Second best couldn’t be better

(note: I’ll be posting two or three days at a time, otherwise it will get a bit too long)

SO, our plan has matured from driving two cheapy stolen scooters across China to driving a fully legal iron horse to Kunming and sending her (thats me) on the train back. From there we digressed to taking our semi-legal steed for a few-week gallop through the mountains west of Shanghai and back. As I said second best couldn’t be better.

Day ONE → To Anji
By The Boyfriend, edit and comments provided by me.

Our stallion, packed up and ready to go

We set off in the early evening taking advantage of the (un)forecast nice weather to get out of Shanghai and its daily rainfall. Heavily laden we set off to meet our guide around the check points. Nuhaus took us around and back onto the G318 where we had a smoke and he went to get petrol. That was the last we saw of him (It sounds like our guide abandoned us, we just went our separate ways).
We were delighted to be out of the city on a nice big straight road without cars. We had a mild case of butt-ache (mild? MILD?) after doing our longest run ever (70km) followed by a shorter trip through the country so we set up camp in the first town over the border. I can’t remember the name, but unless you like roadside brothels (more than 7 to chose from right by the G318) there’s no reason to.
We found a nice bike for sale though, all flashing lights, blasting out MJ only 800km on the clock, but we declined.

... and the passengers. You wouldn't have known that we had just had an extended quite fight over when to leave (note fake smile)(note: I had to pose for too long!)

From the back of the bike

MJ bike for sale

Day TWO
By The Boyfriend, edit and comments provided by me.

Next day we made an early start (9 a.m. is early enough for us)(I think The Boyfriend means me here instead of “us”, he woke at what seemed to me the middle of the night but was probably more around 7a.m.) speeded on by the hard mattress.

The Sign

On the G318 again it didn’t take long for us to lose interest and we couldn’t wait to get off it. We saw loads of signs forecasting visual splendour only a few km up the road, but when the appropriate kilometer arrived there was never a sign indicating the turn-off. We were repeatedly let down. Eventually onto the 306 and we had begun to give up hope. I was powering along wondering when our China adventure would begin when, about 30km outside Anji, we saw a sign for a turn-off.
We turned off and again quickly lost interest, a lonely looking dirt-road to our left was calling us! “Come Mr. and Ms. Clegg,” she said and we followed the siren song all the way into a bamboo forest. We were so transfixed that we didn’t notice the road shrivel away until the inevitable happened.

No sooner had the bike hit the ground than we heard the first crack of thunder. The rear light was detached and the bike was stuck in a bit of a difficult position, together we managed to get the bike upright and turned around (Ms. Clegg almost had her hand crushed when it came between the bike and some bamboo. Fake hard-knuckle gloves are better than no hard-knuckle gloves… word)(WORD!). I was happy to have a use for the crap tool-kit I got with the bike and we were back on the road in no time. Never found that temple though…

Yes.... nine.... NINE

Through the pissing rain and into Anji we motored and unto a restaurant wherein we took shelter from the storm. Afterwards I set about fixing the wiring to the rear light which had some invisible problem. No one thought that they were up to the task until I eventually managed to explain to a small army of mechanics that if they could fix a car light they could fix a bike light.
Light fixed and chibaole ( lit. to have eaten your fill) we set off to find a hotel.
Anji was an absolute mess after the few hours of rain. Puddles around 20cm deep in some places were fun to drive through… once.

Again we got distracted (you’ll learn that we are not very objective oriented) and ended up off-road again. Sometimes the roads were more like streams but this was no problem for the QingQi Enterprise and we found some fun little bits and talked a bit to a farmer lady. (QingQi is the brand of the bike and with us feeling like true explorers of unknown territory the name QingQi or QQ Enterprise seemed more than appropriate!)

Back in town we found a hotel (twice as expensive as the one the night before) and were happy to get into dry clothes and across the road into a restaurant which had (as advertised in the window) the most haochi (let. delirious) food in Anji. It was okay (it was “meh-shrug-of-the-shoulders”).
We slept early. Next day onto LinAn!

The Road

...worsened

行? (cool?)

不行 (not cool)

That could've been Ms. Cleggs (that's me) hand...不行

Army's best soldier

Anji after some rain

Downstream

High and DRY!