D46: Shangsi County to Dadong Town

March 21, 2018

There's a lot more expressways than there are traffic for those expressways

Considering what it cost, my hotel room last night was basically perfect.

I have a hard time imagining the building it was in as ever being a karaoke club since those usually go for glam and shiny but my room was definitely a transformed private karaoke room. The padded vinyl cushions that would have done a mediocre job at keeping the sound from leaking out are mostly still in place on the door and one of the walls.

The bathroom is an afterthought that was added to the room some time after it was built. It's two steps up so that the toilet has some room to give gravity a chance to drain things down into whatever pipe it goes off to but, judging by the smells I get whenever I don't very thoroughly flush it, it's not high enough. The only drain in the bathroom is an ankle-breaker squat toilet located smack dab underneath the shower.

The only window opens out on to the stairwell and, as a result, the remnants of soundproofing combined with my interior position in the building mean that my room is absolutely perfectly silent. And dark. Add in the sprung bed and it's an absolutely fabulous place to sleep.

Should probably put the motorcycle lane in before you put in the signs for the motorcycle lane....

I'm not saying there aren't lots of things I would have preferred my room have that it didn't have but I've spent more on lunch than I spent on this room. I've spent more on lunch in China than I spent on this room. I've spent more on lunch in China sixteen years ago than I spent on this room. So, I'm really really not complaining. Really.

Also, they let me do my laundry. I haven't had the opportunity to do all my laundry since the first time I passed through Hanoi.

I go eat breakfast at the same place where I had dinner last night. Last night I'd wanted congee but they were out and could only give me fried noodles. They told me they'd have congee in the morning if I came back. So I came back. I like congee. Considering that the weather is quite chill today, a watery rice gruel might not have been the best idea. All day long I was finding places I could prop my bike up by the side of the road so I could pee - again.

Last night's hotel wanted physical money instead of AliPay or WeChat Wallet. Luckily, the amount they wanted was almost exactly the amount I had left. There won't be any ATMs for my bank on my route for something like the next 200km so I start out by going a kilometer in the wrong direction to pull out cash.

This is (or was, hopefully was) the Shangsi County Government Hotel. I noticed it because it was next to the ATM where I pulled money out. It looks positively disgusting.

Not that I'm going to stop and get a massage at 10am, I'm annoyed to note the existence of a properly unpretty professional massage place on the main road. If I hadn't specifically gone down the side streets looking for massage last night, I would have found this. Just like frumpy dumpy hotels seem to have the softest bed, it's the ugliest massage places that have the professional skills. It's the places that need to make themselves pretty to attract customers that probably aren't worth going to.

It's a bright cool day with clear blue skies. Whatever the agriculture is on the east side of Shangsi, it's not sugar cane. Judging by the big swathes of identical forest, it looks like some kind of farmed tree is the primary component. There are also intermittent rice paddies (as is everywhere in China that isn't desert and probably some places that are) and some vegetable patches that are big enough to be commercial rather than personal quantities. The road starts off as asphalt in pretty poor condition but it soon turns to a lovely smooth concrete that is only occasionally been completely obliterated by overweight vehicles.

Only 3km continuous uphill. And it's probably nothing more than 6 or 8 percent grade. Vietnam laughs!

I appreciate the thoughtfulness of cushioning the sharp curve with dead tires. However, I feel that the concrete columns up the center might reduce their effectiveness somewhat.

I could have gone down the mountain so very very fast if I wasn't worried about those patches of messed up road. The gentle grades, the wide well-banked curves. Of course, since Chinese road-builders are not Vietnamese road-builders and they are expecting trucks and cars to be using the road there are lots of warnings about long steep descents and sharp curves when the longest continuous downhill is barely even 2.5km. Ha!

Vietnam scoffs at the idea of calling a 2.5 kilometer descent "long and steep".

2 kilometers ahead. Already killed 2 people. Reduce speed! Slow down! Maintain sufficient following distance!

1.2 kilometers ahead. Already killed 4 people. Reduce speed! Slow down! Maintain sufficient following distance!

Long steep slope, sharp curves, SLOW DOWN; Overturned vehicle slope DANGER; Overturned vehicle slope DANGER; Long steep slope, sharp curves, SLOW DOWN; Long steep slope, sharp curves, SLOW DOWN;

The condition of the pavement is mostly why I'm going slow

My GPS tells me I had over 1200m of cumulative elevation gain today but it sure didn't feel like it. With the exception of the little bit of climb over the mountain (only 3km!) it felt flat flat flat. I rarely changed out of my middle chainring (though partly because shifting to the granny is stickier than it should be). Sometimes I even used the big chainring.

This motorcyclist with China Post rode alongside me and chatted for a while.

There were bits and pieces of road that I recognized from 2014 though mostly it was just a general "I'm in southern China" feel where everything is kind of vaguely familiar. I definitely recognized the gas station in Guitai where I asked for directions. I didn't remember the temple in Guitai so I stopped there and took a wander around. I even read the whole historical inscription start to finish. There were definitely aspects of Vietnam which I enjoyed but the loss of communication skills, and even more, the loss of literacy was really rough on me.

Various representations of the God of Wealth

I especially like the two older non-mass produced statues in the back.

I thought I'd be aiming for Nameng Town about 12km after Qinbei. However, even with a long hour's lunch (at 4pm) I still had plenty of energy left to me and I went to Dadong instead. As taking the Nameng Road would have meant more time on the National Road, I'm glad I ended up on the Dadong Road. The last little bit I had to do on the G325 coming into town was uncomfortable.

I had familiar Chinese fast food for dinner. Peanut butter noodles and a fried egg. After so much unfamiliar for so long, it's good to go back to something that I know.

I think I was attempting to take a panorama

Close enough to cities that dandelion bikes are showing up

Today's ride: 94 km (58 miles)
Total: 2,392 km (1,485 miles)

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