I've had an adventure today, and now I've got the mosquito situation under control in this rather comfortable room at The Riverside Hotel in Xingping. (£5 without breakfast), I'm going to try to explain how it unfolded...

I have lost my faith in Chinese maps. I set out today to ride South 43m from Guilin to Yangshou on the back roads crises crossing the river. The first bridge I came to wasn't there at all, so I talked a local into transporting me and the bike across on a little boat. He could of mentioned that after another mile the road disappeared into the water again. Or maybe he did, my Mandarin is sketchy. So I decided he must of meant that the footpath up the cliff was the way through. So I started up the path. Honestly, any steeper and it would have been impossible, several times I strained myself against the threat of falling over backwards.

The trail led nowhere but it took me 3 hours to figure that out. So after an hour or so wandering around the top trying to figure out if there was a better way back to the river I turned back. And the only thing more dangerous than clambering up a vertical path pushing a Cyclo cross bike with panniers in SPD Sidis is trying to control all of that coming down. So I switched to flip flops, strung my panniers together with my cable lock, (cleverly threading it through my now discarded bib shorts to protect my neck a little, I still had my over shorts on!) then took the wheels out of the bike and bungeed them to the bike so it would be easier to carry on my back for the descent. It took me two hours to get back down which made it a total of 3 hours without water in 38 degree heat.

I've found, in extremely hot conditions when you have run short of water that it's your core temperature that presents the most discomfort rather than early dehydration, which just creeps up unnoticed. So I made several contingency plans before I got too badly dehydrated and promised myself not to alter them because by that time I probably wouldn't be thinking straight anymore. I'd hiked my way into quite a bit of trouble, one of the plans was simply to leave the bike up there, but taking it apart made it much more manageable.

Anyway, I finally made it back to the river and sat in it for about 15 minutes while my body got back to normal operating temperature. Should have remembered to take my money out of my shorts pocket though. Typical dehydrated type mistake!

So now I was back on track again but no way out but back to the village and the local fishermen to cadge a ride from. I found a lady selling cold water and sugary iced tea in the village, drank four bottles of that, ate her fish on a stick speciality along with sweet corn and sweet potatoes and I was almost ready to go.

Trouble was I had run out of time to ride further down the river and I didn't fancy sleeping on the river bank, so I convinced (£25) one of them to get me 20 miles down the river to this much bigger village, Xinping, where I hoped I'd have a choice of accommodation. The journey started under paddle man power but I was quickly switched to a powered boat and as soon as we started moving his phone started ringing and it became clear that he was arranging a relay of local fisherman to get me here. So I got an utterly surreal experience that I will never forget. Being transferred from boat to boat midstream as the sun went down and fishermen cast their nets into the water. I'm sure this is the kind of experience very few people would ever know existed. It was a brilliant display of local knowledge and cooperative logistics. Smuggling me and the Bianchi downstream as the light faded. Just amazing, the sun disappearing and boats motoring along in almost total darkness

Finally, the lights of Xingping shone from the banks and I spent most of the evening eating pistachio's, trying to soak in and savouring the atmosphere of the quayside full of local boat buses. Their family crews trying to sleep on the decks on straw mats in the sticky evening heat. One particularly beautiful young woman in thin baggy white pyjamas who just never seemed to be able to make herself comfortable. Every twist and turn under the quay lights offering a more seductive shadowy shape. All very dreamy stuff.

A totally brilliant day. Really the essence of what I think of as adventure travel. When things go tits up very exciting things almost always start to happen. I had to put all my faith in the locals and they delivered one of the most memorable travel experiences of my life.

But I'm hoping for a less exciting day tomorrow, I cut my heel quite badly clambering down that cliff and earlier in the day changed the front and rear tyres around after discovering a split in the wall of the back one. It's on the front now so I don't need as much pressure in it. It's less likely to explode but will be more exciting if it does. Life is full of these little compromises isn't it.

I'm only 50 with time on my hands, a hot air balloon, and still fabulously good looking. I hope you mentioned that to them Justin and Pete?

Google "Xingping Li River" to get a better idea of this area. It's special.

About time I culled a few more mossies

Neil xx

From my i-phone