203 to Dongshan 8.2.2019



This night, I had strange bad dreams about keys. I just want to say, if there were a reliable alternative to lock and open doors (etc.) without keys, I would be ok with it. It is easy to lose keys and if I would get back every minute of my life that I was busy with searching for my keys, I nearly would life eternally.
In my dream I had to deal with difficult situations, because  had lost my bike keys and the keys of the hotel. The simple truth behind that is, that I had put those keys somewhere, and had forgotten where.
The result of that was an early morning, starting with looking for (and finding!) both keys. Then, I took advantage to go to the restroom before someone else was awake, not only to have a better rest if nobody is waiting, but also because the door is frosted glass and still you see the person, though blurred, and the door doesn’t close completely, so you can see un-blurred through that gap.
My best moments in restrooms are when I am unobserved because there is no one, and if there were someone, (s)he couldn’t hear, see or whatever me.
Ok, I was early enough, did what had to be done and left the hotel.


The tour had no many aspects that would be new for a reader of the China part, business as usual with wind, detours, street mirages, crazy drivers who didn’t watch the traffic before doing something, some people just gazing, others waving, smiling or giving a thumbs-up.


Not new but not mentioned so far, is the street food as I call it. On many days,  I find fruits that still can be eaten and sometimes I pick them up. Today I found 5 oranges on the street, dirty but undamaged and later tested one so I can tell you that the taste was great!

I don’t like star-apples that much and there were too many anyway but they also tasted good compared to those I had eaten before.


When I had my first break, (today, I divided 111km into parts of 50, 40 and 21km) a couple with a motorcycle approached me. The chain had dropped, and they needed a tool to fix it. I could help them out and after repairing she said thank you but he didn’t say anything, not even good-bye.


In the city, I came near the location of the hotel, but couldn’t find it. I went to a restaurant to ask and the cook came out of the kitchen to help. He looked up the address on his phone, crossed the street with me and went into a narrow lane that opened to a court. I am not sure about what was the problem there, because we needed a translating app and some parts were confusing. First it seemed that it was the wrong hotel on the correct address then I should cancel the booking, then I could stay there, but they had no information (but I had a confirmation). And then I saw that the cook gave money to the owner and later he told me that I can stay and he had payed in advance I could give it to him tomorrow.
We went back to his restaurant where my bike was and I tried to pay him back the money but he didn’t tell me the price and didn’t want to take what I offered. In the end, I could pay him 50Y, maybe half the price. He wanted to do something good and help me…
IN the evening I went back to the restaurant to have dinner.

In the evening I went back to the restaurant to have dinner. At the hotel, I had asked for the price that my new friend had payed -160Y. Now it was clear for me, why he had said there was no reservation and I might be too suspicious, but maybe he found a way to force the cook to pay for me, because I would have refused to pay more than the price written in the confirmation, 108Y.  
My “cook” was the manager of the restaurant and he came to my table to take my order. The food was delicious, and you could watch the people working in the kitchen, also the manager doing the same work. And you could see that the sometimes were laughing, it looked as if the atmosphere was friendly between them. I had noticed, that all other customers had the bill at there tables and was prepared for new complications. When I asked for the bill, another man who also had worked in the kitchen came and on the phone showed me the translation “20Y altogether”. This was impossible and I told him the price should be higher. He walked away, came back and said it is ok, it is a special offer of his manager (that was the moment when I officially learned that he is the manager). But at least I saw the bill (65Y) and when he came back with 80Y change I hid this and another 100Y under the bill and left a note saying something like “thanks for your kindness, please share the money with your employees”. I think one of them saw my trick but didn’t tell the boss and I could say god-bye to him and leave (I was the last customer, they were about to close at 21:00)
I hope that this solution was at least not offending him. But I could not accept another invitation after getting the room payed without being in need.

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