Having just spent the past 50-60 hours aboard crowded buses and trains, eating cup noodles and what I think was vaccum packaged tofu, I was elated to be in the seemingly clean and modern metropolis of Shanghai. This feeling of elation was however short-lived, and within 12 hours of my arrival I succumbed to an incredibly severe bout of food poisoning, landing me in hospital on an iv drip for 2 days. I never found out what it was, but the fallout was a missed flight, and an expensive medical check up when I finally arrived in Japan. 
Dave brother,how are ya dude,its great to see you finished your Epic journey unharmed.Not sure if you remember me,but we met in Phratuap Khiri Kan in Thailand,my names Willie,the Irish guy.Once again its great to see how well you have done,your an insperation to all us travelers who look for something new and real in life from Traveling.I soon hope to do something like what you have done,im thinking of cycling from here in Ireland to Africa or maybe across Europe and to Mongolia then down through China.Any advice for me on what to bring or things you could not have done without?
ReplyDeleteHow did you find China besides from ending up in Hospital?Oh,i never liked the food there in China,always made my stomack sick.Anyway hope your enjoying the life of being back home and keeping well.Hope to here from you dude,chat soon bye.
hey willie!
ReplyDeleteI take it your back home now too.
i only just logged into my account and noticed your comment today. thanks for showing your interest, I had a lot of fun doing that ride.
China was a really interesting place, obviously its massive and I only saw a small bit in the the south west corner. I had a pretty good sense of adventure going on there actually.
Things were getting tough, (the roads were bad), and also I was starting to get quite sick with alot of diareah that wouldnt go away. I met up with some swedish guys there who were cycling the same way, but unfortunately on the day we were supposed to meet up after going separate ways for a few days, I decided I had to pull out due to the bad roads, (my racing bike was coping badly with the dusty bumpy road) and I was feeling generally poor. Lucky I got to Shanghai because whatever was making me sick got really bad just when I got there, it was like non stop watery diareah and vomiting for 2 days, pretty scary it was by far the sickest I have even been.
About gear, I thought my gear was about right, things like extra clothing can usually be purchased en-route if your going from hot climate to cold climate, but having a bike that you can rely on, even with bad roads is important. I would reccomend a mountain bike, something like a Marin Muirwood is a good choice, and just add the racks and stuff. You can buy specifically made touring bikes, Surly long haul truckers and Thorn Ravens are also good choices if you can afford them. I met some Swedish guys on modified muirwoods and theyd done 3000+ ks on mixed/bad roads through vietnam, cambodia, laos and china and they were really happy with them. A muirwood is just $500US, and youd probably have to spend a bit more on racks, pannier bags, getting the right handlebars and getting comfortable etc etc. Surlys and Thorns bikes go for more like $1500+ but the components are all good quality, and they're already specifically reading for touring, though they wont include the racks or bags.
I would reccomend a bit of reading on www.crazyguyonabike.com. You can browse lots of tour diaries on there. If you want to keep the costs down your going to have to camp alot, and that would be much more fun if you have someone else to go with, otherwise i find it gets a bit lonely. Often its hard to communicate with the local people, but that can be fun sometimes too.
Here is what someone recently wrote about the Marin Muirwood as a cheap touring bike;
http://www.cyclingforums.com/touring-recreational-cycling/200591-could-marin-muirwoods-good-touring-bike.html