Day R17: Sailed Through the Checkpoint

January 11, 2023

One of my fitness coach friends gave thiw analogy: the exit from the pandemic is like jet lag. The body and mind need some time to process what happened and to catch up. So before the first international trip happens in almost 3 years, it only makes sense to expand the recovery rides and bike across a provincial border as a warmup.

As it turns out, the busiest provincial border is actually the closest one to my house. It is also the one where a subway line goes across, basically the only inter-provincial line in China. This is quite a big deal given how most development in China is intra-provincial.

Even months before and after the lockdown, this line was shut down and terminated before the provincial border. It was literally not possible to pass either way without a quarantine, even as late as the end of June. When things finally opened up, it was a ruckus of red tape involved if people actually commuted across the border. Many thousands did. There are in fact 100,000 daily commuters who live in the nearby city called Kunshan and ride the train to downtown Shanghai every day.

Unfortunately, "cities" in China are not like how we associate them in the west. They are effectively provinces with massive land areas and with strictly controlled borders. Just think of them as gigantic compounds and you're getting the right idea. This is precisely how they were able to control the Wuhan lockdown so tightly, and of course the same thing in Shanghai later.

So inter-provincial commuters would first apply for a pass, then they would get off the train at the border, walk across, do a bunch of checkpoints, and get transportation on the other side.

This is what people actually had to do back then

Show the QR code with negative PCR test results to pass this border

If you didn't, you would be turned around

Basically it says you must present the commuting pass with the negative PCR results

Now fast forward about six months. I was now going to bike across this gauntlet myself. It couldn't have been a better day with yet more warm temperatures and amazing sunshine. There was a tailwind as I whisked along the main highway and enjoyed these conditions.

An interesting little convenience store popped up mid-route where you had to sneak into a compound in order to access the store. Intrigued, I figured this was worth a shot. At the right time I found an opening in the gate when someone was leaving and went for it. Had this happened a mere few months ago I would have run a serious risk of being locked down inside the compound. There were several well-known documented cases where this precisely happened. But now it was back to normal, and this convenience store ended up being an awesome find.

This was actually the idea location to chill for a coffee and start planning an Airbnb route for the upcoming Texas portion of this trip

I got to the provincial border in no time and was rather astonished that it was even a border, given all that just happened before.

The two sides blended together so well that they were indistinguishable and it was hard to know where the border even was. That's how much things had changed over the last few months. I managed to pinpoint the exact location of the original photo with the barbed wire fences across the border and the myriad of checkpoints for commuters who had to walk across.

Back to late June, one such person said "I first took the [subway] to Anting in Shanghai, and then walked through the border checkpoint to Kunshan. I updated my PCR test result every day to renew my pass. Nothing difficult but taking some time. Now it takes me an extra hour to get home. Everything has advantages and disadvantages. These commuter rules are good for every one's health. I can understand them."

Who is she even kidding.

Today I proved I could bike that entire commute, including the border crossing, in less time than it took her to do all that shit on the subway back in June. With that backdrop in mind, it was beyond surreal to just rock up to the checkpoint today and sail across on a bicycle without seeing any reminders of what happened in the past. Everything was all packed up and gone: the green fences, cameras, PCR stations, and people in hazmat suits checking passes.

Unreal. It's like the lockdown never happened. Food delivery bikes are even going back and forth the wrong way.

There's the border. Blink twice and you miss it

What's in the next province? Nothing much different from the first one. The whole area all blends together.

The urban development of this area has changed so much that maybe the wester concept of city design might be more appropriate. Instead of these massive large adminstrative "cities", why not just redesignate it a province and designate all the smaller areas as cities.

Not that things will ever change. Covid proved that the current setup is exactly how the governments wants it, and in future emergencies they can lock everydone down again very easily if they wanted to. It was not about covid nor as it ever. You tell me if making commuters go through all that shit back then had any effect on stopping covid. But it was sure nice to put all that behind us and move on as today's ride achieved.

Due to some pressing business back at my place I had to abandon the ride and lock the bike to a pole near a subway station. In other words, I did the exact thing I didn't want to do yesterday, and the Montague will end up staying there overnight. Not an ideal situation but it is what it is.

Since I was back downtown I then kept the momentum going with bike repairs and tried to get the other bike fixed, the Cannondale commuter. This was a nightmare but it eventually got done. The main issue was trying to find 29" inner tubes which few stores had and they all refused to do a simple tire patch. In the end it was all sorted.

Today's ride: 75 km (47 miles)
Total: 754 km (468 miles)

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