Back in 2014, I figured that the extra weight of cooking gear and camping gear to allow myself that cushion of ability to stay anywhere at all was pointless as it also slowed me down enough that I was less able to be flexible.

Obviously, if I were regularly touring in places other than Asia, this wouldn't be the case. In Asia, however, the population density (even in the deep countryside) means that food and lodging are pretty much everywhere.

It wasn't until last year, when I started actively prepping for the idea of a cross continental tour, that I resumed the practice of carrying camping gear. However, I still don't camp. Partly because over logging in previous decades means that hammockable trees tend not to be a hammock's distance apart from each other but mostly because it's only five or eight more kilometers of riding in the dark, I've got a headlight¹, and an actual bed² is just all around a nicer place to sleep.

Not that tonight was ever going to be camping as I have an event I want to attend via Zoom starting at midnight my local.

My being out after dark is more my own fault than usual: there are three stops during the middle of the day to edit articles related to the aforementioned Important Event that Large Media Client is reporting on, and I spent an unrelated hour this morning being interviewed by the People's Daily³. Then, I had breakfast (well lunch) at a restaurant that invited me via the comments section to come eat and which was a good an option as any place when I didn't want to revisit the place that had refused me lodging the night before, and, since the meal was free, I had to spend time being sociable instead of ignoring people.

When I'm not working, I'm biking up a moderately pretty but decidedly uninteresting stream valley whose various settlements are of such a high degree of unimportance that even the expressway rest areas don't have local access roads as the people working at these sites either wouldn't have come up from the villages nearby or (if they weren't sleeping in company dormitories) wouldn't have needed a vehicle to get there.

I strongly consider pulling my burner out to make hot oatmeal for dunch but decide it's too much hassle when chips, apple drink, and sausage like processed meat products are available from a farm supplies store.

For the real climb, I change into sneakers and unpadded cotton shorts⁴. As it will become dark and rainy once I'm ready to ride again, I'll stay in these the rest of the ride down the mountain and discover that while it's not exactly comfortable, it's not all that uncomfortable either.

The place where I find food has lodging as well. And caffeine. And if they don't have a/c, they've at least got a fan for me to point at my sopping clothes and socks and stuff.

¹ Actually, I've got three headlights. The current dynamo headlight is even worse than the previous one in terms of being flickery and dim at loaded bike speeds but it does the job and I don't need to remember to charge it like I do the battery ones.

² Now that I've got the air mattress and the tent fan, I really want to try out my hammock again. Just after the heat rash is no longer a concern.

³ This has been a very good year for me. I'm told (never got photos) that something I translated for the Hainan Expo was on a billboard in Times Square and I've also been featured in an article in the Washington Post's travel section.

⁴ Other than them having very stiff soles, the lift in my new sandals is slightly too high and they're not really suitable for walking. As for the shorts, I get a weird chafe spot on my ass if I walk too long in shorts with a chamois.