After almost one month of not riding our bikes while staying in Hong Kong and Macau, we decided to get fit again and to cycle as much as we can during our second 30 days stay in China. This time we wanted to explore the provinces Guangdong and Guangxi before going further West to Yunnan. After having seen Kaiping and its surrounding villages, we did not plan to see any other particular city or site but enjoy cycling through these regions instead. And in fact that´s the best way of travelling for us -  to have a rough plan about the route with no precise spots marked on our map, that we “have” to see. This is how we could discover precious places full of nice surprises.

We were amazed by the houses built out of local bamboo,

and could observe people in their everyday life.

It happened twice to us, that instead of cycling a bridge – as showed on our map – we had the great pleasure to take a small ferry fully loaded with local people on different kind of vehicles…

One important source of energy for us when we cycled were definitely bananas – which grow almost everywhere in Guangdong. Delicious, cheap and a good excuse for a short break.

We also discovered that the Chinese dry orange peel during this period of the year, unfortunately we could not find out what exactly they do with them afterwards.

We have finally met our first Chinese long term travelling cyclist, after all the European riders we have met – a nice surprise. Already four months on the road, he is discovering his own country including Tibet, a region almost impossible to explore by individual foreign travellers like us.

Almost every day we can gaze at motorcycles loaded / overloaded with various types of cargo, from living animals through to…

…building materials as well as sometimes whole families with more than 3 people on the same vehicle.

Lunchtime in small Chinese restaurants is a big adventure and not only because of the chopsticks. The language barrier is huge and makes it quite difficult for us to order food. Our picture dictionary is a big help but nevertheless most often we end up inside the kitchen area pointing on the products and making strange gestures to specify if we would like to have the food fried, cooked or mixed with 0ther ingredients. A lot of laughing is included from both sides and its a nice way of getting in contact with the Chinese people.

Mat could admire some Chinese models while being in the restroom, the restroom for women offered Ania some nice landscape tiles instead…

Being on the bicycle we are always very close to the people – a great advantage of travelling this way. Although from time to time it seems that we are frightening the people and especially children start running away…

Once again Chinese quality roads made it easier to cross the big distances in this country.

After the banana plantations of Guangdong we cycled along numerous sugar cane fields in Guangxi and could experience its refreshing sweetness on a Chinese market, where we spend some time enjoying the atmosphere and taking pictures of the local sellers and their customers.

We could not resist and bought two beautiful handmade bamboo hats.

In total we have cycled around 900 km in nine days through this impressing provinces. A nice result after a long cycling break.

Now we are curious about what is waiting for us in Yunnan…