Steering around roadblocks

Foreign tourists will no longer need approval from local public security bureaus and tourism administrations to drive into China from abroad from Oct 1, the start of the weeklong National Day holiday.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Authorities have streamlined procedures for foreigners to drive into China. Street-smart expats turned road warriors explain why jumping behind the wheel offers jarring yet joyous journeys of discovery in the country. Erik Nilsson and Yang Feiyue report. Erik Nilsson/Yang Feiyue

Richard Webster feared the slick trickling down his neck was blood.

It was.

He lay on his back in the dark, wiggling his appendages one-by-one, before moving his neck, in case it was broken.

It wasn't.

The Briton had tumbled off a two-story farmhouse's roof in a village in Shandong province.

He stumbled away with scrapes and bruises.

Webster chalks up the war wounds to road-rash.

"You have to accept road trips don't go according to plan. That's the point," he explains.

The manic motorist has driven 150,000 kilometers on over a hundred journeys through China, swerving through all but four mainland provinces.

Webster drove through Europe before moving to Beijing nine years go.