Courtesy of Lindsey Dawson.
When even our kids can’t ride a bike without a helmet, the wind-in-hair sensation is a feeling they’ll never know. For grown-ups it’s just a memory.
In China, there are no rules. So yes, you can do it again.
Beijing Sideways www.beijingsideways.com is a tour company offering pillion or sidecar rides on vintage motorbikes. The bikes are World War II-era two-cylinder models, first churned out for the German army and then also made by the million in Russia and then China. They’re noisy, rackety and huge fun.
We’ve ordered up three bikes for our group of six. Our tour leader is Leo, an Argentinean with a few years’ of BJ (Beijing) residency under his belt. His co-drivers are nuggety local lads, scarves wrapped pirate-style around their faces to fend off smog and grit.
You need your wits about you to ride the roads of big Chinese cities. Drivers use horns a lot, both defensively and assertively. Red lights are often merely a signal that you might like to slow down a bit. Few vehicles use indicators and intersections are clogged with turning cars, huge buses and wobbly bicycles that often have no lights. And nobody wears a helmet.
Beijing Sideways does supply them, and nervous tourists are usually keen. “I like my brain,’ said someone in my group as he pulled one on. I felt the same way.
But after a while, as your confidence grows, you just can’t resist the temptation to say, ‘dammit, I want to feel free!’ Off came the skid-lids and we reveled in the rush of wind as we blatted in convoy through the city, grinning like loons, filling our lungs with smog and exhaust fumes and loving every moment of it.
As night fell we roared along the foot of the giant wall that surrounds the 500-year-old Forbidden City, turned the corner and came to a stop before its breathtaking entrance. All lit up, it reared huge and golden above us. There was nobody else there at all and the very next day, jostling with thousands of locals under the hot noonday sun, we could hardly believe we were in the same place.
Also unforgettable: forging our way through the hutongs, the narrow residential lanes of ancient Beijing – once numerous but slowly disappearing under the pressure of 21st century growth. Tourists love to stroll, eat and shop there now…except, probably, when they’re having to step aside to avoid having a sidecar run over their toes.
It’s a two-hour ride (about $NZ180 for the first passenger and $100 for another), one in the sidecar and the other riding pillion.
The Sideways crew can also take you out to the Great Wall for a quiet picnic with French wine, so if the city crush doesn’t sound appealing you can opt to enjoy some rural Chinese views. Outlying Beijing is lush and green in summer, full of cornfields and orchards.
To hop aboard, check my quick video…
Air New Zealand flies direct to Shanghai five times weekly.
Fares start from $1662 return including taxes.
For further information and to book visit www.airnewzealand.co.nz
chri241 - 12 years ago
I did this in Shanghai with an offshoot company and it was fantastic. We did not have long with our stopover and this was recommended to us by an expat Kiwi who could not fit us into her tour on the day. 4 hours of the city that we would never had seen if left to us. What an adventure – do it – the best money spent on the trip. Chris R.
ps I didn’t wear the helmet either!