A bike ride around Fuxian Hu, and one other big lake by accident.
Travel Location: Chengjiang,China
Sitting around last week, my roommate Jeremy and I decided it was time to get out of the city for a few days. It was time to get away from all of the honking car horns and the screaming school kids that wake us up six days a week; an elementary school lies right under our bedroom windows. We decided to jump on our bikes and go check out the deepest, and one of the biggest lakes in Yunnan Province, Fuxian Hu. Supposedly, an ancient city lies at the bottom of this 400+ feet deep lake. I’m pretty sure that dragons and UFO’s also frequent the place.
So we made plans to leave on Wednesday morning. On Tuesday, we remembered that it was our friend Ben’s last night in Kunming. He was returning to Germany to finish up university. Long story short, we sent Ben off with plenty of good cheers and bid him a final farewell at about 2:30am. By the time I was crashing out, I was still determined to get up and be on the way by 8:00am. It didn’t happen. We got up around 11am, packed up a few things, and headed down to the bikes. First stop, a very nutritious meal at KFC, nothing like the Sander’s secret recipe to set you up for a long day of cycling.
After that, we went in search of the bus station. Fuxian Hu is about 50km outside of Kunming, mostly through industrial areas. We decided to catch a bus out into the countryside, and begin the ride there. The first bus station we went to told us to go to one right down the street. The second one we stopped by pointed us in the right direction, but we made a wrong turn, and came upon yet another place where many small buses were leaving from. When we finally got the right directions, one of the pedals on my bike snapped in two. It was getting very tempting at this point, to go back home and crawl into bed for a few more hours of sleep. Luckily, we found a bike shop that sold us some pedals and a longer seat stem for only 20RMB, less than $3!! Bargain, we found our way to the right bos station 20 minutes later. The bus wasn’t equipped with a rack, and they were unwilling to let us ride up top with them, so we had to by the four seats in the back of the bus for the bikes, and two more for ourselves…on the way.
Forty-five minutes by bus brought us to the top of a large mountain, and way out of the industrial zones. We had the bus driver pull over and we hopped off. It’s a great 10-15km bombing downhill into the little town of Chengjiang. We rolled straight through the town following the signs for Fuxian Hu. It wasn’t long before we made it to the northern shore of the lake. The place is very beautiful, and very big. After taking in the views, fresh air, and sunshine, we set out to make the long ride down the western edge of the lake.
In no time at all, we were rolling through some tiny little fishing villages, turning heads all along the way. Longboats lined the shore through all of the villages where local farmers worked their crops at the water’s edge. Country living is always so much more laid back than the city life. No cars and trucks to honk their horns at us every two seconds. Instead, we were passing by horse drawn carriages every five minutes, mostly people going to, or coming home from the market. Lots of fishermen along the sides of the small street were packing up their fishing nets for the day. We rounded the northern end of the lake and started making our way south. After a few more km through another little village, we came to a dead end. We backtracked to a main road that cuts up and over a high mountain pass….a proper leg burner. What goes up must come down, and after catching our breath we were speeding back down towards the shore.
The rest of the ride down the west side of the lake is along a main road. Some of it runs along the lake, and other times it winds into the countryside, passing more small villages and lots of farmland, all surrounded by mountains.
At about 6pm, we stopped to try and figure out where we were. The map showed that we had to veer off to the left at some point and we hadn’t seen the lake in a couple of hours. We showed some local ladies where we were trying to go on the map. They assured us that we would get there by continuing straight, so off we went. Hindsight, we passed our turnoff about 100m after we talked to them. Another hour and a half and night was setting in. We finally came back along a lake. Things didn’t look quite right, not like Fuxian Hu, so we stopped to make sure we were on the right track. Map in hand, we were asking some restaurant workers where we might be. Pointing across the street at the lake, we were asking, “Is that Fuxian Hu?” They all happily agreed that it was definitely Fuxian Hu….communication breakdown!
Riding on into the night, we began to figure that this lake we were on was not Fuxian Hu, but Xingyun Hu, a bit further to the south. The main road has a large drop-off at the edge of the bike lane. It varies from about 5ft-25ft at any given point. While it didn’t bother me too much in the daytime, being tired from riding all day, and now pitch black outside, I was starting not to like it so much, especially when the mottos riding down the wrong side of the road were coming right at me with no lights on! Continuing on, eventually we could see a small city ahead in the distance. Another 45 minutes and we arrived at Jiangchuan.
We checked into the first place we stopped at and asked where we could find some food. A lady who was standing down in the lobby walked us down the street and showed us to a restaurant where we had a nice meal. The foot high stools at the miniature tables wasn’t all that comfortable after cycling for 6 ½ straight hours, but the food was great. After dinner, we headed back to the hotel to clean up and relax for a bit. At about 10:30pm, we went back out on the town to see what was going on….not much. Stopped and tried talking with a few locals for a while before ending up at another restaurant for dinner #2, even better than the first.
The next morning we got up and rode around Jiangchuan for a little bit. It’s a pretty small city by Chinese standards, probably a couple hundred thousand people. After trying to make our way back to the water, we were on the outskirts of the city. Came to a dead end and we had to backtrack some more. A little while later, we found the road that continues around the rest of the way around the smaller lake and then cuts through some more mountains and out to the southern end of Fuxian Hu.
In the town at the southern end of the lake, we found some more good eatz at another random hole-in-the-wall. We had lunch while the old man sitting along the wall smoked bongs and swatted flies. Leaving this town, we also left the paved road. The entire eastern side of the lake is dusty dirt roads running through tiny little villages. The riding is a little tougher, but there is a lot more charm once you get off of the main paved road. Not so many people on this side of the lake. Cruising along this side of the lake, the road stays close to the shore the entire length back up to the northern end. We made stops in most of the villages for fruit and water, and of course some people watching. Some of the villages were as quiet as ghost towns, while others were having big market days.
About half way up the eastern edge of Fuxian Hu, we stopped in a good sized village and found a place to have dinner right on the water. Enjoying a couple of cold ones, we decided to inquire about a hotel room next door. With decent rooms at very cheap prices, we went ahead and called it a day for the biking and spent the rest of the daylight hours roaming into some of the smaller farming villages away from the water.
The farther we got away from the lake, the more it felt like we were stepping back into time. The last little village we came to doesn’t look like it’s probably changed too much in the last 1000 years. The only thing that lets you know that it’s the 21st century, is that some of the houses have electricity, and the one house that we were invited into had a much nicer TV than the one that is currently in our apartment. Walking into the village, the kids were the first ones to really take notice of us. We passed a few older people who had most likely been living in this village for the last 70 years, and some of them gave us looks like we must definitely be lost. The gang of kids that were following us around however, was growing larger at every turn. While most of the young boys were trying to ham it up and get there pictures taken, the girls would disappear into big plots of wheat if you even got the camera close to pointing in their direction. The village itself was a maze of little dirt paths cutting through old mud-brick homes. We kept making our way up the side of the mountain until we came to the temple near the top. A young guy was busy painting away on some new Buddhist sculptures inside, and most of the kids from the village had come to the top with us. We sat around for a while enjoying the views, then made our way back into the heart of the village. One of the kids invited us in to meet his mom and baby sister. The inside of the house had a big courtyard area with an open-air living room along the back wall. We hung around watching some Chinese soap operas with them for a little bit, then finally made our way back to the hotel as it was getting dark.
Back at the hotel, we had showers and put a few beers in the freezer downstairs. The room was a little strange. Opening the door, there was a small room with wood floors and absolutely nothing in it. The next room had a couple of double beds, TV, and water dispenser. Then out on the balcony, there was a nice view of the lake, but the balcony doubled as the bathroom. You could easily pop a squat, take a shower, and enjoy the lakeside view all at the same time. We grabbed our beers and made our way up to the roof of the three floor hotel. We took some stools up with us and enjoyed one of the finest night skies that I’ve seen in China. Saw a few shooting stars, but we were both a little disappointed that no dragons or UFO’s were to be seen.
The next morning, we took off pretty early and finished off the 25km back to Chengjiang in about an hour and a half. We found a bus that let us tie our bikes to the roof and caught a ride back into Kunming. Another 6km ride brought us to see our other favorite guy in town, Ronald McDonald. Big Mac mania….mmmmmmmm. And now I will rest my sun-burnt bones.
