Chapter 216

Distance covered: 1250 km (grand total 13 253 km)

I was up around 6, and took the dog out so he’d get a bit of exercise ahead of the day sitting in the car again. Our inn was in an old town that wasn’t without charm, next to a big pond full of water lilies. It was definitely worth a deeper exploration but we had over 1000 km to cover today so we left as soon as we could, and when we stayed here on the way west it was raining.

We bade farewell to the in-laws, who made their way to Hefei, a good 800 km away. And then we headed home through Shaanxi, Henan, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces. Not much to say here, it was a long unglamorous day. I can’t say it was really unpleasant at any point, with the little traffic and good quality of Chinese highways. The heat sucked, and I was wondering why the hell I was going back to eastern China and its muggy 36-Celsius days.

We got to the big neon-slattered cities of the YRD (Yangtze River Delta) just after it got dark, paid the huge highway toll, and entered the city. I was a bit surprised there was no police checkpoint, with the surge of the pandemic and all. We could be driving a van full of Nanjing airport workers shooting snot rockets everywhere and nobody would stop us.

When we got to the apartment complex, the expropriated farmers in uniforms didn’t want to let us in, and told the girlfriend to call a number. From the half of the conversation that I was overhearing, it seemed like the guy at the end was a massive yinggaishurrer who was making up stuff on the spot, and he didn’t know what to do with us. We came from out of town, but directly from the areas that are still unaffected. They then told us to go get tested, it was past 9 PM and all I wanted was a shower and some rest but we went along, driving a few blocks to a hotel where one wing has been requisitioned by the health authorities. The nurses in thick plastic burqas looked at our tracking apps, and said they only test people coming from the list of affected cities.

So if you’ve been to a hot zone, you get tested for free by the city, but if you haven’t and need a test anyway to be able to travel freely in and out of your own goddamn apartment complexe (or at least, yinggai you need one), then you need to go to the hospital and pay for it? Seems logical. We should have gone to one of those cities for a few minutes, just to get the free test.

So we went home, unloaded the car, and finally got some nice rest. I whipped up a quick pasta meal and watched some YouTube junk videos, enjoying the comfort of my couch. It has been a very nice trip and I’m looking forward to enjoy the rest of the vacation.