Wednesday 18th September Breakfast at the hotel was a mixture between Eastern and Western styles, chopsticks and knife and forks, with coffee thrown in as well, all very good, spoiling are self’s a little now.
Even though we only had around 45 miles to do today, we wanted to get to Xi`an as earlier as possible, get the hotel sorted, bikes cleaned maintained and sort out how we are going to get up to the airport to meet Rylan we left just before 9, joined are friend the 312 road and carried rode on.
We hit the outskirts of Xi`an just after 11, then joined the traffic for the final 15 miles to the hotel right in the centre, to be fair, for a massive city of 12 million people, it was not that bad. Bit of luck at the hotel, as it had an English manager, he manged to get us sorted, very quickly, very down to earth guy, let us take are filthy bikes up to the room, then suggested we get them in the shower, said do not worry about the mess, then advised us where to go, what to visit and the best places to eat.
After we settled down, we took the bikes minus the panniers for a quick ride around the city, located a bike shop, Keith and I left are bikes there, for a minor service, tightened cables. Replace chain, new brake blocks etc, nothing to serious. With that Linney rode back to the hotel, Keith and I got a taxi to the cycle shops the Rylan had been looking at on line, managed to find a couple of suitable bikes for him, said we would return the next day and try a few of them out. As normal managed to find a bar, to rest up in before we made are way to the airport.
Terminal 2 arrivals at the airport, nothing can go wrong, with WIFI connections and 4G we should be able to find him, though we did not know if Rylans phone would work. He came through the domestic terminal 2, but then went to Terminal 3 to a get SIM card, after a bit of flapping about managed to get his phone working, all the messages came through and we met up, in terminal 3 only 500m away, taxi back to city, then a celebration meal and a few beers in the bar, by the hotel. Now there are four!