March 9, 2007
To Simao: 1204 meters
On the road by 8am, Patrick eats cornflakes and Rachel has switched to oatmeal...this will help make the cornflakes last longer for Patrick as he doesn't care for the Chinese oatmeal. The sun is a giant orange ball.
First, we have a long downhill. It seems strange, we are both cold. Patrick puts on his fleece jacket. The road continues to wind through the quiet country. Trees seem to be only by the road. Looking over the hills not barren, but full of low growing tea bushes, row after row in pleasing curves.
We drop into a wide valley and have a bit of flat cycling, then we start to climb again, downhill and climb again. We get thumbs up occasionally from those we pass. Around noon, we start to see school kids, most just stare quietly at us, a few say hello. By afternoon, and the second climb, Rachel's stomach is queasy again. The bananas Patrick bought at last night's market helps. The last few kilometers we drop down to the city. It's bigger than we thought. Patrick navigates us to the city center. We stop at 2 places that look like hotels, the third one, Patrick checks out and gets a discount, 100 yuan for a very nice room. Big separate room as a sitting area with table and chairs. TV with China's only English station CCTV9. We first see the commercial "Imagine the combination of pillow and tea."
Patrick goes out to find a supermarket while Rachel does the laundry. He returns with all sorts of goodies...and 2 instant noodle meals to try (similar to what we had in Indonesia that helped jumpstart our appetites). The hot water comes from one side of the drinking water pot. The Hotel girl has to come to the room to show us how it works. One meal is not very successful, the water did not get hot enough.
We go out for dinner, find a restaurant that looks busy. We tried showing the copies of the menu from Mei Mei, ended up looking at the next table and pointing to order what they had. We get dishes of various items--meat, vegetable, noodles, quail egg--that all go into a hot pot of liquid. Very tasty, though there was lots of unrecognizable food.
After dinner we return to the supermarket for magnum ice cream bars.
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Today's ride: 75 km (47 miles)
Total: 6,479 km (4,023 miles)
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