Although it has it's issues, the topo profile tool in Google Maps is awesome. What's not awesome, on the other hand, is going without the topo profile tool because you forgot to charge your laptop and the hotel room still doesn't have power when you go to sleep.

I had no idea I was doing mountains today.

I just kind of assumed that if the start point and the desired end point were at roughly the same elevation (200 meters difference) along what looked like a valley line that I would be getting one of those nice gentle slopes that I'd been getting when I was following various rivers and trade routes of the Tea Horse Road.

Boy, was I wrong.

It was one of those mornings where the coffee I made in my room and the crushed starting to go stale muffins from the American Bakery were enough breakfast that I didn't feel like having a Chinese breakfast as well. Besides which, none of the breakfast places in town looked especially appetizing.

As a result, when I got to lunch in Qingchuan, having already done quite a bit more slow grinding up hills than I had any idea I was going to have today, I was extremely grateful for both food and rest.

The stomach gurgles started almost immediately after lunch and I have to assume that they were related to my fried pork and cucumber dish. Sure, I'd had dairy with my morning coffee and me and dairy aren't the greatest of friends if I'm not careful about making sure to regularly get enough lactose in my diet that my body continues to produce sufficient lactase for digestion but that's part and parcel of why I've got boxes of UHT cream in my panniers - to make sure I get enough regular dairy.

On the first big mountain after Qingchuan, I didn't trust that a fart would be "just" a fart and was holding it in looking for someplace convenient to stop when I needed to stop. Now. Immediately. This was tear my clothing off levels of immediacy. Forget figuring out how to operate the zippers on my outer jerseys to get down to my bibs, it all needed to come off and it needed to come off now.

Given the number of layers I was wearing and the complicated nature of said layers, I'm pretty sure this was the closest I have ever come as an adult to shitting myself.

The rest of the day was spent in a pattern where at least once per giant uphill I'd have to get off the bike and peel off the layers. I was prepared to stop and squat well before I had any more close calls so mostly it just turned out to mean that my legs got more than the usual number five to ten minute rest periods.

I had 11km and 90 minutes of sunlight to the town that definitely had hotels on the map when I got into Haoxi and if things had calmed in their levels of urgency, the gurgling in my stomach was loud enough that I was pretty sure someone standing near me would have been able to hear it. After checking with the convenience store I stopped at as to whether or not there would be any place to stay in Haoxi, I stretched and rehydrated and rested and messed about on my phone for a while.

Then I went looking for the place to stay.

It was closed.

But, don't worry, only one more giant climb (steep enough and long enough to get a runaway truck ramp) and there's another place to stay right by the side of the road.

I never actually found that other place to stay but 5km or so before that next town, I found a touristy village restaurant whose across the street neighbors with the half renovated mahjongg parlor had a room with a bed with in it that they were happy to sell to me for 40 yuan.

The room was cold. It didn't have an electric mattress pad. There was no shower. The bathroom had a flushy but I had to go outside and across the construction site to get to it. And people loudly played mahjongg until midnight. In other words, with a few Pepto and a blanket over my head, it was perfect.