D4: 清西 → 王安（双语）

September 21, 2024

Hebei Tourism's slogan for advertising in Beijing: "So beautiful, so close, come spend the weekend in HEBEI" 河北在北京的旅游宣传语也可以在河北见到

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.

2016年，我和“雪花¹”住在清西陵附近，几乎就是我昨晚住的那个村子。实际上——要是没去查看我从已不用的网站保存的日志的话，我隐约记得我们当时想住村里的比较好的酒店，结果被拒了，最后住进了一家农家客栈，那家客栈大概率没给我们登记。

这次计划去清西陵，部分原因是我想安安静静³地去拜谒溥仪墓。不过，有一条新修的路横穿了官子岭，为了让我走那条新路，GPS带我绕到了龙湖的南侧，而不是北侧，结果我完全错过了溥仪墓⁴。

Last night's guesthouse probably had the ability to register me. However, we were busy blow-drying my passport and forgot 昨晚住的那家客栈或许是有能力给我登记的。但当时我们忙着吹干我的护照，就把这事给忘了。

A bridge that's part of the Spirit Way that leads to one of the grave complexes 那是神道上的一座桥，通往陵寝建筑群。

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 如果这就是当年我和“雪花”走过的那段神道的话，那他们设置的“禁止车辆通行”的路障可比以前更管用了。

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."

翻过山岭的时候，我最终还是走到了我俩当年走过的那条路上，因为有个巨大的空水库工程在施工，而且隧道也封了⁵。

很巧的是，我在翻越第一个小坡（当时我正因4G网络不好，没法查阅在线词典，而一边咒骂着，停了一下为媒体中心写几段文字）的时候，遇到了一位当地的骑行者（以为我听的原因是车子有问题），他告诉我，在我到达岔路口面临“无隧道的老路”和“有七个隧道的新路”这个选择之前，隧道那条路目前封了，而且不是说“要是我已经吃过午饭了，就可以走老路”的情况，而是“我最好先去找地方吃午饭”这种情况。

From inside the skyscrapers and ring roads, it's hard to believe how quickly the city ends completely 身处摩天大楼和环形公路之中时，很难想象城市的边界这么快就消失了。

First continuous uphills ahead sign of the Tour 此次骑行遇到的第一个连续上坡的标识。

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.

之后，我停过的地方有些小吃之类的东西，所以我本该感激有食物可吃，也感激有机会给我的电子设备充电，可天哪，那儿的老板简直糟透了。

首先，你得明白，就算在我成为网红之前，对于陌生人因为我出现在他们的地盘就拍我这件事，我本来是无所谓的，可这位老板呢，非要拿着手机对着我的脸，试图拍下这个外国人“享用”他家餐馆食物的画面；他一个劲儿地让我夸他家的店，却不明白我之所以毫无热情（再加上不冷不热、算不上推荐的态度），是因为——即便算免费赠送——他家的食物价格虚高，味道还不怎么样；而且，他还不停地纠缠着让我对镜头唱唱歌⁶。

When I asked him not to smoke near me while I was eating, he moved to the other side of my table 我让他别在我吃饭的时候在旁边抽烟，他就挪到了桌子的另一边。

Dumpling options were meat and vegetable. I chose meat. They confirmed multiple times. Does this look like meat? 饺子有肉馅和素馅可选，我选了肉馅的。他们也几次确认我不是素食不是清真。这看着像肉馅吗？

A substantially better meal, with about 30% more dumplings, and only 13y instead of the 22y lunch was supposed to cost 这顿饭可好多了，饺子多了大概30%，而且只要13元，而不是午饭原本的22元一份饺子。

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.

从吃午饭的地方到坡顶大概有10公里，除了最后大概200米左右，我全程都是骑车上去的。

坡顶新挖开了一段山路，山另一侧的路也不一样了，所以不像8年前那样能飞速穿过小村庄了，不过我驮着很多行李，而且还处在适应带着这些行李该怎么刹车的阶段，所以这样或许反倒是好事。

我拦住一位正往上骑赛车的骑行者，提醒他隧道那条路封了，结果几个小时前提醒过我的那个人回来了，他刚从要去的地方折返，我们三位聊了聊我接下来要面对的路况。

The road conditions I've had so far 我目前遇到的路况。

Enhance. Enhance! Dammit, now I want to know what pagoda that is. 改建，无止境改建！该死，我现在真想知道那座宝塔是什么来历。

Approaching the tunnel at the top of the pass 快到坡顶的隧道了。

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.

他俩都觉得我应该在紫荆关停留，不过他们也确定，去涞源的路上有不少客栈和餐馆，如果我想继续赶路，也是可以的。

下午4点左右到了紫荆关，我是铁了心要继续赶路的。8年前我和“雪花”在这儿停留的时候，除了一段未修复、未开发的长城堡塞，这儿就没什么有意思的地方了，而且现在看起来也没什么改善。再说，就算地形图没显示当天剩下的路程都是缓缓的上坡路，我也够机灵，知道明天我的腿还会记得刚爬的坡，所以今天我想多赶些路。

"Y" stands for "why am I on this road" “Y”跟“why"一样念所以Y道“我为啥走这条”的标志

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 如果这就是我8年前骑行经过的那段水流湍急的路，那当年的路可比现在窄多了，而且树也更多。

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."

从这儿到涞源，地图上只显示了三个可住的地方，两个在王安。有一个不能在网上预订，另一个位于高速公路服务区内，可能在某个地方有行人通道但是情况比较复杂。

不过，我相信那些告诉我的人，他们说的话靠得住，于是我继续赶路。

下午5点19分吃晚饭（那会儿离天黑还有90分钟），就在离开紫荆关后看到的第一家客栈旁边，餐馆老板跟那些骑行者一样，也给了我错误信息，说“沿路有几十家客栈”。

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 我挺喜欢那种与当地单位相关的墙体宣传内容的。要是那些穿着反光服的人被他们的同事认出来，我也不会觉得意外。

Complicated road conditions ahead, no admittance 应该不是这条路

This is, officially, with signs, the "not complicated" section of road 按标识来看，这儿正式属于“路况不复杂”的路段。

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.

鉴于这是那种基本上被高速公路抢了风头的国道，你可能会想，如果以前真像说的那样（有很多旅店之类的），那这条路上应该有那些已经不复存在的店铺的遗迹呀，可实际上啥都没有，甚至都看不到曾经有客栈或酒店存在过的迹象！

我拿出头灯后，总共就看到了一个住宿的标识牌。牌子上写着“由此前行100米”，顺着一条岔路下去，而且上面没亮灯。晚上7点08分我给那儿打了电话，接电话的人说：“我现在不在家，我会让人给你回电话的。”

可压根就没人给我回电话。

A display of water guns for sale leftover from summer 夏天剩下的待售水枪展

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.

接下来，我在一片漆黑中骑了9公里，其间偶尔会有卡车司机经过，他们倒真不是想⁷害我，可每次他们经过的时候，都让我心里特别不踏实。

就在我看到一个住宿标识的时候，导航提示我到达目的地了。结果发现，这是王安至少六个有住宿标识的地方之一，而且还不是导航给我指的那个地方，但这大体上也没什么关系了。

我用尽了剩下的所有力气，才把自行车从停车场扛到这儿的三级台阶，我先是进了餐馆⁸，他们让我去酒店入口那边。

Old buildings along the roadside 路边的老建筑。

Even when this was prime truck route, it doesn't seem to have been very developed 即便以前这儿是主要的卡车运输路线，但看起来也没怎么发展起来。

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.

酒店的老板娘要么是看到我来了，要么是餐馆那边提前跟她说了一声，我进门的时候，她就过来帮我弄自行车了⁹。她丈夫看到我是个外国人，就说：“哦，不行啊，她没有中国身份证，警察说了我们不能接待外国人。”

我还没走完镇子呢，也不知道镇子里其他挂着住宿标识的地方情况如何。地图上显示的下一家酒店离这儿至少有16公里，而且天已经黑了，还是有卡车的路线，太阳一落山，气温也大幅下降了。

简而言之，除非有会喷岩浆的怪物，否则再没有比跟我说“外国人不许住”更危险的事儿了。

Old family planning blackboards 老旧的计划生育宣传板报

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...

之后，我会为对那位丈夫态度不好向夫妻俩道歉的。因为态度“好”的话，警察不会来，也没法让他们产生紧迫感，来解决他们造成的这个问题。而且，就算我想继续赶路，就算我把保暖衣物都穿上，我也不确定自己还能不能在夜里再骑一个小时，还要和卡车同行。

老板娘不停地给我倒热水，拿当地的新鲜核桃，想让我吃东西，还想跟我讲讲她的哈瑞奎师那大师的事儿。丈夫也明白我之前说他素质低的时候，其实不是生他的气，不过他还是不太高兴。

然后警察来了……

Finally off the truck route for a bit, and hopefully heading towards a village that looks shaped right for services 终于暂时离开了卡车路线，希望是朝着看起来能提供服务的村子去了。

During an unwise detour that had been all lovely new paving up to this point and which might have dropped me in a village 为了进村在一次不明智的绕路过程中（之前一直都是崭新的好路面）

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.

到这个时候，情况变得非常——我觉得可以说是“复杂”了，我还是想投诉警察¹⁰，可酒店老板不想让我投诉警察，而且他们人确实挺好的，所以我也不好说自己会怎么做了。

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)

‡ 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.

¹之所以叫她“雪花”，是因为她是个“特别的雪花”，对从工厂化养殖的恶心（以此作为吃素的理由†）到骑车时要穿着得体的服装‡，再到一些单词有自己的特色发音等所有事情，都有着很强烈的看法。

† 她直到来中国和我一起骑行的前一天才告诉我她是素食者，而且在中国期间就放弃了，因为在他的眼里中国没有工厂化养殖（而且对她来说三年来第一次吃肉导致的持续肠胃不适完全不会影响她骑车）

‡显然是专门为在中国骑车买的得体服装，与她平常穿的上衣遮盖方式不同，以至于都晒伤得很严重。

Lobby cum living room with posters on the wall from Public Security about registering guests 看到这是个兼具大堂功能的客厅墙上张贴着公安局有关住客登记的海报。

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...

²很明显是上世纪90年代建的，显然曾经是想要打造高端奢华的，我本想拍张照片的，但我意识到，我认识的人里，唯一可能还记得那个地方的就是“雪花”了，而且自从我好不容易把她护送回北京，没把她弃在路边之后，我们就再也没说过话了。

³鉴于我平常挺能说的，如果我说某人话多到让人受不了……

There was usually no traffic, but sometimes there were trucks 通常没什么车辆，但偶尔会有卡车。

Even the old, torn up road, had the occasional big truck 那条破旧的老路，也偶尔会有大卡车经过。

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.

⁴相较于大多数现代农村的坟墓，溥仪墓相当朴素，完全不符合你对清朝末代皇帝的预期。不过，鉴于这是他的遗孀把他的遗体卖给一家商业坟墓公司之后的第二个安息之所（那家公司还能以此宣传与他同葬一处），它完美地体现了改革开放初期“致富光荣”的态度，我本以为这会是个很棒的拍摄题材呢。

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.

⁵隧道那条路坡度也更陡†，不过路面都是统一铺设好的。

†这一方面是中国道路建设者热衷于改造山坡的结果，另一方面也是因为老路从烧草排屎的“发动机”时代就存在了。

Looking exhausted at the top of the pass 在坡顶看上去疲惫不堪

If the food/lodging situation were a bit more certain, I'd definitely recommend this stretch to people 要是食宿情况能更有保障一点，我肯定会推荐这段路程的。

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

⁶中国人唱歌并不比西方人强，只是他们更愿意公开且乐呵呵地展示自己唱得不好。

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

⁷说真的，那些卡车司机在显示自己的存在、减速以及避让方面做得挺好的。不过，它们毕竟是50吨重的大家伙，还是挺危险的。

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.

⁸要是我非常确定不会有任何问题，那我更有可能把自行车放在外面，然后进去问情况。把自行车扛上楼梯、带进屋里，表明跟我说“走开”是很没礼貌的行为。

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.

⁹举个例子，她主动帮我弄自行车之后，要是不把我当作受欢迎的客人来对待，那就违背她内心的道德准则了。

¹⁰ If only because they said egregiously stupid things to me when they already knew I was recording them, and scaring them and their supe

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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3 months ago

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

D4: 清西 → 王安 （双语）

D4: 清西 → 王安（双语）