|  | Happy New Year To You All! Well, it's good to be back in the mountains again, though a little unexpected. The line on the map looked dead straight, but that proved to be something of a simplification of reality.
I found myself climbing for 50km up a switchbacking road into snow-drenched forests, a pleasant change from the endless rolling plains that I've been cycling across most of the time in China.  Even a night in a hotel does little to warm you up. 'Heating! What heating?' the locals say. 'We're south of the Yangtze, we don't  need heating here.' | | Ed experienced a rather cold Christmas Day 2004 |
Christmas day was quite eventful. I was riding through rain and sleet, bitterly cold and generally unpleasant.
In those conditions it's impossible to get warm, everything is wet and the cold permeates everything.
Even a night in a hotel does little to warm you up. "Heating! What heating?" the locals say. "We're south of the Yangtze, we don't need heating here."
Even when it's minus three outside. The hotel owner and his family huddle around a lump of charcoal burning in a ceramic pot in the lobby, but any heat from that is quickly absorbed by their fingers, leaving nothing for the shivering hotel guests who instead have to retreat under a pile of blankets in their bedrooms. Well, about 40km from the nearest town (and thus sanctuary of sorts), I felt my rear break throbbing as if it had a pulse.
This is non-standard behaviour for a brake.
I stopped to investigate, and found that my rear wheel rim had split, buckled, and was in danger of collapsing altogether, leaving me with the prospect of riding a unicycle to the next bike shop.
Very gingerly I made my way along the road, stopping every half an hour to see if the rim was getting worse. It was!
I reckon I had about 5km left in that wheel before it gave way completey when I limped into Li Ling, a small town that was, to my surprise, doing quite a good job of celebrating Christmas. Christmas is not a very Chinese festival but local entrepreneurs do not miss opportunities like this. Fluffy Father Christmas hats with red flashing lights were selling so fast that the local hot-cake seller packed up and went home early.
All the shops had 'Merry Christmas' (in English) sprayed in white snow-paint on their windows. All the shops, that is, apart from one, which had the cryptic message "I love you, Gloria", instead!  | Edward, before setting off from Exeter - there are lots more pictures in our PHOTO GALLERY: |
I had to wait a couple of days in Li Ling while I had my bike repaired.
A man called Mr Wen invited me to visit the local fireworks factory. This turned out to be slightly embarrassing because when we turned up, marching through the snow, we found that all the workers had stayed at home because of the cold. We stood around getting cold for a while then went back home. Since then the weather has improved. It's still cold but sunny, clear and dry now - perfect cycling weather. New Year's Eve promised to be quiet night, everyone else in the small town I stayed in went to bed early so I did too - only to be woken after midnight by someone setting off an ear-splitting volley of firecrackers right underneath my hotel window that lasted a full 25 minutes. Hotel rooms round here can be quite entertaining, lack of heating apart. A local speciality is to place the light switch outside the bedroom out in the corridor, so that it is conveniently available to passers-by.
The unfortunate occupant of the bedroom, meanwhile, has to make a freezing run for it when it's time to switch the light out, then dash back in and try to make it into bed in the dark. But then, I suppose that's what you get for a pound a night, and at this time of year it just about beats camping. Keen map-followers among you will notice that I am a bit off-course for Hong Kong. I'm heading for Yangshuo, at which point I will make a sharp left-hand turn and head towards my "final" destination.
But then I said Shanghai was my final destination, and that didn't last long....  | Ed's previous diary >>> |  |
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