D5: 白马井 →东城（双语）

January 14, 2025

I really dislike places like this 我真的很不喜欢这种地方

At 135y per night for a room in a self owned building in a village whose only attractive quality is it's proximity to the train station, my room better be fucking glorious, and it is.

Given the huge number of hotels, aparthotels¹, guesthouses, and whatnots on the coastal strip barely 10km away, I'm not entirely sure who their target market is; but, the contrast between Very Traditional (and Very Expensive) wooden furniture in the lobby with the disco lights in the hallways and the sparkle grout² in the rooms makes me wonder if the owners were even particularly sure of who their target market is when they opened in June of this year³.

村里自有楼的房间每晚135元，唯一的卖点就是离火车站近，那这房间好歹也得惊艳到爆才行，而它确实做到了。

既然10公里外的海岸线上满是酒店、服务式公寓¹、民宿之类的住宿选择，我实在搞不懂他们的目标客群是谁；不过，大堂里极具传统风格（且价格不菲）的木质家具，和走廊里的迪斯科灯光、房间里的闪粉勾缝²形成鲜明反差，让我不禁怀疑，这家今年6月才开业³的店，老板自己当初是不是也没搞清楚目标客群。

For today's Oatmeal, I'm discovering that the Black Sesame Porridge is almost as bad tasting as the Peanut Protein Powder 今天的燕麦搭配，我发现黑芝麻糊的味道几乎和花生蛋白粉一样难以下咽

The early 90s style villas in front of the tower blocks tell me that they've been trying to make this a Winter Holiday Destination for a while 高楼前那些90年代初风格的别墅表明，这里试图打造成冬季度假胜地已经有些年头了

Coffee and oatmeal in the room as is the norm, I also have the packet of instant coffee that came with the room because a) knowing how well Japan does all things coffee, how bad can instant coffee from Korea be⁴? and b) comparison makes my coffee taste that much better.

Particularly as I had taken my Ozempic shot in the morning, I'm almost certain I didn't eat enough yesterday. I'm really loving the benefits⁵ that are coming along with my dropping nearly 20kg last year, but, I've quietly disapproved over the years of people I know on super restrictive diets⁶ and, if it comes with permanent damage to my physical⁷ or mental health, "looking conventionally attractive" is not enough of a benefit to me.

像往常一样在房间里喝咖啡、吃燕麦，我还冲了房间配备的速溶咖啡。一来，日本的咖啡相关产品都做得那么好，韩国的速溶咖啡能难喝到哪儿去⁴？二来，有了对比，我自己的咖啡喝起来就更香了。

早上刚打了司美格鲁肽，我几乎可以肯定昨天没吃够。去年减重近20公斤带来的种种好处⁵，我确实很受用，但这些年我一直不太认同身边那些采用极端节食⁶的人。如果这种“好处”要以身心健康⁷的永久性损伤为代价，那么“符合世俗审美”对我来说根本得不偿失。

So many Planned and unnamed roads around here that they've been numbered 这一带好多规划中或未命名的道路，都直接用编号代替了

No apparent reason for this road to be blocked off, especially as it looks like the road I was on was completed quite some time ago 这条路完全没理由封路啊，尤其是我之前走的那条路看起来早就修好了

Which means, even though I've not even done 10 kilometers by this point, I stop for a plate of the most incredibly spicy fried noodles at a sidewalk stall shortly before I go back on to Ocean Flower Island.

This time I take the "pedestrian and bicycle" bridge underneath the traffic bridge. It's very pretty to look at. But it's a terrible structure with pointless ups and downs, paving that is asking for someone to turn an ankle, a Security Guard who is even less competent than the ones up above at checking to see if people crossing onto the island are "allowed⁸," and no curb cuts on the island side.

所以，尽管到这会儿我才骑了不到10公里，还是在重返海花岛前，在路边摊停下来吃了一盘辣到极致的炒面。

这次我走的是立交桥下方的“人行及自行车专用桥”。桥看起来倒是挺漂亮，但设计得实在糟糕，毫无必要的上下起伏，路面铺得一不小心就会崴脚，桥头的保安比上面主桥的还不称职，连核对上岛人员是否“获准⁸”都不会，而且岛侧连无障碍坡道都没有。

Weirdly enough given the weather or how common it is in southeast Asia, sidewalk barber shops are not common in Hainan 说来也怪，不管是从天气来看，还是考虑到东南亚的普遍情况，海南的路边理发店都不算常见

However, as with this scary mobile dentistry stall, it is a poor northern Chinese thing⁹ 不过这种看着有点吓人的流动牙科摊一样，是中国北方穷地方的特色⁹

My packages turn out to be on Island No. 2, where most of the apartments are, and there's no one doing any kind of checking either between 1 and 2, or for coming on to No. 1, so unless it's about keeping motorcycle taxis out of the commercial area where there are likely to be people who need motorcycle taxis, I can't figure out what the guards are all about.

Finding the courier shop in the maze of tower blocks takes me a bit of time. Then, because every winter has to have at least one interaction with a snowbird to show why they have such a bad reputation, the woman who jumped the queue yells at me for being "too pushy" about pointing out that she had to walk around me in order to go ahead of me.

我的快递居然在2号岛，大部分公寓都集中在那儿。而且1号岛和2号岛之间、以及进入1号岛时，都没人检查。除非是为了不让摩托出租车进入可能正需要它们的商业区，否则我实在想不通这些保安到底在干嘛。

在密密麻麻的高楼群里找到快递店花了我点时间。然后，就像每个冬天都难免会遇到一次让“候鸟族”名声扫地的经历一样，一个插队的女人居然冲我嚷嚷，说我“太咄咄逼人”，就因为我指出她得从我旁边绕过去才能排队。

On the Pedestrian Bridge to the island the Hilton is on 通往希尔顿所在岛屿的人行桥上

He stopped me to ask questions about my fork bags 他拦住我，问我车上的驮包是哪儿买的

Leaving from Island Number 2, there's a similarly bizarre "pedestrian structure" which extends out from the side of a bridge that already has perfectly good sidewalks. 从2号岛出发时，有一座同样奇怪的“人行设施”，它附着在一座本身就有完好人行道的桥侧面延伸出去

Finally free to go biking, my first and only point of interest for the day is the White Horse Well that gives the town of Baimajing its name. As historic sites that have been attested to in the written record for over 1,000 years go, it kind of sucks. Even the wear marks that show that people have climbed up the horse-sized statue of a horse and sat on its real saddle don't really add much to the site¹⁰.

My options from here are fairly limited. I'll initially try to see if I can make it to a village named Paris where I'm not in love with the prices I've been told over the phone for either of their not-bookable-online hotels, but I know that my dawdling, detouring, picture-taking self averages around 10 kilometers per hour once conversations and the occasional piece of proofreading are accounted for and that would mean riding in the dark.

终于能安心骑车了，今天我唯一的目的地就是白马井镇由来的白马井。作为一个有千年文字记载的历史遗迹，它实在有点让人失望。就连那匹真人大小的马雕像上，能看出有人爬上去坐在真马鞍上留下的磨损痕迹，也没给这个景点增色多少¹⁰。

接下来我的选择不多。一开始我想试试能不能骑到一个叫“巴黎村”的地方，虽然电话里问的两家不能网上预订的酒店价格我都不太满意，但我知道自己一路上磨磨蹭蹭、绕路、拍照，再加上偶尔还要回复消息、校对文稿，平均时速也就10公里左右，那样的话就得摸黑骑车了。

Paper talismans I noticed when setting up my tripod 架三脚架时注意到的纸符

White Horse Well. It's a well. It has a white horse. 白马井。就是一口井，旁边有一匹白马。

From the deep dive I did while trying to figure out what to say during my video, I prefer the corrupted pronunciation theory over the fairytale origin of the well¹¹ 为了给视频写文案，我查了不少资料，比起这口井的神话起源，我更倾向于读音讹变的说法¹¹

Which I can do.

I just don't want to.

摸黑骑车我也能做到。

但我就是不想。

Instead, I'll go to the town of Dongcheng that I stayed in on last year's Round the Island. First on the Coastal Tourism Highway, then on a county-level scenic road, then on some actually scenic farm roads.

And, because I've got to stop for things like fried balls of yumminess, weirdly pyramid shaped tombs, sharing road info with a trio of Round the Islanders who are on touring appropriate bikes they brought with them¹², and a recently renovated historic well that's midway through a rededication ceremony, I still make it in to Dongcheng as the sun is setting.

于是，我决定去东城镇。去年环岛时我就住过那儿。先走环岛旅游公路，再转县级风景道，最后走几条真正风景优美的乡村公路。

路上我还得停下来吃点好吃的炸丸子、看看造型奇特的金字塔形坟墓、和三位自带专业自行车的环岛骑友分享路况信息¹²，还偶遇了一口刚翻新完、正在举行重新启用仪式的古井。即便如此，我还是在太阳落山时赶到了东城镇。

Since these are from the early 90s, this breaks my rule about not making graves whose occupants are remembered by the living a focal point of a shared photo, but they are really really really weird graves 这些坟墓都是90年代初的，按理说我不该把仍被在世亲人铭记的逝者坟墓当作合影的焦点，但它们实在是太奇怪了

The guy in brown is only carrying a single spare pair of underpants 穿棕色衣服的那个哥们儿只带了一条备用内裤

My fried noodle dinner dents the hungriness but doesn't make it completely go away.

Unfortunately, there aren't any fruit shops between dinner and my hotel and I still haven't decided if I like the salt and honey preserved whampee fruit I bought from a convenience store.

晚餐的炒面缓解了饥饿感，但没能完全吃饱。

可惜晚餐地点到酒店之间没有水果店，而且我还没确定自己喜不喜欢在便利店买的咸蜂蜜黄皮。

I correctly picked the same hotel as the one I stayed at on last year's Round the Island, and she just invites me behind the Front Desk to register myself without me even needing to ask.

我准确找到了去年环岛时住过的那家酒店，老板娘直接让我到前台后面自己登记，都不用我开口问。

¹ A non Airbnb type place where you are getting an actual useable apartment but your existence as a tourist isn't damaging the local housing market.

¹ 非爱彼迎类住宿，提供可正常使用的公寓，且不会因游客入住影响当地住房市场。

I'd've stayed longer or asked more questions but the volume of the music was hurting my ears 我本来想多待一会儿、多问几句，但音乐声音太大，震得我耳朵疼

² I love sparkle grout

² 我超爱闪光勾缝

³ They added me on WeChat and I creeped their Channels

³ 他们加了我微信，我翻了他们的视频号

⁴ Very. The answer is "very."

⁴ 答案是“非常难喝”。

⁵ Such as not having to walk my bike up mountains

⁵ 比如不用推着自行车爬山了

⁶ Like 1,200 calories a day, or limiting their food consumption to a 4 hour window each day, or picking one day a week to just not eat at all

⁶ 比如每天只吃1200卡路里，或者把进食时间限制在4小时内，又或者每周选一天完全不吃饭

⁷ The ones that worry me the most are the people who see nothing wrong with their hair falling out because they are regularly failing to hit their base metabolic caloric requirements

⁷ 最让我担心的是那些人，他们因为长期摄入热量达不到基础代谢需求而脱发，却觉得这没什么大不了的

Late 19th or early 20th century Shophouse in a row of more modern Shophouses 一排现代骑楼中夹杂的19世纪末或20世纪初的老骑楼

A more modern (maybe 1980s) Shophouse with an epic balcony 一栋更现代（大概80年代）的骑楼，带一个超酷的阳台

First Amitabha Stone of the Tour¹³ 本次骑行遇到的第一块阿弥陀佛石碑¹³

⁸ or stopping them if they aren't

⁸ 或者拦住不准进去的人

⁹ In theory, the snowbirds who have come down from the north are all quite well to do. This does not, however, stop them from acting poor.

⁹ 理论上，从北方来的候鸟族家境都不错。但这并不妨碍他们进行很抠门行为。

¹⁰ There's a nearby temple that's supposed to be better but, by the time I'd taken all my shots and handled the work that had come in from the Media Center, I was running low on daylight

¹⁰ 附近据说有座寺庙更好看，但等我拍完所有素材、处理完媒体中心发来的工作时，天色已经快黑了

¹¹ One of the men who held the title of Fubo General, they're not certain which one, is said to have visited Hainan on a tour of southern China. His white horse kicked at the sand and caused a sweetwater spring to gush forth.

¹¹ 传说有位伏波将军（具体是哪位尚无定论）南巡海南时，他的白马用蹄子刨沙，冒出了一股甘泉。

There are four options for gender. Not sure what the difference is between "can't tell" and "don't know" 性别选项居然有四个。真搞不懂“未知”和“未说明”有啥区别

Towel Swans! Even the Hilton didn't have Towel Swans! 毛巾天鹅！连希尔顿都没给我折毛巾天鹅呢！

¹² The sheer number of 517 bikes I've been seeing says they must finally be making decent money

¹² 我看到好多517驿站的自行车，看来他们终于能赚到钱了

¹³ Speaking to the value of going places you've already been, I didn't notice it when I came this way on my way to the Hilton

¹³ 这也说明重游旧地是有意义的，前几天去希尔顿的时候，我压根没注意到这块碑

Today's ride: 56 km (35 miles)
Total: 300 km (186 miles)

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D5: 白马井 →东城 （双语）

D5: 白马井 →东城（双语）