|  | "I think I miss being saddle sore." I've been in Shanghai six weeks now. I've taken the bike out for a few spins around town, but nothing really to stretch the spokes.
The first time I went out, my bike was stolen. AGAIN!
 Shanghai is a hell of a place, but the lures of the open road, the steady cycling routine, the daily tracing of minute progress across the map,  have become irresistible. | | Ed can't resist getting back in the saddle again |
This wasn't quite a re-run of the Great Mongolian Bike Robbery though (no horses were involved this time around, so far as I know). Thankfully, a sharp-eyed security guard spotted what was going on and gave chase; the thief dropped the bike and ran. (No, I wasn't asleep in my tent at the time, either..!)
Shanghai was supposed to be the end of the line for me, but on Sunday I'll be getting back in the saddle, southbound for Hong Kong. I clocked up 18,000 km getting to Shanghai from Exeter - a shade under the 20,000 km I'd estimated before leaving home. That's only 10% out - not bad really when you consider that my pre-departure guess was based on measuring the straight-line distance of around 10,000 km and multiplying by an arbitrary "road-wiggliness factor" of 2!  | Edward, before setting off from Exeter - there are lots more pictures in our PHOTO GALLERY: |
Still, I'm 2,000 km short, and the ride down to Hong Kong should just about take me up to the 20,000 target. Having said all that though, the kilometre counting is just an excuse really. The truth of the matter is that I'm not really comfortable sitting in one place. Unless it's a saddle, of course. Shanghai is a hell of a place, but the lures of the open road, the steady cycling routine, the daily tracing of minute progress across the map, have become irresistible. Some things will take a bit of getting used to again, like setting off in the morning never knowing where I'll be sleeping in the evening.
Until I got to China, camping out was never much of a problem, but in eastern China finding an empty patch of land is a pretty rare treat, so I'm having to be a bit more imaginative in finding sleep-spots. Most hotels are priced way beyond my budget, but sometimes they have sprawling gardens in which I can hide away and pitch my tent for the night. While riding my bicycle half way across the world, I've come to appreciate the wonderful feeling of freedom that you can get from doing something very basic: moving. For this part of the ride, I've teamed up with two charities based in Shanghai to help raise funds for people in China who suffer from disabilities which make moving difficult, and whose freedom is, in consequence, often severely restricted. One is the Wheelchair Foundation'sChina Office. Their mission is very simple: to provide wheelchairs to people in China who need them but who cannot afford to buy their own. The second is the CereCare Wellness Centre, which provides therapy and education to young children who have cerebral palsy. The treatment the children receive is designed to enable them eventually to get into mainstream schools. Both these charities do wonderful work and have made huge differences to many people's lives.
In the next few weeks I hope I will have the opportunity to tell you more about these organisations and the work they do. They have both been inspirations to me.
 | Ed's previous diary >>> |  |
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