WITH HIS WIRY frame and grey hair parted above gold-rimmed spectacles, Bill Purves does not look the type to trek 2,000 kilometres across China's remote rural hinterland with nothing more than a change of clothes and a small knapsack. But this 58-year-old engineer-turned-writer is made of stern stuff.
During a three-month hike from Guangzhou to Inner Mongolia, Purves forsook such comforts as a sleeping bag and tent to rough it in the wilderness. Why? So he could take a first-hand look at the life of China's peasants in the 21st century for his recently published book China On The Lam.
'I only took a mosquito net and a fly sheet for cover. I'm not afraid to rough it,' explains Purves, who speaks with a North American twang. 'I didn't want to walk around with a huge knapsack and draw attention to myself.'
His self-imposed rules for the mammoth journey meant avoiding all roads, towns and tourist spots. That way, he thought, he would encounter the real peasants and avoid any awkward questions from officials. When dusk fell each night, the Canadian simply bedded down wherever he could find shelter, usually in a small copse and waited till daybreak.
It was a simple plan for a no-nonsense guy. Purves walks and talks in similar style - direct and to the point. He doesn't tiptoe around the bush. His trip north may have fascinated him but as he sits in the cafe of Central's Fringe Club on a Friday afternoon, his main recollection is of being bothered by inquisitive locals every step of the way.
'There are no maps. I really had to ask the way from every person that I met,' says Purves, who followed trails northwards from Guangzhou, past Changsha, Luoyang and on to Hohhot, crossing the Yangtze and Yellow rivers. The trails have been used by peasants for centuries and are still in good repair. 'And I met a lot of people. Three or four every hour,' he says. People in each region spoke a different dialect, so he conversed 'in my broken Mandarin and their broken Mandarin'.