Chapter 199

Distance covered: 293 km (total 4526 km)

Up around 6, when the sun turned the tent into a sauna. We had placed it so we’d have a bit of late afternoon shade but now obviously the sun was coming from the other direction. We had a breakfast of whole wheat tortillas with Nutella, lychees, mangosteens and blueberries, washed down with green tea, and got on the road.

A few kilometers down, there was Genghis Khan’s mausoleum. “Weird, I thought they had never found his place of burial”, the girlfriend said. Almost as weird is the fact that such a genocidal maniac is held in such high reverence, especially here, as he killed almost as many Chinese as Mao Zedong did. We practiced one of our favorite activities, which consists of going to the tourist parking but not going to the site. The price was a jaw-dropping 170 yuan, I wonder how hard they were laughing when they decided on that figure. How many tourist sites in Europe charge 20 euro? Not many, and certainly not artificial tourist traps built in the past five years. We peeked through the gate and could see what the fuss is about, a huge statue of the Khan and some huge blue and gold yurt. Barely worth the fucktardedly high price tag, and they were not gonna let the dog in anyway, so fuck them.

We drove south, entering Shaanxi province. We stopped for lunch in the behemoth city of Yulin, which is bigger than the biggest city in 80% of the world’s countries, but in China it barely is in the top 200 of notable urban agglomerations. In Shaanxi, and the north in general, they take their noodles seriously, and the place is home to a whole list of noodle dishes. The most famous has to be the biangbiang mian, some thick, wide noodles resembling lasagna layers, served with a big pile of savoury toppings. We ordered two bowls, and they were positively huge.

We considered briefly staying in Yulin for the night but decided against, as this type of bloated multi-million tier-3 city comes with all the drawbacks of being in a city with none of the advantages. Plus, it was still too early, and we had plenty of time to go closer to tomorrow’s destination, so we kept going for 120 more kilometers, through the beautiful valleys and rolling hills.

In the end, we paid only 80 yuan for a motel room by a country road. As always, I was apprehensive of them either refusing foreigners or dogs, but when I asked the grumpy man at the counter he seemed confused by my questions. As long as one person has a Chinese ID card, he couldn’t give a shit, and he also didn’t ask for health codes or any of that post-pandemic crap. He did ask if we’re vaccinated though, which is a first.

I put our ice packs in their freezer and the girlfriend gathered the laundry from the car to put in the machine they nicely let us use. The shower felt good, and so did sitting around in the AC dicking around on the internet. I downloaded a bunch of albums to listen in the car, the girlfriend doesn’t like metal much and that’s what was making up most of the content of my mp3 player, so the non-metal stuff was getting stale. I also uploaded about 5 or 6 days’ worth of my diary online, after all those days off the grid.

In the evening, while it was still light but not so damn hot, the dog and I went for a run. I’m not much of a runner, I used to be and want to add long jogs and sprints to my fitness routine. I thought I’d be mostly on the dusty country road full of speeding trucks but soon after taking off I turned on a dirt road randomly and it paid off, leading me to a gigantic field with a pond in it. I ran through it, holding on to the dog’s leash in case the little derp decides to chase the sheep or cows, and after a long loop made it back to the hotel. How long did I run, 2 km, maybe 3, not very long but I want to start gradually and it was still a bit of a workout.

The girlfriend and I had dinner in the restaurant downstairs, we ordered only one bowl of noodles and it was the decision to make, the thing was the size of a kiddie pool. Fucken hell. How are the Shaanxiren not all big obese blobs?!

We sat on our twin beds watching YouTube videos on our respective laptops and then went to sleep around 10.