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Published: March 27th 2006
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Conquered!
L-R: Simon, Melissa, Sane, Me, Joe, Jocelyn Friday night, we ended up at the Youth Hostel again, just for a change! It was Patrick’s birthday, a Canadian who lives here, and so we celebrated with whiskey, beer, and several rounds of a dodgy card game called ‘Circle of Death’, which basically just involves a lot of drinking gulps for various sketchy reasons. We were also playing with Joachim, the Swedish husband of Jocelyn, one of the girls who is ‘in charge’ of us volunteers. He is absolutely bonkers, and made up all sorts of bizarre rules, which have now been irretrievably absorbed into the game. It was a lot of fun, but ended up being a 4am finish, which is never a good sign.
The morning after, we were due to leave at 8.30 am for the ‘trip to the countryside’. This trip has been promised every weekend for the past four weeks, and has never materialised, because the weather might change, or because it may be a bit hazy, or maybe simply because Jocelyn doesn’t want to get up that early. It was described to us as a walk up a mountain road, with dinner at a random farmhouse, and was decidedly unappealing at 8.45, when
Brief rest
We're getting too Asian - squatting is comfortable Jocelyn managed to finally rouse me from my pit. I was contemplating lodging permanently in my bed, but have an awful problem dealing with being left out, and so grudgingly put my ugly boots on, the ones in which I climbed the Great Wall in Beijing and suffered not even a blister, and slumped in the back of the van with my iPod jammed into my ears. Two hours, and many bumps and bruises later, we arrived in the middle of nowhere, after having collected random Chinese people, one of whom came complete with a little Pekinese puppy. I immediately adopted her, and sat with her on my lap the whole way there, which cheered me up a great deal. We renamed her ‘Chifan’, which means food in Chinese, as when we arrived at the farmhouse/orchard we were leaving from, three enormous Alsatians leapt at the door of the van, garlands of saliva dangling from their teeth. Thirty seconds after Chifan got out of the van, she had them all under her paw. We had a pre-hike snack of crab claws (unshelled; the trick is to learn to separate the meat from the shell as you bite it, before it
shatters to a million pieces), cucumber and garlic salad, corn soup, sesame seed cakes, pickles, and hard-boiled eggs. The sun was splitting the sky as we set off up the hill right behind the house; we saw the first proper blue sky of 6 weeks of being here. Even on nice warm days in Xi’an, the sky generally remains grey, due to the thick layer of pollution that hangs over our gorgeous city. The fog does get brighter when the sun shines, and even has had a blue tint on very special days, but it was so different to get out of the city, and breathe fresh, clear air.
The first hill took us all by surprise, no one has done any exercise worth talking about, and our breathing was somewhat laboured as we started to rid our lungs of the pent-up smog inside them. As I got to the top of it, I was almost prepared to go back, but changed my mind when I saw Chifan bounding up the hill behind us. Onwards and upwards. As we reached the top of the second hill, I was feeling so energised, that when Jocelyn said that normally this is
as far as the group goes, some of us retorted with the fact that there was another, higher top just along the ridge a bit, and as we had come this far, it would be such a shame to stop now. To punctuate our whinging, we raced up the hill beyond shouting distance, so she had to follow us. It did get hard work, as the path soon stopped, as we were forcing our way through thickets of spiky grasses. Chifan was making no headway and kept getting entangled in the grasses, so I picked her up, tucked her under my arm, and, as Joe acted as trail finder, followed, picking up a lot of scratches as I fought the brambles to protect the feckin’ dog, with not a thought for my own safety or comfort. Why do some people, especially me, act like that around idiot animals!? Anyway, we got, finally, to the highest part of our particular ridge, and felt like we’d conquered Everest. However, we then discovered that the track we had been vaguely following tailed off and ended in a sheer drop. We gauged roughly where we should be heading, then pushed our way through thick,
How macho!
Chifan doing a very good job of emasculating Joe shoulder high grasses, taking a ‘short cut’ through a forest, using the trees to slow our controlled tumble down an awfully steep slope. We arrived at the top of a gully, and clambered down the rocks to the relative safety of a dust track that led back to the farmhouse. After a tough, exciting three hour hike, I felt so tired, but so exhilarated. Due to our nut-case driver though, who thinks that the best way to avoid potholes is to go as fast as possible straight over them, the ride back was more bumpy than the one there, if that was possible. Several times my bum left the seat by several inches, as Chifan’s little legs tightened their hold around my hand. I did try and hide her under my jumper as we drew to a halt outside her owner’s house, but I got caught and grudgingly handed her back. I have now been forbidden to go to the Sunday puppy market anymore though, as I obviously can’t be trusted, and Jocelyn doesn’t want a mascot for the house.
A quick shower and beautify later - only half an hour, it’s not difficult - and we were off out again to properly celebrate Patrick’s birthday, with our first Western meal down at the Hyatt hotel buffet. We ended up at an empty bar down a backstreet, having salsa dance offs and limbo contests with a group of Bolivians who live in Japan. You can never say that nights in Xi’an are normal and boring!
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Lesley
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Chif an chips
I do hope that lovely little dog was only there to keep you amused Erin and not as emergency lunch in case you all got lost! Sorry - stereotyping again. So glad you had a lot of fresh air, hope you can tell us a bit more about the new placement when this blog starts to operate properly again. Take care