Xiangtan

Gratuitous Photo of my bike, loaded up and ready to go in Xiangtan.

After carefully consulting my newly purchased maps of Hunan, I decided that the best option for me was to stay on the national highway for one more day. I hate the national highway - it has exits, so I have almost nil interaction with the people on the side while I am riding, which is what I am supposed to be doing. There are not many things more depressing than a sign that says "Next exit - 34km" and realizing that you are stuck on that road no matter what for the next 2 to 3 hours.

To compound the misery, it was extremely rainy today. Recently southern China has had a lot of floods - the areas most seriously affected are to the south of where I have been travelling, but I have gotten a lot of rain from the same system - I've seen some rivers overflowing their banks and such, but nothing like the video footage that I've been seeing coming from Guangxi and Guangdong. Still, the rain has been starting to get to me. It has rained every day for the last two weeks - one day it was light enough that I didn't wear my rain gear, but today was another day where I had to wear my rain gear the entire day. It is a lot slower and hotter (it's another layer of clothing). I don't mind rain for a bit at a time, but at the end of an entire day of rain I am soaked no matter what. Hopefully it will clear up a bit in the next while. But I suppose this is what I get for travelling in the rainy season.

At the same time, I shouldn't complain - northern China has had record breaking heat, and I don't think that 35-40 degree (around 90-100 degrees farenheit) sunny weather would be much fun. At least in the rain, it is generally cooler and I don't have to drink much water.

Anyways, Xiangtan is a really big city. I was wavering between travelling here or Changsha, which is the capitol of Hunan and a massive city (probably around 7 or 8 million people) and I didn't like the idea of biking into Changsha. Plus, Xiangtan is a little bit more direct for my route. Tomorrow I am going to be visiting Chairman Mao's birthplace, and the good news is that I only have about 10 more kilometers left on the national highway!!!!