Day2

Touch-down in China. It's hard to take in that we were actually there, the start of our adventure! We landed on time at Beijing and despite being a good flight it was a delight to get off that plane. The weather was overcast but still 27c. The arrivals systems at the airport were a nightmare. Everyone had to fill in an entry visa and with approx. 400 people coming off our flight in to a very small arrival area the scrabble for blank visa forms was quite interesting. More interesting was who had a pen to fill the form with, I certainly didn't have one to hand! As you can see Adrian was more than happy to get off the plane and through immigration.

We had buses to take us from the airport to the hotel and after almost an hours delay, while we tried to recover two travellers we had already lost, we were on our way. The journey gave us our first taste of the roads in China and it's an experience I don't think anyone will forget. The first thing we learned was that cyclists had absolutely no right of way on the roads despite their numbers. Our bus driver turned junctions and roundabouts with total disregard for their safety, which didn't inspire us with confidence for the journey we were about to undertake. Everyone used their horns and it was confusing to try and work out who was tooting and why. Eventually we worked it out. They were actually being quite courteous, letting people know they were coming, even if the real message was 'get out of my way'

What a welcome! The Beijing Green Lake Hotel extended a very warm welcome and the food they gave us, all Chinese of course, was excellent.
We all thought we had several hours to relax but this was soon changed when we were told that we had to size up for our bikes that afternoon instead of tomorrow as originally planned. The bikes turned out to be new Trek 800's which they had bought in China cheaper than they could have transported some in for. The bikes were to be used the following week for another ride and then in a few weeks for a ride organised by a Scandinavian charity.

After sizing up for the bikes and fitting our own pedals and bar-bags etc. it was interesting to sit back and watch the other riders doing the same. Some were obviously very experienced, some were apparent novices. Some were an accident waiting to happen and it wasn't long before the first rider had that accident. The excuse, although it was factual, was that the brake levers operated different brakes compared to British bikes.
You have to be sympathetic to injuries but there again you have to question people who assume everything is the same when they have travelled half the way around the world to a very different culture! Also, in order to come off at such a pace, it puts into question what this person was trying to do even if the brakes were slightly different! 400kms to go and people are falling off in the car park????
It was time to start our adventure so we thought we had better acquaint ourselves with the local Chinese culture. Off we strolled from the hotel to a local market which was selling just about everything you would expect, together with quite a few things you would never see on sale in this country. This is certainly not a place for animal lovers. Most animals on display appeared to be ready to eat.