In Luoyang I was faced with a major decision of whether to continue with the Dahon folding bike into the next stage of the trip heading north into Inner Mongolia. Heading upriver I would soon have to make a 90 degree turn at a place called Sanmenxia (三门峡) and follow the Yellow River into hillier territory along a canyon that marked the Shanxi/Shaanxi border for almost 1000 kilometres.
Given the problems with the spokes and the limited range of the battery, it was clear that I would have to switch to a larger and more robust bike. I decided to look for something in Xi’an, then pick up where I left off on the Yellow River. I’d never visited Xi’an and it was on my ‘to do’ list. A detour to Xi’an, some 100 kilometres beyond the northward turn of the river, would also allow me to go to nearby Huashan, yet another one of China’s sacred mountains.
West of Luoyang the Yellow River flowed through an area of low mountains and the river had been dammed to create the massive 100 kilometre long Xiaolangdi (小浪底) reservoir .
Built in 2001, the Xiaolangdi dam was the biggest on the Yellow River and had allowed hydro-engineers to regulate the flow of the river downstream to prevent both floods and also drought periods when sections of the river all but dried up.
I set off early in the morning from Luoyang to cycle the 45 kilometres north to the dam and hopefully get to see the dramatic torrents of water gushing down its release chutes. Unfortunately my efforts were in vain, because I learned that the scheduled water releases from the Xiaolangdi dam only occur for a few days in June and July each year as part of a pre-emptive flood prevention and silt purging process. After a quick look around the dam’s museum and exhibit area, I pedalled back to Luoyang.
The flooding of valleys by the Xiaolangdi reservoir had created several cliff-bound bays and long inlets that had confusingly been dubbed ‘the Yellow River Three Gorges Scenic Area’. Not to be mistaken for the Three Gorges of the Yangtze, the Yellow River gorges were accessible by cruise boat, and even by cable car from a nearby town called Jiyuan (济源), on the north side of the river.
However, the mountainous terrain with its many gorges meant there was no road running alongside the Yellow River from the Xiaolangdi dam area for more than 100 kilometres. The only option was to bypass the Xiaolangdi reservoir area and take the highway to the next major town, Sanmenxia, where the river turns.
The road was through hilly rural country and passed through a series of small towns that were remarkable only for the ugliness of their power stations, oil refineries and concrete factories. The roadsides were also a depressing parade of tyre repair and truck mechanic workshops.
I didn’t make it as far as Sanmenxia on my first day out of Luoyang, but stopped at a small town called Mianchi (渑池) to check out a nearby Neolithic site called Yangshao (仰韶). Unearthed by a Swedish geologist Johan Gunnar Andersson in the 1920s, the Yangshao site provided evidence of a thriving community that once existed along the Yellow from 5000 to 3000 BC.
The road north to the Yangshao museum from Mianchi was a pleasant interlude after the eyesores of the main highway. Passing through fertile green farmland, the rosebush-lined road was adorned with monuments to the ‘Yangshao culture’ with motifs depicting the unique red-brown artwork found on the pottery dug up by Andersson.
The museum display showed how the Yangshao people had developed hunting and farming communities living in villages of wooden houses along the nearby river. These farming communities, existing millenia before the ancient Egyptian pharaohs, would become the source of Sino-Tibetan culture, the display stated. On a more relatable note to me, the museum also described how the bowls and pots at Yangshao people had contained traces of alcohol. The locals had been among the first in the history of mankind to ferment a form of ale from the corn and yams they harvested. Craft beer was becoming a recurring theme on this trip.
The following day took me 60 kilometres further along the river to Sanmenxia, with further frustrations due to continuous hills and a failed attempt to take a short cut along a better road that turned out to be a ‘no bikes allowed’ motorway. I had to cycle five kilometres before I found an exit, pedalling in a panic off the highway past toll booths where officials yelled at me (too late) and my illegal incursion on to the forbidden territory.
Sanmenxia was the location of another major dam on the Yellow River, and also the place where the river makes a sharp right-angle turn from the north to start flowing eastwards on its final 1000 kilometre stretch to the sea.
After my disappointing experience with the dam at Xiaolangdi I opted to skip a visit to the one near Sanmenxia. It sounded like bad news anyway. Built in the 1950s with assistance from the Soviet Union, the Sanmenxia dam was a huge mistake. It soon began to be blocked up by accumulation of silt - the very thing that the Yellow River is known for. The dam was rebuilt in the 1960s, but has continued to be problematic. As recently as 2010 Chinese journalists and writers were being detained and jailed for writing about the environmental problems caused by the dam and also the tragic human stories of the thousands of local people displaced by the building of the dam.
After a late lunch in the centre of Sanmenxia, I got back on my bike and headed west, once again following the Yellow River, for the last few kilometres before it changed direction. Later in the day, feeling tired after pedalling seemingly uphill for most of the afternoon I was desperate to find somewhere to stop. My Gaode app suggested a town called Lingbao (灵宝) as my best hope for a hotel, but it was still a few hours cycling away. Closer to hand, there was a hotel marked at a place called Hangu Pass (函谷关). According to the blurb, this was the site of a historic fort that had controlled the ancient road between China’s capital at Xi’an and the important cities on the eastern plains.
When I eventually found it down an obscure side road from the highway, the Hangu hotel complex proved to be an unsettling example of China’s ‘build it and they’ll come’ overcapacity in tourism facilities. From a distance, the Hangu Pass tourism service complex appeared to be a newly-built and modern styled collection of accommodation blocks, restaurants, shops and landscaped parklands. But up close, after cycling through the unmanned main gate, I passed block after block of deserted and neglected buildings in search of life. The car park was all but empty and I began to panic that I had opted for an abandoned hotel, when I eventually came across a woman who had arrived in a car. She directed me towards the very last building at the end of the drive, which to my relief appeared to be open and to have somebody in residence.
Through an unmarked door I found myself in the hotel reception, where the female manager was as surprised to see me as I was to see her. As she checked me in and showed me up to my room, she explained that the hotel complex development had stalled after being built just before the Covid-19 pandemic and was still awaiting the final opening of some key visitor centre buildings and other tourist attractions. I appeared to be the only guest.
There was a shop next door to the hotel that was locked up, but the manager called up someone to come and open it for me so I could buy some yoghurt and snacks. Similarly she pointed me towards a dining hall building, where a couple of young guys emerged to take my order and cook me up a couple of dishes.
The next morning I was grateful to have the electric pedal assist to power me up the hill out of Hangu Pass. From the hill above town I could see the hotel complex site bordered what looked like a construction site, presumably the rest of the tourism ‘theme park’. There didn't seem to be much construction going on.
I couldn’t seem to find the Hangu Pass itself, which previous visitors had described as a road through a narrow defile, so narrow that only one vehicle could fit through at a time. Perhaps it lay at the bottom of the deep gully that I was now cycling alongside as I crested a hill on which several wind turbines were turning their massive blades.
According to legend, this was the place where the philosopher Lao Tzu (老子) had penned his famous treatise the Tao Te Ching. Like me, he had been travelling along the road in the direction of Xi’an when he was challenged by one of the guardians at the gateway of Hangu Pass. When asked what the reason for his journey was, the old sage had responded by picking up his ink brush and writing out 81 verses that became the foundational creed of Taoism.
Now the Hangu Pass has a high speed rail line running through it, and the walls of the small village beneath the wind turbines are covered in murals depicting ecological themes.
The slogan was a bit of Xi Jinping Thought: “Keep the mountains green, let clear water flow and the air remain clean” (“让青山常在绿水长流空气常新”).
From the top of the hill looking west I could see the last few kilometres of the Yellow River before it turned to the north. I would be going that way, but first there was the matter of Xi’an and the bike swap.
That afternoon I crossed from Henan into Shaanxi province and pedalled into a headwind towards the former capital city of ancient China.
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