China, the wild card??

In travel, things don't always go peachy. In fact, they sometimes go pear shaped (an English and Oz term for bad). I was to meet my good bud Marius for a week of sightseeing in China before heading off on my trip. We've been planning this for months. Marius is a German, who lives in Korea and works a great deal in China. He was in California this week for company meetings and had his wallet, passport (with all visas), computer and camera stolen. In one brief moment things with pear shaped.

Since Marius was able to obtain a provisional passport to get back to Korean, the Chinese visa becomes the problem. Discussions with the visa folks ended up stating that getting a new one quickly might not be possible. You see this year is the Beijing Olympics and things are different.

That said, I'll be leaving Friday now to meet up with the group. But there are more clouds looming on the horizon. I just received a communique from the group leader that we might run into problems getting the bikes into China and might even be denied. Contrary to what many people think, you don't simply ride you motorcycle into China. It's kind of a pain in the rear to get one in, even when things go right. First you need to take a drivers exam, next you need a license plate and finally you must use a Chinese guide. Easy right?

Well evidently not in an Olympic year. Seems there are all sort of new guidelines and regulations and there exists a real possibility that entrance for the bikes might be denied. As it stands we will now be heading off to the hospital upon arrival to have a some sort of drivers physical, something I've never heard of... anywhere, except for pilots licenses.

This isn't just affecting us either. The Great Race 2008, an around the world auto race commerating the 100 year anniversary of the original (maybe you saw the movie), has been postponed due to the same problems in China. Bear in mind, they are not some minor group, they had chartered two cargo 747's to fly the cars to Shanghai. In the end though, even with their pull and backing, the race was postponed.


So the trip has not gone according to plan yet, so why should I expect it to now?? The best thing to do is keep an open mind and roll with the changes.