I am not a fan of the hotel I am in. For one thing, it's much too far away from anything. It's easily 500 meters to the busy downtown area where the fruit markets and the noise are. All the things that your normal hotel customer ought to want to be nowhere near. Except that your normal hotel customer isn't trying to walk somewhere to breakfast on legs that are barely more solid than jello.

For another, although it certainly looks a whole lot nicer than most nearly everywhere I've stayed for the past many weeks, the whole place is rather poorly put together. 

There's a stunning rainforest showerhead in the bathroom that ought to have hot and cold piped water running through pipes properly hidden behind the wall but somebody fucked something up and it only has cold water, so there's a separate shower head coming off of the hot water tank. This separate shower head is then mounted on the closest convenient wall which means that I get my trickle of hot water while balancing over the squat toilet.

The air conditioner (which oughtn't be necessary at all for this climate at this altitude in the summer) may also be a heater but it doesn't matter whether it is or isn't because the cord doesn't reach the outlet which the air conditioner is mounted next to.

Having finished all my fruit, I limp my way out of the room around 3pm and head into town for a hot meal that isn't oatmeal and a foot massage. I saw the sign for the foot massage place when I was in the back of the police car and have been eagerly awaiting my having enough energy to be able to make it all the way there and back again.

During the massage it is discovered that I managed to bruise my thigh from leaning my bike against it when taking breaks. I also have bruises on the tips of my toes from them getting jammed against my shoes on the downhills. I'm uncertain but, short of crashing (which I'm pretty good about not doing), this may be the worst I've ever injured myself on tour. I'm impressed.

I learn from the masseuse that one of Guizhou province's Covid deaths came from this county but I don't get many more details than that. Hard to tell if this is the truth or if it is her understanding of things as rumors are rife but, at the same time, this is a very poor area with a lot of young people who work in big cities (like Wuhan) and who come home for the holidays. Which is why so much shut down so quickly after the cordon sanitaire happened. I wonder if this local case of Covid from six or seven months ago is why I've been getting what seems like extra scrutiny recently or if it's something else related to the worldwide Covid situation.

After the massage, a bowl of noodle soup, and a very slow walk back to the hotel, I have to catch my breath between the second and third floors and I'm asleep by 9pm.