181 to Hepu 17.1.2019

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More or less cycling directly from the hotel room, I started with some optimism, because it should be only 80+ km and the weather forecast promised better weather. Well, the weather was better than in the last evening, no rain and for some minutes you could tell were in the sky the sun should be, you could even see shadows. But is was not warmer, it was between 7 and 8°C and in combination with the wind, this was again a challenge for hands and feet. But the biggest challenge today was the road of the first 40km. It led me through lonesome green landscape with just a car every 30 min, some motorcycles and a few pedestrians. I wondered where they were coming from and going to, because for many kilometers, there was no settlement, not a single house. And I wondered why they didn’t greet or answer my greetings. This was different to every other country I had gone through. In the last days, even most of the kids didn’t react, only two times little groups of teenagers said hello and a guy on a motorcycle.
Back to the road…
It was so bad that I had to brake when it went down and sometimes had to push my bike when it went up. So, I was again very slow, needing nearly 4 hours for those 40km. And it was hard for my hands, because I had to grab the handlebar very hard most of the time. Again I felt lucky that there was no pouring rain spicing this adventure up until it would be inedible. For some 50-100m, the road was better again, only to switch back to bad again. I only knew that this road would join in another on after those 40km and so with every kilometer done I felt nearer to salvation. And is saw some roadwork, so in a future to come this could be a nice road in a nice environment.

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The road of the second part indeed was better, so I could improve my average from 11 to 13,6 km/h.

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Mr.G had a funny suggestion for a detour at the end. I should go over a bridge in statu nescendi, but it was near to an existing bridge, so we found each other soon again.

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And on the way to the marked position of the hotel, that again was incorrect, I could see the hotel itself. The manager of the hotel is a nice young man, who used translate to introduce himself, welcome me and show me the hotel. He went up to the room with me, helping me with my 6 bags, then went down with me to get my bike and again to the room and left me not without asking if he could help me in any other way.

Later, I had the idea to find an accommodation in Lianjiang by tripadvisor and was successful. That made me too happy and only after booking, I saw that this city is not the middle of the 200km between Hepu and Huazhou (my after next stop) but 160km away. By changing from bike to walking I could get a more direct way with only 140 (cars can use the highway, then it would be only 110, but I fear I cannot go there).
On my evening walk, I didn’t only get food,

I also walked to the road that the route planner didn’t allow for my bike and saw that it is used by motorcycles and bikes.

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At the hotel reception I tried to verify this and another guest showed me on his phone the tour for bikes as I had planned it with the trick to disguise myself as pedestrian.
In the hotel room, there is a TV running and I cannot turn it off. It repeats the program every ~15min and so I saw divers weather forecasts and as far as I understood it will not rain again, so I will do what has to be done and most probably on a good road and with dry weather. Only the wind will be crucial to turn something hard to something very hard.

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