Chapter 174

Distance covered: 343 km (total 558 km)

I knew our night would be short, as it is the summer solstice and days start early and finish late. Last week when I camped I was up before 5, when the sun illuminated and heated my tent. What I didn’t expect is them coming out so early. I was drifting in and out of sleep, and then the intermittent noises startled me awake. The first wave arrived at 2 o’clock! At this point, do you call it waking up early or just staying up late? I know they’re old and retired, but don’t they sleep? Talking about the elderly Nanjingers who come for their morning swim, here.

From then on, it was pretty much a non-stop assault, we couldn’t see them but heard them coming from all sides. There’s a theory hypothesizing that since Chinese people have been peasants for millenia, spending their days picking rice 100 yards apart, their way of communicating by yelling across the rice paddy has ingrained itself in their DNA. Not sure if there’s any scientific backing to this slightly racist (albeit hilarious) claim, but for sure that would explain a lot. You don’t even have to come to China to observe this phenomenon, just go to the closest international airport and watch as Chinese couples yell at one another from one end of the duty-free shop to the other as they fill their shopping carts to the brim, rather than moving closer.

Some had friends on the other bank of the lake and they hooted at one another like wolves, at some point one woman shone a flashlight in our direction and said “Uh?! A tent? Somebody’s sleeping here?” but then resumed yell-chatting with her companions. I can’t say I was that mad, though, it’s not as if the place was an established camping spot, we were in their world. My two buddies also seemed in good spirits (if a bit hungover and sleep deprived) when we emerged at 5:15, the sun already high in the sky. Dozens of retirees in speedos were stretching, drying up after their swim or doing pull-ups from tree branches, gasping at the sight of three hairy foreigners and a goofy little dog coming out of the mysterious tent. We swam a bit, ate plums for breakfast, and packed up. It was still damn early when we got to the parking lot, the American from Hefei leaving on his scooter and me dropping the Belarusian at the subway stop so he could make his way to the train station, giving me rendez-vous a week from now in Jinan.

So now I had three days to cover 800 km to the village of Chenjiagou, where I’ll meet my Latino pals for a weekend of tai chi classes in the village where it originated. I set up my GPS to motorcycle mode, which avoids highways. I can’t go on highways by myself for the first year I have a license and I’d better not risk it. Of course it means it’s much slower, but hey. The elevated expressway took me out of Nanjing via some of those insane Blade Runner-style new developments, and then I inched my way northwest in the countryside.

The short night and the high activity output of yesterday caught up with me in mid-morning, and even with the AC cranked high and the selection of aggressive music, I started nodding off. I stopped in front of an abandoned building giving me shade, reclined the seat, and fell asleep for much longer than I initially thought I would. The sun creeping its way vertically was now turning the car into a sauna, so I chugged water and kept rolling.

I stopped for beef noodles in a roadside shack, and after my quick meal, the boss asked me how it was. “Delicious”, I replied, with genuine feelings, it was pretty damn good indeed. “Can you say it again on camera?” He pulled out his phone and asked me again. It was quite wholesome.

I was now moving away from glitzy, dynamic, developed eastern China and moving towards the sinister and sad hinterlands of northern Anhui province. Every other building was abandoned, taken over by weeds, rust and decay. The type of desolate place everyone with more than three brain cells and a speck of ambition fucks off from to go find luck in a big city. I had asked my friend earlier if he knows anything about this region and he said “There’s a city called Bengbu, which is a funny name, but that’s all I know. I’ve never been north of Hefei. People usually go to southern Anhui, where the mountains are”. That echoes my experience.

One thing about the deep nong though is that there are less rules, and they are seldom enforced. Just past the city of Suzhou (Sùzhou, not to be mixed with its much, much, much less insignificant quasi-homonym Sūzhou) I tried getting a hotel room, and to my surprise, it worked. I thought that the chances of a filthy foreigner AND a dog being accepted would be so negligible they might as well be zero, but after telling the confused lady for the fifteenth time that I don’t have a Chinese ID card number, she shrugged, took a look at my passport, repeatedly muttered “I don’t understand what it says” and brought me to the room.

“Where is the dog going to sleep?”

“On the floor”, I lied. No way in hell he’d let that happen, he’s a predator, but one who is used to comfort. I’ll wash his feet though before he curls on the bed next to me.

The room was only 60 yuan and it was small but clean, and it was motel-style, with the door leading directly outside, so I could park my car right opposite. Good deal. Just two weeks ago I paid twice that amount for a dorm bed in Shanghai.

I got a cold beer from the fridge and took a walk along the road until I reached a cluster of shops. It was super third world, still, it was nicer than the nicest bits of India I visited a few years ago. People who spout nonsense about India one day taking over China as the big Asian superpower are completely out to lunch.

I bought some cold dishes (dry tofu, peanuts, pickled cucumbers) and a duck leg, then I went to the motel and heated some of the chicken broth I’d been carrying since I left home, alternating between my cooler and my friend’s freezer. I had a videochat with the girlfriend, wrote my diary then went to sleep at 9 PM.