it’s all in the family
The night had been good. No filth, no noise. All I could hear was the wind blowing outside, which made for a very cozy feeling in my little room. …but still, I really didn’t feel like walking anymore, so today it was all about the road signs: …another 100km through those empty spaces… Sometimes I […]
oh, what a good thing!
Hongshankou – a crappy little place full of bad food, dirty beds and cheap hookers: So happy to leave that place! There was another stretch of nice fresh highway I found right after I started walking though, and that really cheered me up: Here’s part of my diet during these days: Nang bread and cucumber. […]
blown away
When I got up and looked out of the door, the other guys were preparing to go to work, and the wind had come: …the wind that everybody had been talking about. You see, it’s what they call a wind gap 风口 – the area between two mountain ranges where the winds have a natural […]
Mozart, please help me with your violins!
Oh, had I only known about my friend Uncle Shen’s snoring habits before! Last night the man fell asleep right away, and then he went at it like a gang of chainsaws in the virgin forest, making it virtually impossible for me to get any sleep at all. When I got up I felt like […]
out with Uncle Shen
I got back on the long red line going west today: There was some pretty crappy weather out there – strong winds and rainfall – and the distance to the next town seemed somewhat overwhelming, but I had Uncle Shen with me, who was slowly riding his bike along… …so at least it didn’t get […]
choo-choo
How come my feet are so dirty? Well, we went to the place where they offload coal today… …and that’s where we saw… her: 8195 – what a boring name for such a beautiful old locomotive: I think they should have named her after a girl, or some big old lady. Not just a number. […]
fire in the hole
If you’ve read yesterday’s post, you know that I came here with basically no expectations at all. …that being said, now please allow me to present to you the best hotel I’ve ever stayed at: Doesn’t look like much, does it? That’s exactly what I thought at first, and I’m not going to make too […]
mixed signals
The last one of my three new tires started acting up in the morning, and I knew it was about to become a very hot and miserable day: Oh, how I envied this dude on his carriage that I saw – there he was just dozing off while the donkey was getting the job done: […]
sabotage
Finally a decent night spent in the outdoors. Not too warm, not too cold. Not too windy. I made this video time lapse of my morning routine: By loading the video, you agree to YouTube’s privacy policy.Learn more Load video Always unblock YouTube Note the two friendly dudes showing up for a chat. … There […]
4-0-0-0
When I woke up, I knew I was going to have to dance. But before, I first walked a bit through the residential areas of the oil city: …often, when I’m looking at buildings like these from the outside, I can’t help but wonder what might be going on inside. Are the people in there […]
crude oil
The wheels I had bought didn’t stand a chance out there. After investing a considerate amount of time and energy in the futile attempts to fix the damn problem ourselves (my friend Abdu and me, that is), we finally hauled the whole thing over to a bike repair shop and had him readjust the spokes: […]
getting ready to leave
I fixed my Caboose today: All three wheels were screwed up and needed replacements. Cost me almost half as much as I had originally paid for the complete Caboose, but whatever, it had to be done. Then I went to the post office to mail some of my pictures home: You remember how enjoyable that […]
müslüman
My friend Abdu (walking from Beijing to Bad Nenndorf) decided to take me out to see some of the city’s most famous sights today. One of those sights, and a very important place for Muslims in China, is the tomb of Gess Anzari Kaziyallahu: Remember I told you about the tomb of Wuaisi (overlooked & […]
are my eyes red?
I’m still ordering room-service and drinking coke… Also, I recompiled the whole Walk from Paris to Bad Nenndorf 2003. …I think my eyes must be blood-shot and watery by now, but… no, they are still fine.
the impossibility of nothing
Okay, I couldn’t exactly allow myself to do nothing, even though that’s what I would have liked to do the most. But after all, I had fallen behind something like 10 days on my blog! You see, I’ve been struggling with bad connections and the lack of proper power supplies out in the desert recently, […]
tradition
You know what I like to do once I get to a large city after some heavy walking: …I like to hang out and do nothing. Nothing at all.
my escort
The weather was good today, and even though I still had a weird head on my shoulders, it kind of went by like a breeze: There were more cotton fields… …and lots and lots of these buildings they use to dry grapes and make them into raisins or something: Grapes… suddenly this old guy jumps […]
the light head
I got up feeling terrible. Light-headed. Dizzy. You know, that certain distinct feeling when you’re about to catch a cold but it’s just not quite there yet? Well I didn’t want to stay in sick anywhere without a proper Internet connection, so I decided to keep moving no matter what: I passed some hideous landscapes […]
advanced formula
My original working title for today’s post was going to be called “hell on earth”, but when I noticed the decimal five on the GPS, I thought I’d turn it into another 50k guide. You still remember the original one (50k – a beginner’s guide)? It’s been a while. Well okay guys, here we go: […]
the nothingness
Wanna know why my friend Teacher Xie (Teacher Xie) is hauling more than 50 pounds of old metal through the desert? It’s because he can sell it once he gets to the city in a few days. … We had gotten up early and were hanging around the place chatting and having food and drink […]