In 2008, although it was Huazhou [化州]--the city after Maoming--where I got hit by a motorcycle and had to end my tour, it was the traffic in Maoming that scared me. Never before had I experienced anything so thoroughly mental.

Eleven years of experience with crazy traffic in places ranging from Kuala Lumpur to Yueyang has given me a new perspective on how bad traffic has to be before it gets defined as thoroughly mental and I was sure that I was going to get to Maoming and either find that a) the traffic patterns had stayed the same but having more experience would make me less nervous or b) the traffic patterns had stayed the same but having more experience taught me that they weren't actually mental or even c) the traffic patterns had improved. I was not expecting to get d) the traffic is actually just as thoroughly mental as I remembered.

Because of this "thoroughly mental" traffic, I was made aware that--just like rim brakes--as the pads for disc brakes wear they need to occasionally be adjusted more tightly to preserve stopping power. So, while waiting for Ivan and Catalina to arrive from Guangzhou, I went in search of a local bike shop that could help me out on something that's surely very simple but which I don't yet know how to do.

This was followed by a late breakfast and an hour long massage with a blind masseuse with good strong hands and technique and an unfortunate dedication to Doterra that wanting my opinion on was actually a conversation starter where she wanted to sell essential oils to me not actually wanting to hear "they're a scam, run away".

I can't figure out if the chatty yet competent masseuses and masseurs are, as a rule, also people who are gullible regarding various sales scams or if it's actually that enough of their customers are that it's a good way to make money. My preferred regular close to my apartment has a steam room which is specifically a loss leader to get people to buy her magic water filters and, every time I come in, she's got some new kind of creme or herb. My second favorite has recently started selling penis pills on her WeChat Moments. And now, a Doterra hun.

Ivan and Catalina arrive in Maoming as my massage is finishing up. We meet at the closest big intersection and head in the direction of "out of town" while simultaneously looking for lunch. The road we are on has all kinds of restaurants but none of them are the sort I'd want to take fresh foreigners to. Hotpot, dog meat, dog meat hotpot, counterfeit KFC, rinse, wash, repeat.

Luckily, we've only gone six or seven kilometers and are still in Maoming when lunch is found as it's only at lunch that they inform me, they didn't get my coffee. Unluckily, the closest Starbucks is back almost to where we started from.

At Starbucks the coffee beans are expensive and stale. Roasted four months ago, they cost CNY 90 for 250g (so about USD 15 a pound). The barista who comes over to help me shop while I'm looking at the coffee beans is clearly someone who actually likes coffee and knows coffee but who can't help me buy any coffee other than the four month old stuff because he's currently at work. And being as Maoming currently has not one but two Starbucks, it's safe to say that even though he absolutely can't tell me where it is, there is somewhere in town (that isn't the internet) where I could pick up better coffee beans for less.

As main roads go, the road from Maoming to Gongguan isn't that bad. Super big shoulder/bike lane with just enough two and three wheeled traffic in it that the four wheeled traffic isn't borrowing it and the eejits mostly aren't using it as a shortcut for going the wrong direction. It's not exactly a road I'd go out of my way to choose but it could be a whole lot worse.

I'd've liked to continue from Gongguan to Huazhou for the night but we've got just over an hour before sunset, it's another 17 kilometers, and neither of them have headlights. As someone who has ridden many a kilometer in the near dark without a headlight cause it isn't that big of a deal and I don't want to ride at night anyways, the amount of dark we'd be facing wouldn't be a big deal if they had any experience with riding with luggage or Chinese traffic. As it is, it seems prudent to stop in Gongguan.