W3: 红毛

February 2, 2025

My bike had been leaning against the edge of the fish pond for about 90 minutes when it decided to take a bath

Prior to dropping my still fully loaded bike in the ornamental fish pond that's around the outside of the ornamental rice paddy, everything is going great.

As it turns out, although this results in the wetting of every single piece of clothing I'm not currently wearing, both my laptop and my passport escape the dunking, so I suppose it's safe to say that, even after my bike went in the water, everything was still going great.

But, there's just something about the frantic dumping of things from the pannier that the laptop is in in order to confirm that the water didn't get that far in, or fishing your belongings out of the water, that just puts a damper on the whole day.

Also, although I'll have the redoing of all my laundry (including the stuff that had been clean before I did my laundry last night) and paying work to fill a good portion of the day, I don't know what to do at a resort when I don't have any friends¹ around to enjoy the relaxing environment with.

As rural developments integrating poverty alleviation, local agriculture, and tourism go, this may actually be the first place I've been to (on anyone's dime) that I would willingly come back and spend my own money². But only if I had someone else with me.

I just don't know what to do with myself when I'm on my own and I'm not in the process of actively moving between places.

The tea nook with tatami mats can be used as a second bed

I hadn't realized how posh and bougie this place was going to be, and had figured that I was going to be making a video as a sort of "sing for my supper" situation, but I already made that video yesterday, and I've done a morning interview with the county TV station, so my base obligations have already been met.

Also, anything else above and beyond that one very basic "dinner eating" video requires that the staff be a little less actively swamped with rather entitled tourists who are being surprisingly snappish over things like the clearly full restaurant not kicking people out so they can start eating or the 39-room boutique resort not having any last minute additional availability for the person who wasn't on their reservation and doesn't want to go to the definitely Not Posh Location where I slept last night.

Even more than my being a VIP, things like my not demanding that housekeeping hurry up and get my room done now that a full twenty minutes has passed since the last people checked out³, or my going back out to the reception/gift shop area to wait until there was a place for me to eat lunch get me things like a nicely plated lunch tray or a dish of sliced fruit that you know wasn't brought to the guy who just stood outside his door yelling "Housekeeping, housekeeping, service!" because of reasons that seemed to be related to wanting a different room type.

Most of the customers I saw weren't wankers, but I spent enough time round the edges of GuestSpace doing stuff like carrying my clothing up to the roof to hang dry or waiting for my room to be ready while not having anywhere else to go that I got to get a good eyeful of the ones who were.

View of the ornamental rice paddy from the roof of Building A

¹ The very random encounter with the woman who was doing a paid supported parent and child bike trip at Mulan Bay at the same time as Xinhua was filming me in November 2003 doesn't count and the even more random encounter with my editor from the Media Center, her son, and her husband counts even less.

² There have been a few countryside restaurants that I was quite partial to up until I found out what they cost

³ While finding a damp cigarette butt in the lidded ash tray on the tea table is something that irks me, I can also see how crazy busy the staff are right now, and it's not important enough to mention it to anyone.

Today's ride: 2 km (1 miles)
Total: 1,136 km (705 miles)

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