Newlywed Americans tour Asia by bike, observe China and its environment
Warm hospitality during Asia climate change trip forms lasting memories for travelling couple
Lindsey Fransen and David Kroodsma, newlyweds from California, decided to bike across Asia for their honeymoon. For years, they had worked on water and climate issues and decided to use the cycling tour to see how the region was dealing with environmental issues like water stress and greenhouse-gas emissions. Six months ago they set off on from Istanbul and biked through eight countries in Central Asia. They have now reached China, which they plan to explore for a month. So far they have ridden more than 8,300km. The couple share their thoughts on China and its environment.
The whole goal is to have an international perspective and share what we've learned on the journey with the world. We'd like to let people understand the world is just a bike ride away. People think the world is a very scary place, especially in the last year with the unrest in the Middle East and Russia. You get very scared about that part of the world. But when you cross country borders by bicycle, it's like having the opposite experience. You see that most people are really generous and friendly. It gives you a very positive view on humanity. One thing in particular we do on our journey is try to talk to high-school students and share our story. The high-school students are about to make decisions about what to do with their life. We want to get them excited about seeing the world and thinking from an international perspective. We've talked to dozens of schools so far on our journey, and we've talked to a few in China.
China is more diverse than we thought. We know that it is geographically diverse, as well as culturally. It's really fun to see that from a bicycle. On our way we passed Xining [in Qinghai ] - there were religious celebrations going on. You can tell the different religious areas from the different architecture, culture, languages and clothes. We keep hearing the Chinese old saying that "the mountains are high and the birds are far away". And it really felt like that in different areas. One thing that really surprised us was a number of enormously large power plants along the Yellow River in north China. It gives us complicated feelings. They are indeed providing energy to help the Chinese with their lives. But when you look at these power plants, they are causing climate change and are the reason world pollution has skyrocketed in the last few years. On the other hand, there is also renewable energy developing in China, which can be promising.
Despite the cultural and language barriers, when it comes to basic needs, people understand us and are willing to help. We often asked where to camp, and then people would invite us in and offer their roof. In some of the Muslim communities, it's their custom to host people. In China, people are guarded at first, but once you get past that, they are just as helpful, if not more helpful. For example, we hitchhiked a ride to Baotou [in Inner Mongolia ] with a guy driving a China Post truck. At first we thought that he was not friendly, as he didn't talk much. After we made efforts to talk to him, he responded warmly and even took us out to eat twice and would not let us pay. There were strange rules about not allowing foreigners to stay in hotels in Baotou. He was so upset that he asked us to sleep in the post station. Experiences like this will be our memory of China.
When we talked to the local Chinese, food, air and water pollution were their top concerns. We read that the air pollution in cities is really bad and it is very polluted, as we observed. But actually, we were surprised that from Baotou to Beijing it was not as bad as we thought. The worst pollution we saw was biking from the west to Zhangjiakou [in Hebei ], and along the Yellow River outside of the city we could see heavy haze.
The well-educated Chinese have a pretty good idea of what climate change is and people are demanding a cleaner environment. Sometimes it feels like the environmental issue is getting relocated. As cities are getting wealthier and cleaned up, they are pushing out factories to suburbs and provinces. Then the local areas get air pollution. With greenhouse gases, sometimes you must not only clean up the local area but also industry. The world is a very different place than it was 20 years ago, because 20 years ago the only way to fuel your economy was to use coal or other fossil fuels. We now have different options for energy. If you are a poor country and you want to get your people out of poverty, you don't have to use fossil fuels. That's the position China is in now, and we are glad to see that China has invested so much in solar energy ... There's more that needs to be done, but we are optimistic.
