Blaine Lankford on Hainan
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A couple of bikes that Blaine's son, Aaron, has for sale in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He can be reached at 269-352-2665.
December 21, 2006  
Click on the thumbnail for a bigger picture and the story that goes with it!
December 21, 2006  
"Climbing a mountain with less than a half tank of gas. I had the fuel switch in the reserve position and, because of the momentum and high angle of incline, the fuel piled up in the end of the tank preventing it getting into the fuel line. It conked in the worst place possible and when I got it turned around I lost it and it ploughed into a ditch. Better than off the side of the mountain. The bike was scuffed but otherwise undamaged. It was a bitch to get it out. My karma, while still bad, could be worse. The ditch could have been filled with buffalo shit!"
"Now that I have the bike out of the ditch, I decided to continue touring around the Jianfeng mountain area. Here is a picture of Lori, Linda, and Candy, some of the better looking scenery I discovered along the way. "
"This is their grandfather with his Civil War era musket. Sooth to say, I behaved very well around the girls. Believe it or not, those are the kinds of weapons the Hainan people used to fight the Japanese during WWII. "
February 2, 2006  
"Tell Clay that there are a couple more CJ750s on Hainan. Here is a photo of my two. One is the "Buddha," an M1S that I rode down to Hainan (where I now live) from Wenzhou. The metallic blue M1M I just bought from a guy in Sanya who couldn't find parts for it. Indeed, I have to order parts from ZMW and have them mailed down here. But, the deal was too good to turn down. Other than these, I've seen only two more on the island. "
January 19, 2006  
"Here's a picture of me on the CJ that presents a pretty good graphic image of how bad the roads are here in Hainan after typhoon Damrey (the worst storm to hit Hainan in 30 years). Unfortunately, we're about two days away from meeting typhoon Kai Tak (rhymes with tie rack). Bummer."
October 31, 2005  































Here is a summary of my trip from Wenzhou down to Hainan:

I left for Hainan on August 20th. The weather was good at the beginning but the traffic was heavy. Since I couldn't travel on the expressways (no motorcycles), I was forced to take the government roads beginning with the G104. These are similar to US highways such as Route 66, and have all sorts of traffic and vehicles ranging from Mao-tractors and rickshaws to tandem semis.

Once I got past the industrial areas of Zhejiang Province I climbed into the mountains of northern Fujian (see photos of a mountain village and me on the bike). This was rural and scenic but unfortunately, my progress was slowed by rain and bad roads. At the end of June heavy rains had washed much of the roads away and the temporary roads were closer to goat paths than highways. Now, it was raining again.

I did stop and enjoy some of the scenery, however. I crossed an interesting bridge over a stream that came out of the side of a mountain and a Buddhist temple hanging on the side of a cliff (see photos). The same was true for the roads along the coastal mountains—bad roads, nice scenery (see photo of fishing boats). I also had to stop and replace two tires that had worn through to the cord and I hadn't gone more than 750 kilometers. The tires were brand new when I left Wenzhou!

The on-and-off rain continued all the way down the coast past Fuzhou and Xiamen where the roads improved but not the traffic. I continued on the G324 all the way to Guangzhou (Canton), avoiding Shenzhen and Hong Kong like herpes. They were having floods and the traffic is to die for.

I left Guangzhou on the 6th day, crossing the Pearl River Bridge into Foshan, bound south on the G325 to Zhanjiang and then Hainan. Once I was out of Foshan the traffic and the road improved markedly. When I finally got some good road I opened up the CJ and let it fly. I hauled the mail all the way to Maoming before I blew a rear tire. My new three-day-old tire had worn through to the tube! Then I discovered that nobody, NOBODY, had CJ-size tires. I got to a repair shop where they laughed at the ancient motorcycle and the ancient laowai driving it. Only one guy knew what it was and he had retired from the army. I managed to get the shop to order some 19-inch tires from another town that fit but they were road tires and a different size to boot. The cost you ask? 500 RMB—three times what they would normally go for including the 50 RMB for a kid on a 50cc Honda to go get them. I spent the night in a hotel where the cockroaches were as big as Volkswagens and the plumbing was the traditional Chinese trench type.?

I got to the ferry landing for Hainan at 11:00 am on the morning of the 8th day. I bought a ticket for the 10:30 ferry and drove down to get on the boat being loaded. It turned out to be the 9:30 ferry. The stevadores pointed to the fine print that said none of the boats left port unless they were at full capacity and that if I wanted to wait for a couple of hours I could go on the 10:30 ferry when it was finally loaded to full capacity. Or, I could pay an extra 50 RMB and they'd get me on the 9:30. I paid the graft and they wheeled the bike up under the rear end of a semi hauling steel girders. I was the last vehicle on board and, when we got to Haikou, the last one off.

The main road down through the middle of Hainan Island is the G224 and, lucky for me, it started a block from the ferry landing. The road was very good except for what the locals call the "traffic police." These are free ranging water buffalo or "shui niu" in Chinese. They are so big nobody's going to push them around and they go wherever they want to at about one mile an hour, top speed. They also leave large packages in the road that look like loaves of Russian pumpernickel. These, you don't want to hit, either. I stopped once for water and some kids tried to sell me a local delicacy as a roadside snack: lizard on a stick—still kicking. I declined.

The northern half of Hainan is generally flat but the southern part is mountainous and I eventually started to climb into these. It cooled down dramatically from the 90/90 (90 degrees and 90 percent humidity) I'd been driving in. Sixty miles from my destination, Wuzhishan City where I was starting a new job at Qiongzhou University, it started to rain cold rain, really cold rain. I stopped the bike and put on all the clothing I could find, including two panchos, and I still froze. On one of the switchbacks I rounded a corner where a taxi had hit a motorcycle, head on. The blood had washed away, but I'd say from the condition of the bike and the massive indentation in the front of the taxi, the bike rider had gone to see his ancestors. I slowed down.

At 7:30 pm on the eighth day, after traveling 2136 kilometers, at an average speed of 30 kilometers an hour, and four tires later, soaked to the bone and worn out, I arrived in Wuzhishan. I checked into the Tongzha Village Hotel (a modern, clean place that even has a pool) took a hot shower, and crashed. The next day, the day before classes started, I checked into the university. They wondered where I had been.

The following weekend I took the Blue Buddha (the name of my M1S) to Sanya and played the tourist, going down to Sanya Bay and Taiyahaijiao, "the end of the earth." And, in China, it is because it's as far south as you can get. I got back to the university just in time for a severe tropical storm, followed a week later by Typhoon Damrey, the worst storm to hit Hainan in thirty years. Although the eye of the storm went directly over us, the mountains kept us from being blown away.

Upon reflection, I'd say the trip was, overall, worthwhile and undoubtedly interesting although driving in China is not like driving elsewhere. Traffic laws are treated more like general guidelines and are liberally ignored and abused. As a consequence, China has a lot of accidents. Commercial traffic, whether an oxcart or a semi, is always overloaded. Everyone is in a hurry. Unfortunately, so was I. The trip would have been more fun if I'd have had time to stop and enjoy more of the scenery and culture. The CJ held up pretty well, also, tires notwithstanding. The engine ran strong through intense heat, rain, and traffic. It took quite a pounding on the rough roads and took it in stride although the horn mount and a couple of lights broke from the vibration. My ass may never be the same but the bike proved its mettle. Given more time, I'd like to do the trip again. But, on the other hand, I've never been to Yunnan, so I'll probably try to go there next. If I have the time, I'll try to make it as far as Tibet. Next time, however, I'll take spare tires.
September 28, 2005  














"Here’s the followup story about the two bikes I had shipped to Michigan by ZMW. My son and I picked the two bikes up in Chicago at a Customs warehouse after filling out several import forms and documents including those for the DOT and EPA. I also had to pay to have the crates X-rayed for explosives by Homeland Security, and a duty fee of $108. I have no idea what that was about. The bikes got scuffed up a little in shipping partly due to poor crating but mostly because the receiving warehouse shoved a forklift through one of the boxes.

Bouncing and bureaucracy notwithstanding, the bikes came out looking pretty good with the exception of a bent muffler and a ding in the front of one of the sidecars. We then had to go through the process of getting them titled and plated in Michigan along with updating our drivers licenses for a motorcycle endorsement. I have included pictures of my son taking the driving test and getting signed off by the examiner on the hood of my Jeep.

Then, after a week of bureaucratic BS, we got to do what we had been working for—a bike ride into northern Michigan on our new CJs to do some trout fishing. The CJs worked well but the rough treatment upturned a battery and that had to be replaced. Along the way we discovered a leaking float in one of the carburetors and had to fix it (a little super glue does wonders) because there was no place to buy a new one. We covered over 1500km in less than a week and the bikes worked fine although we occasionally had some vapor locking because the weather was in the high 80s. Overall the trip was a great success. The bikes worked well both on the highway and on forest trails. We even took them on the beach on Lake Huron where they bogged down in the soft sand. (We were loaded down with fishing and camping equipment .) We got them unstuck by standing alongside the bikes and walking them out.

The fishing was good on the Ausable River, the riding was good, the weather was good,and the bikes hummed along nicely. Every time we stopped someone would come over and ask about the bikes. Nobody we met had ever seen a CJ.

Unfortunately the trip had to end because I had to head back to China. I have included a picture of Molly who is as good a reason as any to return to the PRC.

My next trip will be to take my M1S from Wenzhou down to Hainan where I’m starting a new job at Qiongzhou University."

[It looks like Blaine has a pretty good life.]
August 20, 2005  
That CJ Blaine's piloting is a Super with an excellent sidecar windshield.
June 3, 2005  
"Here' a picture of two PLA bikes put together for me by Zhang. They're on their way to Michigan and when I get home from China for my summer break my son Aaron and I are going to take a trip around the Great Lakes on them. The steel wheels are a testimonial to the many broken spokes I've had to replace on my M1S while touring Zhejiang. As always, Zhang comes through. Why mess with the rest when you can go to the best?"
June 3, 2005