Hey Hey and a Big G'Day toya,

I’m just home from a long night with my beautiful friend Pan Pan. Yes, I have a friend named Pan Pan and she is much sexier than a Panda!

We ate so much BBQ and if there was to be a further addition to the Spice Girls she would be called Chili Spice. I can't feel my mouth, my tongue is just a numb object lying still and silent. When your BBQ is being cooked they add chili, usually plenty of chili and like JiangNi, Pan Pan carries her own jar of chili and this 'burning hell' is from Sichuan, China's capital of 'Hell Burning Chilies' and when the BBQ Girl delivered our meaty treats;

Pan Pan went about brushing on brushes full of extra spicy extras.

It's going to rain tomorrow (now today) and I won’t be able to ride so I think I’ll move my bed into the toilet to simply cut out all the walking between. As there are no English DVD's left in the entire town (I bought them all of course) Pan Pan gave me her 'Vampire Diaries' collection which I have seen but I watched all four seasons in about two weeks so this time I'll slow it down.

After a Year I Finally Did It.

I found the ride that links all of my main rides!

I now have one extremely peaceful ninety to one hundred kilometer ride that is mostly off road and alongside rivers, one of which I need to cross using an old ferry. It takes me through ancient villages, tea plantations, rice fields, bamboo, distant mountains and a small town (Xiangtun) where there are several tasty roadside noodle stalls for a cheap chow down. I silently pass silent oxen with their just as silent farmers in the fields or lazing coolly in the river and I share village snacks with groups of children who end up chasing me through their village sharing their happy laughter.

Speaking of Happy Children.

This would have to be one of the best 'back to school/New School Years’ I’ve ever experienced. I must have done something right over the past year as my school now has barely any empty classrooms left and my classes have almost doubled in size. Most of my new students have been moved from small village schools to allow them to be taught English by me and I’m thinking that is a rather huge compliment from my town and area.

They are so eager to learn and so far there hasn’t been a single need to raise my voice.

Though I’ve just returned from a two months break at the end of last week I found that we had another week off for Mid Autumn Festival and at the end of this week’s timetable we will have another ten days holiday (seven for everyone else) off for Chinese National Day and no, I won’t be going on any adventures. Two months travelling alone does get costly and I need to begin saving for Winter Break and on top of that, National Days holidays are shared by the entire country, prices double, train and bus tickets are a complete bitch to get and everything is simply too crowded.

Also I’m going to see my friends girlfriend (who owns the Merida bike shop) and look into seeing how much it would cost to buy a new bike frame and if possible, to transfer everything from my new bike to the new frame. I totally love my new bike but it is simply too small to ride for such long distances. Both my Australian and Guangxi bikes have 21 cm frames, here in China most are 19cm but my new baby is only 16cm;

After only several hours my shoulders, arms and hands become too sore and numb.
I feel like I’m riding in a fetal position.

Luckily for me I still have my old bike which is a 19cm XDS and no, I can’t exchange frames because the school owns that one. From what I can gather, if almost everything can be thrown onto the new frame, my friend’s girlfriend will sell my old frame and deduct that from the cost of the new frame…we shall see but I won’t get my hopes up but the fact is my new ride is so smooth compared to my XDS etc and I'd rather keep it and hopefully in the future find a new frame upon which everything can be transferred.

So once again I'd like to thank my Bubba and Boss Owen Buckland for my new beauty.
I will keep it as its like driving a 4WD through the mountains compared to driving a normal car, but its also like driving a 4WD mini...tee hee hahahahaha!

The Map Photo

Tonight Pan Pan (with the help of her phone maps) helped me finally put together a map of where I've been riding and trying to piece together rides over the past year and now Tongkuang (Number 4) to Hua Qiao is my future riding task. But after asking Pan Pan about it I am well over fifty percent sure that it can’t be done and that whatever connection there is, is more of a ‘get in your car’ thing but as always I shall continue trying.

My Mumma Said…Ride Forrest Ride!
Do you see what I have to live with here in China?
Sometimes I wake up and simply don't know how I survive.

Beers N Noodles toya…..shane

The Photos in this Entry on my map are from (2)Diaozhong to (3)Xiangtun.
The actual ‘entire ride’ are all the links below finally pieced together as one.

1 (Home) to 2 (Diaozhong) – my link to the ‘single ride’.

2 (Diaozhong) to 3 (Xiangtun) – this blogs photos

3 (Xiangtun) to 4 (Tongkuang) – my link to the ‘single’ ride’

4 (Tongkuang) back to 1 (Home) – my link to the ‘single’ ride.
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The soundtrack to this entry was by Pink Floyd
The album was ‘A Saucer full of Secrets & Harvest’
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