Trophy Shot

Day 1: Monster (Holland)

It doesn't take me long to realise that the man in the safety jacket isn't part of the welcome committee. The nasty glare he's giving me hardly suits the occasion, and then there's that flag in his left hand, pointing away from the northern end of Tian'anmen Square rather than towards it. What's more, the flag is a faded orange, not the checkered black-and-white one would expect it to be.

There have been times these past two years when pretty much all that kept me going was daydreaming about the end, about the day I would finally make it to Beijing. 'And a splendid day it will be,' I would tell myself. 'I'll rise at dawn and go through the motions one last time: open foodbag, stuff myself with whatever I happen to find inside, slip into the translucent remains of my lycra outfit, pack my panniers, load the bike, set off. On the road there will be the merest hint of a tailwind, just enough to take the edge off pedalling. Soon, the smiling hills give way to the first suburbs. But riding into Beijing won't be daunting. When the road widens and flyovers spread their tentacles, familiar faces will pop up around me. The faces of the cyclists I've met along the way, each on his or her own bike, and we'll cover the final miles together, and before us traffic will part like the Red Sea, and people will line the streets to cheer us on, and we'll slap each other on the back and sip champagne and take funny pictures like they do in the final stage of the Tour de France, and we'll give the crowds what they want and ride a lap of honour around Tian'anmen Square, and there will be camera crews and flowers and telegrams from various heads of state, and we'll be all smiles when we tell Beijing what it takes to get there, and we'll never stop smiling.'

Well, I mean, exhaustion does funny things to your mind.

The man in the safety jacket doesn't budge. He's positioned himself right in front of my bicycle, blocking the way to the spot where I most long to be: the top of the square, where Mao's portrait guards the entrance to the Forbidden City. I look him in the eye. No champagne, no telegrams, not even the tiniest of bouquets. That's fine, I think, it doesn't matter. But no one will deny me my trophy shot with Mao, no matter how many orange flags they're waving in my face. I slide back into the saddle, follow the direction he's indicating, and then describe a nice little U-turn while dodging six lanes of oncoming traffic.

Day 753: Beijing

A few pedal strokes later I'm there. I look around. No time for ecstatic celebrations. Things are getting serious. From both sides of the square white-gloved policemen are closing in on me. A Chinese girl on the other side of the fence—the heart of the square can be reached only via underpasses—comes to my rescue. 'You want your picture taken?' I slip her my camera, she clicks and hands it back to me. Then I'm off. Not the grand reception I've been dreaming of, perhaps, but for one glorious second Beijing belonged to me.

Red Tape and Black Coffee

It sounds wonderfully straightforward. One sunny afternoon you pack a few basic necessities, grab your bike and simply go wherever your fancy takes you. During the first year of this trip that really was all it amounted to. Europe, though frightfully expensive, is the perfect playground for cyclists. No borders, no conflicts: freedom pure and simple. Cross into Asia, however, and you'll soon find yourself facing red tape everywhere you look. I've been tailed by armed police, banned from motorways, forced to take buses, turned away at hotels and internet cafés, held hostage by the army, denied access to entire provinces—and the list goes on. 'Take it easy,' I keep telling myself at times like these. 'Tomorrow you'll look back on it and laugh. And if not tomorrow maybe next week. Or next year.'

Hong Kong: from the grandiose...

Having said that, one thing you'll never find me do is chuckle about is the never-ending visa hassle. Visas can make or break a trip like this. A rejection from the Iranian authorities, for instance, would have blocked the gate to Central Asia. And if the immigration office in Lahore hadn't granted me a generous two-month extension, I would have had to wrap up my trip then and there as the Khunjerab Pass was still snowed up at that time.

There is no predicting what will happen. You can trawl online travel forums for experiences posted by fellow travellers and spend hours drawing up lists of which visa offices to avoid and what background stories to fabricate, but that won't change the fact that you're at the mercy of powers that are whimsical at best. Take my last application. I entered the Chinese embassy in Islamabad empty-handed, merely hoping to find out what I needed for a valid application. Thirty minutes later I walked out with a pick-up receipt for a ninety-day visa. Emily, my Khunjerab buddy, tried her luck a week later, armed to the teeth with every single document they could possibly ask for. She only got thirty days. Why? That really is anyone's guess.

...to a more human scale

Under normal circumstances, those ninety days plus the thirty-day extension I pocketed in Xi'an would have given me ample leeway to ride to Beijing without having to overexert myself. Four months is a long time, even if you're looking to cross a swathe of land as chunky as China. But if the idea is to cycle to Beijing and, subsequently, leave the country in a manner that doesn't involve two wings and a runway—let's say by train through Mongolia and Russia—then you really need a bit more time to sort out all the paperwork. The only way that extra time can be had is by making a quick hop to Hong Kong. There, I was told, Chinese visas are handed out by the bucket. So I booked a ticket, left my bike in Taiyuan and tried not to give too much thought to the fact that for the second time I was taking a flight for the sole purpose of getting a silly sticker in my passport.

And here I am, sipping expensive coffee in a café on Hong Kong's waterfront as I watch an international set of lawyers and investment bankers file by. Handsome people, immaculately dressed. It's lunchtime. The coolly understated restaurant next door fills up quickly. Like any metropole Hong Kong is a place of haves and have-nots, though here the gap may be a bit wider than elsewhere. I think of the wretched apartment block where my hostel is located—the cockroach-infested corridors, the Pakistani hawkers at the entrance with their fake luxury watches, the Africans on the upper floors who only come out at night, the park across the street where Malay and Filipino women push around blond children in prams. How many of these people have a residence permit, I wonder.

I take out my passport and examine my new Chinese visa. So far that unassuming booklet with those silly stickers has opened every door I've tried. Despite my fretting. That's more, much more, than many here in this vast city could ever hope for.

Ghosts

Drip. Drip-drip. Thick drops are falling down. Two, three at first, soon followed by more. Within seconds the dusty pavement takes on the appearance of a Jackson Pollock-style drip painting—an ever-changing pattern of miniature pools, each with a corona of even smaller droplets. One lands on my head and immediately finds its way to my neck. I shiver. Out of nowhere umbrellas pop up, like mushrooms in a damp forest.

Pingyao after a downpour

I enter the tiny hostel where I'm staying and climb the stairs to the six-bed dormitory. By now, it's lashing down. On the landing a diagonal sheet of rain has found an open window. When I've finally figured out how to close it, I'm wet to the bone. The rain pounds the pane with angry fists, demanding to be let in. I press my nose to the glass. Outside, the sky is as grey as the slated roofs of Pingyao's ancient low-slung houses. Dragon-like chimeras guard the corners of the curled eaves, their beaks frozen in an anguished cry.

Even when it's pouring down there's no denying that Pingyao is lovely. Perfectly preserved Ming-era town walls embrace a warren of alleys lined with lavishly decorated two-storey mansions. And even though the paper lanterns that light the streets at night lend it a touristy feel, Pingyao is no open-air museum. It's a living, breathing town where tourists from all over the world rub shoulders with locals going about their daily business.

Still, there is something uncanny about the place. Sounds seem muffled, and a certain drowsiness envelops you as soon as you enter the gates. Perhaps it's the fact that the narrow streets are pedestrianised—a rare feat in China. Maybe it's the uniformity of the houses. Or could it be that the town is haunted? At night, it is said, the spirits of deceased citizens return to roam the age-old alleys.

Pingyao at night

'Is it still raining?' The sleepy voice of one of my roommates drifts up from the bottom bunk. I lift myself up. There is something about him that tells me he hasn't moved all day. 'I think it's letting up,' I say. 'Ah,' he replies cheerfully, but doesn't move.

And so the days turn into a dreary blur. In between showers backpackers drift in and out. For many, Pingyao is the last stop before Beijing. It's September; the summer holidays are drawing to a close. They're still here, but their mind is somewhere else. Their old life is beckoning. Playtime is nearly over.

'I'm going to Kathmandu first, then home,' a French girl tells me. She makes it sound as if Kathmandu is a place where only horrible things could happen. She smiles apologetically. 'It's not that I'm not looking forward to it. But I've been travelling for such a long time. I miss my family, my apartment.' She straps her backpack to her back, a bulging daypack to her front. Then she picks up a suitcase. Another smile. 'Too many souvenirs.'

I watch her leave. Through the window I can see fresh clouds come sailing in. Dark ghost ships in a leaden sky. Looks like rain.

Progress

Connected to my handlebar bag is a square sleeve designed to protect road maps from the elements. Two years of heavy use have left it in tatters. Once transparent, the sleeve now shrouds the maps I use in a yellow haze—the same kind of dirty yellow that hides much of eastern China from view should you bother to look at it from an airplane window. When it rains the paper soaks up the water through small holes around the grommets. A few hours of this and the web of red and yellow lines is as drenched as the road beneath my wheels.

A couple of days ago I rode off the edge of the map section that lay before me—always a happy occasion. I stopped, opened the velcro strip at the bottom of the sleeve, removed the map and turned it over. Something in the upper right-hand corner immediately caught my eye: a bold B, doubly underlined. There was no need to spread out the map. I knew what it was. B for Beijing. The finish line.

The Yellow River as it sludges its way through Lanzhou

I stared at it. There was no excitement, no rush of anticipation. In fact, as I got back on the bike, I started to feel annoyed. 'Three months,' I grumbled. 'I've spent three months of my life cycling from one end of this country to the other, and what have I seen? Sand in the west, soot in the east.' And it's true. Northern China is cut in half by a barrier that separates two very different types of landscape. This barrier is the Yellow River. West of it lies the lifeless wasteland that is Xinjiang and western Gansu, east a mind-boggling jumble of villages, towns, cities and metropoles. The transition was merciless. Shrubs and grit suddenly made way for fields and farms; the horizon disappeared behind dusty trees; and everywhere I looked: people. People standing in the doorway of low houses, people picking juniper berries, people carrying toddlers with a slit in the seat of their pants, people huddling around a group of mahjong players, people transporting fresh produce in motorised tricycles, people chatting with other people. The fertile soil sprouted more than wheat and corn alone. It sprouted people.

At first I thought things would ease up, that I would soon reach the kind of China that people come to China for. Not that I expected having to dodge stray pandas all of a sudden, but a bit of the China we know from scroll paintings and NatGeo documentaries would have been nice. You know: a riot of rice paddies, spiky peaks that rise up from steaming forests, the silhouette of a villager pushing a flat boat across a lake of liquid moonlight... My guidebook tells me these places exist, and so did a handful of backpackers I met in Xi'an. And I'm sure they do—in a few enchanted pockets in the deep south.

What do you mean 'pollution'?

But the reality is that China doesn't have time for empty romanticism. So what if cities are soulless collections of concrete boxes laid out along severe grid plans and the spaces in between these cities get smaller and smaller? So what if arable land is actually put to use? So what if factories and trucks and open-pit mines mire entire provinces in a blanket of dust? In less than a generation the Chinese have managed to lift themselves from abject poverty. They work, they consume and, on the whole, seem reasonably happy. A cynic will argue that they have traded the shackles of one system for those of another, that a life spent toiling in communes has been replaced by a life spent toiling to pay the bills. The ever-optimistic Chinese see it differently. They are reaping the benefits of social and economic change, and no one will stop them from moving on, from getting ahead in life.

I've made my peace with modern China. What it lacks in picture-postcard prettiness, it makes up for in energy and ambition. Even the stifling air pollution is something I've grown used to. When I look in the mirror after a day on the road, it's not soot I see on my face. It's the pollen of progress.