Minle

It has taken almost fifteen days but today we started to leave the deserts of China.

The six bikes have been travelling together without the two trucks.  The trucks are a lot slower having to negotiate the traffic without the advantage of being smaller and far more maneuverable.  Road rules don't seem to apply although Chinese drivers are more courteous than those in the 'stans'.   We have been pushing hard at times and riding in a manner that would draw attention in Australia but here we just blend with everyone else.

We have not been bothered by the police or any other official.  Reading blogs about driving in China the consensus was that motorcycles are not permitted to use the expressways.  That has not been our experience as the officials just wave us through.

On the way to the small rural town of Minle we stopped for lunch in the city of Zhangye.  The city boasts having the largest sleeping Buddha in the world.  It was on the itinerary to visit so we met up with the guys from the trucks.

Minle was described to us as a small rural town.  Turns out that it has a population of about sixty thousand.  We turned up at the 'government' hotel well in advance of the guide who was in one of the trucks.  We caused a huge stir - I doubt that these people had ever seen Europeans before.

We walked to a local shop that served food and sat down for meal of noodles.  It wasn't long before three police officers turned up and handed out "Foreign visitor registration' forms.  Apparently we should have registered upon entry into town.  The officers were polite but didn't understand a word of English and we didn't understand Chinese.  Thirty minutes of hand gestures eventually worked and they understood that the process of registering would be done by our guide.  They seemed happy with that and left only to return later when Lun arrived.

As a group we went for a walk around the town late into the evening and the local country folk couldn't help but stare.  We could not have been more different.

Fireworks were constantly going off.  I asked Lun, our guide, why so often.  He said that almost no reason was required.  It could be for a wedding announcement, birth of a child, birthday, an event with a happy outcome, etc.

Almost hourly a powerful speaker system would broadcast a woman's voice around the town.  Lun explained that it was hangover from the Cultural Revolution when it was the only form of news that people got. 

One old lady when confronted by us as a group turned and ran away petrified.  Poor old thing - probably had a lifetime of negative information about us.