tandem4family – Mit der Familienkutsche von Shanghai nach Beijing
Almost three weeks in China have already passed, but we still have not achieved our goal of starting out early, that is to say before 11 am. Instead, with every day our departure time becomes later and later. This excludes from our daily program the long relaxing lunch stop, to which I had got used to from my former tagging along Volker’s biking groups. Now instead of one, we make at least 20 stops, but neither of them is long, and most are not relaxing.
We still haven’t got out of town when Sarah needs to go to toilet. 15 min later a shout comes from Nora that she wants to make pipi. We are finally nicely rolling again when Nora’s cushion falls on the road and has to be picked up. Then Sarah drops her baby – new stop and again retracing. Then it is time again to stop for toilet. Then the kids scream for ice-cream – a stop at a shop follows; as it doesn’t have a freezer, we stop at the next, and at the third, all without result, and then the pink vanity box of Sarah drops on the road as we are in the middle of a strenuous ascent. We roll down with full impetus when Nora drops her green pencil. We glimpse local shrines, pagodas or surreal construction landscapes on the way, but we no longer stop and explore: because we know, any moment there will come a new outcry from the trailer that an urgent stop is needed. After two weeks of interrupted biking Volker became convinced that the kids consciously attempt to boycott our journey.
