Yellow Mountain to Porcelain Capital

A warming up cycling around 35KMS today allows us to adjust our bikes to the perfect condition, especially for those who bring your own bike parts and gears. Hangzhou is a scenic city with a history of over 1000 years. It was once the capital city of South Song Dynasty. The West Lake is a must see here. There are numerous temples, pagodas, gardens, and artificial islands within the lake. It was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2011, described as having "influenced garden design in the rest of China". Hangzhou is also the producer of top quality green tea - Dragon Well Tea. It is worthy to spend half a day riding or walking around the West Lake and tea farms nearby.

Today's route is the only 100% flat of the whole trip. A leisurely ride will take us to Tonglu, southwest of Hangzhou. On the way, well-preserved buildings from Ming and Qing (pronounced Chin) Dynasties can be seen. In history, the area was ruled by Sun Family during the "Three Kingdoms" peiord (220-280 AD). This is why some of the places we go through are still called the Door (or Family) of the Dragons, the family used to live here and control the area. (The Sun family were obviously regarded as local dragons!). A well paved bike path along Fuchun River is decorated with beautiful flowers, great cycling experience.

Today’s level of difficulty is similar to yesterday’s, while with more undulation. Not too strenuous cycling will lead us all the way to the hometown of Chinese padlocks – Pujiang, Pujiang now belongs to Jinhua city, where top quality padlocks of China are manufactured. (For equivalent products, YALE in USA, LOCKWOOD for Australians). The region has a high a reputation for calligraphy, scroll painting, home textiles, etc in history. It is known as a base of culture and religions, Confucian relics and ancient pathways can be found along this scenic section. The home stay in the Songxi Village tonight will bring us a lot of fun and experience for sure.

The heavy road traffic and continuous mountains for less skilled riders will make the ride feel a little challenged after our amazing experience at Songxi Village. Therefore, we will drive to skip the distance around those industrial and commercial crowed cities, towns and busy roads where the local economy proliferates. During our 3 hours' drive, we will have a short visit of the Zhuge Village - a small famous town built based on the concept of Chinese Eight-Diagrams and Fengshui. It is known as the living place of the top strategist described in the history book of the Three Kingdoms. It is a good place for lunch and preparation for our afternoon ride all the way to the town of Thousand Islands Lake.

Our support van will drive us out of the town to skip the busy road affected by the heavy traffic and road reconstruction; the drive won’t last long, but saves us more than 2 hours to better enjoy the scenery of the famous Xing’an River and the villages all along the road. The nice road surface makes the ride of 82KMs much easier than what you expect. Alternatively, you can transfer by van to catch up others anytime if you lag far behind due to photo taking of the scenery. After the arrival of an ancient town, we will check into a unique hotel, where used to be the office building of the local Communist Party committee. You can enjoy the beer or coffee at the hall with pictures of Communist pioneers/leaders from home and abroad (Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, etc.) on the wall. The starry sky and tranquil Old Town of Shexian will accompany us for a sweet sleep.

Explore Shexian Old Town and its city wall before starting our ride this morning. After an easy half day ride and beat the short steep uphill section, we will reach the transit centre of HuangShan – Tangkou town. This is one of the most famous and popular attractions in China, we will not attempt to scale the mountain today. Sleep well tonight, we should get prepared for the tomorrow's hike on the Yellow Mountain, which is the most challenging day for the whole trip!

The entrance fee and one-way cable car fee uphill are included (if For those who are 70 years old or above, you are not required to pay for the entrance fee). For senior travelers, we will probably need take the cable car up and down and pack our own lunch prepared last night. We will spend the whole day hiking from the rear mountains of Huangshan all the way to the west section. Very few tourists there as no cable car is available. and we will walk down the mountain and take a car to hotel.

We will not ride our bikes today due to the sore legs. There are many well preserved Hui-style ancient architetures in the area. A slow-paced exploration is more meaningful than riding biking on the main road without scenery. Guests will have options of visiting 1 or 2 famous attractions around at your own expense. (We will recommend Xidi Village or the Stone Forest). And the drive is around 4-5 hours as we will skip the ride to our final province of this tour - Jiangxi.

We will cycle through many small well-preserved ancient villages. The Hui-style architecture is featured with brick carving, stone carving and wood carving decorations. Most of the villagers still have a laidback way of life: using water buffalo to plough the field, growing rice by hand etc.

From March to April, the fields and hillside among villages turn totally yellow with blooming canola flowers, just like a huge piece of bright yellow carpet laid on the land. Canola seed is also used to produce vegetable oil, biodiesel, and animal feed.

The ride today is not hard, and we will arrive at our hotel early in the afternoon.

This is our last cycling day, please keep cautious about the traffic when cycling into the town like always. When seeing the street light poles made of porcelain on both side of the road, it means we are now in the China’s ‘Porcelain Capital’. We’ll have the opportunity to visit the porcelain museum later this afternoon.

The museum has a rich collection of over 5,000 articles, showing visitors the development of Chinese ceramics. The items on display include ceramics from past dynasties, historical information about ceramics, precious collections of paintings and calligraphies, among which many are of excellent quality.

You have some free time to explore the biggest porcelain market in China!!! If you want to buy some porcelain products, this town is the best place.

Optional extra half day on your own to explore the city, and our service ends after breakfast today.