I have it on exceptionally good authority that the main road between Yangjiang and Maoming is an "ugly one [with] lots of development zones [and] boring ticky tacky big box buildings blocking the view of any potential scenery". 

On the one hand, the authoritative authority who was taking the bus from Enping to Maoming in 2005 because she couldn't handle the weather was me. On the other hand, as my 2013 visit to this area and this tour have proven, I didn't really know all that much. After all, I was in my first semester of Chinese study and had only been in China for 3.5 years. I was still a wet behind the ears newb.

But I couldn't imagine a situation wherein a formerly ugly and overdeveloped road would become anything else. Maybe the ability to casually read signs would make it interesting. But surely it wasn't possible for it to become pleasant? And, given as I had managed to find some farm roads I could take that only added half again the distance, I decided that I had no reason to even bother with finding out if what I'd once written was true.

I crossed the main road at one point during the day. Had to, in fact, ride on the main road for something like 3 kilometers. Even if, on that particular stretch of main road, I wasn't correct about the specific miserableness of the main road, I was sufficiently correct in the generalities (i.e. it was a miserable road) that I was immediately grateful for the past hour I had spent in a rubber plantation slogging my way up and down the paved goat trails (tractor trails?).

Just as I had come out of the area with the rubber plantations, a Walker was walking past on the opposite side of the road. I met my first Walker last year up in Ningxia. Livestreaming themselves as they walk along China's roads (with what seems to be a special focus on the kind of truck route I go out of my way to avoid), prominent Walkers manage to make enough of an income from their fans that they can keep going for as long as they want.

Being as I'm about to restart my Weibo account, have been pressured into finally signing up for Instagram, and may begin posting on some other forms of Chinese social media because it will likely bring in enough funding to offset the irritation of making posts, I don't really have the wherewithal to say anything bad about the Walkers. Just that livestreaming yourself as you walk along some of the most unpleasant roads the country has to offer seems to me a strange hobby to take up. 

I think the Walker might have waved at me but I was glumly looking at the traffic and the road and was kind of lost in thought and only realized when she turned away and kept walking. I suppose I could have gone and caught up with her and said "hi" but it would have required frogger-ing across the road once to see her, once to come back, and once again when I had my left turn up ahead and the necessary trip across was already one time too many to cross that road so I let her Walk on probably thinking "gee, those bike tourists sure are snobs."

Other than that little bit on the main Road, it was almost entirely a farm road kind of day. I wiggled my way north on a tiny little concrete thing that, frustratingly, turned into something bigger with roadworks as I passed through the town of Hongfeng [红丰], then got small and pleasant again immediately afterwards. It was the kind of road where I found myself, not for the first time, really appreciating the way rural truck drivers drive. Rural drivers in general are just amazing compared to all other Chinese road users. They grasp concepts like 3 point turns, safe passing distance, and letting other people go first as a method of more quickly getting through. They also, apparently, in certain limited circumstances, have the ability to phase shift matter.

I'm not joking here. Okay, I am joking, but only a little bit. I'll be biking along on the sort of potentially asphalt road that's barely a motorcycle road and some giant truck or tractor beast or bus will come inching up behind me and the only way for them to get by is for me to get off my bike and stand there squeezed up against the crash barrier. Once or twice, with the old style crash barriers, I've actually had to go to the other side of the crash barrier so that they could safely get by. Then, five or ten minutes later, another giant vehicle will come, from the other direction, and I'll have to squeeze up against the crash barrier to let that one pass. The road isn't wide enough for a truck and a bicycle to be on it at the same time yet somehow they managed to pass each other without dinging the crash barrier or falling off a cliff. Ergo, they must be ignoring the basic laws of physics.

For five or six very nice kilometers, I'm up on top the dyke for the Moyang River [漠阳江] reveling once again in the amazing results from the current campaigns against litter and other generally unpleasant uncivilized unclean behaviors. Of course, when I get on the S277 to cross the river and when I pass through Shuangjie Town [双捷], all that old unpleasantness is back on display with trash choked creeks and burning midden pits but it's nice, every so often, to be reminded of how not-nice things used to be so that I can more thoroughly appreciate how nice they are getting to be.

It's not long after Shuangjie that the GPS routes me through the rubber plantation. For reasons unknown, WeChat, AMap, and Xiami (my music streaming app) periodically crash. Although one of the triggers is taking a photo with my phone, this is not the only trigger, merely the only one I've identified. It also doesn't trigger every time. When they crash, I have to set the destination again and restart navigation. Since AMap's GPS is rather poorly optimized when it comes to providing alternate routes, this means that alternate routes which didn't show up the last time might show up now.

As the newly discovered alternate route meant a good 5 or 6 kilometers not on the main road, I went with it, spent a lot of time mentally kicking myself for going with it, and then got to the main road and decided that it was in fact the very best thing to have done.

From where I reentered the main road to where I left to go to Chengcun Town [程村], I had to take of those rutted dirt roads that's had the potholes filled in with random rock and brick; it was still better than staying on the main road. From Chengcun to Yangxi, I managed to completely avoid the main road altogether in favor of the dyke road for some water that's too big to actually be nameless but whose name fails to show up on any of my maps. Passing through all kinds of villages with all kinds of temples, this was an excellent end to the day. It actually got to the point where I had to tell myself, you need to stop getting off the bike and looking at interesting things, not because sunset was approaching (yay, headlight!) but because I was hungry.

I ended up in another OYO hotel. I don't know if the guy at the front desk's decision that just photographing my passport would be fine was based on anything beyond the thankfulness that I wasn't a problem customer like the person in front of me (who needed to get back into her room at 7pm, despite not having paid for a second night yet). Instead, I accepted the ease with which I was 'checked in' and took the elevator up to my room.