day 3: 良乡 (liangxiang) – 琉璃河 (liulihe) = 23,8km

“Early in the morning, rising to the street…” – Who could have known that rising to the street meant staying on it for the whole day?

This is the concrete I’ve been massaging with my feet for hours and hours today. The best thing about this street: It’s almost completely straight! Check it out on the map, it’s amazing – and amazingly boring to walk on by the way… I can only imagine how much exhaust I must have inhaled today, and my head is still dizzy from all those wheels spinning and all those faces turning…

…and the stuff that was going on right and left of that infamous street didn’t look much better, in fact it didn’t look that much different at all: More tires…

…and more exhaust. Scenes like this are basically what I’ve been looking at for the most part of the day. I even asked a bunch of people if there was no possibility for another way to where I was going (琉璃河), but – you guessed it: no way.

It all ended up in a good way, though: After a short nap in a gas station I decided to put some music on and the earphones back in, and that basically carried me the rest of the way down that street. Then I found this hotel where they fumbled with my passport for what seemed to be like a half hour, and then showed me up to my room. When I opened the door to the boiler room where I was supposed to take a shower, I found a haven of peace:

A little puppy had found the king spot of the house, and he was going to give it away only to play with my slippers while I was in the shower. The shower water came out massive and hot – a good thing, the best thing, at the end of a fair day.

Soundtrack: Mokobe feat. Viviane Ndour – “Safari”

—total: 69,9km