19/8/25
Thankfully we were back in the sane realm of cheap hotels with cheap breakfasts. Hong Kong had been a terrifying reminder that we couldn’t afford to live when we got back to the UK. Moment of truth upon us, we arrived at the self storage locker to find the bikes exactly as we’d left them. Faffing with our bags for the next hour ensued. Tyres got pumped up, then we were back on the road.
Stupidly, Jonathan had left our large powerbank on the bedside table. Shaking off our anxiety about getting back on the bikes again, we went back to the hotel. After retrieving the power bank we set about locating an entry to the Tianfu Greenway. Far longer to get across the city, but hopefully more relaxed than riding through the mental traffic.
It didn’t take long for us to become disillusioned. The heat was still unbearable. Slightly less humid than the east of China, but still ridiculously hot. Wondering if we should regret our decision to ‘enjoy’ the greenway, we felt immensely surly. It was even expensive to drink. Vending machines were sprinkled along the route labelled as ‘energy supply stations’. Expensive water turned out to be some kind of electrolytic mixture. Since we were sweating our tits off we weren’t disappointed. Halfway through, and novelty thoroughly worn off, we just wanted it to be over. Apart from the unique bridges the terrain wasn’t particularly impressive. Mostly grasslands and motorway views.
Finally the 40 odd kilometres of greenway was over and we turned off onto the road. CRE stands for China Railway Express. Pretty much anything can be shipped anywhere via the railway. Incredibly simple concept, but absolutely mind blowing for us and our primitive train system at home. Ushered onto the loading platform, we first discovered the train had been cancelled the previous day, and again today. Our train would hopefully be running. Then we had to begin the job of removing anything containing a battery or of liquid form. Lubricant, shampoo, germolene, it all had to come with us. As did bike lights and power banks. The officers then searched deeply through our leftover possessions, paused only by their bewilderment of a Sawyer water filter, they found anything we’d missed. Opinel knife was no issue at all.
Eager to make sure our destination wasn’t lost in translation, we showed our digital tickets to the cashier. Shipping was ¥576 for the bikes and ¥409 for the luggage. Just over £100. It didn’t sound cheap, but it was 3500km. The pannier bags were sown up with a special handheld machine, then labels attached.
As we sat on the back of a trailer in the warehouse working out our next steps, the bikes were being padded out, taped up and cable tied. A pleasing amount of care was being taken. Fingers crossed we’d see them in one piece again soon.
Chengdu had a widespread metro network that we hadn’t utilised yet. We headed to the centre, Tianfu Square. Inside a large apartment block there were about 5 different hotels. Ours was only indicated in Chinese. Sharing an elevator with so many different people meant we were waiting a while for a ride. For dinner we asked the hotel receptionist to order for us. Irritatingly, we were unable to access the Meituan app ourselves. Manuo created vegan burgers and could deliver faster than we could get to their place of business.
While waiting we descended into the sprawling underground mall that surrounded the metro station. Frankie was desperately seeking some chips to accompany our soon to arrive burgers. Our proxy soon knocked on the door to deliver an avocado, spicy and basic burger. We even had a section of durian left. Life was good.
