Leshan to Shuifu

Day 54 Wednesday 23rd September 193 km (16995 km total)

On camera with the boys in blue!

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It had to happen sooner or later I suppose. This grey area we were exploting regarding whether motorcycles are allowed into the toll roads or not, finally moved into black & white.

The guide's direction has always been, if we need to do a lot of miles the toll road is better. He says it is not reallly clear of big bikes are allowed on or not, there is a law that says they are but it has not been widely implemented and as there are so few big bikes around, it has never really been clarified either.

So the toll booths are not equipped for bikes, so the only way is to sneak around the barrier, but in some cases they wont let you, in others they turn a blind eye and yet others they even open a side gate for you. The guide had said that once through though, you would be ok, they won't chase you. Today we found out that was not always the case.

The day started with the guide escorting us to the toll gate at the start of the expressway and then waving us to sneak down the side of the lorries. The first 3 bikes got though unscathed (I was number 3) but the four following ones were subject to much gesticulating and shouting from the toll gate staff.

However we thought nothing of it and carried on, splitting again into the now standard pattern of a leading 3 (including me) with the remaining 4 some distance behind and the guide car behind them.

After about an hour, the three of us had a lead of around 20 minutes or so and were coming up to the first exit since our entry (which we did not plan to take) when we saw a police jeep parked provocatively at the apex of the junction

Thinking this was a speed check, we ensured we wern't speeding and carried in. As we drew level though the policeman started waving at us, so we waved back! We found out later they were trying to get us to stop!
 

A few miles down the road we saw red & blue flashing lights in our mirrors & other traffic making way for the advancing police car.   We were within the speed limit and so carried on.  Unsure if they were after us or not.

Anyway they caught up with Russ, who was a couple of hundred meters behind me and made him stop. John & I stopped briefly around the next bend, conferred & decided to go the 2km to the next service area, stop there, contact Russ & the guide to see what was happening & wait for the others.

Russ said he had been escorted off the expressway and then left alone, no other problem. The guide said he would go and get Russ & then try and get him back on & we should carry on. However we decided to wait for the others at the service area to avoid the group becoming too fragmented.

We were attracting the usual attention at the service ara, lost of people looking at the bikes, thumbs up, chatting away to us in Chinese & wanting photos taken with us and the bikes.

Then a police car turned up & the friendly officers joined in, but must also have radioed to base, as a few minutes later we had 3 police cars there and were being told in friendly sign language to follow them. We politely declined & tried to explain we were a tour group and needed to wait for our team members & the guide. We eventually got him on the phone and let them sort it out between them.

Then a film crew arrived! - along with a senior policeman (number 2 in the region apparently) We weren't sure where this was all leading , but it all seemed friendly enough.

We never found out exactly what was going on but I suspect the senior policeman had seized in the opportunity for a bit of police PR and wanted to show how the friendly & professional chinese police force had rescued some foreign travellers who had accidentally strayed into the tollroad, & helped them find the correct way! ... Or somethimg like that.

So on camera we each had to sit down and have our passports examined and explain who we were & what journey we were undertaking. The senior policeman then seemed to make some sort of public statement to camera and then it was all smiles, selfies, handshakes and we were told to follow two of the police cars in single file on our bikes.

They took us back onto the toll road and south for 30 minutes, off at the exit then north for an hour and a half (due to traffic) until we found Russ at the side of the road and then they waved took some more photos & left us.

The whole episode had taken almost 4 hours and we were only a third of the way through our riding journey for the day. After a brief discussion with the guide we decided to stop for the night at the next town, which would cost us a day in the planned itinerary, but better than riding 3 hours in the dark on poor local roads.

So we headed along the local road by the river for an hour to the nearest town. The hotel was built literally on the river bank with a slightly scary vewi out of my 26th floor room if you looked straight down to the fast flowing river.

The popular saying for tonight was "its all part of the adventure!"