D26: 长垣 → 开封

June 29, 2022

I don't make it to the Chinese Cooking Museum. I do, however, have a lovely 20 minute conversation outside a supermarket with a Chinese teacher who just got back from three years in Thailand and whose experiences with quarantine (a total of 7 weeks as each transit point closer to home requarantined her) currently have her a bit gun shy on the topic of travel.

Eventually, however, I really need to find myself breakfast, so it's exchange contact details, add her to my WeChat group, and head off.

With a door just open enough that my camera fits

I think my reason for taking a photo of this historic building is the advertisement for hemorrhoid cures

Although I don't think there was anything particularly wrong with their hygiene, I suspect that my dodgy stomach will get its start with this meal as I don't particularly eat anything else the rest of the day but, during my evening's adventures in Kaifeng, I am constantly letting out impressively loud "notice me" farts that one can't pretend came from someone else over thataways.

Of course, since the bulk of the meal is a variety of cold vegetable dishes that very nearly approach the western definition of "salad", in addition to not getting that bacteria-killing blast of heat from the wok, there's a fairly good chance that they've not been refrigerated or handled the way meat dishes would be.

An appropriate gas station to see on the way in to Kaifeng

Prewarned by a combination of how poorly the previous evening went and my contact in Kaifeng wanting to recommend a hotel "known to be able to take foreigners", I once again set Tyra to the task.

Of the two hotels I pick for her to contact (one at about the point I want to stop, and one close to where my contact lives), it turns out that one close to him is one which he's repeatedly sent less wealthy foreigners to in the past. They tell Tyra that "on account of there being a Quarantine Hotel only 2km away, they aren't even allowed to take visitors from outside the province" which is nearly as unbelievable an excuse as the first place I booked which told me their central air conditioning is broken¹.

The second place is a very swank "International" hotel that has some steep discounts on a few of their rooms which bring it well into my price range. As they (and the place with the "broken" ac) are the only things at this edge of Kaifeng to be "not terrible", it doesn't really matter to me that they've straight up told Tyra they can't take foreigners because they will be taking me.

Someplace that looked like this had the gall to say "we don't have the license...."

I actually get angry on the phone with Feizhu Customer Service who just aren't taking "no I will not accept a free cancellation" for an answer. The law is the fucking law, you want to cancel my booking, you give me an equal or better room at the same price or you stop calling me.

As one of these calls takes place at the same time as my Awesome Find of the Day and leads to me being not careful in ways that result in the navigation + music phone falling out of the handlebar bag and cracking the screen, I am well and truly ready for a massive row to take place upon arrival.

Instead, I get the quickest door to room in the history of a cyclist walking into a hotel anywhere in the world. They won't be quite as obsequious to me as the next morning's police officer but Tyra has scared the ever loving shit out them.

You see, during one of the 18 phone calls² she made to either the hotel or the local police station on the topic of the nonexistence of regulations preventing her boss from staying, she asked for a name and badge number, then she waited 90 minutes before calling back with "I have contacted the Provincial Public Security Administration and they have confirmed that there are no restrictions on foreigners and that any local agency administering such regulations is breaking the law."

A temple that is not the Awesome Find of the Day

She didn't actually say she contacted them during that 90 minute space between phone calls. Just that she had contacted them. Which she had. On a mostly unrelated to me query in August of last year.

In light of this, I am not particularly surprised by my local contact wanting me to walk down the road to meet his car where no hotel security cameras could possibly catch him. It feels a bit overmuch to me but he's the one who potentially faces local fallout over being a known acquaintance of someone who makes a habit of dangerous behaviors like telling the police "I'm going to report you for breaking the law".

It appears to have some pre Communist era history as a temple

I am, however, quite surprised come morning to get a knock on the door by an officer nicely requesting if I might please give him my passport so he can take a photocopy. Because even when they're being friendly to me, even when they've looked up and seen the magic "whatever it is" that causes a sudden change of heart and an apology for the inconvenience, I honestly can't think of a single time I've ever had an officer of the law use the formal 您 with me.

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¹ Blatant lie though this may be, I don't have quite the same ability to do anything about it as I do with the foreigner license.

² I know I pay her to be awesome but the woman is still a saint

At some time after the school was renovated in 2004, it reverted to being a temple

However, they left all the school stuff there

Today's ride: 72 km (45 miles)
Total: 1,544 km (959 miles)

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