October 19th, 2016 by Pierre in Cycling, Travel, Writings
Jianou is a small city tucked away in the mountains of Fujian province China in the heart of tea and bamboo country. There is also some rice farming in the area but it is tea and bamboo that stokes the fires of the beast. Fujian province as a whole is home to some of the finest tea…
September 12th, 2016 by Pierre in Travel
Traveling in China is completely unlike travel I have experienced in other countries. First of all, China is a huge country, much bigger than people realize. So when you are traveling within it’s borders you are likely to encounter flight times that are much longer than you anticipated and train and bus journey times long…
August 29th, 2016 by Pierre in Cycling, Travel, Writings
There are many sayings about where your home is. Some say that home is where your heart is, or where you lay your head at night. It may be where you park it, or where you hang your hat. This afternoon, after several days of being in transit and a grand total of 6 weeks…
July 22nd, 2016 by Pierre in Cycling, Travel, Writings
The ride out of Lanzhou was a silky smooth transition of leg over leg as I pushed my way up the gradual but insistent incline. I felt strong as I pushed my heavy laden bike up the narrow byway to National Highway G309 at which point I took a sharp turn to the west and…
June 21st, 2016 by Pierre in Cycling, Travel
4 to 5 weeks riding the historical Silk Road through the Taklamakan and Gobi deserts. Man, I love the sound of that! One of the reasons I was so interested in coming to China to teach English was the large amounts of vacation every year. Typically, there is one month of vacation in winter spread…
May 23rd, 2016 by Pierre in Cycling, Travel, Writings
Cycling as an activity can be filled with emotions. From the first push of the pedal to the last on any given day on the bike there can be any number of emotions that run through me, around me, and over me. Some days it is a cascade of differing feelings while others are peaceful…
April 15th, 2016 by Pierre in Cycling, Travel, Writings
The ride from Da Nang to Khe Sanh had been an incredibly satisfying journey, but the most anticipated part of my tour was still to come: The Ho Chi Minh Trail. My plan for the Trail would cover three days and carry me more than 240 kilometers before turning off onto a different highway for…
April 9th, 2016 by Pierre in Cycling, Travel, Writings
Sometimes when I travel I go out of my way to visit places that some would say have a limited tourist appeal. My visit to Khe Sanh during my recent Vietnam cycle trip was just such a stop. If you research Khe Sanh as a tourist destination you will find mentions of a commemorative statue,…
March 18th, 2016 by Pierre in Cycling, Travel, Writings
I had been barreling through Da Nang as fast as morning traffic and red lights would allow when the north end suburban expanse ended with the suddenness of an equatorial sunset. To the right was the oily brine of the petroleum terminal. To the left, a wide swath of rice land with an ornate temple…
March 4th, 2016 by Pierre in Travel, Writings
On January 30, 1968, just a little more than three weeks after my birth, large numbers of Viet-Cong soldiers, South Vietnamese loyal to the North, with well placed support form the North Vietnamese Regular Army, orchestrated a sweeping series of fierce attacks upon the unsuspecting South Vietnamese and American troops. The reason they were caught…
