D4: 清西 → 王安

September 21, 2024

Hebei Tourism's slogan for advertising in Beijing: "So beautiful, so close, come spend the weekend in HEBEI"

In 2016, Snowflake¹ and I stayed in the general vicinity of the Western Qing Tombs. Very nearly the same village that I stayed in last night. In fact—without going to check the archived journals from the Other Site, I vaguely remember us trying to stay at the Nice Hotel² in the village, getting rejected, and eventually ending up in a farmhouse-type guesthouse that almost certainly didn't register us.

Part of planning to go to the Western Qing Tombs on this trip was because I wanted a quiet³ visit the Grave of Puyi. However, there's a new road crossing Guanzi Ridge and—in order to attempt to put me on that new road—the GPS took me around the south side of Longhu Lake instead of the north and I missed the Grave⁴ altogether.

Last night's guesthouse probably had the ability to register me. However, we were busy blow-drying my passport and forgot

A bridge that's part of the Spirit Way that leads to one of the grave complexes

If this is the same bit of Spirit Way that Snowflake and I rode on, they've done a better job at the "wheeled vehicles keep off" barrier than before

In crossing the ridge, I'd still end up on the road we two used as there's something going on with construction related to an enormous empty reservoir and the tunnel road is closed⁵.

A fortuitous meeting with a local cyclist (while I was stopped at the top of my first pimple bump of a pass cursing 4g internet and my lack of access to all my online dictionaries as I did a few quick paragraphs for the Media Center) let me know before I got to the turn off and the choice of "old road without tunnels" and "new road with seven tunnels" that the tunnel road was currently closed and it was not a case of "if I've found lunch already I have permission to take the old road" but a case of "I better go find lunch."

From inside the skyscrapers and ring roads, it's hard to believe how quickly the city ends completely

First continuous uphills ahead sign of the Tour

There were one or two places after where I stopped that might have had some snacks or things like that, so I ought to be grateful for the food and the opportunity to top off the charge on my devices, but my God was the boss a total wanker.

For starters—and you have to understand that even before I was wanghong, I was okay with strangers taking video of my existing in their space solely because of the fact of my existence—he would not get his phone out of my face with trying to take footage of the foreigner 'enjoying' his restaurant and the food at his restaurant; he kept encouraging me to say nice things about his place without getting that the total lack of enthusiasm on my part (in combination with the lukewarm non-recommendation) was because—even comped—his food was overpriced and not very good; and, he wouldn't cut it out about wanting me to sing⁶.

When I asked him not to smoke near me while I was eating, he moved to the other side of my table

Dumpling options were meat and vegetable. I chose meat. Does this look like meat?

A substantially better meal, with about 30% more dumplings, and only 13y instead of the 22y lunch was supposed to cost

It's only about 10km from where I had lunch to the top of the pass and I ride all but the last 200 meters or so.

There's a new hill cut at the top and the road down the other side is different so there's no whizzing at dangerous speeds through little villages the way there was 8 years ago but I'm fully loaded and still in the early stages of getting used to how I brake with this luggage configuration so it's probably for the best.

After stopping a roadie on his way up to warn him that the tunnel road is closed, the same guy who warned me a few hours earlier comes back from wherever he'd been going and we have a bit of a chat about the road conditions I can expect ahead.

Enhance. Enhance! Dammit, now I want to know what pagoda that is.

Approaching the tunnel at the top of the pass

Both men think I should stop in Zijingguan, but they're also certain that there's a goodly number of guesthouses and restaurants all along the road to Laiyuan and that I can go on if I want to.

Getting in to Zijingguan at around 4pm, I definitely want to keep going. Other than a mostly unrestored and undeveloped bit of Great Wall fort, there was nothing of interest here when Snowflake and I stayed here eight years ago, and it doesn't look to have improved. Besides which, even if the topo map weren't showing the most gentle of upwards slope for the rest of the day, I'm smart enough to realize that I'm going to be feeling this climb tomorrow so I want to get the kilometers in today.

If this is the same bit of fast flowing water I remember riding along 8 years ago, the road was much narrower and had more trees

Only three places show up on Maps between here and Laiyuan. Two are in Wang'an. One isn't bookable online and the other one is complicated by being located inside an Expressway Service Area that might have Pedestrian Access somewhere.

But, I believe that the people who have told me what I've been told are reliable, and I keep going

Dinner at 5:19 (90 minutes of sunlight left to me) next to the first guesthouse I'd seen since leaving Zijingguan and the restaurant owners gave me the same misinformation that the cyclists did of "dozens of guesthouses along the road."

I love it when the wall propaganda is related to the local danwei. I wouldn't be surprised if the guys in hi viz are recognizable to their colleagues

Complicated road conditions ahead, no admittance

This is, officially, with signs, the "not complicated" section of road

Being as it's the kind of National Road that's been mostly killed by the expressways, you would think that, if this had ever been true, the road would be littered with the skeletons of establishments that no longer exist, but there was nothing, not even evidence of guesthouses or hotels having once existed!

I spotted all of one lodging sign after I got my headlight out. It said "100m this way" down a side road and didn't have any lights on it. Called them at 7:08pm. Person who answered said "I'm not home right now. I'll have someone call you back."

No one ever did.

A display of water guns for sale leftover from summer

This is followed by nine more kilometers of pitch black biking interspersed with occasional truck drivers who definitely weren't trying⁷ to kill me but who still made me very uncomfortable every time they passed.

GPS announces my arrival at my destination just as I see a sign for lodging. Turns out that this is one of at least half a dozen places in Wang'an with such signs and is not the one I was pointed at, but that mostly doesn't matter.

Using up nearly all the energy I have left to hump my bike up the three stairs from the parking lot, I start by entering the restaurant⁸. They send me to the hotel entrance.

Even when this was prime truck route, it doesn't seem to have been very developed

Boss lady of the hotel either sees me coming or had a heads up from the restaurant and comes to help me with my bicycle as I'm coming in the door⁹. Her husband sees that I'm a foreigner and goes "oh no, she doesn't have a Chinese ID card, and the police said we can't take foreigners."

I haven't passed through town yet. I don't know that there are other places in town that also have lodging signs out. It is at least 16km to the next hotel that even shows up on Maps. In the dark. On a truck route. And the temperature has dropped massively since the sun went down.

In short, you could not have made "telling the Foreigner she can't stay" more dangerous unless you added goombas spitting lava.

I will later apologize to both husband and wife over being kind of bitchy to husband. Because being "nice" doesn't get the cops called and won't instill a sense of urgency that has them come and fix the problem they caused. Also, even if I wanted to, and even if I got out my thermals, I'm not sure I could get back on my bicycle for another hour ride in the dark with trucks.

Wife keeps offering me warm water, local fresh walnuts, tries to feed me, tries to tell me about her Hare Krishna guru. Husband accepts that I wasn't actually being angry at HIM when I said he has poor character, but he's still not the happiest.

Then the police arrive...

Finally off the truck route for a bit, and hopefully heading towards a village that looks shaped right for services

During an unwise detour that had been all lovely new paving up to this point and which might have dropped me in a village

At which point things get very, I'm going to go with "complicated," and I still want to make a complaint about the police¹⁰ but the hotel owners don't want me to make a complaint about the police and they really were nice people, so, it's hard to say what I'll do.

¹ So called because she was a "special snowflake" with very strong feelings on everything from the evils of factory farming as a reason to be vegetarian† and the wearing of modest clothing‡ while biking to the pronunciation of dee-raill-ee-urs.

† Vegetarianism that she not only didn't tell me about until the day before flying to China to come tour with me, but which she gave up while in China because Chinese factory farming is apparently better than American factory farming (and the constant upset stomach from eating meat for the first time in three years totally wouldn't impact her biking)

Lobby cum living room with posters on the wall from Public Security about registering guests

‡ Modest clothing that was apparently bought specifically for biking in China and which covered differently than her usual jerseys to the point of a horrible sunburn.

² Obviously built in the 90s and clearly once intended to be the Height of Luxury, I thought about snapping a picture of it, but I realized the only person I knew in any capacity who would at all remember that place was Snowflake and we haven't spoken since I just barely managed to escort her back into Beijing without abandoning her by the side of the road.

³ Given how much I talk, if I'm saying someone wouldn't shut up...

There was usually no traffic, but sometimes there were trucks

Even the old, torn up road, had the occasional big truck

⁴ Compared to most modern rural graves, it's fairly modest and not at all what you would expect for the Last Emperor of the Qing Dynasty. However, as his second final resting place after his widow sold his body to a commercial cemetery so that they could advertise sharing space with him, it perfectly encapsulates the "to get rich is glorious" attitude of the early years of Reform and Opening Up and I thought it would make a great video.

⁵ The tunnel road is also steeper†, but it's uniformly paved.

† This is one part Chinese roadbuilders enthusiasm for regrading hills, and one part the old road existing since the engines burned hay.

Looking exhausted at the top of the pass

If the food/lodging situation were a bit more certain, I'd definitely recommend this stretch to people

⁶ Chinese are no better at singing than westerners. They're just more willing to publicly and joyfully be terrible at it.

⁷ Seriously, the trucks were great about announcing their presence, slowing down, and swinging wide. They are, however, still 50 ton death machines.

⁸ If I'm absolutely certain there will be zero issues, I'm more likely to leave my bicycle outside when going to ask questions. Taking it up the stairs and inside with me provides a visible symbol of why telling me "go away" is bad manners.

⁹ Case in point. After she had proactively helped me with the bike, treating me as anything other than a welcome guest would have gone against her internal moral code.

¹⁰ If only because they said egregiously stupid things to me when they already knew I was recording them, and scaring them and their supervisor with "oh, of course I've already sent that video off to colleagues of mine at [mainstream national media outlet]" when explaining that deleting it off my phone would be useless just doesn't feel like a sufficient degree of punishment for police being that fucking stupid in what they were saying to a foreigner that they knew was recording them

Today's ride: 63 km (39 miles)
Total: 311 km (193 miles)

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Mark BinghamUfda! What a day!
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2 months ago

Marian RosenbergTo Mark BinghamWait till you see the pictures of the old road! (Just uploaded, not captioned)
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2 months ago