Even if my paper maps and Google and AMap all say that I'm on a Provincial Road, I'm on a National Road. I'm not sure exactly when this particular road got upgraded but it doesn't seem to have been that far in the past. As a result, although the climb I have today is a fairly significant one (and the descent even more significant), the grades are so gentle I barely feel like I'm doing anything significant. I prepped one of my water bottles with a codeine dispersible but I end up never drinking from that bottle and, instead, save it for tomorrow's mountain.

The downhill side of the mountain, with its pairing of wide open vistas and constant little towns crowded up along the edge of the road as I zoom zoom zoom down, feels a lot more "in the mountains" than the climb ever did.

Starting somewhere around Anhua I'm back on roads I've been on before. However, it's still the road I was on while on the bus, and by that point, although things had probably been paved for the last 50km or more, I was utterly exhausted. Also, by the time I decided to take the bus, I'd had just enough time down below my danger point to negate much of my limited altitude adaption. As a result, even if I wasn't totally wiped out, the last mountain pass the bus took (which should have been around 2,400 meters) would have knocked me for a loop.

The number of buildings crowded up against the roadside makes me feel like they'd've had a hard time widening and regrading most of the road past Anhua but, at the same time, it's clearly the same National Road standards I've been riding all day so they must have done something.

Longnan is under 1000 meters. It's the first time I've been under 1000 meters since before Inner Mongolia.

It's warm. The air is full of air. I've gotten a refill on my coffee beans and I have a pannier full of carrot cake muffins. Everything about Longnan ought to be awesome. However, Longnan is an actual city, so this means I'm almost certainly going to face hotel issues.

I try to stave things off by starting my evening at the police station but, it doesn't really help. The officer flat out refuses to grasp the concept of "I am not staying at an expensive hotel". I even gesture to what must be dozens of hotels visible from the front entrance to the police station and he still will not get that I am not staying at an expensive hotel.

I humor him by checking out the closer of the two places he recommended (even though the internet tells me it is more than twice what I told him I'm willing to pay) and then go across the street to something more acceptable. The more acceptable place knows all about which pages of the passport need to be copied because, in the past, they used to occasionally have foreigners stay there. However, when they call the police station (the one I was just at) the police are like "nuh-uh, she can't stay there" and then, things have to get difficult.

During the time at the police station I repeatedly and emphatically made it quite clear that my unwillingness to stay at an expensive hotel had absolutely nothing to do with my finances. That it's not a question of my being somewhat frugal because I've already been on holiday for two months, am planning one more month's holiday in China, and then six weeks in Spain. It's more a question of being unable to tolerate the best the countryside has to offer after I've been staying somewhere actually nice.

If I persistently stay places that are all in the same general quality range, I'm not particularly bothered by low quality. If I mix it up with something really nice, however, like the time I started a tour after a week on the special snowflake executive floor of an international hotel in downtown Guangzhou...., even middling quality sucks. And, as has happened a few times this trip, sometimes the best available lodging strives to be able to be called merely 'poor'.

While this is going on, however, a hotel room is arranged for me and I'm asked if I'm willing to spend 120 yuan a night. It's only 20 yuan more than the acceptably grungy place that they won't let me stay at, so I figure it'll be something similar just closer to the police station. (Mind you, the grungy place was only 200 meters away from the police station.)

Instead, it turns out to be someplace even more expensive than the so-called foreigner hotels they were trying to send me to. My room—which I pay 120 yuan for—is supposed to be 368 yuan. It includes breakfast. There's a motion sensitive light for the bathroom (though a poorly positioned one). The shower supplies include a grapefruit and neroli body wash.
It's well and truly lush.

And, as should be noted, not one of the two hotels that the local police have decided foreigners can stay at. In point of fact, the woman behind the desk has no idea what to do with a passport and is specifically told by the police officer not to bother checking the online portal because I've already registered at the police station and foreigners can't be registered here. So, if I'd actually been deciding to stay someplace expensive, had known about this hotel, and had wanted to stay at this hotel, I'd've been just as fucked over as I was for wanting to stay at the cheap and grungy.

(While writing this, I thought to check Ctrip's English language portal trip.com as that's supposed to be a lifehack for handling 'no foreigners allowed'. There seem to be quite a few hotels showing up for Longnan in quite a broad range of prices. These notably do not include either of the two hotels the police wanted me to stay at.)