D10: 东方 → 江边

January 21, 2025

From Dongfang it would be a simple thing to follow the Coastal Tourism Highway south in the direction of Sanya. The problem lies in the location of clusters of lodging.

Even accounting for detours I haven't made to places that have been on the Map of All Things for some years now, I either have to go far too short a distance or I have to go what potentially may be farther than I like.

Or, I can go up into the mountains to the Daguang Reservoir and a road which I think I last did on that very first Round the Island nearly 20 years ago with Ecurie Tianya¹ what was then the only bike club in Hainan².

I love the juxtaposition of a small grocery store named "Shuangbaotai³ Animal Feed" in Chinese, "WELCONE" in English, and who are using the discounted sign templates from a Red Bull knockoff

I'm pretty sure I've been on it in a car at least once since then, but the west side of the island is less developed than the east and this particular corner is an area which generally requires far too many days of cycling or hours of driving to get to.

Frequently on stuff too unimportant to have made it into the Open Street Maps database, I'm mostly on county-level numbered routes today. There are substantial signs of relatively recent tourism related widening, regrading, and repaving, but fairly few signs that this has brought anything to the region beyond more conveniences for farmers.

I'm not complaining.

First slogan about "emancipating the mind"

I don't ever recall previously seeing a a "don't chuck stuff out the windows of moving cars" sign

So far as I'm concerned, this is practically the best of both worlds.

So far as the lady I talk to who is combing excess buds off of trees in her mango orchards⁴, tourists—especially the ones from northeast China who fly down to winter here—are pests that cause far more trouble than they are possibly worth.

I don't let her know that one of the reasons (other than curiosity) I'm asking her what she's doing is because I'm supposed to be finding local people to talk to that will look good in the Cycling Hainan Promo. Instead, I make a video with her that's just for my accounts on the topic of "wild fruit" and how a lack of fences doesn't ever mean that crops are un-owned⁵.

Please don't steal the fruits of my labor

Shortly after this, I leave the farm roads I've been on for the past hour or so and get back onto the fabulous black asphalt of the Rainforest Road, and signs⁶ of more farmers that don't necessarily dislike tourism but who clearly dislike tourists.

I'm trying to find somewhere to pee when I notice an ID card in the gutter. This video ends up going out before the "wild fruit" one, and it's kind of telling how the southern half of the island views everyone from northeast China by just how many people in the comments immediately assume the only way she could have dropped her ID there is if she was stealing⁷.

One more big climb before the day is over. The coffee car parked at the top indicates that even though I'm not seeing very many folks, there are enough to make it worthwhile to try selling drinks.

I don't see an espresso machine⁸ and she says she doesn't have any plain water she is willing to sell me, so I'm like "kBai, going down..."

Skip the Baicha Li Ethnicity Boat Shaped Houses site where they've rescued and touristified some of the huts that the local people used to live in as well as used them for the basis of "hut shaped" resort accommodation on the grounds that it's developed enough, uniquely interesting enough, and now enough easier to get to that—if I just wait—someone will almost certainly pay me to go.

Getting drunk and brawling during family reunions is apparently an issue in this village

Then I'm in Jiangbian. I've found the hotel. Found the police station. Given them the woman's ID. And am getting checked in to the last second floor room when a car pulls up and gets the last two third floor rooms.

Then, I wander the street⁹ in search of dinner, coming back with a selection of cooked veg that makes me wish I'd already found a place to replenish the oatmeal supplies I decimated during my sick day.

¹ Their Chinese name 天涯骑驴 is something like "Donkey Riders at the Far Ends of the Known Works" but since Tianya is also a name for Hainan, I went with "Ecurie" for "a club of car or horse enthusiasts"

² As the number of cyclists grew, it was inevitable that other shops would open and other clubs would form. What was not inevitable was the hissy fit the bike shop owner would throw over anyone who wanted to do things with other organizations†.

† She even went so far as to alienate one of the founding members of her club on the grounds of a different manufacturer offering his team over 5× as much in available sponsorship funds.

³ Who are, themselves, a name brand of animal feed

⁴ This ensures that all of the trees' energy is devoted to a smaller number of possible fruits, and makes for bigger, juicier, sweeter fruit.

Watch out for idiots wandering across the road

A non touristified original hut. Obviously not lived in for some years

⁵ Even though I had heard of it, prior to watching an auntie collect the "obviously unwanted" excess dishes at a Sanyuesan† Long Table Banquet where I and the other foreign guests had needed to be moved because people without entry tickets had stolen our seats, I thought this "problem" was nothing more than exaggeration about something that had maybe happened once or twice and this made it into urban legend.

† New Year's on a number of the traditional calendars of China's ethnic minorities (including both the Li and the Miao), the very Han-centric Chinese name translates as "the third day of the third month"

A crop that I'm pretty sure isn't pitaya but which has grow lights¹⁰

The place where I had lunch has a fax number on their very old sign

⁶ Recently installed barbed wire fences between the orchards and the verge of the road as well as plenty of handwritten: "you will be charged 100y for every mango you are caught taking."

⁷ Given the level of services along this section of the road, I'm more inclined to think she was also busting to pee

⁸ China is currently traveling the Japanese path of coffee appreciation

⁹ Singular. There is but one street to wander.

¹⁰ They run them at night to force the crop to grow faster

Recognizable local scenery on the wall paintings

Today's ride: 69 km (43 miles)
Total: 629 km (391 miles)

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