I have achieved a new high in influencer-dom!

Not that I particularly care about special mineral water¹ and not that it cost very much but I am sufficiently "cool" that random people are willing to just mail me stuff in the hopes that I'll try it out and maybe make a video.

Given that the topic of the video was about them sending me free stuff and not, in any way, about the stuff, I'm even more surprised that my affiliate link resulted in at least one somebody purchasing a case of the special water.

As the whole day was spent on either a National Road or an urban road or an urban road that was also the National Road, this is absolutely the highlight of my day. The people on a motorcycle that stop to get a photo with me², the floating bridge³, even the oh my god this is mind blowingly delicious chocolate coconut ice cream bar I have at the top of the stairs coming off the bridge, they all pale in comparison to the idea that a manufacturer thought I'm cool enough to just send me stuff⁴.

The hotel and the town which I pick for the evening are both an absolute bust. Chosen at around 4pm, I get the idea of cancelling and picking something closer at 5:59, and by the time I've got my app open, it's past the 6:00 pm cutoff of my not having to pay for the room anyways.

I'll arrive to screaming children, an apparent nanny who knows nothing about the hotel rooms, a possible mother who does but who also let's me know—despite being set up with a first floor restaurant—I have to go to the center of town to eat because "fuck him, I'm not cooking", and (after I come back from dinner) an inebriated male boss who has to be extricated from a private dinner party before I can be told that "all the rooms are unlocked, just go upstairs and pick one".

As for the food in town, despite it not yet being 8pm, everything is already in "setting up for late night snacks" mode. As they seem to be the only place still doing meals, I'll pick a 'not dumplings' choice from the menu at a Shaxian Snacks that not only goes Sichuan-level on the green and red peppers, also fails to turn on their extractor fan while cooking and fills the space with stinging smoke.

It's hard to say whether the cherry on top of all this is the Excited by Cyclist pre-teen boys who are just being excited pre-teen boys with whom I share a hobby with and who I cannot allow myself to be annoyed at but who won't leave me in peace to finish my damn meal, or the discovery that when I dropped all my bags at the hotel, I also left my headlight and therefore have to return in the dark.

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¹ Specifically, all natural soda water with "soda" meaning something other than carbonated 

² Amusingly, in helmets and sunglasses with face masks still on 

³ In the dry season, there are apparently visible mooring stones from the historic floating bridge. It is not, however, the dry season right now.

⁴ In fairness, other manufacturers have talked to me about the possibility, but they had things I had even less use for than a case of water.