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Published: October 22nd 2012
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I'm nicely ensconced back at the Jade Roo when who should I hear – but Marco cheerfully waving at me ! He's skipped Lijian and come down to Dali – hooray! I'm delighted to see him. He's a little firecracker from Hong Kong with sideyways hair cut; large tortoise shell glasses (which I later discover have no glass and are a fashion accessory) and a dramatic way of saying:
“YEEEEES!” when he agrees with something.
One of the highlights of Shangri-La amongst some very cold lows was the traditional Tibetan dancing they hold in the main square at 7pm every night. The bbq and jewellery sellers move to the sides and three old ladies in Tibetan dress start dancing to their music. A big circle forms and the tourists join in. Mark stands by the side awkwardly watching but I want to dance and so does Marco so we join in. It involves lots of wavy arm movements and circling – I think i'm probably pretty rubbish at it but god does it make me happy. A policeman comes over and then joins in! He's amazing – and has all the moves down pat. He must do it every
night – there can't be a lot of crime on the mean streets of Shangri La. The next day Marco comes back with Dai and they dance again for almost an hour. Later he tells me that he loves dancing and studies Jazz Dance oustide of work in HongKong. It explains a lot- and then he shows me lots of photos of him star jumping in front of buildings. Fabulous!
Once back in Dali we head to The Bad Monkey for a good old fashioned British fry up (kind of) and then go around and buy gifts. Marco is a great haggler and because he speaks a bit of Mandarin (the main language is Cantonese in Hong Kong) he doesn't take any shit from the stall holders. I get bracelets and pashmina for around six quid. Then he helps me at the post office to send my presents back to the UK and return my China guide books to Teresa in Oz.
He talks about his life in Hong Kong – he does social work for a community but also does all the marketing and PR for it and wants to move more into that area of work.
He loves the arts and performing and feels very different from the rest of his family. Again Chinese culture is very collective -with a large emphasis placed on family – and he feels western and more individual. He has chosen to be a Christian which is different to his parents who still light incense to their gods. He has asked what religion they are and who they pray to but they do not know. They all live in a one bedroom appartment in Hong Kong.From what I can gather it used to be a studio flat but they built walls for the parents – who have one bedroom then he and his brother just have beds in some of the remaining space. He says he doesn't get on with his brother. I can see why! He is 22 and has a good degree and in a managerial position in his job but part of Chinese culture is that the children give 50% or a portion of their salary back to their parents once they start earning to thank and pay them back for being supportd for so long so he doesn't see much disposable income.
He loves creativity and
the performing arts and this is again different to his sporty brother and family orientated cousins. He talks about the family wanting him to marry and that he will do that later – I think the conventional traditions he was born into added to the fact he's found Christianity may make coming to terms with his life a difficult road ahead.
Marco is heading back to his job in Hong Kong – they have texted him over the weekend with a problem -
“Honestly! What a nightmare – why couldn't it have waited for one day!” he says
Oh god I remember that feeling.
I decide to have a nice relaxing pampering day. I find a place that will do a foot massage, pedicure and scraping for about a tenner. The foot massage is lovely. The pedicure is perhaps one of the more terrifying beauty treatments i've had. Just my feet and a small Chinese man with a scalpel. I actually shut my eyes. Scraping - i assume - is part of the pedicure where the scrape the dead skin off the feet. But oh no - we go upstairs and i'm asked to take my
top off and lie down.
"Oh well " i think "this will be an experience"
there then proceends one of the most painful beauty treatments of my life. I think the concept is very similar to cupping. She runs up and down my back with some kind of syringe that sucks the skin into it and then spits it out and then places a series of suction cups all over my back. It hurts...ALOT. When i get back Marco says - "oh no they probably didn't do it properly its not brown and bruised..."
and then the next day - "Oh yes. They did..."
I am heading down to Xisuanbanna – the border of Yunnan province so that I can head down into Laos. The only bus from Dali is called a sleeper but leaves at 11 am and arrives in at 3am in the morning.
The bus i've taken from Shangri La to Dali was 8 hours of hell. I think i've become fairly well adept at roughing it but this takes the biscuit. I am on the standard 19 seater mini bus with no toilet and definitely NO mod cons. I am sitting
next to a little Chinese man with a bag of peanuts in his pocket (at least I hope that's what it is) who proceeds to smoke every half hour. The men on the bus behind me keep spitting into the bucket left for rubbish in the middle of the aisle or out of the window. The windows are open and i'm being blasted by freezing cold air. There is a Tibetan man with a one year old in front who proceeds to vomit in the middle of the aisle in front of me, the driver insists on using his horn every five seconds for everything and subjecting everyone to his taste in Chinese music Chinese people cannot sing) which reaches an all new low with a Chinese rap version of The real Slim Shady. Add in the perilous mountain paths and the fact that he only stops twice for a toilet stop once after two hours and once after another 5 hours have gone by! At a rural backpost concrete trough flanked by spiders where you have to hover over other people's excrement and menstruation cycle and you have the bus ride from hell.
Bearing all this in mind
I decide to blow the monthly budget and take the one hour flight to the border. It costs 90 quid and I can't justify it – but I don't want to arrive in a strange city in the middle of the night by myself ( I later discover people in the same hostel are doing the bus which is annoying) but also I am 37 years old for Christ's sake. Sometimes I just need a little bit of civilisation!!!
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