August 21, 2022
D72: 高要 → 更合
It's another one of those days where AMap is taunting me by showing Historical and Cultural Sites of Interest that I can visit which, when I get to them, don't exist. I mean, yes, there was a ceremonial arch, that much it's true, it's just that it was built in 1995.
I tell myself that the routing which I was taken on on account of aiming for this particular locationless pin allowed me to go on prettier, more rural roads; but, I don't know for sure that those roads were actually more interesting than the roads I wasn't on. I'm close enough to a city that there's a decent chance of the older main roads that I might have been on having gone through waves of development that left a variety of styles of building, whereas the rural that I've got is all pretty new within the past decade.
The morning starts with a trip to a riverside Catholic church and old town built beneath the railroad bridge and above a wharf that's no longer there. Only the plaza in front of the church is bike accessible and nothing I can see from it excites me enough into considering climbing up and down a bunch of stairs.
While I'm there, I do get a lovely new addition to my Rural Safe Electricity Usage series of public safety announcements, which, on account of some really interesting artistic symbolism¹, I would have liked to have made a video on, except the mosquitoes were feasting on me and I assumed having seen it once in this region that I'd see it again.
The lunch I order is one of those seems overpriced until the massive dish full of food comes out. Not sure if it, my breakfast, or yesterday's dimsum is what causes the later upset stomach but I'll be both gassy and constipated² for the next few days. Dinner, when I have it, is a handful of raisins.
A fan who lives in Yangjiang and who owns some sort of holiday village type facility has told me that if the Covid situation on Hainan continues the way it has, I can come stay at his place for a few weeks free of charge (probably meaning "make promotional stuff about my place, okay"). He'd originally said the 23rd but, now that I'm getting close and contacting him, he's saying "after the 27th" and it's going to take a lot of circuitous wandering to slow me down to the point where it takes that long to get there.
Which, along with distribution of hotels and the inevitable emergency work breaks that take place throughout the day is why I pick where I pick as tonight's destination.
Another second floor lobby, they don't have online booking so I haven't paid in advance but I have called in advance and checked all the actually relevant (read: legally valid) policies so they know I'm coming, they just don't know I'm a foreigner. Because they don't need to know.
This time I've already figured out how to work their keycard system to validate a card and let me into a room (paid for, of course) before the police arrive.
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¹ Stuff like the guys stealing copper wire being the nattiest dressed with leather shoes and belts and expensively dyed shirts
² It starts with a very very sudden bout of diarrhea after which I take a single Pepto. It will take most of a week before I'm once again getting most of my calories from things other than drinks.
Today's ride: 50 km (31 miles)
Total: 4,097 km (2,544 miles)
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