CSC Blog

I didn’t post yesterday because we were just having too much fun. We stayed in the ancient village of Yingpao, which I’ll bet you’ve never heard of before.   I saw a sign or two indicating it was a World Heritage site, and I’ll do a bit more research to confirm what that means.

It’s been said there aren’t too many ancient things left in China as a consequence of the Cultural Revolution, but you couldn’t prove that by me.   As an aside, I’ve also heard it said that there is no religion in China, and folks, I’m here to tell you that’s just not true.   We’ve seen countless Buddhist temples, numerous mosques in China’s Muslim sections, and even a few Christian churches.

Anyway, back to Yingpao…it was a hoot.    Before I get to the photos of it, let me tell you about the ride there.  It was a bit on the challenging side, especially since the toll booth people wouldn’t let us on the freeway in Jiao Zuo.  That mandated a trip through the mountains, which was both a blessing and a curse.  The blessing side of the equation is that it got us some altitude and that provided a bit of relief from the stifling heat and humidity.   The bad news was that our route took us by a gigantic quarry, and we got caught in the convoy of literally a thousand or more gigantic trucks carrying gravel, sand, and other construction materials on that road.   Passing the trucks on those winding mountain roads was like being in Colombia’s Andes mountains all over again.   Hey, everywhere you look in China, the skyline is peppered with construction cranes.    China had been building massive projects for at least the 25 years I’ve been coming here, and folks, something has to feed that construction monster.   The trucks we mixed it up with yesterday were doing just that….

I have a few photos from Yingpao, but the Internet is not cooperating.   Maybe next time.

This morning we left Yingpao enroute to tonight’s destination, which puts us under 300 clicks from Beijing.   We’re staying in Yangyuen this evening.  It’s cooler and it’s much drier, and I got some good shots on the road coming here and at dinner this evening.  First, two or three photos of Lu playing with the RX1…

Next, the photos on the road…

That one above is us going through one of China’s thousands of tunnels.  This was a medium one…it was about three miles long.

And finally, a couple of shots at dinner last night, including one with my good buddy Mr. Qi…

We made it to Jiao Zuo tonight (east of Luo Yang and Xi’an), and it was a rough day.   We didn’t cover too many miles because we stopped at a couple of Buddhist temples.  To cut to the chase, this was the hottest and most humid day I’ve ever experienced on a motorcycle.  Wow, it was a challenge!

One of the temples was the White Horse Temple, the first Buddhist temple in China.   The other was the Shaolin Temple, a favored spot for martial arts movies.   ‘They have a martial arts/Kungfu school and as I understand it, this was the place where Bruce Lee learned his craft.

I just returned from yet another great dinner, and I’ll post just a few photos from today.  We’re hoping the air conditioner will catch up with the humidity and the heat in our hotel room, and then I’m out for the night.

The bikes in front of the White Horse Temple, the first Buddhist temple in China.

A martial artist demonstrating his moves at the Shaolin Temple.

More moves. I told the guys I could do this, but I don’t think they believed me.

A figure inside the Shaolin Temple. It’s likely Bruce Lee saw these things when he studied here.

…and another. These are about 15 feet tall.  The Nikon did a good job capturing these images.

That’s it for now, folks.   It was a challenging day and I’m going to get some sleep.

Just a few, folks.  We’re leaving Luo Yang this morning and continuing our eastward journey across China.

Well, you know that most of my writing here on the CSC blog lately has been about China, the RX1, and the RX3.   I was getting a little worried that I haven’t posted much about the TT250, and I thought it would be at least another two or three weeks before I returned home from Asia and I could get back on my TT250.   Hey, no problem!   Check out this nice email and awesome adventure our good buddies completed on their CSC TT250s!

Howdy CSC guys;

I am finally getting around to sharing photos from our trip with y’all. We started on the Mexican border south of Tucson and made it 3000 miles all the way up to the Canadian border north of Glacier, hitting Rocky Mountain, Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Parks on our way north.

Matt

Matt, that’s just awesome!   Thanks very much for sharing your adventure with us!