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Published: July 29th 2009
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Wade and a Kiwi
Wade became a traveling buddy As I lay on my hostel bed in Nanning, I was rejoicing in the brilliant humming of the air conditioner and bathing in my satisfaction of finding a quiet spot for a few days. Just then I hear the beep of the door, I had visitors. For anyone that has stayed in a hostel before, there is a certain satisfaction that comes with having a 6 bed dorm room all to yourself. You get to make all the rules, spread the contents of your pack everywhere, dry your laundry on the extra beds, turn the air-con up as high as you want, keep the lights on till 11:30pm, strut around naked…but, on the other hand, meeting fellow travelers is an experience in itself. Some of my favorite people are those that I’ve shared hostel rooms with.
The door opens and I hear the clumsy shuffling that only backpackers can appreciate. Two guys walk in and observe the room, they exchange a few words—not in English, and say hi to me. I’m certain they’re making fun of my mess that I created in unpacking my pack earlier that morning (come to find out later…they were). In true backpacker style, the first
Juhani, Chinese police officer, yours truly
after sampling a few too many bottles of China's finest beer and some rice wine...I think I married this man...who I found on the streets. information exchanged is not our names, but where we’re from. Then where we’re heading, how long we’ve been on the road, etc. They ask me if I want to join them for lunch and I hop at the opportunity to get some food in me.
We stroll down the road for a good 10 minutes before one of them finally asks my name. These two travelers are Juhani and “Mr. Wilson” (or Villa) from Finland. They’re going to travel southeast Asia for a year before Mr. Wilson has to return to Finland and do his time in the Navy. We find a small eatery and plop down—more so because we’re terribly hungry and less so because of the food.
After a semi-satisfying meal we exit the restaurant and start wandering back to the hostel. Unfortunately I was following the Fins…who were following me. After some back tracking we realize we’re lost…and we stayed that way for the next 2 hours. Not great luck with our first outing. We finally surrender and get a taxi to return us to 64 Shanghai Lu (which to our chagrin was less than 2 blocks from where our wandering seized). We return to our hostel and attempt to play some Guitar hero, but the lame Chinese reproductions are less than entertaining. We make a second outing that night for dinner, which proved more successful. Not because we found better food, but because we didn’t get lost.
The rest of the weekend was used to create traveling plans (which were simply, go to Vietnam on Tuesday) and become acquainted with the local cuisine. One night we went out for barbeque and sampled a pig penis—I did take a small bite, only because Juhani made the good point of, “When are you ever going to have a change to eat pig penis again?” But besides for that I stuck to tofu and fruits. The weekend also brought new friends to the hostel as well as the Vietnam traveling brigade: Wade, from North Carolina, who with his Big Lebowski Dude type attitude, proved to be a lovely addition. He was teaching in China as well and was heading to Vietnam to meet some friends before flying back stateside. The lovely kiwis, Charlotte and Steven who were working their way back to New Zealand after working in England for a few years. Millie, who must have been about 6’2’’ was taking a break from teaching and checking out southeast Asia. And some not so lovely additions to the traveling group were the Americans Erica and…Erica’s friend. These girls used up my last bit of pity patience with their argument, “Yeah, but dipping a baked potato in a Frosty is much healthier than dipping French fries in a Frosty.” That is like saying, ‘Yeah but eating a Twinkie is much healthier than eating a deep friend Twinkie.’ Come on ladies…
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