June 24, 2022
D22: 曲周 → 大名
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On account of my spitballing distances and thinking that my actual route (78km) wouldn't be that much longer than the recommended route (64km), I figure that I'm spending tonight in Daming County. The location of a stele museum that everyone swears is open but which I'm sure was "fuck off, don't you know there's a pandemic" signs when I passed by, it is also the location of a 1,200 year old stone commemorating the wise Judge Dee¹, and my return to plotted out points of interest.
Being as I have an end point, I did something I never do and figured out where I was staying more than an hour in advance. The only previous time I can think of where I explicitly set my assistant to "find me lodging" was in 2019 where I was going to have a lunchtime choice of west or south depending on whether or not west actually had anything in range of what I could do in one day.
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On this day, since the end point is a county seat—an actual small city—I am not asking Tyra to find out if there are hotels but if the government is going to give me problems. First, she called the 12345 hotline for that county to get the predictable answer of "no restrictions, but check with the hotel and if they say something, then there are further steps".
On account of the restrictions for foreigners being quite explicitly unwritten on account of them not being legally valid, I am honestly unaware of any occasion where a foreigner (or someone calling on a foreigner's behalf) has been told "yeah, we totally have restrictions"; at worst, it's just been a "I'll check and get back to you" with them never actually getting back.
Tyra then finds me a hotel that meets my specifications (I don't want to share a bathroom) and calls them. The person she speaks to claims that all he's going to need is a photocopy of my passport but that's absurdly much too reasonable and uncomplicated to be coming from a small hotel in a county seat in Hebei (unless of course the police in this county are unreasonably on the ball with fulfilling their responsibility at educating the public) so I'm expecting that the night will probably involve yelling.
Tyra is expecting this too. This is why she provides me with a write-up that includes the name of the person she spoke to.
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The weather continues to be the sort of hot where I drink 10 liters of water and never pee.
The scenery is nicely not truck route but every single listed POI that I point myself at is a massive failure of miscategorization on the part of the mapmakers.
I enjoy myself. I have old buildings, weird advertisements, a reasonable amount of shade, even a couple of markets, but—even with everything being flat—I am definitely wiped out and feeling like it's an irresponsible risk on my part to go to the hotel first instead of dinner.
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However, for reasons that are probably related to the heat, and that would probably be solved by my eating something, I'm not actually hungry. Instead, I want a cold shower, a fifteen minute lie down, another cold shower, and maybe some clean clothes before food.
Which is how I found myself standing outside the hotel looking at the inconveniently placed ramp versus lifting my bike up two stairs mentally whispering to myself "please just let tonight be a night without fighting" when the owner came out and said "Do you speak Chinese? Are you the foreigner who someone called about today? Let me give you a hand with that."
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I was registered on the computer and in my cold shower 12 minutes² later.
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¹ I know him from the Robert van Guilik mystery novels which get their inspiration from the Ming Dynasty novels which used him as a character rather than the video game or Kung Fu movies.
² I seriously didn't know it was possible to go from entrance to room that quickly.
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Today's ride: 78 km (48 miles)
Total: 1,298 km (806 miles)
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