Day 19, 78km:

Im not sure if traffic lights in China are a safety feature or a population reduction strategy. When they are green for straight on, it is also green for everyone turning left across your path. This means each intersection is a chaotic, horn serenaded dice with death. At one such junction cycling out of Chengdu, while we lined up with other targets such as tuktuks, tricycles and mopeds, we met a traffic police man. He pointed at my trailer and said 'this is dangerous!' - considering all the crazy things we witness daily on Chinese roads, not to mention the traffic lights, I instinctively laughed incredulously at him. Amy had to use all her charm to turn the situation around. We were released, and by the afternoon had finally left the city and found a quiet country road. Unfortunately we spent a lot of time searching for it amongst the orange mud of building sites as the Chinese government continue to plough up the pretty rice paddies and orchards to build massive roads and huge high rise buildings everywhere. We followed a river, which like most in China was brown and smelt of sewage, then cycled into some small hills where we were overcharged for a hotel room.