It's not one of those bits of national road that's misery reimagined as a road, but it's still a national road. Whereas yesterday evening, after the hours of constant GPS instructions, I was glad to be on something that required no particular mental effort on my part, today I looked at it and said "this is boring".

I solved that issue by trying to ride as fast as I could for as long as I could, finding ways not to stop at traffic lights, stuff like that. Although not as perfectly paved as the Dullness near Huaqing, this wasn't anywhere near as fast as I felt it ought to be given the terrain, the weather, my rest levels, or the massive fat protein salt bomb I'd eaten that morning at Wallace Fried Chicken¹. 

Decided that my tires could use some air and set my destination to the city's bike shop cluster only to find that the Merida and Giant were the same place and that this place was currently closed (possibly for lunch). I really should have come back after my NAT or lunch² but the morning delays from checking social media and translating government notices plus the time spent getting the necessary Covid test to check in at tonight's hotel had me arriving at the ferry with minutes to spare before 5pm and, as that was when the last ferry stopped running, I felt it was cutting it far too close.

Turns out this ferry wouldn't stop until 6:30 and that more air in my tires would have been a good thing for racing the clock.

Between the need for speed and today's persistent dehydration (which couldn't possibly be related to how fast I was riding), I didn't really notice anything about the scenery on my way to the port. There were times that the road was small and times when it was huge, times when it crossed through a town or village and times when it was nothing but rice paddies and fish farms. There was also one very wide, very straight, very empty stretch with signs for truckers letting them know the alt routes they could take in case of a traffic jam.

Over on the other side of the bay, I hit the jackpot in terms of stunningly beautiful landscape and I dithered my way along half because I didn't have the energy to keep on with putting my head down and pushing and half because I wanted to gawp open mouthed at the scenery.

I'd forgotten that one phone's copy of Maps doesn't have as many bookable options as the other and had called ahead to three or four places to ask their price. The one I picked didn't know Marian-the-Foreigner was coming but they knew a person on a bike tour was coming, that I had a 72 hour validity NAT, and that this afternoon's test should be showing up as complete somewhere around 9pm.

You know I'm mentioning this because they said, when I showed up, that they couldn't take me.

I started out as a relatively friendly steamroller. "Of course you can take me, let me just show you how to do this on your computer." On the nights where it segues into shared contact information or a photo of me with the Front Desk, it's just me being helpful. On the nights where this segues into yelling and police officers, this is considered breaching of social boundaries on my part. 

Tonight was the latter rather than the former and, rather than let me finish showing them how to fill things in, they unplugged the power strip for their computers and scanner and keycard writer.

Now, things were kind of hostile.

Taking all the keycards from the desk and a large ring of keys, I went up in the elevator only to discover that—even if they were the kind of place to label each keycard with a room number—they had one of those systems where the card needed activating. Which obviously wasn't going to happen with the power strip unplugged.

So, I fetched my passport and Form from where I'd left them, put them in my handlebar bag, announced that I was going to get something to eat, and left.

With all the hotel keycards and the large keyring still in my pockets.

You would think that this would have gotten the police called on me. But either it didn't or it wasn't until I separately called the police from where I was sat outside the corner convenience store working on an Important Notice that the police came. I feel like they arrived too quickly after my call for my call to have been what initially prompted them to come but, as noted, I was distracted by paying work.

Mind, the intermittent rounds of Very Loud Yelling between myself and the front desk ayi who had followed me out to stand 15 feet away and glare at me may have gotten some bystander to call in.

"Give me back the hotel keys"

"You'll get them back when you finish checking me in"

"We aren't checking you in"

"Then you aren't getting your keys back"

It sounds harsh in the English. I sound like a bitch. I was a bitch. But I was an in control bitch using the right words like "illegal refusal", "respect the law", and "your behavior is an embarrassment to the Chinese people".

I feel if any call to the police had come from the hotel, the police might have been slightly less sympathetic towards me. Certainly, as we were walking to the hotel to check me in, when I started pulling handfuls of keycards out of my pockets and returning them to the ayi, they seemed surprised by this added wrinkle.

While all this had been going on, I had discovered that my primary phone had the ability to book online and pay for a room so I'd done that. All checked-in with only a few minor hiccups over figuring out how to get the passport info page picture attached, I ask about a deposit and am told "pay the room rate". 

"Yeah, no, I paid online."

"Yeah, no, we refused that booking."

Which is how, as I was opening the door of my room and turning on the lights, I got a call from the OTA's Customer Service letting me know that unfortunately my originally booked hotel was unable to take me due to local government policy regarding foreigners and asking if I needed help booking somewhere else.

"There is no such policy"

"The local government recently issued new rules for foreigners so the hotel regrets to inform you that they can't take you."

"That's not true."

"Unfortunately we can't change government policy, but we can try to get you a booking somewhere else"

"I mean it isn't government policy."

"Sorry, what?"

"And the police were very angry at the hotel about that. Said that it was a mark of poor upbringing and bad manners."

"I don't understand."

"When the police told the hotel they had to take me, that it was illegal to refuse to take me, they also chewed them out over their bad manners and inappropriate behavior. I'm in the room now."

"You're in the room now?"

"Yes, of the originally booked hotel. I'm so glad that you're calling to tell me my payment through you was cancelled as they insisted that I pay again and I hadn't yet checked if the payment cleared or not."

"Oh. Okay. Um. You have a nice trip and thank you for booking with our company, we hope to see you again."

"I will, thank you very much."

---

¹ I really don't want to know how many WFC means I've had this trip

² The length of time the had passed since the chicken breakfast really made lunch unnecessary but I was feeling particularly dehydrated with a touch of dizzy and soup wontons for the broth and the ability sit indoors and rehydrate really hit the spot