Surprise! It's another Rest Day. I'm going to do some riding first but not much and then I'm going to discover that I've completely used up all the brake compound on the front brake and that my (insufficient amount of) knowledge of brake adjustments means that the rear isn't really stopping either.

But, I've seen like five medium distance coaches coming my way since I started this morning and at least three of those have overtaken me on their way back to the city they came from so, for reasons that totally aren't my still feeling exhausted, I'm going to sit by the side of the road in front of a quite pleasant early Qing Ancestral Temple and wait for the bus.

When I get off the bus a very jangled hour after I get on, I ooze my way in the direction of the bike shop, doing everything in my power to attempt to not need to stop the bike as the only good method I've found is dragging my feet on the ground. I probably ought to walk but it's a good 4 or 5 kilometers from the station and I'm not a particularly good walker under the best of circumstances.

An hour or so passes while I wait for the bike shop owner to come back from a Covid swab and another hour while he tries to help out with finding someone who knows how to reach the one and only hotel in the town where I would like to spend the night. Eventually, this is determined to be a wash, and I start looking things up in the city.

I'll pick one of the places whose OTA listing says they take foreigners. I'll call in advance to ask their Covid testing policy. I'll get a swab before I go to the hotel. I'll still have to argue.

It's one of those "I've absolutely been told I'm not allowed to" NFAs and not the "I want you to go away" type, so, once I've forced him into calling the police¹ and had him tell them all the reasons I've refused to leave, they give him painfully slow step by step instructions over the phone on how to find the Foreigner Registration option on the program he already has and how to fill it in.

I'm itching to grab the computer away from him with a "just let me do that" but all the politely worded offers are rebuffed and I'm succeeding at being checked-in one hunt and peck keypress at a time.

Then I get dinner and a two hour massage that, even with a focus on my gassy tummy, makes me realize just how much the other day's mountain took out of me.

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¹ Even if I weren't already into Cantonese speaking territory, it's more effective to have the police called on me than it is to call them myself.