suzhou : blood, sweat, but luckily no tears.

on saturday, may 9th, 2009 i set out on a bike trip from shanghai to suzhou, china.  my travel buddy and good friend chris came with me, as we endured the 45 degree celsius weather and pushed our pedals for over 300 KM . . enjoy the story !!

here is chris on saturday morning quickly looking over the map that was of absolutely no use to us . . instead we used our sense of direction to guide us across the open lands - we just knew that we had to head east, and a little bit to the north.  we later found out that there is a direct highway called 'G312' that heads straight from shanghai to suzhou :)
taking our first break from the heat, we managed to find the smallest patch of shade in all of china.  but hey, at least we got a little break ! refreshed with some water, and then we were back on the road.
this gem is an old golf course converted to family picnic park, about 2 hours outside of shanghai.  my lungs could feel the difference in air quality that somewhat 'fresh' water and trees were producing.  we plan on coming back here with some friends one weekend for a nice break from city life.  i highly recommend!
so after just over 5 hours of biking at an average rate of 35 km/h, we made it to suzhou.  we happened to find this great hotel that cost us pretty much nothing : about 15 canadian each for the night.  it was located right downtown suzhou, and was pretty much brand new !! a steal and a half if you ask me :)

i was covered in sweat, a little burnt, and exhausted.  can you tell ?

a demonstration of how dirty china is . . those legs aren't burnt, that's dirt.

after cleaning ourselves up and ditching our bikes in the hotel, we decided to take a walk through downtown suzhou.  to our surprise, it was totally different than shanghai! there were no high-rise buildings, very little traffic, and everything was CLEAN. not to mention the multiple gardens and patches of trees everywhere !! truly a beautiful city.

naturally we couldn't just leave our bikes inside all day . . 

we had to take them for a spin through suzhou!

this is one of the many stray dogs that kept following me in suzhou.  for some reason, stray animals in china just seem to gravitate towards me . . cute though, right?
and at last, a photo of one of the many beautiful rivers / streams found in suzhou.  this place really is the venice of china !
after a good nights rest, we woke up pretty early on sunday morning to bike through 'old suzhou'.  this is the non-tourist part of suzhou, and probably the most worthwhile to check out.  here is chris just taking a break on one of the ancient stone bridges.

chris' gorgeous bike.

sniped this guys from across the river.  it seems that he too was suffering from the heat and humidity.

a local suzhou boy, carrying something that was clearly not tide.

my latest bike !! i'd like to take this chance to plug Airwalk fixed gear bikes.  they hooked me up with this free bike just over a week ago, and i love it !! you can check out all their stuff here.
thanks to chris for this great photo - check out how white those legs are !! . . and yes, one footed skit with one leg over the TT bars, while in old suzhou . . classic.

one last shot of suzhou before heading back to shanghai !

on the bike back chris burst his rear tube after riding through glass . . luckily we were prepared and he had all the right tools and a spare tube to fix the problem!
biking through the sunset, back into shanghai.  looking back it was an amazing trip! though short, i saw a lot of amazing stuff, and was able to make a few new friends along the way.  if you are wondering why the title reads "blood, sweat, but luckily no tears" i think it's pretty self-explanatory . . i was obviously sweating, i obviously never cried, and yes - i crashed into a bus while in suzhou.   BUT, i wasn't hurt, so it's not really worth writing about.  thanks for reading!