We get ourselves a cycling translator - Vincent

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We get ourselves a cycling Translator - Vincent 25th September 2008 On the final day in Kazakhstan we set off early, hoping to get somewhere near the Chinese border. About 2km down the road we saw another cyclist infront of us. We chased him down and met Vincent – a Taiwanese man cycling from California to Beijing. He started in May and always does at least 100km every day and has now done about 12,000km in total. We camped together just before the border and he has now become our lucky charm....we think that without him and his perfect Mandarin we would have struggled to get across the border into China. Vincent left his job as an engineer because it was driving him mad and told his wife that he wanted to cycle across the world. After not speaking to him for a few days she finally realised that maybe she should support his idea and she 's now an avid reader of his regular posts on his blog. (unfortunately in Mandarin) His Taiwanese Passport (Republic of China) is an unusual document as it isn't recognised by China. He has to use a special passport here because China still sees Taiwan as being Chinese. Even the Kazakhs refused to give him a Kazakhstan visa in his Taiwanese passport because they don't want China to think they recognise Taiwan, so they gave it him on a separate piece of paper which caused him loads of problems at the Kazakh border. Vincent speaks good English and takes photos of everything. He refers to himself as 'That crazy Taiwanese guy' and is going to cycle with us until we head South for Pakistan. He feels as though he is now home because for the first time since he left Taiwan he can now understand everything that everyone says and he loves the food (as do we!)

chinaontheroad