January 27, 2021
Day F3: Breakdown in the Mountains
The day started out well enough. After a nice leisurely sleep-in and a chance to do a strength workout in the fitness room before carb loading at the buffet breakfast, I set out across the bridge and through the city.
The cop was quick to stop me at the main traffic light and insist I put on a mask. Not one to argue with a cop, I put on the mask in front of him then took it off at the next traffic light. It makes no sense to wear one outdoors and besides I'm vaccinated.
The hills quickly began and it was a relentless push up many mountain passes for the next five hours. There was one older cyclist literally pushing his bike up this madness, and I wish I had somehow helped him when I had the chance. The failure to do that jinxed my luck later on as you'll see.
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In the thick of the mountains was a small town called Zhirong. The air was fresh, it was very chilly, and the atmosphere was relaxed and lively. There were signs everywhere of normal life! No masks, people laughing, music blaring, markets and shops bustling, and people gathered together in close contact. Just like the pandemic didn't exist. This was the surreal feeling that we all want, and for a brief moment I got to experience it.
After an amazing lunch I set off for a few more ups and downs over ridges. It was slow going but I knew from the 2003 trip that there would eventually be a point that the road drops down all the way into Fu'An.
Sure enough it was at that exact point my front tire went soft. Shit! It couldn't have happened at the worst place. There was a mechanic within the bunch of shacks on the top of the pass, but his air compressor hose didn't fit the one on my front tire. Of all the great work they did back on the bike in Shanghai, this was not what I wanted: they used a tire valve that doesn't fit the standard air compressors or bicycle pumps. So there was nothing the mechanic could do.
Dejected, I pushed the bike to the top of the pass and then folded up. As soon as I did that, some older looking village person said, "Don't ride a bike, call a taxi, it'll cost 150 rmb." I said nothing and just scowled at him. They all think like this, that bikes are outdated transport modes for poor peasants. And besides, we are literally in the middle of nowhere. I can't just flag down a taxi. All the buses have long since stopped running for the day also. Aside from all that, it's not like every day that a foreigner comes along with a folding bike and stops at the top of the highest mountain pass on the road. At the very least you could say something more inspiring than that, assuming of course that he even understands Chinese.
My only option at that point was to push the bike to a hidden area on some side road, then lock it up to a post and abandon it on the top of the mountain. As I did this and came down, the same older village idiot said, "You can't enter this road." I told him, "See if I care" after having locked up the bike twice. The fron wheel was also taken off, so I grabbed all that along with my bags and started walking down the mountain. It was going to be a very, very, very, very long walk.
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It was slow going, but these stairs were a real lifesaver. I could see all sorts of signs of life in that small town, and the sounds of children playing. This town would be a nice launching off point to find either a mechanic and/or a taxi to Fu'An. I stopped in the middle of the stairs to take a phone call. This was my future employer for this coming August but actually the same one I've worked with before somewher else. Long story. He and I had a nice chat about what I would be teaching, and this all happened in the dark on some mountain stairs.
Eventually I made it to the town below and found another mechanic. He confirmed that his air compressor wouldn't work with the tire valve also, and so I kept on walking. As I rounded the corner, an empty taxi showed up and I quickly flagged him down. He offered a mere 20rmb for the ride to Fu'An which was a great deal. As we got chatting, it turns out he had just dropped off a passenger and was heading back into the city. The timing for this could not have been any more perfect.
Once in the city, I made a beeline for McDonald's. If someone had told me at that exact moment while walking down those mountain stairs in the dark that precisely one hour later I would be eating hamburgers and coke in McDonald's, I would think they were crazy. But here we were.
After that, time to check into my hotel booking. It was a failure because they weren't set up to take foreigners. I didn't bother trying to fight this, and just got a refund from trip.com. The hotel guy was super cool about it, after all he doesn't make the rules. We all know it is politics that dictates these things. We had a cool chat and then he offered to use his phone to find a Didi and pay for the taxi to the next hotel I booked that certainly took foreigners.
Once there, checking in was a shitshow. The green health code I showed wasn't enough. They wanted to know details of all my travel history. They helped me install an app that shows where you've been in 14 days, and of course the details of Suzhou and Shanghai came up. They weren't sure how to deal with that, so I volunteered my negative covid test. All of a sudden they were all smiles and no problem. Check in was a breeze after that. It really showed the power of this negative test, and I'm going to keep that in mind. The vaccine certificate I also have with me, and it may end up wielding even more power. We'll see.
Today's ride: 63 km (39 miles)
Total: 294 km (183 miles)
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3 years ago
3 years ago
Quite a number of people have ended up in 5* hotels at no additional charge after their cheap place rejected them.
3 years ago