CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Baiqi it runs 190 km to Baiqi; allow about 3 h 14 of riding. It goes by way of Statue of Mani in Cao'an Temple, Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions, Quanzhou: Emporium of the World in Song-Yu and back through Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions. The line favours views over speed.
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Quanzhou was one of the busiest ports in the world. Arab, Persian, Indian and Italian merchants lived in the city, which Marco Polo knew as Zayton, and ships loaded with silk, porcelain and tea left for the Indian Ocean. The port stood on the Fujian coast of southern China, at the mouth of the Jin river, and the whole system of temples, mosques, bridges, docks and kiln sites was listed by UNESCO in 2021 as Quanzhou, Emporium of the World in Song-Yuan China.
Read the complete Shihu Dock write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Shihu Dock is where the day begins. Next is Statue of Mani in Cao'an Temple.
Hidden in the hills behind the coast of Fujian is a small stone temple with a figure that should not exist. Cao'an is the last surviving Manichaean temple in the world, and its main statue shows Mani, the third-century Persian prophet who founded a religion that once stretched from Spain to China, in the form of a serene Buddha-like figure with long white hair and eyebrows. It was carved in the fourteenth century, during the Yuan dynasty, from a single piece of local stone, and its identity was recognised only in the twentieth century, when scholars matched it with texts.
Read the complete Statue of Mani in Cao'an Temple write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Statue of Mani in Cao'an Temple comes up about 25 km into the recorded legs. Next is Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions.
Before the sailing season, officials and merchants climbed a hill above Quanzhou to ask the gods for wind. The Jiuri mountain inscriptions, carved on cliff faces and boulders between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, record these prayers, and they are among the most unusual documents of China's maritime past. They were written by local officials of the Song dynasty, and they appeal to the sea gods and to the spirits of the mountain to send a favourable monsoon, so that the trade ships bound for Southeast Asia, India and Arabia could set out in safety and return. Standing before a rock face carved with neat columns of characters, you are reading a note that someone left when the world's biggest port was run by hand and weather.
Read the complete Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 53 km into the recorded legs you reach Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions. Next is Quanzhou: Emporium of the World in Song-Yu.
Medieval travellers called it Zaitun, and to Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta it was one of the greatest ports in the world. Quanzhou, on the coast of Fujian facing Taiwan, flourished under the Song and Yuan dynasties as a hub of maritime trade, where Arab, Persian, Indian and Southeast Asian merchants lived alongside Chinese traders, and ships left laden with silk and porcelain. In 2021 UNESCO inscribed a group of sites as Quanzhou: Emporium of the World in Song-Yuan China, including temples, mosques, tombs, kilns, bridges and docks that together tell the story of this cosmopolitan city.
Read the complete Quanzhou: Emporium of the World in Song-Yu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Quanzhou: Emporium of the World in Song-Yu, about halfway. Next is back through Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions sits at 121 km, about halfway. Next is back through Statue of Mani in Cao'an Temple.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Statue of Mani in Cao'an Temple write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Statue of Mani in Cao'an Temple comes up about 162 km into the recorded legs. Next is Shihu Dock.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Shihu Dock write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Shihu Dock closes the day.
Shihu Dock → Statue of Mani in Cao'an Temple is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Statue of Mani in Cao'an Temple → Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions → Quanzhou: Emporium of the World in Song-Yu is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Quanzhou: Emporium of the World in Song-Yu → back through Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Jiuri Mountain Wind-Praying Inscriptions → back through Statue of Mani in Cao'an Temple is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Statue of Mani in Cao'an Temple → Shihu Dock is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.