D24: 高阳 → 定州

October 19, 2024

(Uncaptioned photos included at the end)

A large part of how I was able to get so much distance done today is because the North China Plain is very flat and very prone to very straight roads.

A larger part of it is because the roads and their surroundings had absolutely nothing that attracted me to stop and look.

Even knowing that I must have done this road before on the way from Baoding to Anguo on both the 2012 and 2018 rides¹, and knowing that there was a historic stone bridge accidentally found both times when I was looking for a secluded spot to stretch my legs², I can't find anything worth stopping for.

Although, unlike the roads from Xiong'an (which were actively, mind-numbingly boring), today's roads aren't unattractive boulevards lined with ticky-tacky construction or anything like that, they just don't have much of anything that's exciting for more than a snapshot or three. Even in terms of photos, there isn't much beyond some martyr's graves from the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, a memorial for everyone from this village who died during the Mission to Provide Assistance to Our Korean Comrades in Resisting American Imperialism, and a hotel named Marriott that I almost convince myself to stay in.

Over the next couple of days, I'll have plenty of excuse for why I don't make any videos. On this day, however, although I'm enjoying my music and cranking out the kilometers, there just isn't anything exciting or anything that creative attempts to film can make look exciting.

Things start getting better once I'm in Dingzhou. Although Dr. M's colleague has literally just left for Shijiazhuang, he sends me a photo of a seal script calligraphy made for me in his own handwriting³, and puts me in contact with the Dingzhou Municipal Comprehensive Media Center. A fully loaded motor trike honks and waves as they pass me, calls out my name as I pass them, and ends up giving me a bag of fresh picked hawthorn. The hotel I've randomly picked for the night is one that has a bathhouse and, for 110 yuan of upselling me to different body lotions and close to an hour of deep tissue massage, I luxuriate in the process of Being Attacked by an Elderly Woman With a Loofah⁴.

Considering that I'd already spent a good 15 minutes in the shower with my own loofah before the Great Loofahing, and had thought that I was already quite thoroughly clean, it was really quite impressive just how much dead skin and other junk she scrubbed off of me.

¹ And, lest one think that this is malaise creeping in, found it equally boring at the start of a Tour

² Translation: take a shit

³ Getting a calligraphy made for you in someone's handwriting is a culturally significant gift. Especially when that someone is an expert in the particular kind of handwriting that they've made it for you in.

⁴ During the Andrew the Coffee Guy years, it was discovered that the Korean spa he liked to go to in Haikou also offered the loofahing service, provided in private rooms by people that were wearing clothing. However, all three† of the times that I've had the fortune of ending up at a northern Chinese bathhouse that offers it, everything was all out there in the open.

† Anhui 2008, Baoding 2012, and this time

Today's ride: 99 km (61 miles)
Total: 1,587 km (986 miles)

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