ending on a high: two vintage motorcycles and the chinese police force service chaps with guns

our final day, our final evening, our final clutch to hold on to the holiday, the trip, the journey, one last amazing memory to take with us back home.

we wanted to go out on a high so we arranged for a night tour of beijing on a motorbike and sidecar. when it turned up it was a beautiful black chinese-made vintage bike with a 750cc engine and old thick-spoked wheels. within moments we were belting through the busy nightscape with the wind in our hair. matt nestled into the sidecar and i sat perched on the old style spring saddle a head higher than the rider. neon lights and traffic blurred beside us; i have no idea how fast we were going, but it was fast. whipping beside us: hutongs, temples, rickshaws, tienanmen square, the government building.... almost * ... grinding to a halt by the rust coloured walls of beijing's (so, china's) central government building i look down to see a flat tyre. ah.

in hesitant english and hand signals the biker told us he would phone a friend who'd come and rescue us. so we waited as passing traffic coated us in a thick paste of beijing grime and exhaust fumes. 5 minutes passed, then out of nowhere appears a police riot van and car. a scrabbled conversation quickly follows between our rider and the sergeant which i'm sure involved the question "what are two young westerners doing pulled up against the walls of the government complex with a world war II motorbike then, eh?" it was probably about this moment that matt and i turned to each other and realised that this was the first time on The Big Trip that neither of us had our passport with us. or any form of identification for that matter.

gulp. maybe we'll be on an earlier flight home than we planned we thought. like, y'know, being deported. um. well, we'll see what happens...

"passport please," says the main cop. (the chinese don't use plurals in their language.)

in our very best british colonial voices we say "i'm dreadfully sorry old chap, but we don't have them. they're back at our hostel. i'm. afraid."

pause.

he looks us up and down.

"which hostel?" firmly.

i try to remember.

"templeside number two," matt stammers, "xincheng hutong."

i'm trying to think whether this is the name of the hostel or just the street name. or even the general area.

"why no passport?" he narrows his eyes. we point at the bike and shrug. he makes eye contact. he has a notebook out. over his shoulder i see a van full of riot police eyes staring at us. his eppilette badges sparkle in the neon lights; i thought about mentioning it, y'know to butter him up; but a niggling sketchy history of communist regime in the back of my head suggests that might be a bad idea.

"okay," he says, "next time bring a passport."
we breathe out.
they drive off.
our biker makes a 'yikes' face.


another ten minutes later and our second motorbike & sidecar arrives. this time a real WWII one in khaki green livery and ammunition panniers. perhaps it would've been a different story if we'd started with this one and the police had arrived to see it, but onward we went. this rider is faster. and he has a helmet on. i wonder if this was wise.

tearing up the beijing tarmac, dust in our hair and exhaust fumes in our eyes; but nothing could cover the huge beaming smiles across our faces. this was absolutely the most perfect way of finishing The Big Trip. with a flourish.

so the holiday ended with a screech of tyres as we pulled up outside the hostel nearly 3 hours later. superb.

we nodded at each other, smiled, opened a beer and sat on the step outside our room drowning in adrenalin and memories.

denouement.

a good one. that smile will stay plastered over my face for a long time and reappear every time i recollect friday 15th of june 2007. people will look at me and think i'm weird.

fine.