In 2017, I went from Longgang to the nearby reservoir and round the edges until I found myself flipping a mental coin east or west on which way I would go the shortest distance before finding lodging. Thus, I spent the night in what was trying to be a nice hotel in Xinwu Village but which had no real chance of succeeding so long as the main street hadn't yet been oxbowed off from the truck route and every single fucking vehicle the entire goddamned night to approach the 90° turn felt the need to honk a warning at any drivers that might be coming their way.

It was for this reason that I took the route through Jiajiayuan with the intent of going to Honggang. I knew it wouldn't be as pretty as the frankly stunning reservoir road had been but I figured, what with it being a national road of the older, no longer backbone variety, it couldn't be that bad.

So, of course, someone went and stuck a mountain in my way.

I may be down more than 10kg already this Tour but I've been doing relatively flat regions and even if three or four kilometers of uphill isn't really a mountain, when combined with the heat of my not waking up at a reasonable hour it kicked my butt badly enough that I had to walk.

Didn't like the prices of the restaurant located at the pass, wasn't smart enough to ask the prices I was going to get charged by the steam table fast food place until after I'd eaten.

Cranky from the heat and from a poor night's sleep on a wooden cot, I skipped visiting a number of signposted clusters of old buildings of the sort I was bound to like¹, spent thirty minutes at the corner store in Xinwu sucking down cold drinks and avoiding the attention of a drunk guy who kept trying to sniff my hair², was baffled by my inability to find anything the slightest bit familiar in the town of Jiugongshan which I thought was where I had slept the night after Xinwu³ and was where I needed to choose my preferred mountain pass for crossing into Jiangxi, and eventually found myself in a vaguely restaurant shaped combination hotel and karaoke in Chuanwang.

Overall, despite the scenery, and despite the interesting buildings and a wealth of slogans on topics I only recently gained the background knowledge necessary to appreciate, it was a pretty meh day.

¹ Given that I definitely liked the non signposted buildings scattered along the roadside and had liked the cluster in Chuanwang back in 2017.

² He had the sense not to try directly asking me out on a "date" but that didn't stop him from clumsily trying all sorts of other suave moves that really only work when the object of your attention actually wants attention.

³ I did have a short day that day. It was not however that short.