Going Coastal

Beijing to Tanggu
November 13th
170km (609m vertical)

As the rest of the group boxed their bikes in the hotel parking lot, Al and I set off for the coast. A friend had left us maps at the hotel – which were extraordinarily helpful, even though they were in Mandarin. Whenever we got offtrack, Al would canvas the locals for help and I would provide a sanity check on their advice. (Sometimes, I think they just pointed randomly to get us to go away.)

We averaged 25.5km/h over the 170km, which is pretty good given all of our misadventures in the larger cities. Reached Tanggu at 4:30pm, just as it began to get dark. Al was thrilled to find a hostel room for $10 per night. No window, but otherwise fine.

We are about 10km from the water, so we'll go take some photos in the morning and then take a train back to Beijing.