I love when adventures just arise. After lunch I started to walk along the river and almost immediately came across a little bike shop that was hiring bikes out for 5 yuan an hour – about $1.20/hr. I hired one and found myself on the only cycleway I have ever come across in China. Yichang 宜昌 seems to be on a bit of a health kick – they have a marathon coming up next month, they’re very proud of their cycleway and riverside development, and there were people swimming in the river at one point, next to what seems to be the equivalent of a lifesaving club. They had photographs of groups of them swimming across the river, about 600m at that point. In short, all of the ingredients are here for a triathlon, though I’m not sure swimming in the Yangtze is a great idea.
I crossed the first bridge I came to, the Yiling Yangtze Bridge 夷陵长江大桥. This involved first riding my bike up about 10 ramps to get to the top of the bridge, and then across it, right next to the not-so-high guard rail. It was a little unnerving at first, but not really very scary. I rode across to the other side and looked around a little monument park there. Established in 2002, it is dedicated to China-Japan friendship – not something you expect to see in China. After I rode back over the bridge and continued a little further there was another monument memorialising the Yichang Evacuation 宜昌大撤退铭文, in the face of Japanese invasion in the autumn of 1938. When the Japanese took Wuhan, thousands of people and goods were sent up the Yangtze to Yichang, and then when it looked likely that Yichang would also be taken, people and things were sent further up the river to Chongqing. The monument suggests that Yichang is very proud of the role it played in saving thousands of lives and important items and goods, and is also a tribute to the many lives lost during that time. The memorial actually states that the Yichang Evacuation “is as renowned as the Battle of Dunkirk in France”.
There were all kinds of monuments and sculptures, and a traditional pagoda, along the riverfront. But most interesting was just watching all the people. There were countless groups of old people clustered along the park playing cards, and many gathered together playing traditional Chinese instruments and singing. I came across several photographic shoots – one child portraiture, one wedding and two glamour shoots. There were cyclists of all kinds, a few joggers on the dedicated jogging track, a wide variety of walkers, and even a few people in wheelchairs (not a common sight in China, given the uneven state of footpaths in most places). I cycled nearly five kilometres up to the Zhixi Yangtze Bridge 至喜长江大桥, where the jogging and cycling tracks ended, and then came back again, mostly on the road side of the cycleway. I told the guy at the bike shop he should put an English language sign out the front so foreigners would be more likely to hire his bikes. He unconvincingly replied that he might do it one day.
It was just such an unexpected, enjoyable and leisurely afternoon, topped off by tea at the top of the Crowne Plaza, watching the life on the Yangtze slowly flow by. Another giant boatload of new cars has just docked opposite the hotel. We saw two similar boats yesterday. The demand for cars is high everywhere in China, and the Yangtze is an efficient way to get them out to western China.
唐丽旅游: Tang Li Travels 