Latest / UK Column Radio / Cycling 5,000km Across China's Xinjiang - The Truth They Don't Tell You | with Jerry

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Cycling 5,000km Across China's Xinjiang - The Truth They Don't Tell You | with Jerry · UK Column Radio

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OK. Hello and welcome by Excellence
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20. Years old. 21 years old now,
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2000. 4 Today we have a very 22nd year.
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Jerry being in China, I came here.
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On Jerry for a long time to be a very.
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Long term teaching China and my plan was to support.
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Some of my. View that I knew are being
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redeemed in Australia the portable school teach you to do
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a free teacher and I'll. Go around the world and I'll
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see. A bit of the world because I'm
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only 45 years old. I'm now 67 years old, still
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living in China. About 2014.
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Sixteen years, 15 years ago. No, not quite that long. 10
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years, 12 years ago, I decided to take a bike ride across China
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and that kind of got me some attention and I became known as
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the bike riding guy in China. I'm not the only one.
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I'm certainly not unique, but there's not many foreigners
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who've been as much as me on bikes.
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I believe there are a couple. There's a, a Dutch guy doing it
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right now coming back from Beijing, but he's, he's taking a
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roundabout route and coming back from Beijing to Guangdong.
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And So what I did, I, I wrote from the border of Macau, which
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is in the southeast of China for anyone who doesn't know the
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geography, all the way to the border of Kazakhstan, which is
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in the far northwest. That's a 4900, basically 5000
1:20
kilometer trek across. China.
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For the people who don't know China's geography, Macau is
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right next to Hong Kong and it's from there to border of
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Kazakhstan. You pretty much traverse half of
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China. That's very impressive.
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How did you start on bicycling? Have you always been doing doing
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Vikings or or? No, no.
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When I was in my 50s, I just wanted to lose a little weight.
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I got to, I think I was 53 and I, I saw myself getting out of
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the shower in a, in a mirror, full length mirror.
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And I didn't like what I saw. So I, I, I was conscious of the
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fact that both my mother and her father had a very similar body
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shape to mine, although I haven't seen my mother's just we
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we're both kind of short and round and both of them had heart
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conditions in their 50s. Both of them lived quite a while
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but they did both have heart attacks in their 50s and I
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thought I don't want that to happen to me.
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So I've I've reached 67 now and I've got no heart problems
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whatsoever. So getting on a bike and doing
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what I did was very good for the aerobic exercise.
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It's built this the heart and lungs up and I'm relatively fit.
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Don't test me on stairs, I hate stairs.
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But put me on a bike and I'll do 100 kilometers tomorrow and I
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wouldn't have much problem with that.
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Recovery would be a couple of hours and then I'd be going
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having a beer. So yeah, I can get around a
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little bit on a bike, but I never did that before.
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I mean, I had bikes when I was a kid, of course.
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And as an adult I used to have a one, one period of my life.
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I had a bike to ride, to work, trying to be a bit
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environmentally friendly, stuff like that.
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But no, I've never been a serious cyclist.
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I'm not into competitions. I'm not into organized cycling.
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I just first trip was me and a friend, second trip was me and
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another friend, Third trip was me and my wife.
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The fourth trip was me and my wife and the other friend, the
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same friend who did the couple of trips with me now and then
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just a few months ago. We started here in Jongsan in
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the South of China, also near Macau and cycled up to Inner
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Mongolia in to that was May and June of this year.
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We took about six weeks to do that.
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OK, so I mean for, for most people who just decide to do
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bicycling for exercise, you know, obviously they they
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normally don't go halfway across a gigantic country.
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How did that come about the the the first long distance biking
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trip from Macau to border of Kazakhstan?
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Well, the, the original idea, the original plan was to go to
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Tibet. I wanted to ride to Lassa
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because that's supposed to be the biggest challenge.
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It's, it's possibly the biggest cycling challenge in the world
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is to ride to Tibet or ride through Tibet and into Lassa
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and, and then onto the Himalayas.
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But I never got the opportunity to do that.
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They, the government here will not allow foreigners to cycle
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that into, into, into Tibet. And it's not related to
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security. They allow us to go there, but
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just not on bikes and not on the road.
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So we have to go in groups. We have to go on a plane or a
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train and not even by a bus, not a private car and not a bicycle.
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So basically as well, if I can't go there, where else can I go?
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That's a long way. I wanted to do a bit of a
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challenge and that was how this came about.
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I ended up going to Xinjiang. I've been to Xinjiang before a
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couple of times, but never by bike, of course.
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And then everybody telling me online, no, you can't go to
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Xinjiang, you can't go. But I mean, I wasn't online
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before. I did this.
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When I was online posting about it, when I came back, everyone
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was telling me no, you can't do that, but I just did.
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Here's the pictures type of thing.
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So, yeah, I just cycled into Xinjiang, which is supposedly
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this kind of enclosed area that the BBC always tells us it's
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very difficult to get into. It's not at all just ride in
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there or walk in there. That's that's another thing.
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Of course, my wife is quite famous because she walked,
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walked from here to Beijing as well as written from Xinjiang
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back to here with me. So yeah, she's she's even more
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famous than me in China. Wow, you're all you are all very
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healthy, healthy people. We're not.
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When we're finished, I promise. We're broken, Rex.
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So actually I think I first learned about you was when you
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posted a picture of your bi biking trip in Xinjiang.
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I don't know how long ago was that it was about.
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Six or seven years ago. Yeah, Yeah.
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I think it's around 2019 or. It was slightly pre COVID but
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yes. So not much pre COVID. 6 months
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or so before COVID. Yeah.
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And I thought, wow, this guy is hardcore.
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And, and I mean the case you are, I was living vicariously
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through you because you back back then, you were doing what I
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always wanted to do, which is bicycling around China.
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And I had at that time, I haven't been to Xinjiang yet.
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I just been to Xinjiang. Yeah, I saw you were there.
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Yeah. I just came back from, from my,
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my own Xinjiang trip. I, we, I rode in a Land Cruiser.
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You know, we rode about 300, 3500 kilometers all over
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Xinjiang and when I went around, especially the Takla Makan
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desert, again, a a special appreciation for what you did
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because you were cycling through some of the most harsh terrains.
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I mean, like the, the road might be flat, but it, it's like it's
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hot. It's dry and hot.
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What, what, what, what, what, what, what?
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What month did you go? We were there about the same the
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last trip. My wife, an Australian friend of
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mine, and myself, three of us were there about the same time
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as you. We left late September.
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On the last trip. We had 45°C temperatures in the
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desert and you've probably experienced the wind there.
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Now it's pretty hot. It's like being in a huge, huge
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hair dryer. You know, the ladies have their
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hair dryer It's and the whole wind is just, it's just really
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hot. So we were there the, the first
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time we were there, it was quite cold.
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It was in April and we left Harmi, came out of Harmi and
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it's a really big hill climb to get out of Harmi.
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And we got, the higher we got, the colder it got, of course.
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And then it started sleeting, then it started snowing.
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I mean, this is late April. You know, we were, we were
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thinking we wouldn't get, we wouldn't experience weather like
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that. Then we got past Urumqi and we
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went to the Tianjin Mountains where on the day we went there,
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we had we used a car because we had a Blizzard.
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We literally had like 3 foot of snow across the road.
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There's no cycling in those conditions.
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So we got a car to take us across the mountains.
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And then when we came down the other side into Ely, it was
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beautiful and warm and great blue skies and pasture lands.
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It's fantastic. You, you've probably been there
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too. But yeah, we did.
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We did pretty much every single different terrain you can think
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of. Xinjiang is extremely diverse.
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You know, it's got the deserts, it's got a rock desert, it's got
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sand deserts, it's got mountains, it's got grasslands,
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it's got most gorgeous fields with the lavender and the
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sunflowers depending on the time of year you go there.
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But both of our journeys have been a kind of bookends of the
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year. The second one was pretty cold
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coming out, but we we wanted it, sorry, pretty hot coming up.
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We wanted it to be that time of year because we didn't want to
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go through the summer heat, the July and August.
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So we came a bit later. It was a little hotter than we
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expected. That's all 40. 5 So you you
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actually went to Xinjiang multiple times, not not just
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once. I've, I've been to Xinjiang,
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I've been twice this year and I'm going again next week.
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So yeah, I've been many times. I, I, I went there with CGTN
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early this year to, to do a panel with you met Luke, I think
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when you're in Urumqi. I've met him.
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We did the same panel in with Lucian of CGTN and A and a
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couple of other very, very important people, far more
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important than me, but that's another story.
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We'll stay off the geopolitics. But that was more about
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geopolitics. I am a, a friendship ambassador,
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the Silk Road friendship ambassador.
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I have a kind of a trophy and a, a certificate to say that.
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So I'm, I'm inclined to go there when I have free time.
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And I'm, I also write a bit about it.
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So I'm, I'm quite favourable in my writing about it.
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Obviously I don't follow the Western media narratives and I'm
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completely contrarian to them, as I've seen you are now.
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And once you spent a little time there, you realise that this is
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definitely not right the the, the, the narrative.
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So yeah, that's why I go there. I've been, I've made a few
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videos up there with TV crews. Basically they they invite us up
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and say, oh, look, you cycle around here.
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Would you mind coming and cycling here?
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You know, we'll get you bikes, You just bring your gear, we'll
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put you on these bikes and we'll film you in this area or in this
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area. Yeah, OK, we can do that.
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I don't mind free holiday. Nice.
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So I actually, you know, I actually have not been to Yili.
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So my our trip this time we were driving around southern
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Xinjiang. We did go to Wurumchi.
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We went through the Jensen mountain to Wurumchi, but then
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from Ruchi we flew to Kucha. And then from Kucha we we drove,
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we drove right across the Takamakan Desert to Kashgar, to
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Yarkan and Tash the cash. Drive.
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It's 3500 kilometers. Yeah.
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I mean, I, I have developed Iron Butts fight just sitting in the
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car hours, you know, like he's traveling in Xinjiang.
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Maybe because Xinjiang is such a big place, a lot of people don't
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realize how big Xinjiang is. A lot like our driver told us,
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you know, this is what sightseeing in Xinjiang is like.
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You drive like 5 hours and then you get to a destination, you
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spend like maybe couple hours and then you get it back in the
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car and you drive another few hours to a hotel.
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So that was my, my experience. I I would have rather done what
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you did, which is actually, you know, open air and and and and
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and and a good exercise. Well, it's certainly that, but
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you, you say you developed an iron butt on a, on this, on the
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back seat of a Prada or whatever it was that you were in a Prada,
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your, your 4 wheel drive, your SUV.
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I was on, on the bike seat, you know, and every, every hour you
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do in the car is a day for us effectively, you know, we're
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riding about 100 kilometres in a day.
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You're driving 100 kilometres in an hour, give or take a little
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bit. You know, most of our days are
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usually 100 to between 80 and 120.
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And then in that area, there is nowhere to camp, there is
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nowhere to get any shade. There is nothing you you've
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suited, there's no trees, there's nothing.
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What they do have is these under the road flood culverts.
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So we we kind of get off the road and go underneath and
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there's little kind of bridges on the road.
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And that's where we spend our nights in the desert.
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There's one night we were at a service station which had a, you
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can't really call it a restaurant.
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It's a place you could get food. But they, they let us sleep in
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their storeroom one night. So we, we slept there.
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And where's the toilet out the back?
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You know, the, there is no toilet.
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It's literally go out back. Like I said, if there wasn't a
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toilet out the back, there's just a massive, great big desert
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out there for 1000 kilometres or more.
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So there's your toilet. Just find a little sand dune and
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go there. Wow, I yeah, that that brings
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back some memories. So, so you were able to camp,
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you know, you, you actually brought a little tent with you
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on the biking trip and and there's no problem.
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You can just camp anywhere. No, no, I've I've got a little
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story about this that there's, there's never, there was never a
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problem camping. You know that you go through
13:45
quite a bit of security when you're in Xinjiang.
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You go, when you go into a new town, everybody gets security
13:51
checked. So we had to do that.
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But some of these towns are 300 kilometres apart and we're only
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riding 100 kilometres a day. So what do you do?
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You camp. There's no options there.
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And I was told, I mean, I don't know if any of your viewers
14:06
would know what ASPI is and who Nathan Russo is of ASPI, but he
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contacted me and said this can't be true because if this is true,
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you camped next to the largest prison camp in China.
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Really. Did I?
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Because it's absolutely true. We were in a place called
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Dabatjan, which is not that far from from Turpan.
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Turpan. And we were camping in this
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place. I had no idea.
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We just we actually camped in the back of a graveyard because
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it was quiet, not realizing that there's a train line right
14:39
there. And every hour a train comes
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past. It's the old train, the slow
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train, not the high speed train, which goes and then it's gone.
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So there was that story and the other story we had was my wife
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and I when we were in Xinjiang. We flew to Xinjiang a few days
14:57
early, had our bikes shipped up there, and the plan was to ride
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home. So we can't carry gas, camping
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gas on the plane or the train. They won't let you.
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So we said we'll get it when we're there.
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No one would sell us this. They had it in the, in the
15:13
camping shops. They had it.
15:14
They wouldn't sell it to us. Why not?
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You know, we just don't know who you are or anything like this.
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And we get into trouble with the police if we sell it to you.
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And eventually we found one guy who who agreed to sell it to us,
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but he, he hid it inside a shoebox.
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So we had a camping gas bottle inside the shoebox.
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And he said, don't go on public transport back to your hotel
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because you go through metal detectors.
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And then when we got back to the hotel, I've got this shoe box
15:41
under my arm and realized the hotel door has a metal detector.
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I'm like, what do I do here? What do I do here?
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So I just walked straight through Boulders Press with this
15:49
thing under my arm. It went be, be, be, be be be.
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Nobody cared. Yeah, that's that's the thing I
15:56
did notice staying in hotel in Xinjiang.
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There's metal detector at every entrance, but if you just go
16:04
through it, you know, like when you set off the metal detector,
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nobody cares. It's very complacent.
16:10
It's the only city I've ever been to where we get off a plane
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and go through security. Yeah, yeah.
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And I so I don't you actually went to Xinjiang pretty early.
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I don't know what your experience was like, because
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when we went this year, there was still a lot of security of
16:29
police checkpoint, but we were told just to roll down our
16:33
window to look into the camera, so to let the AI recognition
16:37
take our pictures and then we drive through.
16:39
But our driver says a few years earlier, before they had the AI
16:43
recognition, everybody have to get off the car and they will
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check your document. It was a big, big pain in the
16:48
ass. Like when you were first cycling
16:52
through Xinjiang, did you have to stop?
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And then they check your passport and stuff like that.
16:57
I've. Been through.
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I've been through all different ranges from zero security to
17:02
that security and back to a lower level of security.
17:05
So the first time I went to Xinjiang was 2005 and I went
17:09
with my father, my my wife and her father and a couple of other
17:13
family members and some friends. It was quite a group of us, but
17:17
eight or ten of us went in this group together and my father and
17:21
I kind of peeled off and we did our own thing while they did
17:24
their thing because my father was quite old and he didn't want
17:26
to go off on these five hour drives.
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So effectively he and I stayed around the, the city center and
17:32
we got to find our way around Oldham Cheap, which was quite
17:35
underdeveloped at that time, much less developed than it is
17:39
today. And there was very little in the
17:41
way of security. I, I would say virtually no
17:44
security at all. Nothing, nothing.
17:49
We were able to go into the bazaars, into the mosques.
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Everywhere we went, there was never any trouble.
17:54
Then I went back again. The next time I was back there
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was on the bike and the security was there, but it was much less.
18:01
We had a couple of towns we went through, one was called Shan
18:04
Shan and it was very heavy security.
18:06
And we found out later that just one year, actually only 11
18:10
months before, it was in June, the previous year, 2013, in
18:14
June, they'd had a huge riot and 30 people had died, including
18:18
sixteen police officers. So they were very conscious of
18:21
it and that was the place we had trouble.
18:23
It's the first time in my experience of travelling in
18:26
China where I had trouble finding a hotel.
18:29
So what we did was we went into the police station, said where's
18:32
the hotel? They were really nice, very
18:34
polite. They, they went out in their
18:37
van. Four of them went out in their
18:38
van. One of them gave us tea while
18:40
we're sitting there waiting. He said we'll be back in a
18:42
minute. Off he went.
18:43
And then they came back and said, yeah, the only hotel you
18:45
can stay at is this one. And we went across there and
18:48
that was it. We weren't fine.
18:49
There's no issues. But we'd stopped at four or five
18:51
hotels and they'd all said no, no, no, we're not taking anybody
18:54
here. So there was obviously an air of
18:58
some suspicion or whatever, but there was no, there was never
19:02
any issues. There's not a single single time
19:04
where anyone said to us, where were you yesterday, what were
19:07
you doing? Can I see your camera, anything
19:10
like that? So effectively we were free
19:13
travelers. But that was on that first trip.
19:16
That was 2014. That was the only issue that we
19:20
had that one day, 2019, we were going through regular security
19:24
checks, slightly different, higher level of security, but
19:28
the higher level security was much better organized.
19:31
So on our bikes, because we're foreigners, we had to get off
19:35
the bikes, show them our passports, get manually recorded
19:38
through, and they were like, what are you doing?
19:40
What's going on here? Well, well, we're riding here.
19:43
We're doing this for charity. We're raising money for disabled
19:45
people in in doncet. Can we have some photos with
19:48
you? So we got photos toast with the
19:50
security and the, the police and they're bringing us fruit and
19:53
you know, here's here's 4 bottles of water because it's
19:57
dry out there. Oh, yeah.
19:58
Thank you very much. We just put them, find somewhere
20:00
to put them into our baggage and they were really, really nice.
20:03
It was never I, I, we met one police officer who was officious
20:08
and he was quite rude to us. But then he's probably rude to
20:12
everyone. I I wouldn't say there was any
20:15
issue at all with the police except that one guy.
20:18
Now, just so your audience is aware, I spent 10 years as a
20:22
police officer and I've met many, many more officious
20:26
bastards in the police service than he was.
20:29
So it wasn't that big a deal for me.
20:31
It was just so easy. We had our name from him.
20:34
We left that and that situation. Yeah.
20:37
We weren't allowed to stay in that hotel.
20:39
This was in 2019. But we were allowed to stay down
20:42
the road. So we did.
20:43
But he was really rude about it. And then he followed us out of
20:46
town. And, you know, he made sure that
20:48
we that behind us, we're doing 20 kilometers an hour.
20:53
There's a police car with lights behind us.
20:55
So you just made sure we went to the next town, which was only 20
20:59
or 30 kilometers away. Wasn't a big deal.
21:01
Once we're off his turf, he was happy, we were happy.
21:04
We didn't want to stay in his town.
21:07
Yeah, I, that's one thing I did so through our our trip in our
21:12
interaction, we're actually surprised that most of the time
21:16
the police were very courteous and very polite.
21:19
And you know, the the the one time that we did get stopped
21:23
over in near Yarkand, we're have we have to stop and they check
21:27
out their passport. They were very apologetics like
21:30
so sorry we have to do this, but you know, you understand this is
21:34
what required to do do so. Were you going somewhere near 1
21:38
of the border crossings? Because that's the usual thing.
21:41
Yeah, we were heading toward there's more security when we
21:46
headed to work, which is what's that town Tashkurgan from
21:52
Kashkar, OK to towards the border with Pakistan and
21:56
Tajikistan and Afghanistan. It's a pretty rough area down
22:00
there on the border and they're they are pretty strict about it.
22:03
So yeah, I understand that. I think when you get nearer than
22:06
any of the borders, there's eight different, I think 8
22:08
countries border Xinjiang. It's that big.
22:11
When you get near one of those countries that borders Xinjiang,
22:14
they start to get a little bit, a little bit more sensitive
22:18
about who you are, what you're doing.
22:20
But no, generally speaking, they're fine.
22:22
Mostly there is a higher degree of security.
22:25
There is no issue about that. I, I, I'm not going to ever try
22:28
and pretend there isn't, but it's, it's there for a damn good
22:31
reason. And you know, I never really
22:33
saw, and I'm a former police officer.
22:35
I, I served in London during the IRA bombing campaigns.
22:39
I've seen, literally seen what a, a terrorist bomb can do.
22:43
And therefore I have no issues with what they were doing.
22:46
Not at all. In fact, I've said this in
22:49
interviews before. I wish I had had the same powers
22:53
that those police officers there have and don't use.
22:57
I would rather have had the powers and not use them than not
23:00
have the powers and be unable to use them.
23:02
We couldn't do stops and searches and things that you
23:04
know, if we, if we thought someone looked a bit suspicious,
23:08
doesn't matter. You can't, you can't just stop
23:10
and search a guy because you think he looks suspicious.
23:12
In Xinjiang, they can, they just don't.
23:15
So that's the difference. Yeah, we, we are one of our
23:19
photographer is a Russian guy who lives in Shanghai and he's,
23:23
he says here, here in Xinjiang, the cops are more polite than
23:27
the police in Shanghai. And you know, I, I can't comment
23:33
on that because I did live in Shanghai for a long time.
23:35
But my experience is, is they're, they're, they're very,
23:39
very courteous. And most of the police are, are
23:42
locals, you know, most of the police, we, we, we, we got
23:45
encountered their local Uyghur police.
23:48
And, and so, so you've been to Xinjiang multiple times.
23:53
You, you must really like the place.
23:55
Well, I do like the place. I like it very much.
23:57
I like the food, I like the I like the environment.
24:02
I have to say, I'm going to be a little sexist here.
24:04
The most beautiful girls in China are in Xinjiang for sure.
24:08
Don't tell my wife I said that. She's in the next room.
24:10
But yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a gorgeous place with really nice
24:14
people. And, and that's something that
24:17
I, I, I'll never forget if I, if I never go back there again.
24:21
I have some fantastic memories. But there's still some parts of
24:24
it that I haven't seen. It's that big.
24:27
You know, I've cycled about 5000 kilometres.
24:30
I've been on a couple of bus tours there as well, but there's
24:35
still a lot that I haven't seen. It's that big.
24:37
However, when you spend the last trip, we were there 19 days, 19
24:42
days is great. We, we saw so much.
24:45
I mean, I, I really ought to write down the places that I've
24:48
seen and what I saw in these places.
24:50
But I, I mean, I keep a diary when I'm, I'm on my phone on the
24:53
bus doing Diaries like this. And so I've got, I've got
24:57
knowledge and, and I've also got memories, but I've also got a
25:00
recording of what it was that we saw while we were there.
25:04
And one of the things that I, I really felt felt after 19 days
25:09
there was I, I want some green vegetables.
25:12
I'm, I'm not a person who craves a salad, but I did when I got
25:16
back, the first thing I went for was a salad somewhere.
25:19
That's not me at all. But after 19 days up there,
25:22
yeah, I really craved a good salad.
25:26
There's not much green vegetable there.
25:28
Yeah, if it's a great, if you are a meat lover because it's a,
25:32
it's a meat lover's heaven. Lamb, you know.
25:36
Yeah, Lamb. As long as your meat there's not
25:38
pork, there's not much pork up there.
25:41
Yeah, so everything else, you know, and, and they do have a
25:44
lot of fruits. You know, I was like, I, I
25:47
don't, I was OK without vegetable because they have so
25:50
many fruits. You know, they have like because
25:53
the, the, the I get this, they get more songy exposure.
25:56
So the fruits in Xinjiang is really sweet, like they're.
26:00
They also have a lot of dry fruits.
26:02
They, they, I mean, fortunately they don't make much wine there
26:06
because they grow a lot of grapes.
26:07
And this is where all the world's sultanas and raisins
26:09
come from. And my wife, every day we were
26:13
up there, we were the last stock that we had was five days in a
26:18
place called Satcha, which is not far from Kash or Kashka, and
26:22
it's about 200 kilometres from Kashgar.
26:25
And we were there and you could buy these figs from the street
26:29
and it was 10 RMB for six figs. I got half a fig here, Jerry,
26:35
half a half a fig, OK. I'm not a huge fan of figs, so
26:38
it's not a big deal. But she would give me half a fig
26:40
and eat the rest. And I'd say you got any more of
26:42
those figs now? I'm finished.
26:44
It's 6 figs or 5 1/2 figs in in a day for 10 RM 10 RMB is a less
26:50
than $1.50 US £9.50. Sorry, not nine.
26:56
Yeah, £9.50. No, not £9.
26:58
Fifty 95-P95P. Sorry.
27:01
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, it's really cheap.
27:04
I mean it's really affordable. The one thing I was actually
27:07
surprised was we, the lot of the hotel we we stayed at this time
27:13
was built like all within last year.
27:16
They're very nice accommodations, but a very
27:19
affordable price. You know, like some of these
27:20
hotels we stayed in could easily cost cost you like, you know,
27:25
€400 back in Europe or like, you know, 33 like $400.00 in United
27:33
States, but in in in China and Xinjiang is still very, very
27:37
affordable. Yeah.
27:39
That's an expensive hotel here, $700.00 very expensive.
27:43
You know your your Crowne plazas in the in the center of
27:46
Guangzhou is 700. I stay there sometimes kind of
27:50
when someone else is paying, I'll stay there.
27:52
I can't afford but if a client, I don't have any clients.
27:57
I'm retired now, but when I had a client who said we need you to
27:59
come to Guangzhou, say okay, can you put me in this hotel?
28:02
Yeah, okay, we'll do that. It's about 750 RMB to to stay
28:07
and that's $100, just over $100 to stay in the Crowne Plaza.
28:11
Five Star has its own coffee machine in every room.
28:14
And you know, everything links to your iPad or your iPhone or
28:18
your, I don't have an eye anything but my Huawei or my
28:22
Vivo all links together. I can listen to my music, watch
28:25
whatever I want to watch. It's all quite, quite nice for
28:28
£100. Yeah.
28:32
And yeah. And man, I, I, so we are
28:35
actually going. So I do plan to travel back to
28:38
Xinjiang next year with Pepe Escobar.
28:41
That's who I travel with. This time is through our loop
28:45
around the southern Xinjiang, but we haven't been to northern
28:48
Xinjiang. So the places you have been on
28:51
your first trip to Yili, that's a, that's a lake that we plan to
28:54
do next year because as you say, Xinjiang is such a big place,
28:58
you can't, you can't really do it in one trip because unless
29:02
you have tons of time to spend. Now basically, if you're going
29:06
to go to Xinjiang, you have to choose, do I want to go to the
29:09
north or South? Because you can go West, both of
29:12
them, north or southwest. So basically land in Urumqi or
29:16
you can actually land in Kashgar, Ely or Alanzhenko.
29:20
There's, there's 28 airports in Xinjiang, 28 in one region.
29:26
That's how big it is. And you can, you can go to any
29:29
of them. We actually flew, believe it or
29:30
not. And this was because ATV crew
29:33
paid for this. I wouldn't have done this.
29:35
There's two of us. We flew from Kashgar to Satcher
29:39
and it's 200 kilometers. So we were in the air.
29:42
They they, they got us in the air.
29:44
They lifted the wheels up and then they put the wheels down
29:46
and we landed. It was pretty much that.
29:48
That was it. Why aren't we doing this as a 22
29:51
minute flight? You know, by the time we've got
29:53
to the airport, gone through the security of the airport, got off
29:56
the airport and then gone to the hotel, we could have got a DD
29:59
car and it would have been cheaper.
30:01
Two of us just to go to 200 kilometers.
30:03
Yeah, it's, it's the, I was actually surprised even like
30:08
border, small border town like Tashkurgan near Pakistan border.
30:12
They have an airport and then the Tashkurgan only has like
30:15
what 50,000 people, I think are all together in that, in that
30:19
county. But, but it's, I think the
30:23
airports are built up now because China is really heavily
30:27
promoting tourism in Xinjiang. And now they're building up all
30:31
the tourist infrastructure everywhere.
30:33
Like I like I mentioned a lot of the hotels we stayed were were
30:36
very new and, and, and I just saw ABBC report actually they
30:42
they reported, they actually reported 300 million people have
30:46
now visited. Xinjiang, yeah, but they're not
30:48
staying. What are they not seeing?
30:51
I think was the BBC line. Yeah, there's always a buck,
30:56
right? Like when the, the, the BBC or
30:58
Western media reports on China, you can never be 100% positive.
31:03
They have to say, ah, but but you know, 3, all those 300
31:07
million people, they're not seeing the real Xinjiang, which
31:11
is kind of odd thing to say. You know when you have 300
31:14
million people always cameras, cell phones, you know who are
31:20
went there to take pictures and somehow there's no 0 photo.
31:25
Yes, somehow they all miss what BBC want them to see.
31:29
The ABC, Australia's ABC had the answer last year.
31:34
They were invited to go on a media tour and they sent not a
31:40
reporter from Australia, they sent the head of the Washington
31:43
Bureau of the ABC. Why?
31:46
They sent the head of the Washington Bureau all the way
31:49
from Washington to Xinjiang. And he wrote a a great report
31:53
saying, you know, there's no evidence whatsoever.
31:56
They've cleaned it all up, they've hidden it all away.
31:59
And then basically he could find no evidence.
32:02
So we just made the allegations anyway.
32:05
There's no evidence. Everyone seems to be happy, but
32:07
what are they hiding? Yeah, I mean, it's you can't,
32:13
you can't win with these people. I I just walked around cash
32:18
guard on the national Day. We were there on the China's
32:22
National day. And so I just used my camera.
32:26
I we missed you by a week. Oh, you were there after?
32:30
No, before I was there a week before you.
32:33
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So we, we had to do that because
32:36
Pepe is scheduled this time because he was on, he has like
32:40
the 30 day free visa free visit to China because he has a
32:45
European EU passport. And so we, we had to.
32:50
So This is why we have to go in and out in two weeks, so he can,
32:55
because he started his own leg of the trip in Xi'an and went up
33:01
to Dunhuang, the whole Silk Grove corridor.
33:03
Then we met in Urumqi. Yeah, yeah.
33:06
So he he he he would be like by by the national day.
33:11
You know, his, his visa is near expiration.
33:13
He get like, get the heck out. So that that's, that's that that
33:16
explain our schedule. Had I known, you know, I would
33:19
that would be great if we link up.
33:22
I did met Luke, who who you met. He's a great guy.
33:26
He's, he's living in Urumqi, just just having a great time
33:30
and he, he took a trip. For you Carl, I've got a trip
33:34
for you. Anyone who is travelling on a 30
33:38
day visa free, visa free entry, all they need to do is to go
33:43
across to one of the border towns, leave China, go shopping.
33:49
You don't even have to enter the next country because you're, if
33:52
you're in Kalkaas in particular, they have a massive shopping
33:56
centre. I mean, you couldn't see it in a
33:58
day. They've got hotels inside.
34:00
So you leave China, you can stay overnight in no man's land.
34:04
There's a spot where there's a red line and they say that's
34:06
Kazakhstan and this is China, which is whole bullshit, is just
34:10
a line in the middle of the of the shopping centre.
34:12
But effectively you get a picture of yourself standing on
34:15
in two countries, then you just head back and you've got another
34:18
30 days. That's what I told Pepe, you
34:22
know, like I but that this time we were in because I don't think
34:27
he had a. Package from.
34:28
There, yeah, we're too far away. I don't think he had a Pakistan
34:31
visa, so he couldn't just go. Because Kasakhstan doesn't need
34:35
a visa. Right.
34:36
But we were on the other side of the border.
34:38
We're on the Xinjiang pack. Is that border in near
34:41
Tashkurgad? You're not that far away.
34:43
You're a long bus ride, or a short flight or a train.
34:50
We would have to fly from from Kashgar to north, north north
34:55
Xinjiang to cross the Kazakhstan border.
34:57
But next time, next time. I told him that was the option
35:00
because since that's what he wanted to do, he actually wanted
35:02
to travel to the border area to see the border trade zone.
35:06
So I'm like, OK, if you're pressed for time, just hop over
35:09
the border. I mean, like, I'm pretty sure
35:12
it's pretty easy to get the Kazakhstan border pass and then.
35:15
As long as you're legitimately in China, you can legitimately
35:19
leave China there and come back again.
35:23
We had one person couldn't do it.
35:26
You might know who Fernando couldn't do it because he has a,
35:30
he has a permanent residency card and not a pass.
35:33
He has a passport, obviously, but because he has a permanent
35:37
residency card, he didn't bring his passport.
35:39
Now, permanent president doesn't mean allow him to leave China
35:43
and come back into China, and Passport does, Yeah, so it
35:47
doesn't matter if he has both with him.
35:48
But he wasn't, so he had to sit it out.
35:51
I think he was quite happy. He found a nice little coffee
35:53
shop and did some work and waited while we went off and did
35:56
our thing. Nice, nice.
35:59
You, you, you have to let me know next time you're all going,
36:03
you know, Maybe, maybe I'll, I'll join you.
36:06
Well, I believe I'm flying on Saturday.
36:09
Think. That's a little bit short
36:12
notice, but I, yeah, I mean, this is great.
36:15
I mean, I, I, I love, I really had a great time in Xinjiang and
36:20
people are super friendly over there.
36:22
They like, all I had to do was just say to them in Uyghur,
36:29
hello, you know, Yakshimu says. And then everybody just, they
36:33
just all smile. They lighten up.
36:34
They, they, they that you can initiate a conversation And and
36:39
yeah, it's great. It's I would, I would, you know,
36:42
I would go in a heartbeat, you know, like now I understand why
36:47
you keep on going back. You're, you're actually fluent
36:51
in Mandarin as well, aren't you? Yeah.
36:55
So most of them, the older generation don't speak very good
36:58
Mandarin, but all of the anyone 50 or younger can speak Mandarin
37:03
quite well. But the older generation, the
37:05
60s and the 70s, they don't. So you could just talk to them
37:09
in Mandarin. And the best way to to really
37:11
engage with them is say, can you teach me how to say this in your
37:14
language? They love that.
37:17
Yeah, yeah, I, I noticed like there's a like I think there's a
37:22
divide, age divide because I did notice older people that didn't
37:25
really speak Mandarin, but the younger they are that the more
37:29
fluent they are. Like we went to a, a Barber shop
37:33
in I think ho tan in ho tan with Pepe because Pepe need to train
37:39
his beard and I need to get a haircut.
37:41
And, and so there's like 2 Uyghur guy maybe in their late
37:48
20s, you know, doing cutting hair and there's like a kid
37:53
who's like, maybe, you know, not a 1010 year old kid just just
37:58
playing video game on his phone next time.
38:00
And the our Barber, you know, they're Mandarin is good.
38:04
They're understandable, but there's still points where, you
38:08
know, sometimes they stumble on a piece of conversation.
38:11
But the 10 year old kid, he will be like ba ba, ba ba ba ba ba.
38:14
You know, he would do all the translation for us.
38:17
And. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
38:18
So, so, yeah, I, so I did notice.
38:20
I think that's coincide with when they started the bilingual
38:24
education in Xinjiang, which started around I think early
38:28
2000. So all the people like, you
38:31
know, 30s up to 40s, they would would have gone through the
38:36
bilingual education program. So they would have no problem
38:40
speaking. And yeah, but the, it's, it's I,
38:44
I highly recommend anyone to travel because a lot of people
38:49
like they don't realize that, that, you know, they listen to
38:52
Western media. They thought Xinjiang is a
38:54
restricted area, but they didn't realize as long as you have a
38:58
valid Chinese visa, you can travel to Xinjiang without
39:02
additional permit or anything. Tibet is only region.
39:06
It's even better than that. Now there are 48 countries that
39:08
don't need a visa and they can all travel to Xinjiang.
39:12
It's it's like if you're in China legally, you go to
39:15
Xinjiang. If you're in China illegally,
39:17
Xinjiang is the one place I would not recommend you go to
39:19
because they do take passports a lot.
39:22
But if you're in China illegally, you probably wouldn't
39:25
be travelling. You'd be keeping your head right
39:26
down. Right, right.
39:28
I mean you you would have problem then also getting a a
39:31
train ticket if you were. Train tickets, hotels, even bus
39:34
tickets to a different city. Yeah, yeah, bus.
39:36
Local buses are OK, but if you want to catch a bus to the next
39:40
city, then you won't be able to get to that without.
39:42
Well, actually you probably could.
39:43
With your passport you probably could, but they don't tend to
39:46
check your visa, but the hotels do.
39:49
Right. The hotels do, yes, Yeah, Yeah.
39:53
So what's next for you, Jerry? OK.
39:59
In terms of cycling, what's next?
40:02
The big one is probably in June next year.
40:06
When I say probably June, it's it's probably June, it's
40:09
possibly May or possibly July. But it's going to happen.
40:13
We're going to fly back to Hohot because we now have an electric
40:18
E assist bikes. So they're ordinary bikes with a
40:20
battery that helps you up the hills and stuff.
40:23
Because I'm, I'm nearly 70 years old, you know, those hills are
40:26
pretty brutal. So I now have a little bit of E
40:29
assist going up the hills. I can still ride without them,
40:32
but in fact I do ride without them most of the time.
40:35
But you know, when you get into the mountains, click it on and
40:38
off you go. It just helps you, helps you
40:40
enormously and makes the, the journey pleasurable instead of
40:43
more painful. So we left our batteries in
40:46
Hohot because they didn't want to ship the batteries back when
40:49
with the bikes when we came back.
40:52
And so we're going to have the bikes shipped up there, click
40:55
the batteries back in, charge them up and then ride to
40:58
Qinghai, which is the only province of China that I haven't
41:02
been to. I haven't been to Taiwan, which
41:05
is province of China, but it's a separate issue there and it's a
41:09
little more difficult for me to get there.
41:10
But in terms of mainland and the Chinese managed Hainan through
41:15
high islands, I've been in Hong Kong and Macau, I've been
41:18
everywhere else. So that's the plan, just to go
41:21
up and ride down to Qinghai, and to do that we'll need to ride
41:25
through Dunhuang. Or pretty wow.
41:28
Wow. So you're going through the
41:29
whole Silk Road corridor, through Gansu?
41:33
Yes, I've cycled through Gansu before twice.
41:37
Once going east West, once going West.
41:39
E Gansu is quite brutal to cycle through.
41:42
It's very dry, wide open, brutally strong winds, and it
41:48
can be quite painful. Ningxia is pretty much the same
41:52
as well. Ningxia is much smaller than
41:54
Gansu. Gansu is a very long it, it goes
41:56
around the corner, very long province and you spend, in fact,
42:01
I think Gansu is the province you spend the most time in when
42:04
you're crossing China. But on this trip we just pass
42:07
through the narrow part, the neck of Gansu and down near
42:11
Jiangye, Yumen and Donghuan and head down to the across the
42:17
mountains and down into Chenghai.
42:19
Where? Where's your destination in
42:21
Chenghai? Not decided yet.
42:23
Somewhere in Chenghai. It's just, it's just a case of I
42:26
want to go to Chenghai, so the destination doesn't matter.
42:30
Probably one of the major towns or cities.
42:33
So when we get there, we'll make a decision.
42:35
We, we may decide because the three of us don't have jobs,
42:40
we're all unemployed or unemployable and therefore we
42:44
can just say, well, do we want to continue and go all the way
42:46
home? It'll take us another month, OK,
42:49
we'll do that. Or maybe we've done what we set
42:51
out to do. Let's go somewhere by car or bus
42:55
or train and send the bikes home and we'll see them in 10 days
42:59
time. It's it's a decision we haven't
43:01
quite made yet. Wow.
43:03
What a what, what what a nice way to spend your retirement.
43:07
I mean, that's that you're, you're living my dream.
43:11
And. Yeah.
43:13
So have you been to Tibet yet? Tibet, yes, I have.
43:16
I I was there last year in August just for a 10 day trip.
43:22
Again, that was a media trip. I was invited by the Regional
43:27
Council information office, and I don't know why I was there.
43:35
OK, seriously, They invited me and they said we're we're
43:39
bringing influencers. OK.
43:42
Me. Yeah.
43:44
We would like you to come. So, OK, who else is going?
43:47
And they gave me a list of names.
43:48
I've never heard of any of these people.
43:50
Every single person on this tour was Chinese except me.
43:56
Am I on the wrong tour here? Am I on the wrong bus?
43:59
They, they just, I mean, I, I can, I'm functional in Mandarin.
44:03
I, I, I speak no Tibetan at all, not even a word of it, but I'm
44:07
functional in Mandarin. And they were making
44:10
announcements in both languages. And what, what do you say 9930?
44:18
I know I've got that big, but where are we going at 9:30?
44:20
So I mean, that was what I was getting.
44:22
And so I'm just lucky. But there's, there's a couple of
44:26
girls there who spoke some English.
44:28
None of the boys is 20 or no total of 60 people.
44:33
Several of them were staff and guides.
44:36
But first day there, we're having a dinner table meeting
44:41
and we had to each introduce ourselves.
44:44
And the first girl gets up and she says, you know, I've got
44:47
3,000,000 followers on DOI Yin and 12 million followers on
44:50
Weibo and all this sort of stuff.
44:52
And it got round to me. These got 7,000,006 million, 2
44:55
million. I've got 32,000 followers on
44:58
YouTube. Why is he here?
45:02
Why is he here? I've got 50,000 now, but this is
45:06
a year ago. It was, it was a really weird
45:09
experience to be on this trip with all of these really serious
45:13
influences and me, the only foreigner, I'm the only guy
45:17
who's I mean that they get more views on one video than I get in
45:22
a month, probably in a year. You know, they they'll get 2
45:25
million views on this video that they put out And I, I get, you
45:29
know, the best video I've ever had is 100,000 views.
45:33
So so you. Didn't get to do bicycling on
45:36
that trip. No, no, no, no, they, they, they
45:39
didn't give me that opportunity. I did get a free afternoon and
45:43
they were very keen to take me back to the hotel and I said no,
45:45
no, I'll just get off here and I'll, I'll make my own way back.
45:48
And they were, I thought they were, they were going to have a
45:51
heart attack or something. No, no, you can't do that.
45:54
You can't do that enough. Why not?
45:56
Is there a problem? I mean security or no?
45:58
No, because you don't know how to get back to the hotels.
46:00
I do know how to get back to the I.
46:02
Had to tell them what the name of the hotel was in Chinese,
46:05
show them on my phone that I know how to use DD.
46:08
Once they had that, well, OK, you can go then.
46:10
They were just worried they'd get lost and, and you know, die
46:13
in the mountains or something. But we're in the town centre of
46:15
Lassa, so I had five or six hours of total free time
46:19
wandering around and believe it or not, I had a Xinjiang meal
46:23
that night. Oh, nice.
46:26
I found, I found the, the Uyghur has a mosque and just a few 100
46:31
metres away, about a kilometre away, the way Muslims have a
46:35
mosque as well. So there's a lot of Muslim food
46:38
in Lasser. I was surprised.
46:39
So I I sat down and I had myself with Dapanji and a bottle of
46:43
beer. Nice Xinjiang meal.
46:46
Nice Lasser. That's what people don't
46:49
realize. It's actually quite easy to get
46:52
around in China nowadays if you if you have like a Chinese map
46:56
app the Gaudi to the A map. Gauder is brilliant.
47:01
In English, it's called a map, but Gauder is absolutely
47:05
brilliant. That takes us on some of the
47:07
most incredible. The picture you see behind me,
47:10
this is from Gowda. Yeah.
47:12
We're, we're riding along this road and suddenly it says turn
47:15
left in 100 meters. And you go, what?
47:17
Turn left? We're on the main road going
47:18
straight to the city we want to go to.
47:20
And it says turn left. And you turn left and you do a
47:23
detour through this kind of village and then it brings you
47:26
out the other side 2-3 kilometers later.
47:30
And you just saved yourself a 12 kilometer diversion through the
47:33
main road. The main road goes way around
47:34
the other side of that hill. So yeah, it's fantastic.
47:37
Gowda. Or a map?
47:39
Just capital A MAP A map. Yeah.
47:43
And and by the way, where is that?
47:45
Where is that the tongue that the behind you that the picture
47:48
was taken? This one's in.
47:50
Qingyuen in a place called Nan Lian.
47:55
It's about 3 or 4 hours drive north of Guangzhou, OH.
48:00
OK, so this is actually in Guangdong province.
48:03
Just it's, it's right on the border with Hunan not far from
48:07
Guizhou. Guizhou, Guanzi and Hunan all
48:11
kind of border the northern western side of Guangdong
48:14
province and it's somewhere up that way.
48:17
I think Hunan is very close to Hunan.
48:19
Well, this has been a great, great catching up, Jerry.
48:23
You know, it's this last time I talked to you I think was like
48:26
years ago. So I just want to, yeah, it's I
48:30
just, I just wanted to catch up to see how you're doing.
48:33
Looks like you're still having a grand old time in China.
48:37
And it's good. Always good to hear.
48:39
And and I look forward to updates from your, from your,
48:44
your up and coming trip. And I, I wish all your wish, all
48:49
you, your, your success in your future endeavors is there.
48:52
If people want to follow you, where, where would they go?
48:56
Yeah, just follow me on It's on there on the screen.
48:59
Jerry's take on China and you know, anyone can follow me
49:03
anytime. It's it's OK if they have
49:05
questions about China. Anyone can ask questions.
49:08
I I read all my comments still and I respond to emails when
49:13
people pick up the e-mail address from the bio, it's
49:15
inside of the bio. So if people say, hey, have you
49:18
been to and what you know about, I'm quite happy to answer them
49:20
all. Do you know anything about this
49:22
story I've heard usually I'll be able to say, yeah, I know about
49:25
that. It's a lot of rubbish.
49:27
So yeah, anyone can contact me through my YouTube, Jerry's take
49:31
on China, through Twitter, Jerry's take on China or XI
49:34
should say sorry and the E the e-mail addresses in the bio of
49:39
both of them. Excellent.
49:42
Well, thank you very much, Jerry for making your time to talk, to
49:45
talk with us and thanks everyone else for tuning in.
49:50
Until next time, bye bye. Thank you.