With the exception of sleeping poorly because a) I slept too much yesterday and couldn't get to sleep when I needed to if I was going to wake up in the morning, b) a mouse in the room, and c) bruisey ouchy spots because the massage was too hard, and therefore being a bit drag ass the early part of the morning, today was a most excellent day.

It was one of those days were nothing really happens but all the nothing that happens is nice. If that makes sense.

I presume it's the perfect intersection of climate and geography but ever since I entered Fujian, I've been getting so many many old buildings that aren't completely fallen to bits and a huge boost to my propaganda collection. I've taken a photo here or there in the past of a "eternal loyalty to Chairman Mao" or a "Strike down the American Imperialists" but nothing I've ever seen before has been anything like I've been getting in the countryside around these parts.

What's more, some of the slogans I'm seeing - or, even better - some of the drawings I'm seeing, are ones that those of my Chinese friends who know history are finding to be rare and unusual. A few days ago, there was a slogan referencing Liu Shaoqi as a traitor. Today, I saw something about the Gang of Four; today, I had cartoons. 

I'm bubbling with excitement like a moka pot starting to spurt coffee.

I started my morning heading across the wrong bridge. I realize it after I've stocked up on my daily dose of fizzy caffeine and end up taking the long way back to the right bridge via a not especially thrilling breakfast of noodles with salty pork gravy.

I ended up not going to the place that I'd picked as my "I might actually go here" detour that was really more of a waypoint because the Chinese GPS won't let me set a route that goes from A to B via C and if I make my start and end too far away it tries to put me on completely unacceptable roads. By the time I was close enough to go to it, I'd already been to a double handful of old buildings in various states of decay and repair, and across a bridge that rudely didn't have a dedication plaque (but which felt early 90s), and from where I was the temple in question just looked big and not really the sort of thing I was in the mood for.

In this part, the National Road (I think the G206) has both an original and a fast expresswayish version. The original ran down the east side of the water hugging the banks of the Mei, while the faster version went arrow straight on the west. I took the small farm roads between the two and mostly didn't have to deal with too much torn up concrete or too much roadworks but, lets just say that when I was forced onto the National Road, I really didn't mind that much being on something with solid pavement.

I stayed on that long enough to leave it only three or four times to check out old farmhouses before taking another side trip back to the farm roads and the scenery and the torn up concrete.

Despite a gradual rise in my actual elevation and lots of little rolly bumps that forced a downshift here or an upshift there, today was basically flat and fast (unless it was torn up and potholed) which meant that I should have been absolutely flying towards the county seat at Wuhua [五华] except that I kept seeing all these cool different buildings to go off and explore.

At one point, after a very brief sojourn on the expresswayish section of the national road, I stopped to check out a row of four very nice farmhouses of the almost mansion sort, still with their original encircling wall and gate. The majority of the residents made their opinion of my presence well known by haughtily standing in the doorway of the first mansion, staring at me, tails and ears erectly listening while they pretended to groom themselves.

The human resident thought I was cool and kept trying to talk with me. I think she was sometimes answering my questions but it was hard to tell because she'd start in Mandarin and then wander off in to other languages where I'd catch a cognate or two but basically be lost. I got a good five minute video of her telling me stories at one point and I plan to hand the video over to some Cantonese speakers and see if maybe they can transcribe it for me.

Seventy-four years old, I think she came to live here when she got married at 16. I also think she said that the original householders, a landlord and his four wives and six sons (or maybe it was two wives and four sons) had been kicked out when the Communists came. But I couldn't understand the vast majority of what she was saying and it didn't even occur to me until one of the later rounds of story telling to start videoing her.

I didn't get as many photos as I'd've liked of the drawings on the walls of the second floor of the first unlived in farmhouse as, despite some obvious repairs that had happened, the remaining floorboards were definitely rotting out and I wasn't willing to trust them to hold my weight. From what I saw they could have been modern wall scrawls by local kids, they could have been historic wall scrawls by local kids, and they could have been left behind by the Red Guards. Lots of the other writing and wall paintings and slogans definitely were.

So much to see.

So much to see.

Between my many detours to my many old buildings, it was lovely riverside scenery and even the oft spoken of but rarely encountered tailwind.

We now think that the three drawings of a Chinese man with a water buffalo, a Chinese man on a bicycle, and a Chinese man riding astride a rocket just before Shejiang [畲江] might maybe have had something to do with a chart drawn on the same wall. We don't know. In any case, they reference the Great Leap Forward and, as a result, are at least 60 years old. The boat (because Chairman Mao guides the revolution like a helmsman guides a boat) is a bit harder to date. It could be Great Leap Forward or it could be Cultural Revolution. He's supposed to be the "Great Helmsman" though, not "like a helmsman".

This is so much cooler than yet another painting of his face in profile; yet another slogan; yet another bit of vandalized 19th century artwork.

Getting close to Shuikou, I'm faced with a dilemma. I've got a headlight, I've got energy, I've got the ability to keep riding until Wuhua. But if I ride in the dark, I'll miss all the things and the things are the whole reason for riding. So I take another detour to another old building, and another, and another, and I only hurry up to make it to Shuikou because it's November and the beginning of sunset also means that it's starting to get chilly.