D22: 杨桥 → 河源

June 13, 2023

A road like this is only okay because of the non volume of traffic

I didn't have too much trucky riding to deal with today. Mind you, I had to add over 20km to my day in order to achieve this status but it was twenty well appreciated kilometers.

I thought the issue with the broken hoojithingbob where you "Insert Key for Power" was hilarious. Even with it being so brand new that the side road up to their (and their neighbors') building isn't paved yet, this hotel was stupid nice for the price and area¹. I also didn't have a problem with being attacked by the vent fan while showering. However, although I specifically made a point of not tagging the hotel, I didn't notice their name on the room key, and the owner is far less amused than I am by my video.

To ameliorate this, I leave a comment that they're actually quite nice.

Probably a Martyrs Memorial but I'm not going through the underbrush to find out

Definitely a Martyrs Memorial but I'm not climbing the stairs

First couple of kilometers for the day are still the truck route with the unnecessary narrow non-shoulder but I find an alternative route during a "it's not really breakfast after all the pastry I had" stop in town for a local specialty² that is so unexciting I'm only managing to finish it on account of knowing that salt and protein and fluids are Good For Me.

Although the intermediate destination—the Resistance Against the Japanese Well—which will be required in order to force the GPS to put me on the alternative route is a marked historical site, it's one that I'm not expecting to be interested in and not at all surprised to find uninteresting.

While the Well itself is unexciting, the road to and from the Well feature all sorts of fun stuff from century old farmhouses covered in layers of 50s, 60s, and 70s propaganda to a somewhat confusing³ marker from only 5 or 6 years ago indicating that this is where an Educated Urban Youth Resettlement Camp was located in the 70s.

Some of the amazing old buildings on my route

70s slogans hidden behind modern paper couplets

With the threat of rain remaining nothing more than a threat for the majority of the day, relatively cool temperatures, and being waved down by a couple on a fancy Honda motorcycle (who aren't followers of mine but who know about "the Cyclist in the Stupid Hat" because who knows how many motorized tribe members have waved at me or included pictures of me in their Tour Reports these past three years), it's overall a pretty good day with no great excitement nor particular issues⁴.

It starts pissing down rain just before I get to my hotel but the front desk (who later lends me an umbrella for my walk to dinner) seems to be the kind of lady who is just genuinely nice rather than one who has been tricked into being nice because I'm pathetic and bedraggled looking.

The city where I will spend the night looking closer than it actually is

¹ I'm told it will eventually be off-site short term furnished housing for skilled factory workers that don't want to live in work provided dormitories. Except that the factories also haven't finished moving in yet.

² Multiple shops in a row advertising that they had Local Meatballs in broth, I had to try it.

³ Confusing because sending the urban youth "up the mountains and down to the countryside to learn rural wisdom" was much much earlier than the dates on the stone and I had thought it completely ended by then.

Wooden bars, stone window frame, rammed earth walls

Under construction solar farm over a water feature

⁴ One of the places where I stop to get a sports drink and eat another of Mary's donuts is aggressively passive aggressive about not really wanting me to sit in her shop/living room but I choose to pretend that the niceties are coming from a position of niceness as I needed to rest at the time.

Keeping the cars off this no longer safe bridge

It's still the shiniest and biggest building in this town

Today's ride: 63 km (39 miles)
Total: 1,269 km (788 miles)

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