D12: 易县 → 大王店

June 12, 2022

Having started to write this from the police station where I was sat for coming up on four hours, I was pretty sure that the next day's tactics are going to return to just yelling at people until they do what I want. Little did I know, but I would actually be returning to yelling before the evening was over.

Thing is, 10 years ago, when this specific town was my first "no, I think you're wrong" experience with the Police, I was exhausted and completely bullshitting excuses pulled from the thin air of "I'm pretty sure that's how things are supposed to be" and it still was over and done with in less than an hour.

If I had been allowed to pay, it would have been maybe 10y

I appreciate the old school hand wash station

Of course, on that occasion Health Codes weren't a thing and I had my tent with me to act as a credible threat.

This time, I didn't have a tent, I knew myself to be an edge case with fucky paperwork issues, and I really wanted to try being nice. So, after a lovely generally flat ride that was a mix of new and old, rural and truck route, knowing where I was and being completely lost, I decided that since I was going to have an issue wherever I went, I may as well have an issue someplace I had previously been.

Since he has nets with him, I think it's actually a working boat

Achievement Unlocked: First outdoor shit of the Tour

Even though I wouldn't raise my voice until after I had gotten them to give me the (never very difficult to do) piece of paper and had, stupidly, left to go to a hotel without insisting that they accompany me, I never thought I'd have to play the "getting in the way and making it impossible to do your job" game with the police at the Police Station.

I realize now that instead of allowing them to ignore me, I should have played videos on my phone with the volume way up

You mean all I need to do is print out and fill in the form you asked for by name 4 hours ago?

Having been called by someone in Exit & Entry (someone who was initially trying to get in contact with my boss), I never thought I would need to be calling that person back an hour after she'd said "okay, I think everything has been resolved" to get her to call the Station and tell them to fucking resolve things already.

Or that, once she had, still more waiting would happen after that point.

The first hotel—the one I stayed at 10 years ago, the one whose owner's daughter once biked to Hong Kong from Guangzhou—they look to have improved no small amount, they also took one look at me and said they had "no rooms".

I realize it actually references lodging at domiciles other than hotels (which makes it stupid to post at hotels) but it's clearly intended as a way of educating people (inclusive of Foreigners) who might come in contact with a foreigner needing a place to stay

The second hotel—the one across the street that she pointed me to, the one that had the How to Register Foreigners bilingual poster on the wall—they also said "no rooms".

At the third one—the one where she literally ran away from me like she was being chased by a monster—I took a handful of keys, went upstairs, and started opening doors. Since my eventual room would be on the 4th floor and since I would need to make many trips up and down those stairs to take my panniers up, to take all the air conditioner remotes from downstairs, to show her how to register me after the police showed up and we yelled at each other though the door, etc..., let's just say I'm very glad it was a short cycling day.

Out of the forgiving goodness of her Christian heart, the hotel owner thinks I shouldn't write a complaint letter about the local police

As it was, in addition to adding five trips to and from the 4th floor to my daily totals, I also twisted my left ankle and got an impressive scrape on my right leg.

Although they were nowhere near as intense in the days before Covid, lodging issues caused by China having two systems (one based on written policy and the other based on saying no to anything that might cause trouble) persistently continue to be every tour's greatest headache.

I would have also stopped by the Xidesheng but I didn't like the way they quickly covered mouths and noses (not even putting masks on, just grabbing something and holding it to their face) as I passed by and I thought that kind of rude

It was so crowded by the reservoir, I thought some kind of festival was going on

I can't accept the offer the group of local cyclists made to follow them into the city and eat with them, because it inevitably means I either have a new friend cringing as I behave like an ass, or I've got that same new friend cringing in embarrassment about their countrymen being idiots. As well, I know if I insist that I don't want to be paying the 300 or 500 or whatever it will cost for me to go to the 'acceptable' hotel, it's a toss up as to whether my new friend will pull out their wallet or will instinctively react in support of China and snark at me that I ought not travel if I can't afford to spend every night in the most expensive hotel in town.

On so many levels, this is ridiculous.

Last time they thought it reasonable to update the Village Births Noticeboard was in 2015, right before the Policy was expanded to two children per family

This family paid more than $3,000 in fines for their second child

I knew the bike path was too good to be true

Still a bit cloudy but the blue is back in the sky

Today's ride: 54 km (34 miles)
Total: 739 km (459 miles)

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