D6: 东城 → 那大

January 15, 2025

Revolutionary Martyr's Memorial being used to dry vegetables

Last night's hotel didn't have an elevator and I didn't feel like carrying the food and coffee bags¹ (or anything other than the primary pannier) upstairs so I had to go out to eat breakfast.

Which means I finally got to use my gas stove instead of the mini electric burner Sarah got me for my last birthday².

I'm not sure exactly what changed in terms of Chinese people's behaviors, or if it's just this location, but it's not been that many years since making a cup of coffee at a morning breakfast stall would have gotten me surrounded by people asking all kinds of questions. Instead, other than a "ooh, fresh ground" comment from someone who recognizes that I'm making coffee, I'm left blissfully undisturbed as people go on about their own business without making me their day's entertainment.

Sharks and sushi are matching socks, right?

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED, first hotel dog of the Tour

I'm still trying to find something like the little titanium mug there where t is possible to stack cups

By creating an extra wiggly route that goes through Paris Village and spends next to no time on anything greater than a Y-road³, I'm able to get my distance from Dongcheng to downtown Danzhou up to just under 50 kilometers.

Add in reconnaissancing the café that I'm scheduled to do tandian⁴ at the next day and, by the time I get to my hotel, I'll definitely have the minimum 50.

The weather is gray and unexciting, but it's warmed up enough by the time I'm fed and caffeinated that thoughts of pulling out my insulated tights have fled and I never go beyond three layers on my upper half⁵.

Stopping at a pharmacy to get more icyhot patches for my still grumpy left hand⁶, I was very amused by the advertising for a Viagra-clone that might have active ingredients

Further convincing me of the uselessness of most things involving TCM⁷, in addition to a good two thirds of the available patches neglecting to so much as list if they had any active ingredients⁸, the pharmacist was taking perfectly good pills, crushing them in a mortar, measuring them out with a teaspoon(!), and wrapping them up as compounded medicine

Former Site of a Printing Press used by the communists during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the Liberation of Hainan

Even with a really quite enjoyable dirt road for a goodly chunk of the morning, the scenery is also pretty unexciting. I mean it's pretty, but I'm coming up on my twenty first anniversary living on the island and, on gray days like today, it needs to be more than just "pretty" in order to be inspiring.

Super glad that I stumbled across an old general store with a painted sign no more recent than the late 80s as the village of Paris proved decidedly uncooperative with regards to having anything⁹ I could photo or video in order to publicly and sarcastically comment on the name¹⁰.

I've since been told this probably dates to the late 70s

I find the juxtaposition of this sign and this old building with public outdoor furniture to be especially interesting

Apropos of nothing much, it was sufficiently windy when I stopped near this temple that I peed on my socks

Even if you aren't haring off onto the little farm roads, its a good route though for heading in to Danzhou, much better than the primary car road, so I'll probably come this way again and I'll maybe get a chance some other time.

Lunch of Korean-style fried chicken, tteokbokki, a mystery drink that I mostly ignored, and a lot of tangerines¹¹, then rest of the way in to the city only to discover that the Chinese/American couple I know because we were both invited to be paid content creators for the same event by Danzhou Tourism and who I'd been hoping to finally get to meet face to face were in Yangpu near where I'd been the day before.

Not only is he barefoot (which is rare), he's got shoes that he isn't wearing

By the way, I have no idea who any of these are

Found the café, decided it looked like someplace I'd be willing to consider going to without making my own coffee or breakfast first, and—just as I was trying to figure out if I was going to hotel first or dinner first—got something urgent from the Media Center that decided me in favor of the "it looks edible" Thai restaurant I'd just passed.

More than just "edible," they've got Thai cooks and I'm starting to wonder if Thailand's Tourism Bureau has decided that Hainan is a worthy place to invest in restaurants¹² cause there's an awful lot of actually good Thai restaurants popping up.

Oddly enough, the place where I had lunch had the same North, South, East, West paper talismans¹³ as this temple

Achievement Unlocked, first dirt road of the Tour

From the new bridge looking at the old bridge and an aqueduct

I wasn't even making a video or showing any signs of making a video, but the boss lady recognized me so I got given some Kaya Toast, and a random small meat dish to go along with the Tom Yum soup and Mango Sticky Rice that I ordered.

Then, off to my not quite chosen entirely at random cheap hotel¹⁴ for the first refused registration of the Tour. Cause registering me is just too hard to figure out and the police probably won't care or notice¹⁵.

¹ Considering that I was grousing about being hungry, and that I eventually solved this problem via a "Person with Eating Disorder" fashion by just drinking lots of flavored water and eating some of the dried whampee, I'm aware that going back down to get my food bag probably would have been a good idea. However, the room had heat, the hallways didn't, and I wasn't hungry for oatmeal.

No reason given, but I'm guessing "proximity to drinking water reservoir"

Achievement Unlocked, first building with rammed earth unfired bricks

² Which is the fourth generation of smaller and smaller hotplates since my lawyer friend pointed out to me that maybe I shouldn't make videos of me blatantly violating Chinese fire code.

³ Village-level numbered route

⁴ Visiting as a content creator for a free meal in return for a short video that has an affiliate link

⁵ I can max out at three jerseys, one underlayer, a thermal vest, and a windbreaker

⁶ Still not sure what the hell I did but it mostly isn't bothered by biking and icyhot patches on the tendons in the middle of my lower arm seems to be the most helpful

It's less a question of "what's wrong with the imagery in this advertisement" than it is "what isn't wrong"

I got a drink because my meal came with a drink. When ordering, I tried to find out what drink came with the meal and was told "yes, a drink." It had some fizz and did not appear to be Coke or Pepsi

⁷ Traditional Chinese Placebo

⁸ I'm not expecting lidocaine or anything like that but I'd like to at least see clove oil or menthol†

† Literally meaning "brains of mint," this is one of my favorite Chinese words

⁹ One KTV, one hotel, and a pesticides shop, with the latter being the only one that one wouldn't think might be naming themselves "Paris" because Paris is cool.

¹⁰ Last year's visit to America Village got something like half a million views.

Whatever cycling related event was held on these roads, the local government deemed it important enough to paint the road with proper road paint

¹¹ 10 yuan for a kilo and a half and I didn't have much in the way of leftovers

¹² The Thai government actually has a known long-standing policy of supporting the establishment of Thai restaurants in places that might be a source of inbound tourism to Thailand.

¹³ 北海姜太公 North Ocean General Jiang, 东鲁孔夫子 East Shandong Sage Confucius, 南山钟进士 South Mountain Scholar Zhong, 西岐周文王 Western Lands King Wen of Zhou

¹⁴ Bearing in mind that my reasoning for staying at very cheap hotels is because I want the better service that comes from a place run by the people who own it, I actually spend a fairly significant amount of time going through the pictures of the cheap hotels trying to determine if they are "cheap because old" or "cheap because crappy."

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED, first petrol station toilet¹⁶ of the Tour

Male statue for Jake and one of two pairs of lions where both of them have mouth balls¹⁷

Tom Yum soup, Mango Sticky Rice, something meat that I didn't order, and Kaya Toast that I didn't order

¹⁵ Since learning that all fines for failed registration are to be borne by the hotel, I'm less insistent that it's really not that hard and I can do it for them.

¹⁶ Note that, unlike tourist sites or mall toilets (which are for everyone), petrol stations are for a class of society that expects things like soap and live plants

¹⁷ While checking for Jake to see if statues in northern China were anatomically endowed, Dr. M noticed that both the male and female of all the pairs we were passing on the Yellow River Road had mouth balls†. Which is apparently unusual. And is now one more thing I've got to check on all the statues I pass.

This may be the smallest elevator I've successfully put my bike in

I'm not sure what's more unusual, the mirror facing the bed¹⁸, the installation of a curtain and curtain rod over the mirror facing the bed, or the old school "do not disturb" hang tag

Can someone please explain how a hotel room that cost me less than 50y per night can afford to have this TV in it?

† At least when they are made out of stone, the freely moving ball in the mouth of a lion, dragon, or Qilin statue is carved at the same time the statue is carved. No idea how they get them in there with metal statues.

¹⁸ Bad Feng Shui

As is traditional everywhere in the world, a NO DUMPING sign next to a large pile of dumped garbage

The kind of shit people in the countryside advertise

Today's ride: 50 km (31 miles)
Total: 350 km (217 miles)

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