Looking at the topo map, there's a perfectly good river valley that ought to be my way out of this mountain holdfast down to first the provincial Road and then the national one. Judging by how godawful fucking steep the paved road is and knowing that people in ancient times were mixed up between horseback riding, walking alongside ox carts, and some really cool shit with wheelbarrows¹, I think that that's probably where the road used to be. Like maybe there were ways up and over that took into account the ability to visit this particular farm or that particular settlement but I'm thinking it's much more likely that the only reason this is where the modern road is is because this is where the mine was.

I'm pretty sure it's a was and not an is. Not that I've intentionally gotten particularly close to any operational mines but they tend to be busier looking noisier sounding places with less of an air of total abandonment.

Pulling to a photo stop that shouldn't have taken as much forced effort as it did, I decide on the descent both to tighten my brake pads in a little farther and to make the Giant in Xiushui where Myf and I stopped in 2015 a for definite visiting point. I figure I'll be getting there by evening but, long before dark falls, my rear brake² is once again not stopping to the degree I feel comfortable and I decide that a town (with less options for food and lodging) will be better than a county seat (more options, more price ranges, more likelihood of trouble) and Hengkou is really far enough for the day.

If I hadn't stopped on some rural road to emergency translate something for the media client, I probably could have made it. On the other hand, the emergency translation³ not only delayed me to the point of having the golden light of photography's Magic Hour while riding alongside a reservoir road, it also meant that—instead of very nearly almost being in the city—I was happily eating dinner in Hengkou when the skies opened up and began pouring like an afternoon thunderstorm in the tropics⁴. 

I mostly like Hengkou. Mostly. The restaurant where I eat dinner is good enough to rate a second visit in the form of an early lunch and the hotel I stay is both reasonably priced and completely unconcerned about registration procedures for a foreigner. 

It's just that the first place I stopped at wanted to gouge me on prices (25 yuan for a vegetarian dish) and was doing that sing-song thing that every asshole in China seems to have individually come up with as The One True Way of mocking a foreigner's tones.

So, yeah, even if the second place I stopped at was both super awesome food at a reasonable price (15y for veg with meat) and nice people and around the corner from a hotel who thought it worthwhile to mention "if you haven't eaten yet, our neighbors have a restaurant", the first place was so downright unpleasant that, rather than make the second look that much better by comparison, just ended up souring me on the whole place.

---

¹ Seriously, look up the one-wheeled Chinese wheelbarrow 

² The only truly easy to adjust one as the front assembly was replaced with something "available" on an occasion when a shop didn't have the replacement brake pads I needed

³ Fortuitously, the emergency translation came in just as I sat down to enjoy a cold drink from some general store in the middle of nowhere and lasted just long enough for the bubble guts to decide I needed to defile their surprisingly nice bathroom.

⁴ After 18 years in Hainan, I've got a lot of experience at "afternoon thunderstorms in the tropics".