D46: 合家畔 → 庆阳

May 31, 2021

What I didn't realize until after I'd seen versions of this illustration of the torments of hell at least a half dozen times is that it always has the jackal lapping at the blood of the tortured souls

My hotelier fancies himself an Influencer. He especially likes livestreaming. He has had as many as 6 people logged in and watching his stream all at the same time.

This is substantially better numbers than I have for livestreaming.

This is because I don't livestream.

I don't livestream for a number of reasons, not the least of which is it's illegal in China for a person who doesn't have an ID card that they can attach to their account to livestream and, whether or not anyone particularly cares about enforcing this law, I'm not in the habit of intentionally producing concrete evidence of my breaking the law.

Resolutely prevent any pregnancies outside of family planning

Even when demons aren't ripping someone's guts out through their mouth

This is still an incredibly violent temple

If I could livestream my trip the way the Walkers¹ do, it's not at all unbelievable that I'd have a much larger following. I'd also be able to get tips.

However, as part of what I like about my trips is the periods of solitude interspersed with interaction, I'm not sure if I'd actually enjoy turning myself into a one person reality show.

There's nowhere in the room to easily put the coffee kit and the hot water is in the kitchen so I have to put up with being on his livestream while I eat breakfast.

I do not enjoy this.

I was photographing it because one of my guilty pleasures is bad art. Most everyone in my WeChat Moments was commenting on the banner about someone paying cash for dead fruit tree wood

Separate from the violence (which, at least is standard in this set of illustrations), this temple also checks all of my boxes for enthusiastic and poorly executed art

Exterior wall and gate of a sunken courtyard yaodong

The people who follow his 'stream are all the same sorts of insufferable folk that are the reason one of my two auto-responses on TikTok is "I'm not a teacher, go fuck yourself".

But, I'm in the middle of running a backup on my computer and I can't leave just yet.

I bug out around 10:45 without stopping for any food in town cause surely that bowl of oatmeal and my sweetened coffee are more than enough to tide me over to the next town.

Except that all the way until I actually get to the city, next town never comes. All I get is next village. And, at least until 100m after I give up and stop to buy snacks from a convenience store, next village never has any restaurants.

As China's cities grow, the countryside empties

I think this one is supposed to be getting thrown into a lava pit

From the age of the windows, I'd say it's at least 20 years since this has been lived in.

Toss a bit of a headwind into the mix and I know I'm feeling grumpy. This is why, during my visit to the Qingyang Bike Shop, I deliberately pick a larger than usual hotel to book in at.

That and I'm making the assumption that (since the PSB has had me call them to tell them I've arrived in town and asked me to tell them where I'll be staying) the authorities will be coming to the hotel and I've decided not to intentionally make it difficult for them.

I don't ever get to the point of yelling at the hotel staff. Instead, my tactic is entirely one of apologizing for their government's shortcomings. Which mostly works in terms of getting them to sympathize with me but which doesn't, even with me providing the phone number of the specific individual at the PSB who they should be talking to, get them to get me a room in any kind of reasonable time frame.

Sometimes, dealing with the lodging issues is like having a demon repeatedly smash my face with a boulder

Other times, the painful unwillingness to THINK burns like fire

What with the first real meal of the day coming to the room via delivery at 9pm, I'm well pleased with myself for not yelling at the staff when they tried—after 20 minutes of not following the surprisingly not difficult directions from the only person whose opinion mattered (the PSB officer)—to convince me that their hotel didn't have a Foreigner License and I really needed to go somewhere else.

¹ People who hike thousands of kilometres mostly along the national roads, livestreaming as they go.

The owners of this abandoned raiding weren't going to leave a perfectly good door behind when they left

Today's ride: 51 km (32 miles)
Total: 1,693 km (1,051 miles)

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