D18: 长丰 → 陵水

February 29, 2024

Microwave carbonara pasta from Lawson's Convenience Store. Surprisingly not terrible.

Having lost a day to being sick, still having a cough that periodically leads to my body trying really hard to vomit¹, and having made a Saturday appointment with a friend to meet in Sanya over what will hopefully shake out to mutual work/business opportunities, I decide to take the National Road.

It's kind of weird cause it's been so many, many years since I've been down this way and ridden on the trunk route so nothing is familiar at the same time as everything is exactly the same. I want to say the last time I rode the G road from Wanning to Lingshui was maybe 2009.

Still looking a bit peaky, my hotel let me know that I'm the sixth foreigner on a bike they've had so far in 2024

Two of the groups of cyclists I saw today, a countryside convenience store advertising "last water stop before the climb", a "you made it over the pass" coffee garden, and a hotel advertising "bikes and motorcycles welcome"

I remember when this pass was named something rude (but not what it was named), before the bikers not only christened it "Good Man Hill" but also got away with putting up a stone marker with that name.

While I'm also reminded of past trips to the place I'm passing by², I'm mostly reminded why I don't bother with main roads most of the time. In addition to rather monotonous scenery³, while I am seeing a far greater number of people on bikes, they are mostly—and I don't know how else to put this—tourists rather than travelers.

More power to them, everyone needs to start somewhere and all that jazz, but I feel more camraderie from the motorcycles with the discreet thumbs up on one hand that doesn't interfere with their steering the way a wave would than I do the paunchy guy⁴ who lights up a cigarette at the top of the only climb, the exhausted stick figure that doesn't want advice on putting his enormous backpack on his rack instead of his shoulders, or the group of retirees spreading across the whole road to take photos.

Chinese traffic cameras can catch the driver smoking and fine them for it

Don't purchase secondhand tractors of uncertain origin or with incomplete paperwork

This hotel can organize Custom's Clearance of local agricultural products (specifically betel) shipped throughout southeast Asia

With the exception of one little blip of a surprisingly steep hill (that used to be steeper before the Great 2008 Repaving), the day will basically be completely flat. This is both because the terrain around here just doesn't have that much in the way of hills as it is because this has been the primary road down this side of the island for over half a century⁵ of roadworks shaving down the hummocks and filling in the divots.

What I mean to say is that if I weren't on this road, if I were doing my usual squiggly wigglies along the farm roads that don't actually parallel it, I'd be spending a lot more time gaining and losing the same 5m of altitude.

Discarding diseased pig corpses is a criminal offense

Brief stop in Xinglong to get some electrical tape wrapped around my once-again slipping left handlebar wrap, but no actual mechanics seem present at any of the bike shops so I don't mention the sussursating sense of a sound that sometimes happens when I'm in the big ring. When I'm not sure if anyone around is, in fact, more competent than I am, It's better not to bring up the sort of fiddly, fussy things that exceed my personal capability.

Another brief stop in Nanqiao where I lazily get a dumplings from a Shaxian Snacks. As this is one of the towns where a huge percentage of the population are the descendants of people who resettled here during the Indonesian genocide of ethnic Chinese under Suharto, I can be pretty sure that the sweets and treats at the local laobacha will be if not delicious at least interesting. However, there are too many people smoking and I know that will aggravate me into coughing again.

I will never not laugh at the town named Drippy Cow

A very faded sign pointing the way to the overflow quarantine facilities

It seems to me, when the original tree for this particular memorial (marking the spot where a specific Revolutionary Hero died) gave up the ghost, they could have maybe done some better road planning during the process of planting a new tree.

Facing the so-called "big climb" that every north bound cyclist whose seen fit to talk to me has seen fit to warn me about, I'm pleased to say that not only do I not get off and walk, I also don't end up shifting into my lowest gear. Or my second lowest... or even my third lowest.

The last time I'm definitely certain that I crossed over this was around 10 years ago, but, even if it was a one time fluke, the story of "Tim and the leeches" is eternally fresh enough in my memory that I barely glance at the tempting looking pool of water right before the very top and I don't even think of dipping my bandana in it for some cooling water to sponge across my face.

On the upper left, you can see where the pass used to be

Someone was paid to paint this on the southbound descent

I now know of two runaway truck ramps on the island

Get into Lingshui. I've picked a listed as takes foreigners hotel not because I think it will actually make things easier⁶ but because one of the places on my list of potentials is marked as such and I don't see any reason to intentionally flirt the possibility of trouble⁷. Up to the room to strip off my stinky bikewear and shower off the various fluids I've excreted throughout the day's many coughing fits, then I change into a t-shirt and normal shorts to go in search of a place where I can get massage.

Funnily enough, the other customer at the place I end up at is someone who is biking the newly finished⁸ Hainan Coastal Tourism Highway. However, he's more interested in telling the massage guys about how they can advertise package deals to cyclists than he is in talking to another cyclist so I don't find out much about where he's gone or where he's going beyond the weirdness of his being unable to take a hotel recommendation from me for someone 4 days away as he's already booked everything in advance.

One of the newish bridges that, combined with a causeway, has helped smooth out all the little climbs

I'm really curious about these upper shutters and what purpose they once served

Massage done, I walk back to my hotel and collapse.

¹ It eventually succeeded at this on March 2 when a coughing fit came too soon after a piece of focaccia

² Holy crap but Xinglong has developed! I remember it as a distinctive "hotel and holiday residences area" and "town area" but they've blended together into one

³ Which will only get more monotonous as I get into the areas with holiday apartments and landscaping

Entering Lingshui, someone really likes fancy streetlights

⁴ I've got nothing against MAMILs (middle aged men in lycra). Some of my best friends are MAMILs. I'm dating an exceptionally fit MAMIL. But bib shorts and a potbelly weren't a good look before he tucked his jersey into his shorts.

⁵ There were multiple bridges from the 1960s

⁶ I'm still going to end up behind the front desk doing my own registration

⁷ Among other things, if anything goes pear-shaped at an actually listed on the OTA as "takes foreigners" hotel, I've got additional ammunition on my side.

⁸ You still can't get from Riyue Bay to Lingshui without getting on the expressway

A very random bit of English in Xinglong

The Lingshui Police try so hard with their bilingual signs

Today's ride: 61 km (38 miles)
Total: 1,117 km (694 miles)

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