D82: 汉中 → 天明

July 12, 2021

Detail of one of the attendants of the central Guanyin showing the construction techniques

Literally nothing that I tried to visit today was a success. I had temples that wanted to me to cross obvious private property (in one case a construction site) to get to something that might not even be there, an historic old town that's been freshly Ye Olde-ified but not yet gotten any new shops to make up for the loss of the old ones¹, a dry topped ford style bridge with traffic barriers preventing even pedestrians from crossing, and a Revolutionary Site I honest to goodness wanted to check out but which I'd been warned by the bike shop might be locked up so I ended up bypassing it altogether in favor of a better paved route.

I don't think my intended temple is this way

This plaque, proclaiming this the household of a Revolutionary Soldier, was probably the only interesting thing left in town

Other than the deliberate barrier preventing me from crossing, it looks safe. The existence of the barrier tells me it probably isn't safe

I thought this carved bit is called a lintel but the dictionary tells me that's the top part of the doorway. The hinge of the wood door attaches on the other side and enough wooden doors have been (poorly) hung over the years as to have left wear grooves in the stone

The only site I actually got to visit that managed to contain a viable reason for visiting was a Guanyin Temple I'd originally rejected from my list of marker points only to end up spur-of-the-moment following a sign for it. Lovely plaster folk art idols and murals in the parts of the temple that were visitable and some giant saffron roofed modern thing behind it, dwarfing it, but also having no apparent entrance.

Four Heavenly Kings: the one with a snake

Note the detail on how his ribbons are supported by the wall

I thought I spent most of the day not quite struggling on account of the heat. Spring changed into Summer while I was still up above 1000m elevation and the weather was pleasantly cool. Then, although I went back to the tropics for ten days at the beginning of the month, they were ten mostly air conditioned urban days without a lot of exercise going on.

Entrance hall guy whose name I can't remember

It wasn't as if the day was hard per se, simply that it was much harder than I mentally felt it ought to be.

This was explained however once I had eaten dinner and thoroughly rehydrated myself² and taken a cold shower and gotten into an air conditioned room as I promptly got a case of diarrhea that would have me getting up and running to the toilet a half dozen times throughout the night.

I am now suspecting that I may have had an upset stomach all day and a body that was hoarding moisture to be used on functions like sweating.

On the plus side, although I have twenty days in which to finish it, a load of work just dropped on me from the Foreign Languages Press so there was zero guilt on my part about the idea that I'd be taking a sick day so soon after restarting my tour.

Not only did I come across multiple Three Represents slogans on this village's walls, I also got a variety of "safe childbirth happens in the hospital", and some AIDS prevention PSAs

It also means that I get myself one day closer to the likelihood of actually getting rained on (which I quite enjoy when it's hot) as opposed to merely hearing about the rain from people writing in the comments section of my videos.

¹ More than a decade after the lighting shops and the hardware stalls were forced off Haikou's Zhongshan Road, I love it. It's amazing. I actually spend a surprising amount of time there. However, it took ten years and it's still a work in progress. It's also not something which every old street can (or should) be able to manage.

Not sure what's up with the 囍 double happiness symbol (as used in weddings) being on the banner in the center

² A process which included, among other things, my finishing most of a 1.8 liter bottle of orange drink in a single continuous glug glug glug with only pauses to breathe.

Most of the day was flat but also very sunny and hot

Actual old things (as in more than a hundred years) were rare and often completely uncared for

There was a truly amazing variety of local shrines made out of all sorts of materials

Today's ride: 50 km (31 miles)
Total: 2,982 km (1,852 miles)

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