My day began with some hide and seek. The mission was to find fibreglass to repair the damage to my trailer. This was harder than is sounds.

I visited a housing supplies market that sold everything from fencing to paint to door handles, and no one had it. Everyone had plenty of ideas on how I should use sheet steel to protect the base of the trailer however. Great ideas, but not what I was after right now. Right now I need to strengthen the crack.

In the end I was directed to a place that specialises in making fake trees. “If you can’t be bothered growing it, we’ll make it!” That may as well be their motto.

They had the stuff I was after. Good fibreglass mesh, and resin of some description. If you ever need fibreglass in Lanzhou, then go here:

For the small amount that I needed, they charged me nothing. They put the resin and the hardener in separate small PET bottles for me, and I was set.

I headed back to the inn, and commenced the process of repairing the crack, to the great interest of the owner.

The final product was as rough as anything, but it’ll do the trick for now. I put a full layer of fibreglass on the base of the trailer. A little more stuff to scrape away at for the next 3,500km. More on the repairs here at Skatefurther.com: http://www.skatefurther.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=69&start=30

Now, to the main event for today…the 2008 Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony. It was raining, but I donned my jacket and headed out to the massive screen in the central park in Lanzhou (Dongfang something or rather).

I arrived at around 7:30pm, so had a few minutes to kill. I treated myself to the Chinese equivalent to MacDonalds. A fast food chain called Dicos. For 20RMB, I got a chicken burger, some french fries, and a coke. It was enough to put in your eye. For the same price I could have eaten two full meals at a traditional Chinese eatery. Or eaten four meals worth of noodle soup. Bit of a rip off, if you ask me.

The crowd continued to grow as 8pm, 8th of the 8th month, 2008, approached.

By 8:30pm, the square was packed, umbrellas jostling for room.

As the ceremony progressed, a large group of students began the trade-mark chant chonguo jyayou, chonguo jyayou, chonguo jyayou, chonguo jyayou, chonguo jyayou. For translation, see this link. I felt suitably dressed in red.

I stayed until the Chinese athletes entered the stadium. It was a long wait in the rain. Near the end, the New Zealand team entered. At the risk of sounding biased, I did think the Kiwi’s uniform was one of the smartest. It was actually something that I myself would be happy to wear. As for the Australian uniform…well…to their credit, it did stand out on camera. Very dramatic as a group. But as for actually having to wear the shiny thing…no thanks.

Predictably, the Chinese crowd went wild when the Chinese athletes entered the Bird’s Nest. Great roars of approval.

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Today’s distance / ???????: 75.3 miles / 121km
Average speed / ????: 9.5mph / 15.4km/h
Time on skateboard / ????: 7h 53m
Total skateboarding distance to date / ????????????: 5834mi plus 377mi (?) / 9390km plus 606km (?)
Ascent / ??: 380m
Descent / ??: 605m
End-of-day GPS coordinates: N36° 02′ 15.30″, E103° 50′ 58.60″

The longest distance for one day to date for me – a cool 121km. It was hard earned too; almost eight hours on the board!

As a result, there were alarmingly few photos taken today. The first five hours were skated in a groggy, tired daze, despite the good sleep last night, and the last three hours were skated through air that could be likened to the atmospheric equivalent of treacle.

My mum emailed me recently and informed me that according to New Zealand media reports, Olympic athletes are experiencing issues with the smog in Beijing. I am 2,000km away from Beijing, and it is still the worst pollution I have seen so far in China. Beijing must be horrid at the moment.

It was mostly downhill and smooth roads today, with a slight headwind. I pushed on and on, and found myself on the outskirts of Lanzhou before I had a chance to stop for the night. The original plan was to split the Minhe to Lanzhou leg into two days.

Marija Kozin had warned me that this stretch from Xining to Lanzhou would be a mess of industry. It wasn’t as bad as I had envisioned, but the pollution was terrible. Over the last few days I have developed a persistent cough, so I will be getting something to wear over my mouth for the onward 2,000km to Shanghai.

The trailer, despite the large crack in the base, survived all the way to central Lanzhou, in part helped by massive smooth cycle lanes leading into the city.

I pushed on to an inn I had stayed at a few weeks ago on my way to Hong Kong, near the train station. I had been impressed by the friendly couple running the inn, and it was new and clean, and did not smell of cigarette ash. The older places can reek of it…over the years the smoke seeps into the walls themselves…

My feet at the end of the day bore testiment to the dark dusty route today.

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Today’s distance / ???????: 68.6 miles / 110km
Average speed / ????: 10.6mph / 17km/h
Time on skateboard / ????: 6h 28m
Total skateboarding distance to date / ????????????: 5759mi plus 377mi (?) / 9269km plus 606km (?)
Ascent / ??: 325m
Descent / ??: 725m
End-of-day GPS coordinates: N36° 19′ 46.20″, E102° 48′ 11.10″

Glorious day. Just faaaantastic. Zoom zoom!

It was smooth all the way from Xining, following a river that flows into the Yellow River, all the way to the dirty old town of Minhe.

There were frequent short uphills on this section of China National Highway 109 where the road would climb over a bluff on the river’s edge, but I knew in the back of my mind that as I climbed them, the valley floor was also dropping, meaning more down than up!

I was surprised at one point to see a tree in the middle of the road. This must be one uber-old tree to stand in the way of Chinese progress so much that it was not mowed down during road construction. The tree is in slap bang in the middle of the lane.

The industry of the day today in this region was agriculture. Garlic, to be exact.

The stuff is grown in massive quantities here. Drying by the roadside, stacked high on three-wheeled vehicles, squashed on the road, the scent hanging in the air. I felt healthy and revitalised just by breathing the air here.

At around 11am today, I was joined by a local boy of about 16 years old, on a bicycle. He greeted me with the standard ‘Hello, welcome to China!’. Here we go again, I thought…another smart kid who wants to speak English. I was even more concerned when he told me that he was cycling to Ledu, the next town, 16km away. All the way, with me.

It was a thorougly enjoyable experience however. He spoke very good English for his age, and gave me interesting insight into the area.

The garlic was in a recession since last year when it was affected, apparently causing it to be poisonous to humans (or something to that effect). Therefore prices this year are much lower than usual.

“Are people becoming poorer because of that?” I asked.

“Yes, for so long, they did not plant wheat or corn or raise pigs, because they could live off earnings from garlic. Now, they have no income, and no other food source that they can grow,” he replied. “It is a big problem.”

“Look at that corn,” he said pointing. “When my father was young, they could not grow corn here. Now the temperatures are higher, and they can grow it.”

He left me at Ledu to go to his father, and I continued on through the town, stopping for lunch at a beef noodle place. I was leaving the restaurant when I met Lemon Zhao (Lemon is his English name). He spends his 20 days holiday a year cycling. This year he is cycling to Xining from further east in China. Note the arm and leg covers, despite the heat. Perhaps I need to get some of those…I am being toasted here in the sun.

From Ledu, it was down a narrow gorge that separates clear-air China from polluted China. As soon as I popped out of the end of this gorge, it was coal dust central.

Approaching Minhe, I was skating past various factories of various descriptions, all apparently running on the horrible low-quality coal that is extracted from the hills around here. It is mostly coal dust, rather than coal chunks. Nothing like the shiny black rocks that we used to burn back in the day in Invercargill, New Zealand.

I pushed on to Minhe, arriving late at around 8pm, just before dark. I checked into a friendly inn run by an energetic family. The mother, in her excitement to have a real live foreigner stay at her inn could not stop giggling. Nor could her kids, who more or less took over my room as soon as I arrived.

It was here that I realised that I had been far too compacent in checking for wear on the bottom of my trailer. The trailer is made from a carbon/kevlar composite, all held together with a hard epoxy resin. The trailer is an old Rollsrolls longboard deck, and is excellently well made. But the constant scraping on the road that it endures as a trailer has taken its toll, and I now have a lumping great crack in one of the major load-bearing locations on the bottom of the deck.

I knew this was coming, but conveniently chose to do nothing about it. I should have reinforced this with fibreglass in Hong Kong when I had the resources and time available. Oh well, until I get to Lanzhou (two days away) wonderfully cheap quality cellotape will have to do. When I get home, I will remind myself “Never travel without duct tape, never travel without duct tape, never travel without duct tape, never travel without duct tape, never travel without duct tape, never travel without duct tape, never travel without duct tape, never travel without duct tape, never travel without duct tape, never travel without duct tape, never travel without duct tape, never travel without duct tape, never travel without duct tape, never travel without duct tape, never travel without duct tape, never travel without duct tape, never travel without duct tape, never travel without duct tape, never travel without duct tape…”

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Righto, to complement the recent batch of photos and stories, here is the action from the wee Qinghai Detour in technicolour! Watch it on Youtube here
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzBujRmo1Y4), or on Vimeo below.

I apologise for the dramatic start…I was watching Andromeda on the internet cafe’s internal movie server (http://www.51kkl.com/html/movie_10948.shtml) while I was editing the footage…

Compare this video with the last one from Xinjiang and Gansu. Such stark differences in environment!

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Today’s distance / ???????: 68 miles / 109km
Average speed / ????: 11.7mph / 18.8km/h
Time on skateboard / ????: 5h 48m
Total skateboarding distance to date / ????????????: 5690mi plus 377mi (?) / 9158km plus 606km (?)
Ascent / ??: 155m
Descent / ??: 895m
End-of-day GPS coordinates: N36° 37′ 19.60″, E101° 47′ 02.60″

Scorching day. 109km. Beautiful. As I was lying in bed at 7am this morning, I was thinking that so long as I had a tailwind and downhill all day today, I’d be able to make it to Xining in one day. Downhill and tailwind it was! Awesome.

I left Xihai late. It was not until 10am that I got away. The attraction was this:

The 1st Research Base of Nuclear Weapons China Exhibition Hall. I was fascinated by this, and had to have a look. I waited until the 9am opening time. I got away with not paying the 25RMB entrance fee, and just as well, because everything was in Chinese. It was not all that great, but curious all the same. It seems that there is more to this litte mysterious town of Xihai than meets the eye.

I escaped without any radiation poisoning, and made my way east, downhill.

Short fruit stop in Haiyuan paid off with delicious peaches. Eaten with a spoon, because I can’t be bothered peeling them, and I don’t have any water to wash them with.

Stopped by a lake. Very nice.

Photo taken by passers by who had driven from Beijing to see Qinghai Lake. Took them 4 days of driving. I’ll take about two months to cover a similar distance.

Further down the road, I joined with China National Highway 109, the highway that goes all the way from Beijing to Lhasa (Tib*et). Anyone fancy skating that one? Someday perhaps…two 5,000m plus high passes, and many 4,000m plus passes…mmmmm.

After a while I got bored with the winding, twisting Highway 109, and snuck onto the new expressway. Straight and smooth, all the way down to Xining city, with an awesome tailwind.

Arriving in Xining at 4pm, I stopped in at an internet cafe and searched for a place to stay. I had heard that there were youth hostels here, and I soon found the Sunshine Pagoda International Youth Hostel. For 35RMB (3.5 Euro) for a dorm bed, I couldn’t go wrong. Nice place with lovely staff.

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Today’s distance / ???????: 57.4 miles / 92.4km
Average speed / ????: 8.5mph / 13.7km/h
Time on skateboard / ????: 6h 45m
Total skateboarding distance to date / ????????????: 5623mi plus 377mi (?) / 9049km plus 606km (?)
Ascent / ??: 415m
Descent / ??: 855m
End-of-day GPS coordinates: N36° 57′ 32.40″, E100° 53′ 52.40″

I realise that I forgot to describe the Chinese public baths in my last post yesterday.

In China, there are still many public baths where for a small fee (usually only 0.40 Euro), you can take a shower. Some are better than others, but in all cases, they are a great place to have a long hot shower.

Yesterday’s xizou (public bath) was a nicely set up business with tiled partitions. The actual shower room was open, with only waist-high partitions. Of course everyone is naked. Considering the Chinese obsesion with staring, I was naturally a little apprehensive when I saw this open-plan shower room. The previous xizou I had been to had private shower rooms.

There was only one other person in the room, and despite my initial reservations, we were able to have a perfectly cordial conversation. It was almost as if the nakedness was a leveler, where two people could connect without the symbols of status such as accessories and clothing. Too bad nakedness can’t disguise skin colour…

Anyway…had a great shower yesterday. That’s what I wanted to say.

So this morning, the road was still wet, the drizzle still falling. I packed up and hit the road, hoping for more consistent downhill today.

The downhill was not consistent, and I spent a good part of the day going up, it seemed. Only my end of day gain data told me otherwise.

All along this road were locals wandereing in their fields. After the rain of the past few days, wild mushrooms were popping up everywhere, it seemed.

Many people had them out on the roadside for sale. I tried to ask how much they sell them for, but the owners of this modest little stand spoke very little Mandarin Chinese, only the local Tib*etan.

As usual, herds of yaks roamed the roadside along Qinghai Provincial road 204. Yaks are either very dumb, or very brave. They heed little to the horns of busses and trucks. They are also very inquisitive creatures. On one occasion I rolled slowly by a herd, and they began trotting after me with noses upturned sniffing the air.

Interestingly, the locals in this area do not seem to distinguish in name between cows and yaks. For both, they use the word nyu.

Unfortunately I did not get to get a good look a Qinghai Lake. To get to the lake would have meant a 50km detour. Not much in the whole scheme of things, I know, but believe it or not, the pressure of my visa is still in the back of my mind. Originally I was hoping to skate around the lake; a distance of about 750km. That will have to wait for another day.

The end of road 204 was at the intersection with China National Highway 315, which goes around Qinghai Lake. I turned eastward at the intersection, and began my eastward skate towards Xining, the capital of Qinghai.

First up was a minor pass of almost 3,500m.

This is where the true downhill began. Unadulterated wondrous downhill. It was a welcome change after all the climbing of the last week.

Just as I was approaching the town of Xihai, the most mysterious thing happened. It was only 6:45pm, but everything started to get dark all of a sudden. I put it down to dense cloud cover, but at 7pm, almost on the dot, everything went seriously dark. Then I remembered what a fellow room mate in O-po a week ago told me. Around this time, there would be an eclipse. I thought he was talking about an eclipse of the moon. But no, a full eclipse of the sun occured today. See the Wikipedia article about it here. Within a few minutes, light was restored and I was able to carry on to Xihai, kicking myself for not taking a time-lapse recording of the eclipise. Truely awe inspiring.

Xihai itself is a mysterious place, for other reasons. It seems to be a brand new city, that should be full and bustling with people, but isn’t. I couldn’t figure out what people do for a living there. There are row upon row of small stores, restaurants, shops…but there seem to be far too many for the apparent population.

Com*munist Party emblims are everywhere, including a massive statue of the late Chairman Mao.

A weird place indeed…with a rather disproportionate amount of police.

Hang on, I’ve just now done a web search for Xihai, and it looks like it is a bit of a tourist attraction. Can’t figure out why…

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