D15: 保国 → 五指山（双语）

January 29, 2025

Screenshot from Douyin of what the fireworks looked like from the beach at Riyue Bay 日月湾海滩上烟花模样的抖音截图

I fell asleep while talking to Mike, but woke up enough when he asked me if I was asleep that, paired with the deafening crescendo of white noise that burst from literally everywhere at the strike of midnight, I didn't immediately go back to sleep.

Three times now, I've spent Spring Festival Eve in the countryside in a place that explicitly allows fireworks¹.

我跟迈克聊着天就睡着了，但当他问我是不是睡着了的时候，我还是有点清醒，再加上午夜一到，四面八方骤然炸开、震耳欲聋的白噪音到了顶点，我并没有立刻再次睡过去。

这已经是我第三次在明确允许燃放烟花¹的乡下过除夕了。

The first time, they must have had customs tied to the traditional division of hours² as the arrival of midnight was heralded by the chuffing sounds of crickets that had no idea of the hell that was going to break loose at 3am. The second time was a very rural area with very few people who mostly aren't Han and who have a different idea of what holidays are important. And now, tonight. This time, however, I'm in a plantation town.

第一次，当地人显然有跟传统时辰²相关的习俗，午夜到来的预兆，先是不知凌晨三点即将天翻地覆的蟋蟀唧唧声。第二次是在一个非常偏远的乡村，人很少，大多不是汉族，对重要节日有着不一样的理解。而现在，就是今晚。不过这一次，我在一座农垦小镇里。

I particularly enjoy the alternating fake wood and fake marble panels in my hotel room #CrimesAgainstWallpaper 我特别喜欢酒店房间里这种仿木纹与仿大理石相间的墙板 #壁纸界的罪行

The gold on brown bamboo print panels on the framed accent wall behind the TV and the cartoon clouds on the ceiling really tie the room together 电视背后那面装饰框墙里的棕底金竹纹面板，再加上天花板上的卡通云朵，简直把整个房间的风格给统一了

Speaking of Mystic Deer in my hotel, here are some combination bicycle and mystic deer statues⁴ on the "huh, I seem to be on a Greenway again" 说到酒店里的神鹿，这是一组自行车与神鹿结合的雕塑⁴，地点在“哦？我好像又走到绿道上了”的地方

Plantation towns are settlements where literally everything used to belong to the state-owned Hainan State Farms but now it's merely "most of the things" and they're only loosely associated with HSF Group. Maybe the farmers rent their land from HSF, maybe they buy their seeds or sell their harvest to HSF, but they don't give birth in HSF hospitals, send their children to HSF schools⁵, and buy their clothing from an HSF general store.

Dating back to the 50s and the drive to open up the countryside and modernize agriculture, plantation towns have people from all over the country who—even in the modern era—got up from whatever backwater they grew up in to move to this functionally identical backwater in search of a better life.

农垦小镇这类聚居地，以前所有东西都归国营的海南农垦总局所有，现在则只是“大部分东西”，而且只跟海南农垦集团保持松散联系。农民可能从农垦租地，可能向农垦买种子、把收成卖给农垦，但他们不会在农垦医院生孩子、送孩子上农垦学校⁵、也不在农垦百货商店买衣服。

这类小镇始于上世纪50年代，是当时开发乡村、农业现代化运动的产物，居民来自全国各地。即便到了现代，也有人离开长大的穷乡僻壤，搬到这片功能上一模一样的偏僻之地，寻求更好的生活。

The NotChurch from last year's Round the Island is open and confirmed to be a pool hall 去年环岛时见过的那座“非教堂”开门了，确认是家台球厅

Outside of dancing in the park, Chinese people don't really dance. And yet, entertainment venues that are almost exclusively for getting drunk while being blasted by loud techno all call themselves "dance halls" 除了在广场舞，中国人其实不怎么跳舞。可那些几乎只供人喝到大醉、被巨响电子乐狂轰的娱乐场所，全都自称“歌舞厅”This one is a pun on the Chinese word for Friday. 这次是个中文双关语。星期五/星期舞

Not yet strung transmission tower 尚未架线的输电塔

Ignoring the GPS's suggestion for best route in favor of shortest route may add some additional texture to your day 无视GPS推荐的最优路线，执意选最短路线，可能会给你的一天增添一些别样“质感”

I've talked to lots of them and, unlike the universally disliked winter snowbirds, I really don't understand the thought processes that went into coming here. Rural to urban or urban to rural both have obvious reasons. But podunk nowhere to podunk nowhere when neither the job you have nor the place you've chosen have any special "in demand" reason to change, that just baffles me.

To say that I've never experienced anything like the cacophony of sound outside my window diminishes the experience of the times before Haikou banned fireworks and the explosions began a month before the New Year, continued until Lantern Festival two weeks after the New Year, and were at their loudest and most exuberant on the night of Spring Festival.

我跟很多这里的人聊过，和那些人人都不待见的冬季候鸟族不一样，我实在搞不懂他们当初搬来这里的思路。从农村到城市、从城市到农村，理由都很明显。可从一个无名小地方，搬到另一个无名小地方，既不是工作有吸引力，也不是目的地有什么特别吸引人的理由，这种选择真的让我费解。

如果说窗外这番嘈杂是我从未体验过的，那未免贬低了海口还没禁炮经历过的那些时刻：新年前一个月就开始放炮，一直持续到新年两周后的元宵节，而除夕当晚的声响最猛烈、最狂欢。

If you have to pick a road to ride from the coast to Ledong, this one is much nicer than the one that connects at Jiusuo 如果要选一条从海边骑往乐东的路，这条比九所连接的那条好走太多

Wall paintings of the local ethnic minority with exaggerated facial features that are more "this artist's unique style" than anything else 当地少数民族的壁画，面部特征被夸张处理，与其说是民俗，不如说是“画师独有的风格”

I like that someone added a stuck on New Year's blessing to the painted door of the painted hut 有人在画出来的小屋门板上，贴了一张新年福字。还不错

After leaving the main road early, in merging onto a small road I took last year 提早离开主路后，我并入了去年走过的一条小路

However, there are so many strings of firecrackers all going off at the same time and from every direction that it stops being individual pop pop pop bangs and is more like the sound of the ocean crashing against the shore during a typhoon while golf ball sized pieces of hail simultaneously hit a metal roof above your head.

It's not so much a surprise that this keeps me awake as that I'm able to sleep at all. But I can and I did.

然而，无数串鞭炮同时从四面八方炸响，已经不再是零散的“啪、啪、砰”，更像是台风天海浪拍岸，同时高尔夫球大小的冰雹砸在头顶金属屋顶上的声音。

这声音让我睡不着并不奇怪，奇怪的是我居然还能睡着。但我确实睡着了，也真的睡了。

I am, however, low enough on sleep and sufficiently uncaffeinated that, returning to the room in search of my missing bidon after second breakfast⁶ at the same noodle shop as the previous night's dinner, I eventually find it in my rear pocket.

只不过我睡眠严重不足、又没喝咖啡，在前晚吃饭的同一家面馆吃完第二顿早餐后，回房间找我弄丢的水壶，最后才发现它一直在我后裤兜里。

Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity⁷ "Spray painted no dumping signs next to a pile of trash" 人类非物质文化遗产⁷：“垃圾堆旁喷着‘禁止倾倒垃圾’的标语”

Last year's spray painted surveyors marks have matured into gravel and metal stakes 去年喷的测绘标记，如今已“进化”成碎石与金属桩

In some places, lines of traffic cones have begun to form 有些地方，交通锥已经开始排成长队

While others have already ripened into half constructed replacement bridges 另一些则已经“成熟”为半建成的新桥替代工程

Navigating past the proverbial "ankle deep drifts of red firecracker paper," I stop at an open grocery store for two bottles of Coke Zero which my brain tells me I want to chug in one crisp, fizzy draught; but my mouth refuses to take more than large sips of⁸.

Even with an hour long emergency work break to do something which looked perfectly reasonable to do on my phone until I'd been doing it on my phone for 15 minutes at which point it surely seemed that I was nearly done and didn't actually need to pull out my laptop, I'll nurse those two bottles of soda for most of the next 40 kilometers.

踩着俗称“脚踝深的红鞭炮纸屑堆”前行，我在一家还营业的小卖部停了下来，买了两瓶零度可乐。脑子里想的是一口气灌完，感受气泡。可嘴巴却每次只肯大口抿几口⁸。

尽管中途被迫停下来工作了一小时。有些事在手机上看着完全能做，可做了十五分钟后才发现，眼看就要做完，根本没必要掏电脑。但接下来近40公里路，我还是慢慢喝这两瓶汽水。

I know that the Bridge Game is kind of silly, and yet it still frustrates me when entire counties fail to put out signs with names and ages so I can see if I won or not 我知道“桥梁猜龄游戏”有点傻，但整座县城连桥名和修建年代的牌子都不挂，让我没法判断自己赢没赢，还是会觉得很不爽

Obviously, both of these are post 1990, but I want to know if I guessed right! 显然这两座都是90年代后建的，但我就想知道我猜得对不对！

Site of my Emergency Work Break, they not only don't have a modern info sign for me, the original pressed into the concrete sign is damaged and I can only make out "19xx"!! 我临时停下的工作地点，不仅没有现代信息牌，连原先压在混凝土里的旧牌子也破损了，我只能看清“19xx”！！

The quality of the concrete railings on this bridge that's in the process of being widened make me think late 80s, but the fact of it being well enough constructed down below that it's been okayed for widening rather than replacement is more like late 70s 这座正在拓宽的桥，混凝土护栏的质量让我觉得是80年代末，但下部结构足够结实，获批拓宽而非拆除重建，又更像是70年代末

Dr. M has said that she likes riding during the New Year because the countryside is full of people, and, while I usually disagree with this sentiment because I'm thinking of the hordes of tourists who descend upon southern Hainan and because I've never actually biked on the day of Chinese New Year⁹, let me tell you there's something special about a dozen strangers calling at you to come drink with them, or roadside picnics that spontaneously start shouting "You can do it! You can do it! Rah, rah, rah" as you pass them.

I don't think I run into a single unfriendly person all day.

M博士说过，她喜欢新年期间骑车，因为乡下到处都是人。我通常不认同这话。因为我想到的都是涌入海南南部的大批游客，而且我其实从没在大年初一当天骑过车⁹。但我跟你说，真的有种特别的感觉，十几个陌生人朝你喊着过来喝酒，或是路边野餐的人看到你经过，突然齐声大喊“加油！加油！加油！”

这一整天，我遇到的人都是友善的。

I feel like consistent crappy pavement would be better than tolerably good interspersed with sudden gravel 我觉得，一直烂的路，也好过时而还行、突然就冒出碎石的路

Given that all the cars are on the expressway, they don't really need to be widening this 反正所有车都走高速了，他们其实没必要拓宽这条路

First C19 prevention and control banner of the Tour 此次骑行遇到的第一面疫情防控横幅

I'm probably going to forget to go back through my pictures but I have a feeling that C19 Banner No. 2 here was last year's "first C19 Prevention and Control Banner" 我大概率记不清了，但我感觉这第二面疫情横幅，就是去年骑行的“第一面疫情防控横幅”

Even during my emergency work break, while I was sat by the side of the road in a shady spot with some lovely views, people came by to make sure that I was sitting there for reasons other than something being wrong with either my bike or myself. Then, they invited me to come drink with them.

AMap has suggested an alternate route into Wuzhishan from the G540 what used to be the provincial road east from Ledong. There's a few markers for "poor pavement conditions" and "narrow road" but the topo map certainly makes it look like a viable road and, when I cross over the boundary line into Wuzhishan the insanely comprehensive bike route maps posted by VeloChina confirm it as a "good" road.

就连我临时停下工作的时候，我坐在路边阴凉处，风景还不错，也有人过来确认，我坐在这里不是因为车坏了或是人不舒服。然后他们就邀请我一起喝酒。

高德地图从G540国道推荐了一条通往五指山的备选路线，也就是过去从乐东往东走的那条省道。路上有几处标记写着“路况差”“路窄”，但地形图看着明显是条能走的路。等我跨过进入五指山的地界，“唯乐单车”贴的极其详尽的骑行路线图，也确认这是一条“优质”路线。

The VeloChina maps at the Wuzhishan border 五指山交界处的唯乐单车骑行地图

Ten out and back routes centered in the city with sites of interest, suggested restaurants, useful phone numbers 以市区为中心的十条往返路线，标注了景点、推荐餐厅、还有实用电话

I wish I'd taken more photos, but I was rather busy not dying and it wasn't until I got to the halfway point at Maodao that I acquired pavement enough to realize I was just barely going to make it to the streetlights before it got dark.

真希望当时多拍点照片，但我那会儿忙着“保命”，直到骑到毛道中点，路面才像样到让我意识到：只要抓紧点，天黑前刚好能骑到有路灯的地方。

¹ The cities have explicitly disallowed them as long as I've been here, they just only started enforcing it in the past decade

¹ 我来这里这么久，城市里一直明令禁止烟花，只是过去十年才开始真正严格执行。

² There's twelve two hour periods and my recent discovery that "11am to 1pm" is a discrete time unit under this system explains soooo much about the timing of the afternoon siesta or how people interact with concepts like "can I have it ready by this afternoon" on something they didn't even give to me until it was already afternoon !

² 一天的时间分为两个十二小时。我最近才发现 “上午11点到下午1点” 是这个体系里一个独立时间单位，这可以解释太多事了，比如午后午睡的时间点，或是别人下午才把事交给我，却问 “今天下午能做好吗” 时，人们对时间概念的理解方式！

You too can MAKE THE DIFFREENCE 你也可以创造改变

Another cyclist¹⁰ showed up just as I was finishing my late afternoon snack near this abandoned barracks area from no later than the mid 70s 我在这片最晚也是70年代中期建成的废弃营房附近吃完下午点心时，另一位骑行者¹⁰ 出现了

³ Right, so, ignoring everything about the cultural context of why hotels and restaurants are often decorated with deer motifs, these trippy melted 90s computer art-style deer with globular, often floating, boulders and metal trees just started showing up about three years ago. And, not only are they everywhere you expect to find random mid-priced decorations, there are clearly dozens or possibly hundreds of different unique designs.

³ 说真的，先不管酒店、餐厅爱用鹿纹装饰的文化背景，这种迷幻、融化感、90年代电脑画风的鹿，搭配球状、经常悬浮的巨石与金属树，大概三年前开始到处出现。不仅在所有中档装饰该出现的地方遍地都是，而且显然有几十甚至上百种不同原创设计。

⁴ You can tell that they are bicycle statues not because of the wheels but because there are three of them in red, yellow, and blue, and they are on the side of a Greenway

⁴ 你能看出是自行车雕塑，不是因为轮子，而是因为有红、黄、蓝三辆，而且摆在绿道边上。

Achievement Unlocked, first road this Tour that goes through the same pass as an expressway 成就解锁：本次骑行第一条与高速共用同一垭口的公路

Particularly given the quality of the pavement, I'm not ashamed to have walked this 尤其是因为路面质量，我推车走完全不丢人

⁵ Even growing up in the era of the dismantling and privatization of the massive state owned enterprises, Kaylee—the woman who worked for me prior to Tyra†—was sufficiently a child of a Hainan State Farms-owned village that the coolest thing I ever did during the three years she worked for me was send her to HSF's corporate offices to deliver a contract.

⁵ 即便她成长的年代，大型国企已经在解体、私有化，但小王，在陈女士之前给我当助理的女生，是典型海南农垦村长大的孩子。在她为我工作的三年里，我做过最酷的一件事，就是派她去海南农垦集团总部送合同。

† Including the ones who did not last for whatever reasons, my assistants have been: Jimmy (1 year), Sansa (2 years), the Useless New Girl (2 months), Princess Lazy Baby (1 month), Kaylee (3 years), MumbleWhisper (2 months), Tyra (5 years), Temporary Replacement (4 months), and now Shawn

† 算上那些各种原因没做长久的，我的助理依次是：小何（1 年）、杉杉（2 年）、无用女生（2 个月）、懒公主（1 个月）、小王（3 年）、咕哝细语（2 个月）、陈女士（5 年）、临时替补（4 个月），和现在是肖恩。

Sand, like this, is so much better than broken chunks of concrete 像这样的沙子，比碎混凝土块好太多了

Rarely have I been so happy to see asphalt 我很少这么开心见到沥青路

⁶ I initially had oatmeal in the room but, as soon as I got ready to hit the road, I realized that this was likely my only chance before dinner to get cooked food.

⁶ 我一开始在房间吃了燕麦片，但一准备出发，就意识到这可能是晚饭前唯一一次吃到热食的机会。

⁷ This is probably an Ozempic thing.

⁷ 这大概是跟我用的药有关。

⁸ "Chinese Spring Festival and it's customs" has just been approved by UNESCO for inclusion on the World Intangible Cultural Heritage list and if you thought the Chinese media and government were overly over the top about ICH†, it's only going to get a lot more over the top

⁸ “中国春节及其习俗”刚被联合国教科文组织列入世界非物质文化遗产名录。如果你觉得中国媒体和政府之前对非遗†就已经夸张到不行，那接下来只会更夸张。

This used to be an anti drunk driving PSA 这里以前是酒驾警示标语

† I suppose, for those of you who have zero work connections with Chinese media, you may be completely unaware of Intangible Cultural Heritage but it's a huuuuge buzz topic.

† 我猜，对那些跟中国媒体完全没有工作往来的人来说，你们可能完全不知道 “非物质文化遗产”是什么，但这真的是个超火的热词。

⁹ Though I did once bike over Têt.

⁹ 不过我倒是在越南春节期间骑过车。

¹⁰ Riding what looked like a 517 bike, the very fact of his being on that road made it seem like he'd be cool, but he was kind of antisocial and uninterested in info sharing

¹⁰ 他骑的看起来是517单车，光是出现在这条路上，我就觉得他应该挺好相处，结果他有点孤僻，也不爱交流信息。

Today's ride: 80 km (50 miles)
Total: 1,035 km (643 miles)

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D15: 保国 → 五指山 （双语）

D15: 保国 → 五指山（双语）