D1: 海口 → 老城

January 6, 2025

All things being equal, I'm pretty pleased with myself for getting out the door by the time I did and with as few things forgotten as well.

The decision to spend my week riding the 150km¹ to the Hilton on Ocean Flower Island and back again only really happened a few days ago when my liaison in their marketing department mentioned some reasons that we should meet face to face and I found the impending hassle of "I still haven't dealt with the China Rail App hating my passport" problem to be sufficiently annoying that I didn't want to take the train to go visit a five star hotel.

Shocking, I know.

On the one hand, Haikou doesn't feel seismically active enough to need giant shock absorbers on the bridges. On the other hand, it is a volcanic island in the Pacific Ring of Fire

But wait, I have other methods of travel! And when you add up the cost of (taxi + train + taxi) ×2, it isn't that much less than the cost of the cheap hotels I'll be staying at before and after the nice one².

With a paid promotional video already scheduled for a new restaurant that's a reasonable first day's ride from my apartment, and the ability to see people and socialize on their grand opening at the weekend on the way back, and the last 10,000 characters of Dr. M's book suddenly turning out to be footnotes, references, and other things that my software had high confidence matches in because I'd already done them earlier in the book, everything just fell right into place.

Kudos to the translator who came up with "picking up fast" (pronounced "Delaisu") for "Drive Thru"

Ate breakfast in my apartment on oatmeal with a godsawful not buying this again peanut protein powder³ and powdered milk while I packed, I still decided to stop for lunch at the newly discovered Thai Street in Tailong Plaza.

I've eaten there once already since stumbling across them⁴ last Sunday so, since I've recently been practicing my "influencer" food video skills⁵, this time called for my also making a video about eating there. One mango coconut sticky rice, an oyster omelette, and a bunch of editing later, I was back on the road and heading through the city in the general direction of a client who I was hoping was going to say "let's meet some other time" enough before I got to their location that I wouldn't have to take their very boring roads.

9 out of 10 on the food. 3 out of 10 on the environment. 1 out of 10 on their promotional ability.

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: First 3g advertisement of the Tour

The dawdling over lunch, slow speed from me babying my still aching left hand from a bout of probably typing related probably tendonitis⁶, and sudden decision to sit at a convenience store for twenty minutes after a bus buzzed me at an intersection, meant that I succeeded at this, so I popped a random "don't know why I saved this" POI in my GPS and headed off through the mostly still not super modernized areas of exurban inland Xiuying District to what would turn out to be an eight or nine hundred year old pagoda.

Other than the heritage plaque featuring a "scan this QR code to learn more" sticker that took me to an empty webpage, a web search that turned up an exhaustively detailed description of the pagoda's measurements (but nothing about it's history or role in local folk practice), and my breaking my newest cheap selfie-stick/tripod while putting it away, this was a brilliant detour.

Unlike the damage I did to my coffee pannier strap, this can't be fixed

Decorated with an obvious elephant, a lion, and two swastikas, the Antiquities Bureau has provided zero info on its history or meaning

Interestingly, the Shigandang Stone⁷ says 石王敢当 instead of 石敢当.

Inside the Earth God Shrine, there are already prayer plaques⁸ from 2025

It was made all that more brilliant on the way back out to the main road with the discovery of a village gate that not only retained a substantial portion of the village wall, it also had an enceinte⁹!

Being as this is like maybe the third or fourth time ever that I've come across a village with more than like three contiguous meters of surviving wall, I'm realizing after the fact that I don't actually know if this is a super rare piece of architecture that hints at some pretty serious levels of historical unrest in the area or if it's merely super rare for it to have survived. In either case, it's definitely super rare.

So, of course, even though I'm not racing the sunset, I do have a scheduled arrival time at the restaurant in Laocheng, and I can't be dawdling too much.

Having just told myself this, I go all of 150 meters before giving myself permission to explore a collapsed mansion for "just five minutes."

And people wonder why I almost never manage more than 70 kilometers per day...

From there to the Paddy Shack, the road mostly wasn't exciting. All places I've been many, many times, with the only truly interesting thing about them being the changes in road structure and traffic patterns.

One of perhaps a dozen aboveground crypts seen in the area (out of maybe a hundred graves), this was one of two that met my "probably not occupied by someone who is remembered by the living" criteria for photographing graves

A formerly busy road underneath a newly busy elevated

There were a few times where I almost stopped for yet another (probably brief) distraction, but I was starting to get thirsty by this point and I knew the restaurant would be giving me good beer so I actually managed to proceed forward at something resembling a reasonable pace.

One IPA, a Cajun fries, a hot dog (with relish!), a bacon cheeseburger, and a wheat beer later, I was checking in across the street at the closest hotel with photos of an elevator on the OTA. At less per night than my IPA should have cost, I was pleasantly surprised by how clean it was¹⁰ and the fact that the air conditioner had a heat option.

¹ Shortest road distance

² I'd have to eat no matter what, so the cost of food doesn't count.

³ Effectively peanut butter powder (which I've heard described as "tasting like sadness"), it lacks fats, sweetness, or flavor

⁴ It's really quite impressive how many someones had to fail at promotional activities or reporting† such that someone can decide to open a venue which single handedly raises the Thai population of the city above the American population and—after nine months—it's still got barely any notice.

† I'm including the government departments that approved business licenses and residence permits in this list of someones who failed to promote the existence of this place

⁵ No idea why I've suddenly become eligible for the platform to ask me to tandian† but I'm enjoying all the free spa treatments.

† Can mean the act of searching out and trying new places in your city OR it can mean inviting an influencer to visit a location and make a video about it often in return for food or services.

⁶ I usually get tendonitis on my dominant hand, and it usually comes on slow. This popped up suddenly while the four legged furry staff member at my current favorite café was engaged in a mock fight to the death with my left hand, was about 10× more painful than tendonitis usually is, didn't have the loss of range of motion, and went away with massage and icyhot stickum patches.

Café Management expressing her displeasure over the decision that she wear clothing

If you road rage at me, I hope you don't shit for a week!

⁷ Used to exorcise evil spirits in east Asia, Shigandang Stones are ornamental stone tablets with writing.

⁸ I don't know what else to call the hammered metal foil things

⁹ A second offset gate in a defensive structure and the courtyard between the two sets of gates.

¹⁰ Or, more precisely, how dirty it wasn't.

Today's ride: 42 km (26 miles)
Total: 42 km (26 miles)

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