Six years ago, because the "second class" expressway from Yebao (just north of Qin'an) to Tianshui was only mostly limited access to get on, only a lane plus a shoulder in each direction, and had no barrier down the center, I assumed it meant that they were planning on eventually blasting out more expressway and, it turns out, they were. They just decided that instead of widening that expressway into a more standard two lanes each direction with a generous median, they'd build something else altogether that was mostly a mix of tunnels and viaducts.

Because I took that expressway, I made incredibly fast time even though I still wasn't especially recovered yet from whatever exactly it was that had caused me to end up hospitalized on oxygen in Handian. I vaguely remember thinking that I might want to explore some of the many cool things in Tianshui and I vaguely remember that part of why I didn't was that I didn't think I'd be able to get a hotel in the city. What I don't remember is whether or not I tried. 

In any case, after I left the Tianshui Giant Bicycles, I continued south where, after poking my head in at one of the trucker motels and being extremely disappointed both in the high price and the lack of quality, I eventually ended up camping at a nice happy farmhouse type restaurant.

After the crap the Qin'an police pulled on me yesterday with "no foreigners allowed" and with Qin'an County specifically being under the jurisdiction of Tianshui City, I knew this time that, despite Tianshui still having a lot of cool things that I hadn't seen and which I really think I'd enjoy spending the time to visit, there simply wasn't going to be any point in even bothering to try to find lodging in the city. Instead, as with six years ago, I passed through the city and continued south. 

I went right by the cool temple which I had thought I might want to visit again because there wasn't enough time before sunset.

I went right by the cooler temple I'd skipped last time because there wasn't enough time before sunset then and there still wasn't enough time before sunset now.

I went right by the trucker motel called Yumei's which I'd specifically remembered because I've got a good friend in the States named Yumei.

I went right by the same strips of small restaurants, convenience stores, truck repair, cheap hotels, and factories as I had six years ago. From the outside, none of the trucker hotels looked like anything fabulous but one or two of them looked like they might be something I could tolerate.

Finally, perhaps twenty minutes before official sunset, I got to the Zaojiao Town police station. I had figured that this would be a good night to start at the police station instead of at a hotel, to lead with "I need you to fill out this specific document by this name. I am staying here. You don't have a choice. Lets make this as painless as possible, okay."

It didn't take too many phone calls before the people on the other end, who'd begun from a position of "absolutely no way in hell is she allowed to stay at an unapproved hotel" to concede that potentially I might not be wrong when I claimed that there was no law restricting foreigners to certain kind of lodging. They weren't going to go quite so far as to admit that I was right but, maybe, just maybe, I wasn't wrong.

However, the local police, who were generally being a friendly helpful lot, weren't budging on my staying in their town. Have you seen the hotels we've got? They're nasty.
Dirty.
Overpriced.
Unsafe.
Uncomfortable. 

People don't stay in them because they want to, they stay in them because they have to. Trucks can't go in to the city.

I showed them pictures of the 20元 a night place I stayed in Shanxi. I told them stories of even cheaper lodgings on previous occasions. Still they wouldn't budge.

You're a girl.
Traveling alone.

Even before the fairly detailed description of the possibility that someone might drunkenly decide to break down the door of my hotel room and try to rape me, my being female (or more specifically my being not male) kept coming up. Given the possibility of stopping it from happening, they could not, would not, allow a single unaccompanied woman to stay at their hotels.

Now, as a general rule, I tend to feel like many of the things which make up the illusion of safety in China are often more dangerous than those things which people (who don't wear seat belts or have smoke detectors in their homes) keep telling me are dangerous. When my apartment in Haikou was broken in to, my local police chided me with a "we told you so" because this is what happens when you live in the kind of neighborhood I live in. Notwithstanding that I'd already lived there for seven years by that point or that I know more than a few people in expensive gated communities who have come home to all their electronics missing, who have woken up to all their electronics missing, or who have been mugged inside their expensive gated communities.

However, even with all the reasons I gave for why it really would be inconvenient for me to stay anywhere other than Zaojiao Town, the police were so adamant that their local hotels were not just unsuitable or uncomfortable but were also unclean and unsafe that I began to wonder if maybe they knew something I didn't know. After all, if anyone should know where all the local violent crime tends to take place, one would hope it would be the police, and, to be perfectly fair, six years ago, I was so impressed with these selfsame local hotels that I ended up camping.

Also, unlike the police in Qin'an, they weren't being douchey about the whole 'you can't stay here' thing. They really, genuinely, seemed concerned that something might happen to me. 

So, I let them drive me back to Tianshui.
Back to a "foreigner approved" hotel.

I had delivery KFC for dinner while soaking in a hot bath.
It was worth it.