#2: [19-Jun-06]

11-Oct-2004 -- This is the 25th out of 29 confluence visits on our tour from Germany to China, the story continues from 27N 107E.

On the seventh biking day in Guizhou I started in a village named Zhongshan 20 km east of the Confluence. On the previous day, the daylight had faded when I reached Zhongshan and a hospitable family invited me to stay in their house. I also was heartily welcomed to share their hot-pot. They didn't have much space thus I had to share a bed with one of their sons.

The next morning I had an early start at 6 am and rode the remaining 20 km to the city Qianxi. Here, I enjoyed my breakfast, but didn't sample any goat-meat. From Qianxi it is just 4.6 km to the CP. I took a road towards Jinbi. At a remaining distance of 420 m, I passed a school on my left. Nearby I spotted a path, which took me directly to the confluence point.

The exact location turned out to be in a small rice field. The rice had recently been harvested so it was no problem to step on the field and get a zero reading at the GPS display. At the CP I heard school kids from the nearby school learning English by repeating sentences in harmony. After I had taken the pictures of the confluence, a farmer riding his bullock approached. I chatted a while with him, asking how the harvest was. He answered that it was not too bad this year. Then I asked him for a picture and we both went off in different directions. I rode back to Qianxi and continued my bike trip to Bijie and spent the night in a village named Gukai.

CP visit details:

• Time at the CP: 10:30 a.m.
• Duration: 1 h (until I was back on my route)
• Distance of bike parking: 0 m
• GPS height: 1190 m
• Description: On a small rice patch in a valley, populated areas all around, scattered bamboo trees
• Given Name: The Ox-Rider Confluence

Story continues at 27N 105E.