ULAANBAATAR - HANOI (15/04/2007 - 26/07/2007)

2007, April 25th

We took the train from Ulaan Baaatar to Beijing.
For the first time we were travelling with another machine than our Suzuki.
The trip was nice. We passed through the Gobi desert. The custom formalities were applied right on the train.
At the frontier, using an elevator to lift the carriages they changed the wheels. The Soviet Union used a major width between the rails. They changed also the restaurant carriage.
In Beijing we found a hostel and spent every days to buy and to prepare two bicycles, to find clothes etc.
We bought two Merida mtb and we found a big market of forged clothes, looking like a fish market, where everyone shouts and where you have to negotiate the prices.

We left on our over weight bicycles.
The eastern China is very crowded. Fields and towns, the roads are full of three wheels vehicles and of course bicycles (even more electric).
Ambulant workshops and restaurants where to eat a soup.
In the towns, the restaurants sell many kinds of meat (including snakes and dogs).
We couldn’t put the tent, so we slept in very poor inns.
We got Shanghai. It’s impressive, with its high skyscrapers and its electric lights.
It’s very interesting to pass into the cities in the early morning. You can meet groups of people doing Tai Chi.

We were close to the Pacific Ocean but we did not see it until we was in Hong Kong, because the road is a little far from the shore and it’s hidden by the mountains.
Getting close the city the bicycles and karts end, and everything becomes to much modern.
The frontier for the autonomous region is some kilometres far from the city, and to get it from there by bike is exhausting, there are prohibitions in most roads, and you have to take the train many times (it would be better to take it from the frontier on to the city).
Till now we rode 3968 km.

2007, July 5th

Hong Kong was crowded because of the 10th anniversary of the independence, so we could assist at the big occasion. We found a place in tremendous hostel, maybe the worse in the city, but there was not any other place, because of the anniversary.
In a day we got both the visas for China and Vietnam (Entering in HK they put an exit timbre on your visa, just because even if it’s doing part of China, HK is an autonomous region).

We left Hong Kong moving to west, to reach Vietnam.
The inner Vietnam area is more rural than the rest that we saw.
In the 26th of July we was in Hanoi, the Capital city.

Claudio and Patrizia