Day 248 (China): restaurant at km marker 652 at G310 - km marker 468 on G310 (how much longer can I sustain this?)

daily distance: 165km
total distance: 14,956km
riding time: 7h 

It was one of those days that had the best and the worst. The best was at the beginning and in the afternoon. The worst at night. So this may blemish my view a bit.

The morning saw the folks from the restaurant taking such good care of me. We had already figured out that they were Christians and were keen to help me for that reason. I now also understood why one of them kept repeating the phrase “one book” over and over again. Once I took a look at her book (or rather at the maps in the back) I understood what she meant. They were amazing … thank you very much.

And again, I can’t post the pictures in the size I would like to … my apologies.

The night though was terrible, too much noise from the road which was right adjacent to the building and lots of honking going on. Ouch …

Once underway I had a huge massive tailwind into Zhengzhou, overcame the last hill for the trip (this time I am certain - all is flat as far as I can see) and plunged into this mad and busy city. After construction kept me moving in the wrong direction at first I got into the center - very disappointing - and moved on and out. I for some reason found the right road. It wasn’t G310, but who cares about it when you get this.

Granted, it was boring, but when you want to cover miles this is great. The wind pushed and pushed and pushed and I moved along nicely. I reached Kaifeng, my goal for the day at 1:45pm and after some time on the web moved on. I thought about going to Lankao, but moved past quickly and went further. It seems like I just want to get to the end of the trip now. But there is still some distance to go.

So, I get to a place and it is a hotel. People are happy and excited … except for one guy. The owner. He wants nothing of the foreigner. It was frustrating to say the least and made me angry for the first time in a long time. Really angry. The typical hand waving: No, No! And I couldn’t help but get in his face for this. I shouldn’t have and didn’t want to in the end, but that’s what happened. I left and had to go through the darkness for another 5km before finding a grubby and smelly place that I could stay at. But the food in a little place not far away was good at least.

This was the first time that I felt that the end of the biking part of the trip is drawing near. And I feel slightly nostalgic and melancholic about it. Not sure … but I suppose this is normal.