Wusong Island, Jilin
Entering Jilin by train presented green vistas of corn fields and rice paddies, kilometer after kilometer of a hardy agricultural expanse. Getting out there for a ride would be a welcome change and as Jilin is relatively small, getting there did not seem like it would be so time-consuming or costly as doing so from Dalian or Shenyang.
The south and east of the Jilin are mountainous, and to the west is one mountain that creates a pass to the north, which is where the train comes through and where I directed my search and sent my Didi driver, who said he never knew there was a Chemistry College on the northern outskirts of the city. As if a guy carrying a folding bicycle and wearing a bicycle helmet was going to the college. It was for me simply a convenient landmark for ordering a taxi but he insisted on dropping me at the gate.
Detailed maps of this area are not available through Baidu. My driver explained this in reference to supply and demand, that most detailed maps are of urban areas. I think he’s wrong but given our mutual lack of facility with each other’s languages, I let it go and simply picked what seemed like a reasonable target, Wusong Island (aka Rime Island). The seeming reasonableness had to do with it being a popular rural tourist destination and thus likely outfitted with suitable roads and possibly some small businesses along the way, such as restaurants and convenience stores.
It wasn’t the first time I have been wrong.
Going out was great. I was enthralled by wide vistas, big skies, and dirt tracks from the main road leading through corn fields to small villages or fishing ponds. I was enjoying it so much I fairly accepted the somewhat rough road conditions as the price of my happiness. The road smoothed out quite a bit on Wusong Island, which in August is covered by head-high corn fields, but Baidu Maps wasn’t showing me any way off the island apart from the way I came in. That was my first disappointment, having to double back.
Returning on the other side of the same road was a lot rougher than I remember coming in – and for good reason. The road out was noticeably more broken than the other side of the road coming in. When the road is this rough, there’s not much time for enjoying the view lest you hit a big hole and damage your bike, yourself, or both. Because I had my eye on the road, and not my map, I didn’t notice I had passed my turnoff, which required more doubling back.
Once I was back on course, I went through a village that had surprisingly smooth road, before being dumped on a torturous dirt track full of rocks and puddles so large I had to dismount and walk around them. By now I was wondering why I trusted Baidu Maps and hoping my bicycle didn’t fall apart before I got to a road where I could find a car.
That muddy track took me to a bridge that seemed to be used mostly by trucks, before turning once more into a soothingly smooth, tree-lined road that I was hoping would take me back to a main road. It took me instead to a track through corn fields, which led to another track through an abandoned industrial area, before finally running into a paved highway.
Apart from on the island of Wusong and a village passed on the way in, I don’t recall seeing any restaurants of general stores, apart from one near the end of my ride. The four ladies inside playing majong were startled to find a laowei walk through the door and insisted on fetching clean bottles of water to replace what they obviously considered the dirty ones I had picked out of the cooler.
My return goal was a train station. I chose it assuming there would be people, traffic, and most importantly taxis to get me back to my hotel. There were none. Maps showed an intersection with a major highway two kilometers south of the station and that target proved rewarding, with a Didi arriving within five minutes of being hailed.
Altogether I had ridden 60km, a bit more than I had anticipated and the longest I have ridden since knee surgery in May. With all the rough riding, it felt a bit more like 80 or 100km.
From now I suppose I need to be more discerning in checking routes suggested by Baidu Maps, though I’m not sure that I’d be able to spot a decent dirt track from a poor one just by looking at the satellite images. There’s no doubt Baidu will take where you want to go, but you might have to suffer a bit to get there.
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More images from Jilin:
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