What happened over the last couple of days was a huge bummer, but it pales in comparison to what happened during my first attempt at this in 2003.  

At that time I got as far as Ningde from the same place I started.  Back then I had to turn around and the elusive goal of Fuzhou was out of reach.  I was hoping the whole thing would go without a hitch this time to make up for the former disaster, but clearly this area is a magnet for trouble and things going wrong.  

One of these days before I leave China for good I'm going to ride this whole thing without a hitch.

Anyways, the tour back then in 2003 was my first major one in China.  I had just finished a job teaching English at a training center, and left with over 15,000 rmb in cash savings.  The goal was to bike from Wenzhou to Fuzhou as a warmup.  After that I would take a train to Shenzhen and fly to Bangkok for the first time.  The idea would be to upgrade my teaching credentials and start a new life in Thailand. 

This sort of happened, but didn't.  The teaching credentials were updated and I was captivated by Thailand and started living there for a few months.  But a romantic relationship that didn't go very well, combined with some untimely deaths in the family ended up kaiboshing this Thailand chapter of my life and for whatever reason I was back to China again.

Anyways, at at the time, everything was done in cash.  Not wanting to openly display all the cash I had when buying stuff etc... I put it in a wallet separately and used smaller amounts each time.  Most of this smaller cash was kept inside the paper map book that I used, i.e. no electronic maps at that time of course.  It wasn't the brightest system at all, but at the time I did what I could.  

The first day of the trip in 2003 was pretty much the same as the one now, except the bridge out of Rui'An only had two lanes and was manned by cops stopping bikes that I had to dodge successfully.  The second day over the mountains was such a killer in comparison to what I did this time.   Back then I only made it as far as Zhirong and then stopped for the night.  The third day I found a hotel in Fu'An.  Since it was summer, it was super hot and most of the winds were going in the other direction, i.e. strong headwinds from the south.  It made for some very difficult cycling.

Once in Fu'An that is where the shit hit the fan.  I made the big mistake of putting aside my wallet full of all the cash inside a hotel drawer and then forgot about it the next day.  Seems silly now I've gotten so much better at touring.  As for why I did that at the time it makes no sense, but it was part of the process to help me develop an air-tight system for minimalism that I use on all tours now

Back then, the problem wasn't discovered until a few days later.  I biked to Ningde and stayed in a hotel.  It was the next day while starting the first mountain pass towards Fuzhou that I reached into my bag to check for my cash stash and it was missing.  I was devastated!  Since I couldn't recall which hotel I had lost it in, the only thing to do was go back and try all three:   Ningde, Fu'An, and Zhirong.   To this day still I can't remember what I did with the bike.

All I remember is that none of the hotels could find what I was looking for.  From that point on, somehow I made it back to Shanghai.  Most probably I took minibuses back to the Ningde hotel then a sleeper bus back to Shanghai.  The brain can't remember details from so long ago.

Somehow life went on.  I sorted out my things for a week at a friend's house, and she was quite accomodating.  She reassured me I would look back at this thing later in life and laugh.  The thought of repeating this same route 18 years later during a pandemic wasn't even remotely on the radar screen.  And even now, it had problems of its own.

Make no mistake about it, cycling this route is a very difficult undertaking.  I wasn't the only one to run into trouble.  A buddy of mine did this on a scooter a few years ago or at least he tried.  Once somewhere out of Wenzhou, most likely the first series of mountain passes, he abandoned his scooter on the side of the road and then took the bus to meet a girlfriend in Fuzhou.  

Back then in 2003, I later got a phone call saying that someone had found the wallet in Fu'An.  So that solved the mystery of which hotel it was, and this jogged the memory of leaving the wallet in a drawer for 'safe keeping'.  Obviously there was nothing of value left in the wallet.  They must have found my number from a business card left behind.  

After sorting out my shit, I was able to catch a a direct flight to Bangkok and went ahead with the teaching credential upgrade.  Due to all this untimely family business, I had to make an emergency flight back to Canada.  Eventually I made a second crack at Thailand and successfully finished the qualification and taught for a few months.  Then I watched a romantic relationship go down the crapper.  

After that, you guessed it, back to China to start over.  Eventually I got back to Shanghai to teach a bit some more, but then it was my Mom who passed away in 2004 and it was rinse and repeat another trip to figure shit out. 

That time it was off to Indonesia where, you guessed it, another romantic relationship that didn't work out.

Anyways, what can you say.  Despite all this convoluted mess and twists and turns, setbacks and snags, life somehow found a way of working itself out.  That's mainly why I cycle tour, it proves the journey is most definitely not linear.  The journey is also ongoing that is for sure.