Journey to the West - Long Ride in Shenzhen

Today's ride was the proper long ride we have been waiting for. Look at this crazy map of our route.

We started in the Futian district of Shenzhen and cycled 55 km with an average speed of 12 km/h and with more than 5 short breaks and one long break. The total time on our bike was about 5 hours and the whole journey from hostel to hotel took 7 hours and 30 minutes from 7:30 am to 3:00 pm. Our destination was the 7 Days Inn Shenzhen Gongming Bus Station in Gongming District, technically still belonging to part of Shenzhen.

The first moment of the day was this picture.

We thought that we had a lot of luggage on our bikes. This guy took on his bike the belonging of an entire family. We reckoned that he was a garbage collector to gather plastic or paper to resale it at some recycling collection points. I heard from stories that in China you can become millionaire by systematically collecting garbage by building a team of collectors using bike and other vehicles. There is just so much here to collect that I sort of believe this story. Maybe I should reconsider my profession.

Just shortly after this picture was taken, we entered the financial district of Shenzhen. It was very spacious but there were hardly any people around even though it was around 8 am in the morning during the weekday. We both expected lots of traffic and people on the streets. Even the traffic was scarce.

We really loved to cycle around here on broad streets and next to the skyscrapers.

In Shenzhen and in China in general, people are very chilled about cyclists on the car streets and the streets are broader than those I have seen in Europe. Then they usually have very broad pedestrian roads on either side and in most cities they also have dedicated cycling paths.

I was so proud to see the great economic miracle that happened in Shenzhen and in China. Skyscrapers that look like the Transformers shoot up into the sky within a single generation.

Here are some more.

And the tallest one amongst them.

But the good thing about Shenzhen was that they still managed to keep lots of space for pedestrians. The buses were similar to those in England. The metro is really one of the finest I have seen so far and matching those rivals in Europe.

During our way we discovered a big and beautiful mantis. It's was so cute because when we approached it, its head and entire body where continuously shifting from the left to the right. It's so funny to watch. Out of compassion we put it back into the forest next to us.

When we were cycling along a highway we noticed that on our immediate right-hand side there was a mountain and forest with a nice little river and on our left was a proper highway with lots of fast cars driving by. It was grotesque to see this but it's nice how they kept the wild untouched right next to the human made modern streets.

This by the way is the forest next to our way.

Not long after we entered what was called the Land of Lychee. Every 500 meters there were people selling the most delicious lychee in the world. Shenzhen was apparently the most famous spot for growing lychee. We found our heaven. We love lychee and we bought some for our lunch from those guys.

Next up we found some people selling cherry. Of course we took some too.

Just before we arrived at our hotel, we saw this and were amazed by how many school buses there were in this primary school. It was insane.

Finally, we arrive at the hotel and this is what happened to me.

I was totally destroyed. Couldn't even get up. So, we took a nap of two hours and then planned the next day and got our dinner. And yes, they let us take our bikes inside the hotel room. The people working there stormed on us after listing to our goal to cycle to France. It was apparently a cool thing to do.

Be prepared for the fourth day today on our cycle tour from Hong Kong to France. Today we are going to cycle a long distance too to get further West. See you later.