Many towns in the mountains in Sichuan are huge construction sites. Everything, but everything is being built new. The heavy trucks driving around results in all the roads being a quagmire. I have seen it over and over. China is rebuilding itself. A big leap forward.
Mudbath Litang
In my search for dumplings for breakfast, I saw Litang in all its muddy glory. The main road was nearly impossible to traverse – even just pushing the bike. But, once I left the town, the road was pristine.
Mud bath in Litang
Today was always a bit uncertain. It was 40km to a town, then 80km of nothing, climbing 1000m to the high plains. The 40km town was not far enough, so I proceeded up, planning to camp somewhere. It was lovely and sunny, and the road smooth. Progress was slow due to the sizable headwind, and I called it a day at a little service area where they offered me an empty room.
Hore racing
On the way up
My humble abode
arctic-cycler.com 
Looks a mess; bad scenes on the news this week in Shenzhen with mud slides and 30 buildings destroyed.
Ouch. I hope the people there are OK.
I sometimes wonder if they are building too fast without a care to quality, a race like musical chairs. What are the long term costs? After decades of deprivation, it is a feast for the hungry.
Many people wonder that..
Eastern capitalism, worst that the western, according to some. A frenzy that makes you wonder how this country will be after a few decades. 😉
Exactly.
Seeing this funny ‘hore-racing’ thing again i yield to the temptation to write this, and please Matt delete this comment if you don’t like it — They were close to write ‘whore racing’ or riding. In a monastery town, this might be called translation dyslexia. :LOL:
I refrained from riding any hores. 😉