D2: 白莲 → 临高

January 27, 2024

Despite the sound and light isolation, I sleep poorly. My fitness tracker tells me I've got a sleep score of 75 (whatever that means) but—even if my REM weren't unusually low¹—I also have a number of bad dreams that I don't quite remember but which leave me feeling anxious and angry when I wake up. Given the role that Chinese Boyfriend played in what I remember of my dreams, I suspect, but can't in any way confirm, that this may be due to it being very nearly one year since Presumably Not Dead² Friend's final message to me to be safe on my 2023 Round the Island Ride and keep him up to date with lots of photos.

On top of that, the voltage in this room isn't as strong as it is in my apartment and my (please don't laugh at me) electric mattress pad is struggling to keep the bed warm.

Morning view of the laobacha mentioned in yesterday's entry

Wonder how many years the Traffic Police have been using this same sign for their Chunyun Spring Festival Migration safety check

Whatever the reasons may be, I'm awake at not even a quarter past 7am and eating hot food and putting clothes on feel like enough of a better idea than staying in bed that I'll be fed, packed, and out the door by an unheard-of-for-me 9:23. That's not only with oatmeal³, but also coffee!

There's an interesting looking old village directly to the south of the town where I spent the night but it isn't fully on any of my potential routes and it's cold and gray and drippy in ways that won't lend themselves to either good photos or good exploring opportunities. Instead, I go due west and get a less Recognized old village with a 19th century⁴ temple and a undated⁵ but old gate in the non-existent village walls⁶.

Another new depiction of my favorite mural template

This one is new to me. I like the juxtaposition of modern and traditional with the rocket and the Great Wall

Shortly after the village of Ping-Pong Ridge, I discover why Maps tried to get me to take a 5km detour around the obviously through road that I had to put multiple intermediate waypoints on in order to force myself to be routed the way I wanted to be. I think, if I had a full suspension mountain bike with no luggage I might have managed not walking any of it, but that's an iffy "think."

Stopping for a most unsatisfying⁷ lunch at a Shaxian Snacks in Fucheng Town, I look at the cold mizzle that's thinking of becoming a drizzle and cut short the day to intentionally include some main road. Enticed by a street sign pointing at one of those Old Villages that doesn't seem to have anything Old (or even Olde) about it, I'll still end up back on back roads for 10 out of the last 25km but my day is maybe 5km shorter than it would have been. As the delicate skin of down below needs to reacclimatize to a full day in the saddle, this was probably a wise decision.

Something like this, paved but covered in wet leaves is much worse

Highlight of the day turns out not to be the old men who invite me over and pour me glasses of hot green tea in front of a late 19th century shophouse, nor is it the uniquely Hainanese aspects of the Lin'gao Confucian Temple. Instead, it's my hotel. More specifically, my hotel owner's mother.

I last saw her on I think it was Day 6 of last year's Round the Island Ride when she was working the Front Desk of a different family owned budget property on the far other side of Hainan. Like 140km away from here!

19th century Yan Family Shophouse. I got to go inside but there weren't very many interesting architectural details and the person who invited me inside was apprehensive of my taking photos of the inside of her home

I'd originally thought the building was sandstone, but sandstone doesn't have rebar

¹ Both in terms of "normal" ranges and my own data over the past six months.

² His phone number, which he also wasn't answering, never stopped working; and I sometimes see that his username on Douyin is currently online.

³ Coconut flavor protein powder, sesame oil, sweetened condensed milk, raisins, sunflower seeds, and a salt-preserved hard boiled egg.

I feel like, if I had been willing to go down through the mud to read the detailed text on the stelae, this would have turned out to be something interesting. Certainly, there is no reason for a big hand carved volcano rock dedication stone to be matched with either the bridge I was on, or the small concrete bridge below

There is absolutely nothing unique or interesting about this bridge. However, despite the prosaic arched stone construction, and bog standard boring machine carved granite railings, it opened to traffic in 1925!

⁴ For values of 19th century that include razed in the early 1970s and immediately rebuilt as soon as that madness was obviously over and done with.

⁵ For all the people, both Chinese and non-, who tell me to ask locals about history and art stuff: they are mostly useless! Sure, they sometimes turn out to be a wealth of information (that might even be correct), but they mostly answer questions like "when is this building from" with phrases like "antiquity".

19th century temple that dates to 1979 and which was refurbished in 2001

⁶ I know of cases where City Walls were razed in the 1920s to make way for modernization so, much as the loss of Beijing's Walls is the fault of the current regime, this isn't one of those cut and dry, black and white situations where you can easily point fingers.

⁷ After asking if the fried noodles came with meat and being told "yes," I was given vegetarian noodles. When asked why, they said it was because I didn't ask to have meat added. I also can't think of any time a Shaxian Snacks has been so gosh darn stingy with the peanut sauce.

Dumplings I had after the noodles weren't enough

Today's ride: 62 km (39 miles)
Total: 118 km (73 miles)

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