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...And Love the Bus...
Today we're in Zhengzhou, population: 6 260 000. Tomorrow we visit the Shaolin Temple to watch the monks practising their age old martial art. Then we take the seven hour train to Beijing; pop: 13.8 million, and there visit the Great Wall and Forbidden city. Cheryl, you asked about the similarities and differences in cultures between China, Laos and Thailand. Well I'm here to tell you, the similarities are an anthill and the differences are a mountain. China simply defies direct description. Here are some of our experiences thus far:

It was a crush of bodies. Hundreds if not thousands of Chinese trying to load the train from Xichang to Chengdu. And then there is Tynesha and I, separated by a sea of black hair, forced amid the currents of the throng. One girl is at the entrance to our railcar. She is trying to get a large cardboard box aboard, but the bodies are pushing from all sides and she can't get through. Tynesha managed to reach over the heads and help her lift the box. A number of people are shoved through the threshold after the girl, including Tynesha. I am moved closer to the entrance and I reach above the heads of the others to grab a handrail set in a side wall. Just as I do so, the crowd pushes from behind as those before me are squished onto the train. My grip on the rail is lost and my hand slips through the space between it and the wall. I am forced through so fast that I barely get my arm out of the space before it could become wedged in between. If you ever heard about line ups in China then you heard wrong - there are no line-ups, there is only chaos.
Here is a list of some of the events of one our first bus trips in China, listed as twelve hours in the book, from Jinghong to Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan province in the south. Twelve hours turned into twenty, and here is why. First off, know that all the roads in Yunnan traverse rugged mountain terrain in an endless series of hairpin corners and halting stops and swerving through traffic riddled with construction trucks and shuttle buses. Ours was a full sized hard sleeper, consisting of a slighty too short bed, each with one bunk above, three across the aisles. Here is the rundown. Chinese love to spit. And I mean can they spit. They bring it right up from the hair on their toes and make like a tiger caughing up a hairball wherever and whenever they see fit. In fact, one is doing it right now beside me as I'm typing in an internet cafe...there he goes...he's hacking and horking...here it comes, he's just spit it on the floor. I love this country. So were lying on our sleeper beds - we mistakingly chose the lower bunks - and they start up with the smoking. Almost every man in China smokes, and very few like to crack a window, at least in southern China. So it's snowing ash in China as Tynesha and I lay there on our beds (the universal ashtrays are the walking aisles and I'm not even kidding) swaying this way and that through the little mountains. After a few hours the driver makes a quick stop for snacks then we all load on and he starts her up again, but she's slow movin'. The driver can't figure it out, but the bus just doesn't want to move fast. So he just revs the piss out of it, gets her up in gears and drives it as hard as he can to the nearest bus stop about twenty minutes away. After about ten minutes Tynesha and I look at each other as we catch a wiff of something burning like rubber. The driver pulls into the service station and we all get off the bus and sure enough, the smoke is pouring out above the back wheels like there's a steam engine back there...he left the park brake on. So about two hours later were on the road again with a brand new set of park brakes and it's almost like we're riding in style. But then two hours later this alarm starts sounding and the driver pulls over to see what's going on. We all get out and at the back of the bus where the engine is there's oil dripping on the ground and coolant spraying all over the place. But this time were in the countryside and no one is stopping to help us. Somehow they manage to scrape up an old hose from somewhere and gather some water and we manage to get things going again - after about four hours standing along the highway- albeit slowly because the engine keeps heating up every time they get rolling.
There is light at the end of the tunnel however. There I am standing in the rain outside this little roadside restraunt at midnight while Tynesha is in the washroom. I'm beat, worn out and too tired to even make an attempt at the Chinese character menu. Then this guy who was beside us on the bus waves me over to his table with his friends and starts ordering food as I sit down. He orders all kinds of foods for Tynesha and us to share in. He and his two friends are on the way to Shanghai, we decipher. Mostly all we can exchange are smiles though, few people in China speak English, and we have about five words of Mandarin in our repitoire. They took pictures of us and us of them and in the morning said our good byes. At four o'clock we reached our destination and waited for the train station to open. Standing there amongst the homeless and those like us waiting for coming of the sun, we heard the din of song. We moved nearer, and there was this thirty something fellow sitting with his knees crossed, playing this bowed Chinese intstrument like a violin. If there is sweeter sounding music in the world I've never heard it. Its tone is mellow and stark but somehow uplifting at the same time. There was a large crowd of people gathered around just staring under the lamp light. To see that many chinese just standing there and not saying anything was something in itself. For instance, we attended the Sichuan Opera in Chengdu and heard an excellent player of the same instrument. He was incredible; so passionate that he was in tears by the end of his solo performance - as well as Tynesha - yet any time there was a pause in his music, the sound of the patrons talking on cell phones and to each other filled our ears.
We spent some time in the mountains. The World Heritage site of Old Town Lijiang reminds me of Banff with two thousand years of culture and history tacked onto it. We did a two day trek along Tiger Leaping Gorge on the Yangzi. Our view for most the journey was the snowy tops of Jade Peaked mountain (5300 meters) at the edge of the Himalayas. Tynesha and I would have most of the days all to ourselves, climbing and walking and just staring at the scenery and relishing the brisk weather as well as the peace and quiet. We would stroll through mountain villages and walk amongst goats and their herders eking out a living on the mountain sides. I'm stumped...there are just so many things to tell. We would wake at 1:30am to the sounds of frustrated villagers throwing chairs at each other and screaming over a drunken card game. We waked and walked along narrow ledges thousands of meters above the river with waterfalls cascading onto them so you have to hop from rock to rock; right along the edge to avoid the spray. We came through pine forests and bamboo ones as well. We chatted the last night away with a group of fellow travellers and the mountain looming above. A couple from Sweden, a Castillian from Spain, a couple from australia, a couple from Holland, and us Canucks just sitting and telling stories about our various travels and homelands. None of them would believe that I've actually seen bears in the wild in Canada.
We've seen the Panda's in Chengdu and cruised down the Yagzi river for three days from the district of Chongqing, pop:30 million, (that's not a typo) through the Three Gorges, to the largest dam in the world near Yichang, due to be finished contruction in 2009. When finished it will displace two million people and raise the river thirty meters from its current, already partially flooded depth, to 176 meters.
Crossing streets in this city is an excercise in insanity. Traffic lights are located sporatically. You just make your way, one lane at a time, and watch as those who fail to stop swerve around you instead. Sometimes you've just got to jump out of the way.
We haven't seen another foreigner for days. I think some of the people here have never seen one either. Walking down the streets makes you feel like a celebrity and a walking freak show at the same time. Staring and giggling and countless "Hello" 's and waving and more staring.
But helpful too. Today, facing huge "line-ups" and that ever-present language barrier, an English speaking police officer came up to me and asked where I needed to go. Then he led me through all the people lined up, right to the booth where he ordered the tickets as I handed him the money. I can't tell you the time and effort that one little action saved me.
I could write essays on any one of our experiences and the nature of duality in man and country and travel based solely on my experiences of the last three weeks in China. We've ridden on so many buses that we speak China's second language fluently: horn honking. They honk when they pass, change lanes, come up to an intersection, pass through an intersection, come up to another vehicle, sometimes for no apparent reason at all, and often just to say hello to oncoming traffic.

There is still so much to tell but I guess it is better to leave things as they are. I think someone once said: "Sorry for the long letter; I didn't have time to write you something shorter."

See ya later,
Rick
ps Tynesh will fill you in on the Pandas and river cruize and download pictures (not able to in this cafe)

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