More China Adventures

CHENGDU—in Sichuan Province

Another long train ride, this time to Chengdu, was less interesting than the previous one. I appeared to be the only Westerner on the train. The train was packed with travelers since the week-long vacation holiday was approaching, and I’d unfortunately been assigned an upper berth. Rats. Well, most of the trip I read, looked out the window, and then after 12 hours met Lena, a young Chinese woman who spoke good English. We talked about our travelers while perched on seats in the corridor. She helped me select some food from what I call the “food lady” when she wheeled her cart filled with rice and veggie dishes down the train corridor. Lena also showed me a video on her camera of her skydiving adventure in Australia. When she got off the train a few hours later, I felt quite lonely. Soon afterwards though, a tall middle-aged white gentleman of large proportions (beer-bellied) came walking through the car looking a bit lost and asking a young Chinese guy he was with if he was sure this led to the diner car. I finished reading the chapter I was engrossed in before heading to the diner myself, eager to meet with someone who spoke English.

The guy was Michael, from Australia. Sitting with him and his new business-minded Chinese friend who was on his way to Chengdu to make a bundle of money, I ordered some tea and enjoyed some conversation. It did appear as if Michael, on a month-long holiday from Aussie-land and his wife and kids, had imbibed something stronger than the green tea I’d been drinking. He also reminded me a little bit of Kramer from Seinfeld—but without the wild hairdo. After chatting a bit about various travels (favorite topic of backpackers since no-one else is interested), I headed off to the bathroom to wash the omnipresent grime and dust off of my hands. I should mention that most of the toilets in the Chinese trains are of the squat style. The tiny room, twice the size of your average phone booth, contained only the silver metallic basin set in the floor and a floor suspiciously sticky with the remains of urine as well as the dust of human shoes. Ah, the joys of traveling in Asia (or Serbia). And of course across the corridor, where there are sinks, there is no soap. In fact, I didn’t notice anyone using soap. In most places in China, aside from KFC and McDonalds, you won’t find soap. It always irritated the hell out of me that in the 21st Century (got that? Twenty first!), trains in China didn’t have soap in the ‘bathrooms. I mean, what on earth do the Chinese schools teach the kids?

At the frenetic train station in Chengdu, Michael and I opted to share a taxi to the hostel where I’d made a reservation. He’d heard vaguely of another hostel but was willing to give this place a go. In the taxi, he rather exuberantly greeted the driver, a thin scared-looking man. “Hey, you won’t overcharge us, huh?” Michael said jokingly. “Chengdu looks great but lots of crazy traffic, huh?” The driver probably didn’t understand any of it but nodded a lot and drove us through some heavy traffic at dusk. My first impression was that Chengdu was an ugly city. The street on which the taxi weaved was narrower than the wider roads of Beijing, and either side was lined with little poor-looking shops. As in Beijing, these shops sold everything from toilets to travel services to grocery items. There was a considerable amount of horn honking, bikes dodging cars, scooters scooting between cars, dented buses carrying a full load of tired-looking passengers, and just a lot of dirt and grime.

The Traffic Inn, an oddly-named hostel, turned out to be a good choice. It’s set behind a larger hotel, and just aside a brown river lined with high grassy banks. The office had a proper counter/desk and two efficient English speaker young guys behind it. Two computer consoles to the side were occupied by backpackers. After checking in (we each opted for a private room), one of the guys led us through a dining/lounge area and through more doors to a wide corridor half open to the outside; the room was basic but clean: a big double bed, table, and a chair. There was a bit of the exotic to the place; I was reminded of a Caribbean beach front hotel. I asked the guy as he handed me the key if there was a good restaurant around. I wanted to add “not Chinese!” but didn’t. Fortunately, he suggested trying a place called Peter’s Tex-Mex. “It’s very popular with everyone,” he insisted. “Just out to the right, and after the flyover bridge you’ll see it. Five minutes.”

After a twenty-minute walk, with Michael fretting that we’d somehow missed it, the welcoming sign of Peter’s Tex Mex appeared. Inside looked cozy and clean. There was an interior second floor ‘balcony’ area, and best of all, a very clean bathroom that actually had soap in a dispenser. I ordered a salad because my body hadn’t taken in veggies in a few days and some pancakes. I washed it down with cola zero. (The next day, when I went back, I was delighted to find DIET A&W ROOT BEER.). The food was great, such a treat. When at home, we just don’t appreciate the variety of tasty food we have at hand, do we?

Michael was off to some other town the next day, which actually pleased me because we didn’t have much in common and even the next morning in the hostel lobby gave off the aura of one slightly drunk. Nice guy, though. I did some work on my laptop, grading essays, and then wandered down the street outside the hostel, following the river. Old guys were fishing (I wouldn’t eat any fish coming out of that river, I have to say), couples walked hand in hand beneath the non-romantic gray sky, and down on the main road, China hustled and bustled. I wanted to try a different restaurant, and had read on the Chengdu Tourist Map about a placed called Grandma’s Kitchen. It sounded cozy, with the promise of some good home-cooked food, presumably by an old woman who had years of culinary experience. Getting the directions from the ever-friendly kid at the front counter, I walked down more streets, wound up taking a public bus that hadn’t been washed (interior and exterior) in probably a year, and hopped off along a road where a subway system is in its early planning stage. Within the span of a few minutes, I saw tank-top wearing men (too thin to be construction workers) digging, sweating, working machinery, and a man pedaling some wagon contraption filled with little red Chinese flags. With the holidays approaching, he doubtless hoped for a booming business. Just after that, I passed a beggar with a huge hole in his calf, a deep gauge as if some beast had ripped away half his calf. He just sat with the leg exposed and a bowl filled with yuan notes. I fought off the nausea and hated the Chinese government for not providing health care to their citizens. It’s like David had said: “In China, if you don’t have family or close friends, and you get sick, you’re screwed.”
Anyway, I got to Grandma’s Kitchen, which was empty of customers, not a good sign. The waitress handed me a menu as I sat at a table near the window (great view of the metal barricade hiding the construction). I thought the Russian veggie soup might be good, and asked how big the bowl of soup would be (using motions). After all, Grandma was asking for three dollars for one bowl—exorbitant by Chinese standards. When the waitress showed me the bowl, the size of a small cup, I declined. I made the decision to go back to Peter’s Tex Mex, where I enjoyed a burrito and a chocolate shake.

My highlight of the Chengdu days was a visit to the Panda sanctuary, the breeding facility that’s appeared on various documentaries. The Traffic Inn bus took a group of us there, and we arrived early enough to watch the first feeding. The place is a little haven for the cute, seemingly cuddly bears, with forestland, bamboo in abundance, wooden walkways and platforms for them to play on. A small horde of tourists worked their digital cameras to the max as the first three pandas came ambling rather lazily along from their night-quarters and into a clearing. They climbed some steps and sat happily munching bamboo as the tourists clicked and oohed. It was impressive. A guide then led our hostel group to another viewing area, from which we could watch several pandas, a couple of them clearly youngsters, play. They don’t play fiercely but just sort of sit next to each other and without too much energy, nip, slap, roll around. It’s the kind of thing that delights tourists, of course. But the bears don’t play long, as if to say “we’ve done our show, now we’re going to be lazy.” At which point, they tend to either sit up next to a wall or go hide indoors somewhere. Tired ourselves but happy, we allowed ourselves to be led to a building with a café out front. While some of our gang watched a short video about pandas, I wandered down past flower gardens to a small lake cluttered with lily pads near the bank. A couple with their little boy were pointing at and watching goldfish frolicking near their feet, and when I say ‘goldfish’, I don’t mean just a school, but a whole school district. The fish were big ones and absolutely jam packed, wriggling, puckering, thrashing, swimming. I felt that I could have walked out across them.

The rest of Chengdu was okay. I did have a nice final day when the sun came out. I walked down more affluent streets with some high-rises, and found a large open square at the front of which was a large white marble museum and a statue of Chairman Mao. At the opposite end was a McDonalds, which I visited along with a good number of Chinese families. I took a picture of a big sign announcing the 60th Anniversary of the revolution; Chinese tourists were snapping pics of each other in front of it, and a nice father of two agreed with a smile to take my picture with my camera. I felt quite happy to be in Chengdu.


Tired of train travel, I decided to fly to Lijiang, which is further south in Yunnan Province. On my way to the airport by taxi, I again presumed that the airport would be similar to the Beijing train station: a dreary affair with hordes of Chinese with their sacks, bundles and boxes. So I was happy to see a totally modern, clean, efficient airport just twice as big as Omaha’s Eppley Airfield. There were even some luxury good shops. The check in at China Eastern Airlines went without fuss: the girl scanned my passport, found my online reservation and gave me my boarding pass. Security was present but not a nightmare. And as I’d expected to see an aircraft in the same condition of the city buses, I was thrilled to see a sleek modern jet. It didn’t take long to board, and I sat beside two Chinese women in their 30’s who spoke enough English just to ask me where I was from. The interior of the aircraft was practically gleaming, and when it came time for the usual flight safety rules, little projectors suddenly made an appearance from the ceiling. It reminded me of Sulu’s little view thingy on the bridge of the Enterprise.

Lijiang is a great and pleasantly small city in southern China not far from the Tibetan border. As I found out the next morning after waking up in my dorm and poking my head out the door, a low range of mountains was the backdrop to the city—one in which there are no skyscrapers, thankfully. The Pamba Hostel was set on a narrow pedestrian-only street. On either side and throughout this old town, the architecture was that of the Naxi minority: small dark wooden structures –and not entirely separate from the neighboring house or shop. For the most part it seemed like one building (usually one story) that kept on going down the street. At any rate, the streets, alleys and homes were quaint and delightful, until about 10am when the on-holiday tourists started emerging from their various guesthouses and hotels in order to wander the quaint and delightful area. Just my luck that I was here during the greatest holiday in a half century. Sigh.

The Pamba was one of the best hostels (except for the fact that the bed sheets had seemed a bit moist. Not quite mildewed but not quite crisp and dry. I’d found that often in China maids simply neglected to change sheets or really ‘wash’ anything. Some told me that if sheets, towels, even laundry were washed, it might not be with soap. Anyway, the guys behind the front desk at the Pamba were as unique as the town. Both Chinese, Nick was in his mid-twenties with black-framed glasses; he liked to crack subtle jokes and made it clear that he didn’t think there was such a thing as “freedom” in China, which of course any one of us understood. River wasn’t so funny but was attentive and kind, even lending me his jeans jacket that morning because otherwise I would have shivered with cold. Lijiang was a tad cooler than the cities up north, due to location.

So with River’s jacket keeping my comfy, I wandered along narrow lanes for quite a while, watching life and watching other tourists (mostly Chinese but a number of backpackers) watch life. There was a long-haired scruffy Chinese dude, kind of a hippie, who with his little ugly pink bulldog allowed backpackers to take his photo for just a few Yuan. He posed for me on a stone bridge with a clean stream and the mountains in the background. After that, I noted the incongruent scene of Chinese travelers talking on their mobiles while viewing some village women down by the stream washing their clothes in the same fashion as their parents and grandparents. I stopped by one of many shops selling various meats (in various conditions), all looking dried, twisted, almost like jerky. A young woman behind the counter offered me a taste of Yak meet, and I couldn’t refuse. Besides, I wanted to know how it tasted. Chewing it carefully, because the piece was tough, my taste buds made their conclusion: Yuck on Yak.
Other interesting moments: in a plaza containing a plethora of colorful red and yellow flowers (more preparation for the 60th anniversary), a pair of huge wooden waterwheels in a stream, and stalls selling everything from clothing to Tibetan prayer flags, I watched a garbage truck making its rounds on the neighboring street. As it would move forward, instead of the BEEP BEEP BEEP that you might expect, a speaker emanated the tune of Happy Birthday. After that, another heartbreaking image: a crippled man crawling, or rather dragging himself along the walkway beside the river. One of the guy’s bone-thin legs was somehow wrapped partially around his neck, the other just kind of stuck out. Very sad.

I found a great little café called the Prague Café. A two-story affair of wood, the girls running the place spoke decent English and served up a menu of Western items. The place would have been a hit in Europe or the USA. One wall was lined with well-worn books that you could buy or trade; on the other walls were various pictures and sketching of Prague, Czech Republic. Upstairs, where I sat in order to gaze out the window at the proverbial babbling brook running alongside the alleyway, there were more pictures of Prague, and one, oddly, of Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara. But I didn’t give a damn. The food, when it arrived, was tasty and filling.

After a couple days of tourism and work (continuing the online classes), I decided to do the trek at Tiger Leaping Gorge (TLG). This is one of the most difficult treks in China (or so I read in a travel book). I hadn’t been impressed with the pictures at Google Images: a deep gorge, yes, with high cliffs on either side, and the brown Yangtze River snaking its way through one of the deepest gorges on Earth. Nice but I just wasn’t sure. But River, the guy from the Pamba, convinced me to go…at least along the ‘low path’ following the river. “Not as beautiful, but pretty easy to do,” he’d said. An Israeli guy that I met, named Hitai, was going to do the trek, and while packing our mini-packs in our room that evening, I decided to play it by ear. The first step would be getting there the next morning.

A minivan (arranged by Nick and River) took Hitai, me, and some other Israeli youth (ignored by Hitai) to a town about an hour north of Lijiang. The driver pretty much drove right through the town to where the trek would begin; at that point, it wasn’t going to be possible for me to follow the low road, so I made a quick decision: just do the trek the right way—from on top of the gorge. Of course one had to get there first. Hitai and I set off at a decent pace. The ‘path’ as it were was a dirt trail that just ascended from this one-lane road into some woodland. We weren’t even totally sure it was right but the driver had pointed and jabbered some Chinese at us. The nice thing was that we were alone on the trail. For awhile, we thought that perhaps we were on the wrong trail and the other Israeli’s had gotten it right. But we plowed on, following a curving trail that actually became a narrow ‘road’ of rocks and dirt. After an hour, we arrived at a tiny guesthouse/café—a bare-bones shack with a rickety wooden deck and a counter where goodies and drinks were sold. The teenage boy spoke a few words of English, offering “beer, water, cola…”

A funny note about water. When I’d met an Australian couple in Lijiang who had done the trek, the rather powerfully-built husband (perhaps in his fifties) said to me, “Take at least 3 liters of water! You’ll need it! The trek is treacherous in parts, and takes a lot of stamina!” He repeated at least once more the need for “three liters!” His wife had nodded sagely. “Three liters.” Well, of course Hitai and each had packed one tiny half-liter of water because we carried only our own small daypacks with the essentials of clothing and reading material—and the water. So here we were at this first guesthouse, and there are dozens of water bottles, so I bought more. “There’s probably all this crap at every guesthouse,” said Hitai. Looking over the assortment of Chinese crackers, chocolate, Doublemint gum, ice cream, colas, and stuff I couldn’t identify (that happened a LOT in China), I spied my Snickers. Just a half hour earlier, huffing our way up the trail, I’d commented how nice it would be to munch on a Snickers. After all, diabetics are allowed Snickers while on Asian treks. Hitai had turned and chuckled, “No, no, they won’t have Snickers up here.” He had probably wanted to add, ‘Silly Americans’ but hadn’t. Now at the guesthouse I smiled with triumph and bought the Snickers---just in case my blood sugar levels went low, you understand. The next hour’s walk found us walking along a trail on the side of the cliff. Upwards would be impossible, and down would be equally so. The views were fantastic though. On the other side of the gorge, the cliff still towered over us; most of it was forested or at least with a lot of brush and low trees. Way below was the Yangtze.

We lunched at a guesthouse with a pretty courtyard filled with bougainvillea or something similar. Already the view was quite splendid; from outside the guesthouse, you could look across the gorge at a massive green wall several hundred meters away. We chatted briefly with a Dutch couple, both in their late thirties: the woman was slightly heavy set with a ruddy-complexioned face and the hubby was well-built, a body-builder type though I thought that anyone getting that tanned was heading for a bout with cancer at some point. We also talked to the ladies at the next table, who turned out to be Danish. One was only in her early forties, but her companion had to be in her sixties. The climb would be a challenge, I thought. Hitai and I soon pushed on, following an increasingly difficult trail. In fact, I wouldn’t call it a trail. More like a rock-strewn pathway resembling the bed of an ancient waterless stream, only ascending sharply upwards. It got so that after fifteen minutes of following this ‘trail’, we had to take a breather. “How many bends did Nick say there were?” asked Hitai.
“Twenty-eight,” I replied. And we were on number three. “Look,” I said. “If you want to run ahead, don’t worry. I’ll catch up.” But the way my heart was pounding, I thought it might not be until evening at this rate. Earlier, when I’d asked Hitai if he were a fast walker, he had replied, “Well, I was Israeli Special forces” with a grin.

A half hour later or so, it was grueling. I’d lost sight of Hitai but carried on. It was necessary to get a good foothold. Of all the treks I’d done, including in the Nepali Himalayas and at Rocky Mountain National Park (that bloody horrible Bierstadt lake hike!), this was worst. I had to stop every few minutes and catch my breath. A serene and gorgeous place to die, though, at ole Tiger Leaping Gorge. Well, after a few more horrid minutes, I literally stumbled like a drunken Aussie upon a place well shaded by trees, and where Hitai sat on a boulder breathing heavily and saying “Wow, that was a bit…difficult.” Nearby were two old men with horses. They intelligently waited while we caught our breath and then said, “Ride horse, only 100 yuan,” which is about fifteen bucks or so. They smiled, hoping for a sale.
“No,” said Hitai smiling back. He flexed a muscle. “Strong, can walk.” The old guys should have been more concerned with me, a more likely customer, and indeed the one guy just started back down the trail in search of needy backpackers, but the one just squatted in the dust, patiently waiting for all of two minutes before repeating, “Ride horse, good, eighty Yuan.”
For a moment, I thought Hitai might accept. The guy just stared at Hitai. “He’s looking at me like a vulture,” said Hitai “Like he knows I can’t make it.” He laughed.

We plowed on up the old stupid mountain, me thinking how nice it would be to be sipping coffee at the Prague Café and the old guy leading the horse following us. After a couple of minutes he called out in Chinese to get our attention and said, “Okay, sixty Yuan.” Well, the long and short of it is that when he got down to forty, I did the math and said, “He’s offering to let me ride up the next twenty-something switchbacks for six bucks. I’m doing it!” Why suffer when you can enjoy a nice horse ride and help out the local economy? The poor old guy needed the dough, and he looked quite pleased as he helped me up on the horse, adjusted the saddle, fiddled with the stirrups, etc. I rode happily along, able to admire the view instead of watch the rocks on the trail. It made a nice difference. Hitai kept up a good pace, and to be honest, made better time than the horse, which I soon discovered was quite a weak beast, probably over-burdened, not, and panting like a puppy at play. I felt awfully sorry for the animal after another ten switchbacks. The Chinese guy, rather indifferent to the animal, followed behind calling out little Chinese “giddyup” equivalents.

The end of the switchbacks of Tiger Leaping Gorge isn’t really the top, but it’s the end of the arduous climb. It’s where I got off the horse; the rest I’d do by foot. At the top were a half dozen other hikers, all crowded around a couple Chinese vendors selling cola, beer, water, etc. under a wooden makeshift covering. I wondered how the vendor had made it up—or down—the trail with all that gear. Anyway, there was an outcropping of rock that looked down upon the river far below, but the vendor, a wiry little guy in his forties, said to all of us, “Can look, free, no pictures.” If you wanted a picture of the gorge, you had to pay about twenty Yuan, which of course was a rip-off but this was China. There were lots of them. Since the view all around us was just as spectacular, the gathering crowd of hikers, including the two Danish ladies, the Dutch couple and a few of the ‘lost’ Israelis, snapped pictures and drank thirstily from water bottles and still sucked in air after the hike.

That night, we all called it quits for the evening at the Teahouse Inn. The Dutch couple, along with a scrawny English kid and his German girlfriend, had intended to continue on until evening to the next guest house; but as the Dutch woman said to our group, “I think this is a good place to stop.” The place had a large courtyard and a couple of wings with rooms. Hitai chose to sleep in the dorm since it was only twenty yuan (about two dollars) but the Dutch, the young couple, the Danish ladies and myself all treated ourselves to the luxury of a private room. I paid ten bucks for a hot shower and double bed. Several of us met in the courtyard just before dusk, to sip tea, drink beer, do the usual travel chat. That’s the best way to get info about travel: talk to people doing it. All the guidebooks and online travel advice is nothing compared to chatting in person with people who have just come from such-and-such a city and give firsthand information. As a nearly full moon appeared above the cliff across the way, I was so thankful to God for bringing me to this place for this one hour (and to the private room, of course). The cliff was a mountain, naturally, but rising behind it was a range of grayer higher mountains, and behind those, snow-capped peaks. The full moon and the vestiges of dusk light were an ethereal background to the dusting of snow blowing off the highest peaks. This was what travel was all about. I kept that in mind as I lay in bed that night listening to the old Danish woman snoring like a lumberjack (why is it never a car salesman or even a doctor?).

In the morning, I woke and wandered down to the courtyard to try some breakfast. The air was darn chilly, and here I was without a jacket. Hitai had gone out to a market in Lijiang before departing and purchased a heavy sweater for the sum of 200 yuan (about $25). But he’d soon discovered that packing it in his daypack was a mistake. Expecting cold with altitude, he’d been surprised to find the day temps to be hot. In fact, one can hike at Tiger Leaping Gorge in short sleeves through December. At any rate, I was allowed by the family running the place (reminded me of a poor Nepali family) to hang out in the kitchen. I sat by the tiny oddly-rigged wood-burning stove as two teens prepared breakfast in the big open kitchen—one that looked like you’d expect to see at a guesthouse deep in the Himalayas. A kitchen none too clean, of course, what with a chicken or two wandering through, floors that hadn’t been cleaned in heaven knows how long, and general disorder. But they did a bang-up job with the food, though, and for a couple dollars, who can complain.

The Danish ladies had risen early and departed with the rising sun. I know that because I heard them banging around in the next room for at least an hour. The Dutch couple and others decided for a leisurely morning. So after breakfast, a slow packing, and some general chit chat in the courtyard, we set off though not at the same time. Hitai, who was happy just to wander about the nearby ‘village’ of three homes (more wooden contraptions rather like giant mansion versions of Jed Clampet’s old Kentucky home) and snap pictures of half naked kids running about small patches of corn or giant pigs grunting in their pens.

The rest of the day brought us a fairly level trail with minor ups and downs as the trail snaked through a mix of woodland and more open areas with brush, tiny spindly trees, etc. I’ll skip the scenery commentary and come to the end: by that evening, a group of us including the Dutch, the young skinny couple, and a few Israelis, all finally stepped onto concrete at the end point, where we cheered, the Dutch couple embracing. Some of them were staying at Tina’s Guesthouse, a much publicized (in backpacking circles) guesthouse near a large concrete bridge that spans the gorge. Hitai and I had talked about spending the night either here or further on down the road at a place called Sean’s Guesthouse. We checked out the rooms at Tina’s but didn’t like Tina herself. A Chinese woman in her 50’s, she seemed rather arrogant, and at first refused to help the Dutch couple telephone the place where their backpacks were being stored. In China, it’s common for hostels and guesthouses to make phone calls for guests, helping them out when possible. Plus the atmosphere at Tina’s was just a bit too touristy, as if everyone was spending the night here just because it was Tina’s and one was almost expected to. Hitai and I walked twenty minutes on down the road, a lovely walk that took us by quiet guesthouses, squat wooden home/shacks, all along the base of one side of the gorge. On the other side of the road was another drop of perhaps a hundred feet to the river. Our faithful friend, the “wall of mountain” as I thought of it, took up the view to our right.

Sean of Sean’s Guesthouse is a minor celebrity among some backpackers. Unlike Tina, Sean is laid back, helpful, has a sense of humor, and runs a clean and pleasant guesthouse. He’s probably in his forties but I’m not sure; he’s missing half an arm, speaks great English, and pointed out to me in his office the online comments that many travelers have made. “Look here,” he says, his finger next to one entry that states categorically that Sean is fantastically helpful and definitely on the bizarre side. “He’s right!” says Sean. “It’s the most honest post.” He laughs happily. He grew up in this village and knows the gorge very well. The rooms at Sean’s are good quality; Hitai and I shared a room because Sean gave us a big discount (just for asking). For five bucks each, we had two double beds and a private bathroom. After dumping our backpacks on the beds and peering into the bathroom, we were in for a surprise: there was a bathtub! A clean, modern bathtub. I hadn’t seen one of those for a month. I didn’t want a bath, but boy was it nice to not be spraying water all over the sink and toilet or have water flood the floor.

Dinner at the guesthouse was outside at one of several picnic-bench-like tables. After dusk, I sat with a twenty-something kid from Chicago who had been on the road for months and had months more to travel. There were three American girls who were teaching English in Kunming and were enjoying the big holiday by traveling. We all chatted, exchanged info, and this is where I got a valuable piece of information that practically saved my life: in Kunming, where I was headed, there’s a place called Chicago Coffee—with Wireless Internet, and it’s clean, with a clean bathroom. Well, more on that in the Kunming section. Jump ahead if you can’t wait. But to end this Tiger Leaping Gorge narrative, after a nice hot shower, a long sleep and a lazy morning, I boarded a minivan (arranged for a few of us by Sean) and headed back to Lijiang. Hitai and I said good bye because he was going north to another tourist mecca called Shangri-La. I just didn’t want to go to a place tackily named after the famous paradise shown in Lost Horizon.

I spent a couple more days at the Pamba enjoying the delights of the Prague Café, the little flowing ‘river’ on its concrete banks. I met a Polish girl named Gosi, an exuberant and happy young woman who showed me the correct way to use Couchsurfing and with whom I took a long walk in one of those Chinese parks that Americans think of as, well, oriental jewels: gardens, temples, serene lakes, bridges. In fact, I’d tried to get into the park days earlier, but the entrance fee of ten bucks really put me off. Sometimes the Chinese just gouge tourists. It’s ridiculous. The park wasn’t Rocky Mountain National Park, after all. I’d huffed at the ticket agent and stormed off. When I told Gosi, she said, “I snuck in a back way. There’s a gate but no one even stopped me.” So she insisted we try again—and we did, and no one stopped us. Who knows why. After enjoying the place and getting some good shots, we returned to the Pamba and talked over tea. She’d been hesitantly considering Tiger Leaping Gorge, but after my building it up to be ten times better than the Grand Canyon (it’s not), she was all in a bother to get Nick at the front desk to reserve a seat on the next day’s bus to the gorge. “I’m going to do it,” she stated. I suppose that after traipsing along the twenty-eight switchbacks, she was cursing my name.

The next city on my list was Kunming. To get there, I could fly or take the ‘sleeper bus’. Flying was too expensive due to the holiday, but Nick secured a lower berth on the sleeper bus for me. I left the hostel in the evening, just after dusk, and walked through the old town to the main street of ‘new town’. Unfortunately, it was drizzling and no taxi was stopping, so I fretted and said some bad words. Here it was, dark, cold, rainy and my bus was leaving in thirty minutes. Thankfully, a young guy on the side of the road spoke about ten words of English, but it was enough for him to make clear to a minivan driver (whom we flagged down) where I wanted to go.

Taking a Chinese sleeper bus is a bit of an adventure. We don’t have these in the USA. No one else has them, as far as I know. The interior layout consists of 3 short, narrow bunks set just off the floor, with very narrow aisles between them. Above each bunk is a higher bunk, so the bus holds approximately 30 or 40 passengers, who lay down for the duration of the voyage. I boarded with the other passengers on that dark, drizzly evening in Lijiang, and for the next 9 hours, the bus rumbled and weaved through Chinese countryside, its headlights a beacon for other buses, cars, pedestrians, cows, whatever was on the road. From blaring TV monitors at various points, passengers could watch a Chinese drama that didn’t make much sense to me; some young student type had had a run in with the Shanghai mafia, it seemed, and a girl was involved though I couldn’t make any sense of it. I listened to my I-Pod and read a bit. Thankfully, by 11pm the film ended (with some explosions if I recall though there had been a number of explosions and shootings) and the lights went out. The Chinese transport authorities love to turn the lights out. Probably gives them a sense of power. At any rate, I slept fitfully, mostly because of the one guy snoring on the bus—the guy next to me. The bus drivers weaving, a few sudden stops where the driver had obviously stomped on the brakes, even a called rest stop at some ghostly conglomeration of structures failed to awaken him.

We arrived in Kunming at 5:30 in the morning; the sky was still dark and most of the passengers emerged from the bus in a rather dazed, sleepy state. Out on a small road, I flagged down a taxi, handed her the slip of paper on which was written the hostel address, and she flipped on the meter and drove quietly. I’d expected a lengthy trip but we hadn’t even gone 5 minutes when she stopped in front of the Cloudland Hostel. A small courtyard with chairs and two billiard tables was devoid of human life, but I walked on into the ‘office’ and said I’d made a reservation online. A Chinese man (I guess I should stop writing that. Of course he was Chinese) of thin build (I should stop writing that, too. Most are of thin build). Anyway, he flipped open this little booklet which had English instructions for check-in typed out. “PLEASE GIVE ME YOUR PASSPORT” said the first page, so I complied. The guy jotted down the relevant info and handed it back. He flipped to another page. “WHEN YOU CHECKING OUT PLEASE BRING SHEETS AND PILLOW LINENS” and he handed me a pile of linen. Next page: “PLEASE PAY ON CHECKOUT. HERE IS YOUR KEY” and he handed me a key. I lugged the backpack up a flight of stairs, walked the length of a balcony overlooking the courtyard and quietly opened the door. I hate arriving late at night at a hostel because I’m a thoughtful person who doesn’t want to annoy others, but I needn’t have worried; a Chinese backpacker was sitting in front of his laptop watching something. Must have been important at 5:30am. I simply threw the sheets on the bed, smoothed them out, lay down, and slept.

Kunming turned out to be the nicest Chinese city I would stay in. In many ways, it’s the usual collection of big concrete buildings, but the place had some charms, notably a Wal-Mart and Chicago Coffee. Well, okay, it also had Western Hills Park. And some nice shady streets, parks where you could watch people doing their en-masse calisthenics, and markets. In the morning after my short nap, I was down in the office, now presided over by two very efficient and pretty girls who really made the place run. A few backpackers were out in the courtyard sipping coffee; one guy shot billiards, and I peeked into the hostel café with its nice dark-wood furniture and comfy sofas. I knew I’d like the place. In the office, I was handing over my passport to be kept in the safe when I noticed a Chinese girl holding an American passport. As we got to chatting, I learned she was from San Francisco and that she was boldly traveling around China for a couple months on her own. She’d befriended this old American guy in his late sixties named Gary, who had just arrived from the USA with his bike. So the girl, whose name was Yvonne, asked, “We’re going to Western Hills Park now, wanna come?” So I did.

We flagged down a taxi and began the twenty minute drive through decent traffic on a fairly sunny day. We wound up taking a taxi as opposed to the bus because Gary has a new titanium leg that cost as much as some houses, as he explained with a chuckle. “A tall man of average build and sporting a gray beard, he looked like he’d seen and done a lot in his travels, which had been considerable. “Does your leg hurt much?” Yvonne said from the front seat. Gary patted his leg and said, “Not much at all. But I was smart; it’s important to do hours of therapy a day for the first 3 months. I’ve biked, walked, stretched to get this baby in shape.” He said that he was going to bike through southern China and perhaps into Myanmar. I had to hand it to him, I’m not sure I’d be so adventurous with a new titanium leg. Anyway, he said that biking was more of the cure but that walking was still difficult if he had to walk too much or do much climbing. Therefore, when the taxi dumped us at the entrance of the park, more a series of low mountains, Yvonne was concerned that Gary might have difficulties ascending the sloping street that wound through this part of the park. Scads of Chinese tourists were everywhere, enjoying their holiday. We passed something like a Japanese Tea Garden, a couple small temples, but finally came to a ski-lift. “Let’s take it,” suggested Gary. “It’ll save us a half hour of going on up the hill.” Yvonne and I agreed.

Gary and Yvonne took one ski-lift and I sat alone in the one behind them. The views were interesting, certainly, mostly of trees and thick foliage, bushes a mere ten to twenty feet below, at times. The journey lasted nearly twenty minutes, passing one temple-clad hill and on over the treetops—though far to my left I could see Kunming farther below and the absolutely gargantuan Green Lake, aptly named. The body of water looked like someone had spilled a ton of light green dye into it.

In short, we spent hours there climbing steep stone staircases that meandered up, over, all around through woods, along cliffs, through a couple of mini tunnels, past temples, and outdoor garden cafes serving green tea, Lipton tea, cola, beer, etc. We stopped for a quick bite at some café with mostly clean tables. I offered to guard the daypacks and cameras while Yvonne offered to get me some food. “Soup okay”? she asked. “Just noodles.” I said, “sure.” When she and Gary returned, the soup looked like thin broth filled with all kinds of spices, noodles, little red things, little green things, and the steam made my nose burn. To be honest, it tasted okay but I would have preferred some good old potato soup.

One memorable stop was the place most sought after: Dragon’s Gate. It was an arch with some ornate colorful engravings set beside an opening in a cliff. In the cliff was a ten-foot Buddhist god to which now a dozen worshippers waved incense sticks at. Behind those who could squeeze into the opening were dozens of others, all of us jostling for elbow room and movement in a space about the size of a small living room. I leaned over a railing to observe the western edges of Kunming below and got a little dizzy. The drop was straight down a few hundred meters, I’d guess. There were some nice, expensive houses built on the shore of the lake, and I pointed out to Gary hundreds of dark specks in the water. “What are they?” I asked.
He squinted, shrugged and offered, “Ducks?” But to me they moved ever so slightly and had the shape of fish, but from this height they would have to be BIG fish! Oddly, whatever the creatures were, they had formed into a huge circular group; it was as if some force shield kept them within an enclosure. I never found out what it was exactly.

Gary, Yvonne and I took the ski lift chairs back across the carpet of treetops and on a gravel road, waited with a couple hundred others at a bus stop. Thank heavens that Yvonne spoke good Chinese; she asked a group of others, pouring over a map, how we could get back to the Cloudland Hostel. “You need bus 2,” a couple young male teens told us. So we stood and waited. Bus 16 came and a gang of tourists would do battle to board, squeezing in like sardines. With a belch of black smoke, the bus would pull out and another bus 16 would pull up and the same thing would happen again. “I hope we don’t have to wait too long,” said Gary. “I still need to assemble my bike tonight.” After another ten minutes of watching a string of bus 16s come, load up and pull out, we walked over to one of many young entrepreneur “private taxis”. One of them offered to take us for an amount twenty times the cost of the bus. Gary started to haggle, and the guy walked away. Obviously not interested in doing business. Yvonne had found a woman private driver, and we were about to settle on a price when bus 2 ambled along, so with a cry of joy, Gary led the charge to get on board. The thing arrived empty but by the time we boarded, it was standing room only. The half dozen teens that Yvonne had been talking to were on the bus to, and when after thirty minutes it arrived in some vacant lot, the guys were good enough to point the way to the street on which our hostel sat. We only had a short walk back.

We had dinner at the hostel. The café was dimly lit, even romantic with brick walls, Chinese lamps, soft music playing, and tasty food. We chatted and ate, washed pasta down with cold Chinese beer, and then Gary said he had to go to his room to put the bike together. “It takes a few hours,” he said with a laugh. “I’m pretty good at it, but I get bogged down with all the little nuts and bolts.” I needed to do schoolwork so, after agreeing to see Gary in the morning before he left, and to meet Yvonne for breakfast, I went to the office to retrieve my laptop and begin checking online assignments.

The highlights of the next day included a trip to Chicago Coffee and to the Golden Temple. Sounds incongruent, I know, but both were enjoyable. When Yvonne and I walked into Chicago Coffee, I saw Jenny, one of the American teachers who I’d spoken with at Sean’s Guesthouse at Tiger Leaping Gorge. She said, “I wondered if I’d see you here,” and I introduced Yvonne. While the two girls began chatting, I set up my laptop. There were more essays to grade, and the plan was for Yvonne to go investigate some things she’d wanted to do while I worked for a couple hours. Then we’d meet to go to the Golden Temple. And that’s exactly what happened. The only other thing I’ll say about Chicago Coffee is that they made fantastic apple-spice cake (one of their Halloween goodies). It might have been spiced pumpkin cake, or some such concoction, but it was like an autumn trip home and made me one happy camper. The manager, a guy in his late 30’s, hailed from Omaha Nebraska and planned to make Kunming home for the time being.

The Golden Temple was, like most temples, set high on a hill with a great number of steps leading to it. We passed a malformed beggar, a blind young woman singing, dozens of teens walking hand in hand, giggling as adolescents everywhere do, and more tourists snapping pictures. The pathway through the first temple building was lined with pink orchids and red banners from which hung dozens of paper lanterns. In a Bell Tower, we got a great view of Kunming’s smoggy skyline, but for the most part, the experience was pleasant even if I was getting templed-out.

Back at the Cloudland, Yvonne and I chatted over supper. She was worried and hadn’t slept the night before because she dreaded a phone call to her parents that she had to make soon. “I have to tell them that I’m traveling on after China, you know, like I told you, to Southeast Asia, India, then South America.” The thing was, her parents back in the bay area understood that she was going to do a three-week backpacking tour in China and then come home. “My dad will probably freak out,” she told me. I advised her to tell them ASAP and end the sleepless nights. “Tell them you’re old enough to do what you want.” And she was. While she looked to be in her very early twenties, she was in her early thirties. Asians certainly age well. After eating, she went off to pack because she was catching a night bus to Lijiang or Dali, I forgot exactly. I headed up to my room to shower off the day’s sweat but got to chatting on the second floor landing with an Australian who was teaching Chinese military cadets in Shanghai, and was, of course, on vacation for a couple weeks. When the topic of McDonalds was somehow broached, he made a true statement: “Don’t knock McDonalds. They have the cleanest toilets in China!” I laughed and nodded. “Really,” he said. “You know they’re cleaned well and regularly. Greatest toilets in China.” We wound up going the next day to Chicago Coffee, which he was keen to experience, where we talked and sipped lattes.

My journey continued the next day with another 24-hour marathon train ride to the city of Guilin, which is in the province of Guangzhi. But I didn’t want to stay in Guilin; my objective was a nice quiet town called Yangshuo, about an hour’s bus ride south. The geographical area around this province makes it into all calendars of China due to the fascinating formations known as karsts. You’ve probably seen pictures of these giant hump-shaped hills. At any rate, I was fortunate indeed to meet these teens on the train. Early into the journey, I got to chatting with a thin, wiry university student who was traveling with several friends, male and female. The guy, who said his “English” name was David, was the only one who spoke English, and a bare minimum; but he was a pleasant sort and was happy to practice his language abilities. Towards the end of the journey into Guilin, the whole gang (two guys and three girls) happily and with wide smiles posed for photographs as I snapped pictures of them.

Guilin seemed a bit of a madhouse with busier streets than in Kunming; David kindly walked with me to the bus station, which turned out to be no where near the train station; and once there, we had to navigate a combination marketplace and vague “which building is it” bus station. We brushed aside pestering touts, plowed through the crowd of market shoppers, and finally, at a ticket window, got the ticket. Actually, bless him, David bought the ticket for me because he didn’t think the agent would speak English. “The bus leaves in five minutes,” he said. Was he sweating from the warmth and all our walking or was he nervous that I’d miss the bus? Well, the contraption wasn’t easy to find; you would think this would be an easy task since loads of tourists come here specifically to go to Yangshuo; perhaps they all go through the same motions of frantically searching for a bus. There was an open area with perhaps fifty or sixty buses in various states ranging from doorless, neglected metal corpses to air-conditioned modern vehicles boarding passengers. But David (with me trotting along with my heavy backpack) was scanning the front windows, looking for the Chinese word ‘Yangshuo’. At the last moment, he spotted it, just as the driver was revving the engine and a station worker was ready to shut the cargo hold door. I pumped David’s hand and thanked him profusely. Hopping aboard, I found my seat and felt a great surge of relief that now I could rest.

Yangshuo was a pleasant three-day break for me. I checked into a proper hotel because most of the hostels were down on a street called West Street, an overly-touristy and very loud neighborhood; my hotel was owned and managed by Stephen, a helpful Chinese man in his thirties named Stephen who handed me a map, pointed out some important sights, and let me know I could rent a bike out for $1.50 a day. I found my room (a private room with bathroom), dropped off the backpack, and headed into town. There’s not much I will say about Yangshuo. It’s picturesque with high karsts not more than a hundred yards from my hotel and many more all around the town and in the countryside. West Street was indeed touristy; worse was a street that veered off of it; every shop catered to tourists and I doubt any locals even walk through it. There were the usual bars, cafes, hostels, tattoo parlors, clothing stores, etc. I have to admit that I took advantage of Ruby’s Café—because Ruby offered up some delicious sweet and sour chicken. Aside from that, and a couple places where I made use of WiFi, I hit McDonalds a couple times for some ice cream. I also went to dinner with a young couple staying at my hotel: a rather heavyset American in China studying, and his girlfriend, a native. A pretty quiet evening.

The next day, Stephen the hotel owner rented me a bike (a whole $1.50 for the day!), and I pedaled out into the street warily avoiding traffic that included massive exhaust-belching trucks, automobiles, rickshaws, a number of scooters, and pedestrians. But within ten minutes, I was biking through some pretty dramatic countryside filled with fields, farms, a village here and there, and everywhere the high-rising karsts, perhaps the oddest land formations I’d seen in my life: giant humps climbing a thousand feet out of the ground in their macabre shapes. I got lost once or twice, but happily because this was China and I was biking in the country. I followed a main paved road (with other bikers) to a one-street village where there was obviously a construction boom. Three new houses were being built, at odd angles as if the zoning authority had taken a holiday. The ‘houses’ were thus far of concrete blocks; other village buildings were brick or wood, but with partial walls or roofs of corrugated iron. Pretty much what you’d expect from rural China, and very different from Mayberry RFD. I followed a river that led to a place where tourists were taking rides on long narrow flatboats with the ‘driver’ steering from the back. At another place, a kind of rest stop, I bought a cola light from a teen-age girl who happily agreed to snap a picture of me with my camera and give me further directions. As the sun set, I headed back to town, very much rested—even after cycling through a dirty little village where the dogs looked menacingly at me.

The other thrill I had at Yangshuo was a boat ride down the Li River. This was a bit of an adventure; Stephen at the hotel had arranged for my minibus to take me to a point several kilometers away, at which point, he assured me, ‘someone’ would meet me and guide me to the right flatboat for my cruise. Stephen walked with me down the main busy street until he spotted a minibus approaching and waved at it to stop. “This is the one,” he said as I climbed aboard when it slowed (but didn’t completely halt), and he said something in Chinese to the ticket girl standing at the open door. After a twenty minute ride, the bus pulled into an open area of dirt and grass beside a river that looked to be low. The sky was gray and misty looking, and as the bus stopped, a small horde of women hawkers descended upon the bus. Obviously they made their living preying (I mean ‘helping’) on tourists, and I showed them my paid-for ticket. A couple of the women, one baring yellowing teeth that would make a Klingon proud, said something rude and wandered away. A few other western tourists stood gawking about, and a beggar woman, hunched over and holding a bouquet of half-dead flowers, stared at we foreigners with riches and pleaded.

Well, it turned out that no one was here to meet me. If it hadn’t been for one young Chinese man who was guiding some tourists on a hike, I’d have been in trouble. But he talked with one of the village women after I explained to him my new predicament, and lo and behold, she had a mobile phone and called my hotel. It soon became evident that I’d paid for some boat trip, but it was unclear as to which of the dozen boats on the river was mine. Thanks to God, the woman must have taken pity on me; the next thing I knew, she was beckoning me to follow her over a somewhat muddy path down along the river. A few boards had been strewn here and there over the dirt and mud, so between them and the patches of grass, I didn’t muddy my $120 Keens too much.

I think she more or less commanded one of the boat drivers to take me aboard. A young Dutch couple that appeared and started up a conversation with me wanted to go along with me (because one pays the driver the same price whether there is one person or ten), but the driver steadfastly refused with a number of head shakes, so the couple wandered off in search of kinder drivers. Several boats were pulling out into the river. These long, narrow boats with a canvas covering over three benches in the middle, are navigated from the rear by means of a long rudder (or whatever it’s called; I’m a teacher, not a sailor!). At any rate, off we went down the river, slowly and easily. Behind us and in front of us, but not too close, were other tourists on other longboats. Some were Westerners and others Chinese. People would offer little waves as they passed another boat. Every now and then, a two-story ferry would steam down the middle of the river but the Li River was wide. The banks and hills beyond were lush and green, and the karsts on all sides were mammoth monuments rising out of the Chinese landscape; with a gray sky, and mist hanging about a few of the tallest karsts, the only thing missing was King Kong. I was thankful the weather wasn’t sunny, though. I kind of liked the mystery that came with a gloomy day presiding over a karst-filled landscape.

I returned a couple days later to the city of Guilin, from where I’d fly back to Kunming. Remember the crazy bus station, the madhouse where David had helped me procure my ticket to Yangshuo? Well, it remained a madhouse. Fortunately my guardian angel must have sent this narrow-shouldered teen along to help me. I’d seen him on the bus, and when we got off, I asked him where the Imperial Hotel was (where I’d been told to catch the airport shuttle); he knew of it, and guided me through the raucous crowd and mini-market (and past a rather irritated taxi driver who thought the kid was ‘stealing’ me away from him). “I go get bahk,” he said, wondering why he would go get a bag if he’d just been traveling. But nevertheless I followed him out to the main road, which we crossed by means of dodging cars and buses (not easy to do with a heavy backpack). In a narrow alley, he stopped at a row of motorbikes and scooters and said, “Bahk.” He was here to pick up his motorcycle. Unlocking it, he said, “I take you to hotel.” He smiled, so obviously wanting to help some poor foreigner. I doubted his ability, as thin as he was, to carry me and my pack on the bike, and wondered how safe that might be in the insanity that is Chinese traffic. But on the other hand, I needed to catch that shuttle bus. I positioned myself carefully on the back, made sure my burdensome pack straps were fastened, and held on to his waist as he accelerated out of the alley and joined the stream of motorized humanity.
The ride was exhilarating, actually. He drove as carefully as any Chinese youth can, I suppose, only a handful of times weaving, turning and gliding amongst the buses, trucks and cars. “Wow!” I said to myself at one point. The sun was setting behind the buildings on a fine evening, a river flowed amongst the concrete and engines, people were walking everywhere (and driving everywhere but there are LOTS of human beings in China), and aside from the smells of exhaust, the tantalizing scent of grilled chicken reached my nostrils at some point. The kid stopped across the street from the Imperial Hotel, pulling just off to the side of the street; traffic was in gridlock here anyway and not moving much, and I thanked him profusely. “Happy to help,” he said, revving up the motor. “I hope you have good time in China!” And he was away.

The Guilin Airport was not as modern as Chengdu’s airport had been, but it was fine. I met a German couple on a two-week holiday; the man in his mid twenties was practically emaciated with skinny arms, and his girlfriend was rather plain-looking. But they were friendly and we chatted in the terminal’s waiting area. Our flight gate was changed without warning; we just suddenly noticed that another city’s name was flashing on the board, and had to wander to the other end of the terminal where “Kunming” appeared on a board at Gate 13. Thanks for the warning, I thought. The aircraft was modern, nice. The first half hour of the flight was calm; the Germans sat across the aisle and we talked travel until the turbulence shook us. I’d experienced awful turbulence on two other occasions: one when on a China Airlines flight landing in Taiwan; you know it’s bad when pale, scared-looking flight attendants applaud upon landing. The second time was on a flight from New York to Chicago. I’d honestly thought on both flights that God was calling me home. To be more precise, that he was calling the whole lot of us home. This time, however, I was on an aircraft belonging to China Southeastern Airlines, a rather rinky-dink outfit, and perhaps, I thought as we bounced here and there, an airline without enforced regular mechanical checkups. The passenger beside me now was grim-faced, staring straight ahead and probably watching his life flash before his eyes (no movie on the flight anyway). I prayed, hard, and the German couple held hands. During a particularly rough shaking, as if some giant kid was playing with his cute little China Southeastern plane toy, someone in the back cried out in terror. I heard a gasp elsewhere, and as the plane suddenly dropped, I uttered an “Oh my god!”

Well, naturally the turbulence ended and we landed safely. The Germans had pre-booked an expensive hotel so off they went, probably to sooth the nerves with a nightcap, which left me at midnight to get somehow to a hotel. The thing was that I had looked online earlier to see if the Cloudland Hostel had a free room, but they didn’t. I’d jotted down the name of a regular hotel and now pulled out the paper as I stood in line waiting for a taxi. That’s when this young dude in his twenties, and an older woman I took to be his mother, offered me a ‘private taxi’ into the city. They were pretty gutsy, standing directly beneath a big sign that read “Warning: do not accept rides from private taxi man, danger.” But it was midnight and I doubted it was Ma Barker and her son, so I walked alongside sonny, who spoke no English to speak of. Their taxi turned out to be a very plush BMW, and at first I felt secure enough moving through light traffic (it was midnight after all) on somewhat familiar streets. But as he pulled onto a poorly-lit road, continuing on through darker areas, I began to wonder if I’d wind up in some river—and they’d be in possession of a nice (though slightly used) backpack, an HP Mini Laptop, a decent digital camera (Japanese at that!), and $800 worth of insulin. The guy was just looking straight ahead at the road (not something all Chinese drivers do) and Ma Barker was in the back kind of looking ahead nervously); I whispered another quick prayer, looking out the window so that they wouldn’t see me praying and get any ideas to do something that they hadn’t been considering doing, if you know what I mean. But within two minutes, the guy entered a well-lit alley and stopped in front of a modest stone building sandwiched in between two others. A red-neon sign announced that it was a hotel. Relief swept through me as I got out, making sure that mom got out as well. It wouldn’t do to have sonny roaring off with my backpack in the trunk. I paid them, and thanked them. They were very gracious, smiled, and I knew I’d never been in danger. Good grief. The fears we Americans have of everything.

The hotel turned out to be the wrong hotel, but it turned out to be great. Although the clerk behind the desk spoke no English (he phoned someone, probably waking them up, and got instructions as to how to check a foreigner in). The room itself was clean, with a big double bed, and best of all, a big clean shower with a showerhead that wouldn’t wet the entire bathroom. As soon as I could throw off my clothes, I slept.

There’s not much to tell about my two days in Kunming. It’s a pleasant city and I happily returned to Chicago Coffee. I met an American student who was giving a bible study to a Chinese guy, and we talked briefly of the underground churches in China. “It’s interesting, but God is working in China. There’s an underground seminary that I’ve heard about where students are learning the Bible.” My other venture the next day was to go back to Wal-mart. You know, the place where they sell tied-up crabs and eels and frogs in the “supermarket” and where slabs of beef and whole chickens hang from wooden beams. Just like back home. Goodness. But I purchased some snacks and drinks for the long 30-hour bus ride to Laos, hoping that there would be some Westerner to talk to and that my I-Pod would stay charged for awhile.

The bus station was predictably hectic and dirty. I suppose it wasn’t much worse than the last Greyhound Bus Station I’d seen in the USA, but fortunately, despite that sense of grime and filth that you long to bathe away, there was a thirty-something man who walked around guiding white foreigners to the correct bus—the one heading to Laos. “Going Laos?” he asked me, and he took me to a waiting area, in which there were chairs that looked almost clean. I read another chapter in a novel until the guy poked his head in the door and motioned me outside to where several buses were parked. This was another sleeper bus, but on this one the lower berths were at least raised a foot from the grimy metal floor. Imagine the interior of a jet, with two narrow aisles running down the length of the craft and three single seats across. On the Vientiane Express, there was one berth next to the window, another berth in the center, and another on the far side. Above each berth was another berth; thus this giant metal box held maybe twenty-six or so passengers. Thankfully, the occupant in the berth in front of me turned out to be a 20-something German girl named Impke. Her boyfriend, Andreas, somehow had gotten berthed a few seats away. Soon we began chatting, and soon thereafter a few more Germans boarded and found their berths. The bus driver then chugged us out of the station and through Kunming and into the countryside. The 30-hour trip had begun.

Well, even though some of the posters at the Lonely Planet forum had bemoaned the agony of the Kunming—Vientiane bus ride, the journey was enjoyable, I must say. When the bus would stop for a bathroom break at some gritty-looking roadhouse, we’d wearily march off, stretch our legs, and chat to pass time. Impke and I chatted in between times we read our respective novels; two of the other Germans, a guy named Paul with his buddy Martin, had had quite an adventure these past months. “Martin and I drove an ambulance from London to Mongolia,” Paul said while Martin puffed on a cigarette. We’d halted at the side of the road and some of the Chinese men were peeing in the bushes while a few hardy women wandered off behind some trees. “It was for a charity, an orphanage in Ulan Batoor,” he said. On the way, taking weeks, they’d traveled through Eastern Europe and Russia, having stressful and interesting encounters with corrupt border guards, and also even saving the life of a teen-aged boy on the wild plains of Mongolia. But just as he started his story, the driver honked the horn, indicating that it was time to continue.

In the late evening, well after dark, the big bus halted in the midst of a large empty lot fronting a single dwelling, one of those cafes open on one side to the rest of the world. We could see tables, and a makeshift buffet, and a dozen workers and passengers of other buses sitting about. A TV blared loudly from the top of a fridge. Martin, Paul and I wanted something to drink. I was dying for a cola light but there wasn’t any. One of the guys behind a counter pushed some bottles of beer at us, and Martin said, “I’m getting one.” We all bought one, and I have to admit it went down well after hours in a Chinese sleeping bus. While we waited, Paul told us how they’d saved the life of the Mongolian kid.

“We were camped somewhere in the middle of Mongolia,” Paul said as we sat on a bench alongside a table. Andreas and Impke joined us, not drinking or eating. Around us, the Chinese passengers were availing themselves of the ‘buffet’, but after studying the interior of the pots laid out in a row, and not recognizing anything other than green beans, I along with the rest declined to consume food. “Just our ambulance, a campfire, and we were sitting and drinking some beer when this kid comes rushing into camp, crying about something, and then I saw that he was horribly burned on his chest, arms, and one side of his face.” They had been in the middle of nowhere, Martin interjected, and had gotten the kid into the ambulance while phoning a doctor back in Germany, one who had initially trained them in first aid. “He told us what to do but said we needed a hospital fast, so we drove for hours. When we got to a town, we found a hospital and got him to the emergency room. I mean, it wasn’t much of a hospital, but there were doctors. One of them said that we’d saved the boy’s life.”

Impke asked, “How did the boy get hurt?”
It was Martin who answered. “He’d been pouring a can of petrol into some canister…while smoking a cigarette!” He shook his head and we all moaned.
“The boy’s family lived in that town,” Paul said. “They wanted to have a big party, a celebration to thank us, but we had to go. We were on kind of a schedule to deliver the ambulance.”

After our rest, we boarded the bus and continued on our way. I spent a couple hours listening to various songs on my I-Pod. Late at night, Mr. Driver pulled into what can best be described as eerie. The road had been bumpy for hours, jarring us passengers. Now thankful for some respite from the ground ‘turbulence’, Paul, Martin, Impke and I, along with a new friend, a girl from Holland, walked around a pitted road hugged by trees, bushes, and decrepit shacks. Not even shacks, but little box huts with loose boards, corrugated iron ‘roofs’, holes, not lived in. There were bricks and chunks of concrete and stones strewn alongside the road here, and only the bus headlights illuminated this spooky planet. Impke said, “I absolutely must use the toilet,” and several of us strolled away from the bus. Some of the passengers were just peeing at the side of the bus, but perhaps we Westerners were too shy. We wouldn’t be by the end of the trip, but now, Andreas, Martin, Paul and I followed Impke. “I’m going in there,” she said, pointing to one of the mysterious box-huts. The Dutch girl followed her as they half climbed down a ditch to the hut. I found another one but didn’t see any way to actually enter unless I wanted to pry open a board nailed across the side. Besides, the interior looked rather spidery, if you know what I mean. And there was the stench of urine and …well, I didn’t want to go in. I wound up finding a nice tree, though.

Early in the morning, we arrived at the Chinese-Laotian border. A three-story building, partially of glass, was the customs office. One by one, we ‘checked out’ of China, a Chinese Immigration official stamping our passports. After awhile, we climbed aboard the bus and drove a few hundred yards to the border of Laos. Things went quickly and smoothly as visas were issued for $35. But it was Paul who said, “Look at the difference!” The trees, the flora, even some squat wooden housing like bamboo huts built on stilts announced a cultural difference from the giant neighbor to the north. Our last daylight in China had offered fields, some low mountains, some woodland but all dusty and grayish looking. But surrounding us were tall palms, lots of tropical-looking trees (I’m a teacher, not a botanist!) and even the soil had a rust-tone to it. “It’s like real rainforest,” Paul cried in joy. I asked him if he’d liked China. “No,” Martin answered for him. “We hated China.”
“I couldn’t wait to get out of that hole,” Paul stated.
Well, now we were in Laos, and the next stop, after a few more hours, would be Luang Prabang.