Today's totals: 93.65km, 347m, 16.2km/h
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| Ferry terminal |
When I passed through the hotel lobby just after 6:00, it was still dark out and the security guard and front desk clerk were both asleep at their posts. I had to wake the clerk to hand off my key and then slipped away onto the empty streets of Xiamen for a 10 minute ride to the ferry terminal, which was also fairly empty apart from me, a sleepy attendant, and one inebriated passenger.
The 30 minute ferry ride was uneventful, as was the first part of the morning. Then the rain started at about the 40k mark. I found myself, not for the first time, bargaining with the weather, waiting to see if it would turn worse and require full rain gear. Not long afterwards, it did and I spent the rest of day looking through rain splashed glasses and making a roadside stop every couple of kilometers to check my map, hidden under the rain gear.
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| Fabulous road (awful weather) |
A couple of sections on the route ran along smoothly paved highways, with nice wide shoulders for local traffic such as scooters, agricultural equipment, and bicycles. But then there were sections that ran through towns with horribly pockmarked roads and all kinds of obstacles, from water-filled potholes to pedestrians to slow moving vehicles trying to find or get out of parking spots on the side of the road. One low-lying portion seemed to be washed over with silt. The road itself was no longer visible and the silt was several centimeters deep. There were also a few assents I'm guessing most experienced riders might consider inconsequential. I did the first one but walked the rest.
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| Inside looking out |
In one of the towns I spotted a restaurant serving noodles and stopped for some hot refreshment. It turns out they were offering more than noodles and I got a lovely, though somewhat tasteless, bowl of vegetables, tofu, and noodles.
Passing through some of these towns I began to wonder what kind of hotel might be waiting for me. The ones I saw didn't look terribly inviting, though when you are cold and wet you start to think anything might do. I was pleasantly surprised to find not a beautiful hotel, but hardly a hole-in-the-whole. Front desk was accommodating and we conducted our transactions via translation apps. After cleaning up I went out for food and asked at the front desk for recommendations. The clerk said the manager would show me around later, which was a fantastic offer, but I was hungry and tired and didn't feel like waiting so I found something on my own, a family-run restaurant only a five minute walk from the hotel.
It's now 6:00 and though the bed was typically Chinese (meaning somewhat firm), I slept just fine. No major noise or hassles and the heater works (not always a given this far south).
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| The one hill I managed by bicycle |
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| Lunch |
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| At the end of the day |
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| Morning moon over Xiamen |
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