June 15, 2022
D15: 罗庄 → 新乐
Much to my great astonishment and surprise, the place that initially turned me away the previous night wasn't making excuses about only having just received certain approvals to reopen but had actually only just reopened. I know this because, a few days later, when I had both my first and second 100,000 view videos of the Tour, they left a message in the comments section apologizing to me and making me feel like a cad for having been grumpy at them when I stalked off down the road to the place that let me stay no problem.
| Heart | 1 | Comment | 0 | Link |
I will not have such an easy time of tonight's lodging. Not that it will be particularly difficult or annoying in the grand scheme of things, just that it wasn't easy either.
But first, of course, I must ride from where I am to where I will be on a pretty damn boring National Road to a singularly uninteresting county seat where my attempt to seek out new (to me) and interesting (to me) sites of interest will result in a seven level brick eaved pagoda with next to zero information to be found, a random fan coming up to me and practically shoving a local delicacy¹ into my hands before running off without letting me so much as officially thank her, and my first indecent proposal² of the trip.
From there, I ran off to the first restaurant I could find where I could sit and charge my phone for a bit as no way has yet been found to get my massive powerbank sent to me and I still haven't gotten around to buying another small one.
An hour of riding past an increasingly strange selection of yards full of statues for sale, I turned off onto some small roads and got the sort of rural bliss I regularly go in search of. Unless you count the first Taishan Rock I've seen to have a face since I left the Guizhou/Chongqing area in 2020, there is nothing of any particular interest to be seen on these roads but they are sufficiently small to be traffic free and sufficiently irregular to keep my brain occupied as I head for what ought to be the ruins of an early 80s rural cinema that I have no recollection of pinning on my maps but which I must have had actual information on or I wouldn't have marked.
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
Unfortunately, I never get there.
Instead, I get to a bridge construction site which the local farmers tell me I totally could have crossed and which the workmen tell me is basically offlimits on account of the combined factors of heavy machinery and there being "no actual roads³" on the other side.
Late that evening, when talking to the police, they'll assume that the way I managed to avoid getting Covid swabbed at the checkpoint is because it was on the bit of road between where I turned to farmland and where I turned away from farmland. I choose not to disabuse them of this notion or let them know that the checkpoint had simply waved a bicycle through on the assumption that I clearly hadn't come very far.
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
I've made it to the national road and am somewhat unhappily pushing to make it to the closest actual city when the Audi with Beijing plates flags me down to hand me a 2L bottle of Sprite that, thankfully—on account of my not having a tent this year—I've got space for.
Almost immediately after telling me that I should race the sunset to avoid the dangers of this road after dark, he invites me to dinner and picks a nearby restaurant that's "nothing fancy but really really good". Which it most certainly is, though I cringe at the amount of wasted food that he orders⁴ before paying and running off to pick one of his kids up from school.
I'm gorging myself on the edible protein and fat when he messages me a place that he's going to arrange for me to stay; still gorging myself when he messages again to say they say I can't; and not yet quite ready to go when he picks another (far more expensive place) for me to go instead. Both places are owned by friends and both places swear that they aren't allowed to have foreigners, and I guess that means tonight will be a police station night.
Language and context and framing are important concepts and I simply don't allow the police the opportunity to disagree with me. "I was told.... but of course that's ridiculous.... as we all know...." and while there's a fair bit of "wait while I call someone and ask what the fuck to do about you", it's nothing egregious and I guess me and three officers are walking to the cheap hotel around the corner within an hour.
The hotel owners initially look downright terrified. I'm not sure if because of me and my potential infectious foreignerness or because of the three uniformed police that are showing up with me but even though everyone wants me to go to the Public Security Bureau and get registrated there instead of sitting down at the computer which I've shown them has a foreigner option, there doesn't seem to be any argument.
I'm rather pleased with the dramatic way I sniff my own armpit at the suggestion that I still need to go somewhere else. It didn't completely have the intended effect of getting me allowed to sit at the computer but it got me my first ride of the trip in a police car, and in the front seat no less.
Highlight of the visit to the PSB was having an older, senior type officer (who, given the mask I'm wearing, was justifiably allowed to not realize my ethnicity) ask me "你是美籍华人?⁵" only to have me pull my mask down and grin at him "我是美籍美人⁶" and have them all gush at me over my Chinese skills. As well, since I admit to adding the vaccination info and relevant color photocopies to the back side of the Form that I totally found online and did not make myself, they are suitably appreciative of the thoroughness with which I've put all the data in one easily accessed bilingual location, and only briefly check my passport to see that it matches before using said Form as the source from which info is copied.
When I finally get roomed, it's not actually a very comfortable one. I'm particularly unhappy with the hard bed. But, all things considered, I'm satisfied.
¹ Called Menzi 焖子 it was like a potato starch aspic in which were suspended bits of pork sausage and donkey meat.
² I mean sure, he could have just been singularly clueless about "I don't need anywhere to stay, I don't want to stay in your home, and I'm not interested in going to the park with you" but the visible half mast erection he had for most of our conversation kind of makes that unlikely.
³ As if I'm currently on an actual road.
⁴ Easily enough for three people
⁵ Are you a naturalized American citizen who is from China?
⁶ Nope. I'm an American born Euromutt.
Today's ride: 64 km (40 miles)
Total: 908 km (564 miles)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 3 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |