Adam Cohn
Travel Photography, Travel Writing
Chineasy Rider
In the summer of 2006 I had the incredible opportunity to motorcycle across China and back with a few friends. One of my lifelong best friends, George, convinced the Jinan Qingqi Motorcycles to give him four motorcycles in exchange for photos of the four of us Americans riding around their country.
Our journey started in the northeastern city of Jinan, and looped as far west as Qinghai provice. We started out as four, but lost one rider to an injury, leaving the three of us in the depths of China, new to the language, without any idea of where we were, or how we would find our way home.
The experience was a life-changing journey, full of police checkpoints, communication challenges, gruelling terrain, and our embracing of China's lawless culture.
You can view a detailed map of the journey, or view the photos and blog below.
These photos and others are available for reproduction in exchange for donations to loans that will benefit entrepreneurs in the country in which the photos were shot. Loans will be managed through www.Kiva.org. Contact for details.
View a slideshow of all of AdamCohn's Chineasy Rider photosView AdamCohn's entire China photoset on Flickr www.flickr.com
7/27/06: The back-story on the trip
8/3/06: Hallucinations in the airport, waylaid in Tokyo, and facing language barriers in Beijing
8/4/06: My 9th hour learning to ride a motorcycle: in China
8/5/06: Peeling the shrinkwrap off a new Qingqi motorcycle, grabbing a bayonet, and hitting the road.
If you've got a warrant, I guess you're gonna come in
8/12/06: Glimpses of China from a motorcycle, humidity and filth, alleyway fistfights, and wakeup calls from the cops
8/12/06: A two-cop day, altercations and accusations at the KTV, the watermelon jam, development in China versus America
8/16/06: First photos from the journey
8/17/06: Joining forces with a Chinese motorcycle gang
If you can hear a piano fall, you can hear me comin' down the hall
8/28/06: Emei Shan, Monkey Mountain; backfiring at high altitude, slaughter of a chicken and the loss of our Ping Chang privileges
I'm a Cowboy, On a Steel Horse I Ride
9/5/06: Kung Fu in a bamboo forest, arrival on the Tibetan Plateau, growing mustaches and turning into cowboys
9/10/06: Losing a battle with my own motorcycle, camping ill in the frigid cold, smelling my own funk
So take me to the airport, and put me on a plane...