D18: Qi County to Xiaoyi 祁县 → 孝义市

September 24, 2018

Peeling rafter paintings in Qi on top of even older peeling rafter paintings in Qi

A design based off of the above image is available on shirts and bags and stuff in my RedBubble store.

In remembering that I had taken a single day to go from Qi County to Pingyao [平遥] in 2012 before spending the night at a youth hostel in Pingyao, although I'd remembered the nice flat boring plains between the two cities, I'd forgotten just how incredibly close they are to each other. Like really really really close. As a result, I ended up going from Qi to Pingyao on to Xiaoyi [孝义] and turning a day which otherwise would have been "much too short" into one which was instead "much too long".

I started the morning off getting some quality photos of the mansion my hotel was located in. On the basis of what was and was not peeling and the general quality of the artwork, I'd guess somewhere around 70% of the little murals and whatnots under the eaves and atop doorways were modern redos. Some of them were really very well done. Others, not so much. Having seen some of the stuff that's completely detaching itself from the wood because, well, painted artwork which is outside and exposed to sun and rain and wind and winter for 90 years really can't be expected to stay in good condition, I'm not entirely sure what my feelings are on the complete redos. On the one hand, I don't really see much of any way it can actually be preserved. On the other hand, not every person who does a redo is necessarily as skilled as the original artist was (or even very skilled for that matter).

Looking out at the street from the inner courtyard. Traditionally, there would have been a screen of some kind blocking a direct view from the doorway.

Once again, as with six years ago, unless my hotel (which had an entry fee for people who weren't staying there) counts, I did not visit a single one of the museums in Qi. Particularly given the general level of improvement that's been going on in random Chinese museums, I think I'd actually sort of like to visit some of them, but some other time when I'm not on a bike tour.

The kid whose parents' stall I ate breakfast at was a lot of fun and I ended up giving him one of my remaining Vietnamese 10,000₫ bills. I actually offered him the choice between the 10,000₫ note and one of the drilled pennies. He was kind of disappointed though when he realized that even though the note was worth 10,000 units of currency, they were very very small units of currency.

Rafter lions (yes I realize it's green. It's still a lion)

I can't decided whether or not the buildings that weren't fancy are more or less crumbling than the ones that were

I got all turned around in trying to get on the provincial road that runs through Qi down past Pingyao and beyond and nearly ended up on the G108. It looked, if anything, even less appealing than I remembered the provincial road being so it wasn't hard to convince myself to turn around and do lots of GPS checking until I was on the right road. Then, once I was on the right road, it was very obvious as pretty much every item that was even vaguely worth either photographing or remembering was something I had either photographed or remembered.

Not being blocked off by a 13 year old's birthday party makes a big difference

Unfortunately, many of the other changes are superficial and past experience says that the plaster fascia put over top of the tiles that were the original façade on all these buildings to look good (because bathroom tile façades look weird to everyone not a Chinese person from 1993) will eventually begin to peel and slough off

Seeing as last time the Zhenguo Temple [镇国寺] (which is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site) was very much under reconstruction and very much not something I found interesting back in 2012, I was easily persuaded not to brave the roadworks to go check it out. Almost immediately thereafter, I got onto a nominally paved farm road for "something a little more interesting" but, when I turned one road too early and found myself heading back to the main road, I decided that I liked paving that wasn't an exercise in avoiding potholes. Not that this decision stopped me some twenty minutes later from going down a gnarly dirt road to check out some ruins.

I assumed from a quick skim of the information online that the village nearby would have other interesting stuff to see but, if it did, the people I asked didn't know and the ruins, while visually very appealing, also looked like a great place to go break an ankle or get tetanus and I wasn't really up for wandering around them alone.

Being as today was Mid-Autumn Festival, Pingyao wasn't so much crowded as it was completely packed. It's less ticky tacky than it was the last time I was here but it's still very tourist oriented with ninety three copies of the same seventeen successful kinds of shops. Last time it was candy makers, Pingyao beef, handwoven scarves, and doumbeks. This time there seemed to be a bit more differentiation but, even so, the majority of the old city has long since stopped being a place where people live in favor of becoming a place where tourists visit and that's just not the sort of thing I like.

"Don't do Drugs" wall painting on the outskirts of Pingyao

No Entry for Bicycles with Two or More Seats; No Entry for Tour Bikes with One Seat

I could be angry and not like that sign but, considering the amount of foot traffic inside the Old Town, and that they are mostly referring to the crappy rental bikes being rented by people who aren't used to biking, I can also understand it. (I ignored the sign and lifted my bike over the barrier).

Like most of its kind, the camel has strong opinions

Even if I hadn't done far too little biking to call it a day yet, I was a little worried that a major tourist site like Pingyao would be a hard place to get a room. Sure, there were approximately 5,000 guesthouses located inside the Old Town but, with today being a holiday, most of them probably would be telling me the truth if they said "No Vacancies".

I ate a lackluster lunch at a random restaurant accompanied by two random Spaniards who, almost certainly, chose the place because they saw another westerner choosing the place. Then, I was on my way.

Leaving Pingyao, I found the road I wanted with no great difficulties. It was still something that "started out boring and remained that way" only now, the various mucky bits of damaged road from six years earlier had been repaired and it had acquired trucks. I made it about 5 kilometers before I took a promising turn off that was still pretty uninteresting but which was at least uninteresting without unpleasant traffic.

What are the chances that a guesthouse with obvious signage like this chalk "rooms for rent" scrawled on the door will a) have the computer for registering guests, b) know how to use the computer, c) be willing to attempt to use the computer for me?

It was the farm roads after that—when I was trying to get over to my next road without having to detour back to the main road (I was trying to save a whopping kilometer and a half)—where things got interesting and beautiful.

The more I wander down the back roads of rural China, the more I discover that hasn't been destroyed. Often times, it may have been left to rot (though given the condition of the 18th century house I grew up in, I am in no position to complain about families that don't bother maintaining their historic properties) in favor of a nice shiny building next door (that doesn't need to have the roof rethatched periodically to keep the rain out) but it's there. Maybe not there to the extent that it would be there in parts of Europe but very definitely there.

It's the main roads and the main areas that are easy to get to where everything is boring and ticky tacky and modern and ugly. Unfortunately, most foreigners attempting to cycle China fearing complications of maps and visas and the size of the country will just take those easy main roads and never realize how much awesome there still is.

Abandoned farmhouse that once had an enclosed courtyard

This would have been one of the buildings in a family complex. The bedrooms of the head of household and his wives likely would have been to the left and right of this main hall.

No repair work has been done on this crumbling temple since I passed by 6 years earlier but they've at least taken into consideration the possibility of pieces falling off and have blocked off the street nearby.

Rafter dragon being used as a cable guide

All good things must come to end however and the end of the farm roads was some of the nastiest industrial yuck and exurban blight I've ever biked through. Literally the only positive thing that could be said was that it had been even nastier six years ago.

I was just getting into the parts of Xiaoyi proper where I'd be able to find a restaurant and hotels when I saw a Giant shop. Six years ago when I went looking for a branded bike shop the only Giant I could find sold e-bikes. Now the city has a bike club and mechanics who not only know what they are doing but also know lots about the roads in their area.

Per their recommendation I checked in at the hotel behind the bike shop. They let me know the price came with breakfast included. They did not, however, mention that it also came with the right to use the hotel's attached sauna and apparently quite impressive bath house. Considering that the hotel room was the first hotel room I've ever stayed in that came with pajamas (for you to wear in the sauna) I probably should have guessed or at least asked but I didn't and I only found out the next morning while checking out.

I don't think this community stage has been used for a while.

The unpleasantness of this architectural hell is ameliorated by it having been worse in 2012

This is the same bit of road as the picture below

If you look at the second building above, you'll see that it has the same painted design along the roof.

Today's ride: 79 km (49 miles)
Total: 1,112 km (691 miles)

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