, we set off at ~9am, only the first stop was actually in town: the thousand year buddhas in Guangyuan.

This was a large number of Buddha statues carved into the cliff face along the river, with many of these carved in the period from 500-1000 CE. It was quiet when we arrived, with few other tourists. In the distance, a bullet train whizzed by, while locals were swimming in the river.

Local swimming spot

Cyberpunk China

Upon close inspection, the cliffside was really quite amazing. Each of these Buddhas had been carved out of the stone itself through removing the negative space. Combined in each “room” was furniture and other adornments also carved out.

Well preserved Buddha & friends

Defaced monuments

Many of the buddhas which were more accessible (closer to the pathway) were defaced…literally - they had their heads removed! Rather eerie to look at. ChatGPT thinks it was due to (1) some overzealous engineers who were blowing up the cliff to construct a road/bridge in the 30s, and (2) cultural revolution. I think the latter is probably more true because these looked like proper decapitations, rather than residual damage from an explosion. I wonder if the perpetrators regret their actions. They are probably still alive if they were teens during the revolution.

Then we set a rendezvous point 150km away, at a petrol station along the route, and went on our way. It wasn’t long before Kiat and I went along separate paths. The next two hours were quite painful: the rain started soaking the roads, and there was a lot of commercial traffic along the route. I’ve come to realise that my bike’s kryptonite is wet roads. Ever since i switched tyres, any cornering on the road is extremely dicey, and front wheel traction is not guaranteed. Anyone that wants to stay shiny side up and ride in the wet should not get TKC 70 wheels!

Soaked roads

Eventually I made it to the petrol station, at about the same time as Kiat. Lunch was in the same town (city?) of Mianyang. There, I felt a strong wave of fatigue/tiredness as we ate. I was very keen to avoid the curvy and wet mountain roads as we rode.

So we decided - we would try our best to get onto the highway, and ride as far as we could. For context, the highways in Shaanxi and Sichuan do not allow motorcycles and are relatively strict about it (far more strict than Yunnan).

Before we approached the toll booth operator I got prepared: I took two packs of cigarettes out to give as a gift, and prepared a cover story (read: lie). “We were riding to Xi’an where we had an urgent appointment to ship our bikes at 7:30pm that could not be missed.” This was twisting the truth; Kiat’s bike gets shipped out tomorrow from Xian. 7:30 was significant as it was precisely in 4.5 hours time, which was the exact time it takes to get to Xian via the expressway. The mountain roads would have taken 10+ hours.

The toll booth operator was quite firm and did not yield. He told us to park our bikes away from the booth so as not to get in the way of traffic. I feigned a slip, to make it seem like we were more helpless and clueless than we actually were. Then I got to work. “Do you smoke?” offering him the cigarettes. He recoiled a little bit - so it wasn’t the right move. He asked to see the map navigation and final destination. I had inputted Kiat’s hotel in Xian in preparation. Then, finally, after many protests that we needed to get to Xi’an urgently, otherwise we would face significant setbacks, he asked me to remove my helmet, confirmed that I wasn’t recording the interaction, and then told us to proceed as follows: (1) leave the toll booth, (2) wait 10 minutes, and (3) come back through his booth, and do not stop. He explained that while they were under strict instructions not to allow motorcycles use the roads, they weren’t able to physically stop us.

We proceeded as recommended, stopping at the nearest petrol station and filling up our tanks to the brim (people had mentioned that they do not allow motorcycles to refuel on the highway). Then we went for it. I nodded in acknowledgment as we passed the operator.

About an hour of riding later, we faced a huge traffic jam: for two kilometres cars and trucks were queued. As we cut the queue and went to the front, there was a police officer blocking off the road. There had been a big accident, and all traffic was being halted for the next hour while they cleaned things up.

Traffic jam hangout

traffic pt.2

So we waited. A bunch of other motorcyclists ended up pulling up, and curious drivers came to ask where we were coming from, where we were heading, and where our plates were from. Funnily enough, the most common question we’ve been asked so far this trip is “how much do your bikes cost” and “how much did they weigh?”.

Then, 45 mins later, we were off again. Now racing through the highway as it floated in between mountain peaks and tunneled into mountains. It was quite impressive, we must have passed through 5-6 sections of tunnel each about 6km long. Three of these were back to back, and would have been 20-30kms of tunnel altogether.

Temperatures varied wildly, dropping to 18 degrees, before going back up to 37 degrees as we reached Xi’an.

First impressions of Xian:

• Very modern. Much more so than Chengdu
• Quite dense, here i see the high rises which are so common in Shanghai etc
• Super aggressive cyclists and scooter riders. If roads were ski slopes, everyone here (both old and young) would be be confidently tackling black diamonds.
• Lots of young people around.

Xi’an Ancient City

Xi’an “cat ear” noodles

I’ll be here for the next few days to get some new parts installed on my bike and to fix my GPS. I hope to see the terracotta warriors!

Some stats:

• 492 KMs traveled
• 43.4L fuel added
• 4 unique interactions
• 30g coffee consumed

Altitude map of today’s ride

Route to date