Portrait of an LBX

By Evan

For the last month or so, especially during the particularly biting cold portions of this unseemly winter (yes, climate change really is a vast conspiracy), all we could think of was how great it would be to finally arrive in Hainan Island, the PRC’s largest island and southernmost territory. Granted, the island isn’t the most LBX place in the world, but the majority population is Han Chinese. Really though, we just wanted to ride our bikes around a big tropical island for a few weeks, camping on beaches and eating coconuts/bananas/seafood/whatever else the lovely minorities here have about.

So, with the intention of coming to Hainan as fast as possible, we lit out of Guangzhou like bats out of hell (the “out of hell” portion to be taken literally), intending to make the 450 km push to Zhanjiang (湛江) in four days, where the internet reported there would be ferry service direct to Haikou (海口), the capital of Hainan. Do I need to mention the maxim about mice and men and their foolish plans anymore? First, the only cultural activity we had intended on the roll toward Zhanjiang, the watchtower buildings built by returning overseas Chinese in Taishan and Kaiping (台山與開平僑鄉的碉樓) turned out to already be touristified to hell, with 50 yuan tickets just to see the old ones. Well, *&#@ that! We won’t pay! Other than the historical implications of passing through the area that produced 70+% of all early Chinese immigration to China, a few ragged watchtowers on the side of the road, and a higher preponderance of Western Unions (西聯匯款), it was a bust. Then a one-two combo of rain and creaky knees slowed our progress yet another day.

Then, arriving finally in Zhanjiang, we rolled immediately to the location of the ferry terminal, where we were informed that ferry service to Hainan had been suspended for 2 years. After much debate about the merits of not taking any land transport except bikes, the imminent necessity of my departure from the country by March 30th, and the pain in our legs/butts, it was decided on the second day to just take the train that runs from Zhanjiang to Haikou via tracks and a train ferry (yes, a train boat). Of course, only the 9:30pm train has a luggage car for bikes, and so after arranging the purchase of tickets, we waited in a cafe for an afternoon to make the trip out to the West Station.

Then things got silly. First, the West station is 20+ km outside of the city down a National Highway (國道) and a long, pitch black (烏黑) country road that leads straight into the middle of nowhere before suddenly, after an hour of nothing, the lights of the minuscule Western Station caught our attention the way a wet rag to the face startles you out of a fitful sleep. At the station, like clockwork, the attendant immediately told us no bikes are allowed. But, but, I called the station manager, and he said it was ok! “I need to go ask…” said manager number one. While managers one through four came in succession to ask the same questions and give the same looks of disbelief, a group of LBXes crowded around us and our bikes like curious monkeys, touching everything they saw, the bikes, the bags, us! A group of fellow bike tourists from Guangxi, who had brought collapsible bikes, asked over and over, “you can’t break your bikes down? We broke our bikes down. Because you can’t bring whole bikes on. Are you sure you can’t break it down? We can break ours down. Because you can’t bring whole bikes on… (你們的車不能拆嗎？我們的已經拆了，因為他們一般不讓你帶整部單車上車？確定不能拆嗎？)” As usual, in their infernal manner, they insisted on showering us with every question under the sun, including “how much did your bike cost? and your bags? and this, and that?” (these typical monetary questions were especially infuriating to answer since we were surrounded by very obviously poor migrant workers) while we were rushing around trying between the managers and the luggage check station desperately trying to figure out a solution. After 45 minutes of negotiations, we were told that we shouldn’t be allowed to put bikes on the luggage car, but considering our circumstance, 50 yuan would suffice as a luggage charge.

So, we brought our horrible huge lot of bags and equipment through and piled them next to where our car would arrive, and posted Alexis to survey them. Andy and I rolled the bikes to the head of the train (without seats, because we don’t trust anybody with our delicate leather saddles), and Andy returned the 500+ meters to Alexis. When the train arrived, we had exactly two minutes to complete the operation. With the help of an attendant, I stacked the bikes in the nearly empty luggage compartment (I seriously don’t know why there was any fuss about the bikes in the first place) and did my fastest sprint since high school track back to the other two, who had been blindsided when the door to our train car (10) had not been opened, and they had to transfer in several loads all our gear about 50 meters to car 12. We had just gotten the last bag through the door when the attendant closed the door, and off we went.

We moved the bags to our compartments and attempted to sleep. My cabin was full of three female generations of a Beijing family, all speaking in Mandarin and giving mind-numbing commentary on seemingly everything that they saw, most especially myself and the amount of bags I had. After traveling so long in the South, I had almost forgotten that Mandarin is actually a language some people speak natively and not just an invented means of intercultural communication (Esperanto much?). Four hours later, and the train lumbered into the stowage of the train ferry (really disappointing since we couldn’t see the ocean), and the Beijing women, between loudly debating whether they were waking me up with their banter, commented on how brilliant Chinese engineers are for devising such a system.

So we arrived in Haikou at 2am, had another fun shuffle getting the luggage off the train. I sprinted from car 10 to car 1, only to be told that the luggage car was in fact car 18. Ah Lord have mercy on my soul, this is bad! I ran the 18 car sprint like Lin Zhiling (林志玲) was going to wait for me for exactly 60 seconds with a sack of cash in one hand and a year long multi-entry visa in the other before disappearing. With my heart about to explode, I screamed at the attendants, the bikes! the bikes! They looked at me confusedly and then slowly unloaded the luggage, since the train was in station for over twenty minutes. Oh well. Finally we repacked the bikes and rolled toward downtown Haikou at around 2:30 am, not to arrive until 4am since again, it was about 30 km away from the train station. Great planning as usual, guys! Alexis and I finished the night with a bottle of celebratory beer apiece in front of our hotel on bigtime hooker alley and crashed.

Anyway, we’re here, and that’s what’s important. Hopefully the next posts you read will be about our awesome experiences with the natives of this island on which we’ve landed. Over and out!