painted by numbers

an overdue post yet again. somehow ive lost the impetus to blog; not as psyched for it as with my previous sojourn. its really an acquired skill; an art of sorts, to live by the day and to function without an agenda. as pegs would say, 'to dysfunction into function'. its almost 2 wks in yangshuo now; and the dream-like karstscape is really surreal, ethereal and picturesque all at once. its an unassuming little town abt an hr off guiling, yes you read right guilin haha. the closest semblance to that we have back home is the conspicuous and almost obnoxious one residing pretty behind my house at bt gombak.
anws i digress. its an innocuous little town with buildings not more than 3-4 stories and sometimes i take for granted the natural grandiose and regal locale that surrounds me. with blocks of limestone mountain littered around the town in pockets, this is truly heaven on earth. haha ok enough of waxing lyrical and unabated rhetoric abt my obsession with resplendent nature. ive barely got started on my book; im only 2 chpts into catch-22. need to work on that.

ok 2 days ago. it was wicked! we decided to find the other river that bounds yangshuo after our Li river conquest. this time it was the Yulong river. ok 7km on the bike later, we ended up at a most unostentious village that didnt even exist on our map. wanted to swim but we met a cordial old dude who more or less reoriented our plans for the day. with the swimming plans in disarray, i was pretty gutted. who was to know smth even more smashing happened. ok first. we got invited into his house. this old man happened to be born in 1949-read: year china gained independence. engaged him in politics. this fella is nutssss. its amazing how potent and insidious propaganda works! this guy is some 50+ yrs on now; and his mind is so recalibrated by the government jargon and parlance of Mao's reformist era. he was going on end about how chairman Mao was really the bomb. he was reciting to us Mao's instructions from those little red books they all were issued. he threw vitriolic on Deng for ushering in the dawn of capitalism. he was chastizing the Japanese and was proud- to the extent of supercilious, of not having owned a Japanese product all his life. he vowed to attest the same for this village too. ok i could go on but i had better exercise some restraint. LASTLY. we climbed a mountain. haha all 382m of it. isnt bt timah hill back home some 100+ bordering on 200m?? ok we did this all in slippers. with no pathed trail. just BASHING thru the bloody vegetation. was a bloodbath while the mozzies feasted on us. yum yum. haha ok i'd let the graphics do the talking. ive said enough. wait!! last bit. I GOT A REAL LITTLE RED BOOK FROM HIM.

we'd be leaving yangshuo back up to guangzhou in a bit. 29th's our flight to urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang province. i tell you. im so so so stoked to be there. the chinese there are freakinnnnnn' so angmoh looking. just think their neighbours are russians, turmenkistans, pakistanis, and a coterie of other european looking lads. theres still bbq seller below my guest house each night from xinjiang and im get freaked out each time i see him. angmoh-esque. speaking chinese. and muslim in faith. what a concoction. ok pictures time. yup so 29th to urumqi, go to kashgar (kite runner site woot woots!). which is more or less the start of the pakistan/indian leg.

hope everyones still good at home! be good and be safe!!

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