Day 3: The GPS That Got Away

January 24, 2022

Tunchang to Wanning

Is it possible to get more lost while using a GPS than without? Today would answer that question.

But first things first, a covid test as I'll be doing every second day just to cover my bases. The hospital was literally next door to the hotel so that was the errand before checking out. The whole process could be summarized as organized chaos. I was directed to the registration booth, while I filled out a form with the usual details (name, passport number, age, any symptoms, etc...). They wanted to know if I had the vaccine within 48 hours which I found interesting. That was a negative. The nurse then got flustered in the whole rush and someone jumped the queue. Her temperature got recorded on my form. No worries, she didn't have a fever. Maybe I did for all we know.

Next was the payment booth. The nurse there had no idea how to enter my information into the system which is not set up for foreigners. I tried to help her step by step and eventually we got it sorted. Then it was pay the money and do the test. So why every second day? It's probably not needed but I've heard some hotels and tourist sites want to see a 48 hr negative test. Regardless it's always a neat adventure to start the day with a covid test in the middle of nowhere.

Another random hospital for a covid test

Then it was time to hit the road. The route was going to be all backroads since the main highways tend to go north-south and there aren't many routes that cut across the island. Plus one for adventure then! Things didn't start off terribly well as some yokel on a motorcycle pulled up beside me and asked me all these questions. For what it's worth there's never any good answer to these questions. I suppose I could just say 'ting bu dong' (can't understand) but they assume foreigners on bikes speak Chinese anyway which is probably true. I just said I was biking to Sanya and he said I was off the route and should go back. Then I said Wanning and that didn't register. Later it became clear why as there are virtually no direct routes there from where I started.

The first town made for a nice stop and there was a very friendly older couple running a shop who chatted for a bit and helped supply me with juice and biscuits. These biscuits would be quite vital as there was basically nowhere to find any food in the dozens of small villages I would later pass.

One past the first town all the traffic petered out, the road got narrow, and it was cycle touring the way it was meant to be done.

At first it was easy, just follow the turtle signs. These led to some sort of a resort but the real route was to diverge from these across a sort of dam and then onto small obscure roads

The first 35km after the dam were very difficult. The road went up and over small mountains with extremely steep uphill gradients, and same with the downhills. Most of the road was small track, and there were constant turns that needed to be done to stay on track. There were two options, one to use the GPS, or two just follow the map on the phone. I went with the map option but had to keep looking at it constantly less I should miss a turn. That happened not once, not twice, but over 5 times.

Once I was far off the map track I tried to get rerouted and that succeeded but would add over 10km to the total route. With 100+km of this terrain I was going nowhere fast.

Eventually I got spat out at a larger village and then it was a search for food

There was no food to be found even in the larger villages and this was going to be quite a problem. But there was no shortage of people sitting around on chairs and drinking tea to pass the time away and chat. Most likely this is the pre-Chinese New Year gatherings with relatives.

If I was to take a guess I don't think most people leave the island. Thus going 'back home' is probably a short trip to one of these villages from a larger city. Despite what you hear about on the news with the world's largest migration for Chinese New Year, most locals actually don't make these long journeys because their hometowns are relatively close to where they work. That's definitely the case with my wife and in-laws so we don't really have to leave Shanghai for the new year. I can think of a lot of other people in similar situations too.

Sure, just a KTV place in the middle of nowhere

Cruising through that village I thought I was home free. I most likely was if I stayed on track, but for whatever reason I got off the route yet again. No idea why. It seems the easy to follow roads always lead to the expressway which I ended up at. Obviously bikes can't ride on the expressway so I consulted my map to find I was way off the route. Damnit. Rerouting again, that added another 10km to my total.

I then got fed up and turned on the voice GPS which guides you turn by turn. I wanted to avoid this all along because it drains the battery on my phone like nobody's business. But at this point I didn't really have any choice. So without further ado, the voice GPS led me here. A local yelled something in dialect that I couldn't catch, probably something like the road is not passable and you need to turn around.

The road deteriorated after that even more and it was really slow going. At one fork in the road I followed the voice GPS only to consult the map and find I was going further and further off track. So I turned around and tried all the other paths and none were on track. This carried on multiple times as I just went back and forth and around in circles. Plus it was getting dark.

So here I was in a conundrum where following the voice GPS was actually getting me further and further lost. The only way out of this was to disable that garbage and orient myself with the sun. Based on that and the last known direction I was heading I found the correct fork and carried on. Trusting this would work I turned on the map later to find I was on course.

I suspect the problem is because of the weak network signal. The island is not nearly as developed as you would think. There is also a very good chance I was one of the few foreigners who passed through these villages on a bike.

Eventually though I was able to get onto some more main roads and the voice GPS started working again. Imagine my dismay when now it was totally dark and it said to turn off the main road and onto a network of small tracks again. At this point there was nothing else to do but follow the commands. It would constantly say turn right, then turn left, turn right twice, turn left and right, and lead me on a convoluted series of tracks I wouldn't have had a clue to find otherwise. I could see this was working when eventually it spat me out to a county level road and then the final intersection with the main highway.

At that point it was a simple 10km slog through a construction site and right to my hotel where there was a beer waiting at a restaurant beside.

And I found a nightclub beside all this. What could possibly go wrong ....

It was quite interesting because the bouncers wanted to see the health code and then you register via an app with your phone number and do facial recognition scans. I was wearing a mask, i.e. my entrance ticket, so who knows how that system would recognize my face, but then the mask came off after 20 feet anyway. I had no idea what this club was about, and was expecting some dive with nobody there and maybe a table to drink a beer and then bounce. Instead I saw a booming and packed party place that mimicked the top clubs in Shanghai. The feel of the music was invigorating and the DJ was getting full into it with pulsating EDM music. Because it was soon Chinese New Year, they had quite a few live shows with the whole 'tiger' theme.

At first glance, it was obvious that this club was table-based. It is one of the hallmarks of almost all Chinese nightclubs that you book a table with a group of friends and then proceed to sit around, sip some whisky, and surf your mobile phone. Say what you will, but that's how it is. Not a lot of dancing going on or a stage for that matter. This club was like that as most are, but the fact it was booming and located in the middle of nowhere Wanning China made it all the more intriguing. So if it was going to be tables, then tables it would be.

They led me to a table and basically gave me the VIP treatment, as you'd expect there aren't many foreigners here. For a very good price (a mere fraction of what you'd pay in Shanghai) I had table service and a lot of beers. Seeing as it would be no fun to drink alone, I invited some people standing around to join in and we shared the drinks with some basic games. But I could tell if this kept up then things would get expensive fast, and I made some excuse to leave the table and dance for a bit. After that it was back to the hotel and I slept like a baby.

Today's ride: 108 km (67 miles)
Total: 1,407 km (874 miles)

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