CHINA!!! (part 2/3)

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alright team!!! part 2/3...enjoy!!!

KUNMING

This city was a stop over between Emishan and Dali and our train arrived latem which gave us less then 24 hours to explore, see and do everything this place had to offer. We were on day 9 of the tour though…and there was a small issue. There was only one thing on my mind…..
(This is fair warning for all of you to get your minds out of the gutter if what you’re thinking was on my mind pertained to anything but my digestive system :-· )

I haven’t made reference to the habits of out digestive systems since we were in
India, but I really mustn’t deprive you all from the humor in the situation that unfolded in our single afternoon in Kunming …

You may remember in the India entry that Jen possesses a somewhat over-eager digestive system. This has not changed for her, however the status of my own digestion has gone from ok to a complete standstill. The eating and chewing and traveling through my system is perfectly fine- but for the full 9 days of the tour, and the 2 days in shanghi, I reached a point where there was no expelling. So it was time for the two of us to embark on another adventure!

Destination: pharmacy.

I must mention and stress again, the serious issue of having such a language barrier as we have encountered in China. The two of us circled the same city block for almost two hours asking for a pharmacy and pointing to a few mandarin characters our tour guide wrote down for us, which apparently read:

- Where is the Pharmacy?

And

- Laxitive needed for serious situation.

With this rather direct form of communication, we got a few laughs out of people, were told to go down a few streets that ended up taking us no where…but no one could point us in the right direction. We had almost reached the end of our rope when we came across a newspaper stand selling predominantly English magazines so we figured they would speak a little.
Stupid assumption.

They began to laugh at us- even before we showed them the paper describing the “serious situation” we were in (which actually sent them into a fit of laughter beyond any hope of continuing conversation.) Clearly these people needed a lesson on communication etiquette. So Jen, (bless her heart) offered them a brief but thorough lesson on a generous array of choice English words, phrases and hand gestures. (Non of which have much to do with etiquette but all of which one may find useful in stressful or “serious” situations.

As a last ditch attempt to finding this pharmacy (which, at this point, we’re convinced does not exist) we ask a man with a briefcase.

***(Thought process at this point: “Briefcase… goooooood! This must mean he does business. That means he’s smart. If he’s smart he’s successful- if he’s successful he must have over-seas business affairs which must mean he would have to speak English- therefore: this guy HAS to know where this God forsaken Pharmacy is…and will be able to give us directions cuz boy do I ever need to poo!!!!”)****

JACKPOT!!!! I don’t know to what extent my thought process was correct, but the guy spoke English and told us exactly how to get there.

**Insert a 20 minute travel break + 1..ok 2….ok ok 3 wrong turns**

Ok, so we’re there! And please, for the love of all things holy, let there be someone who speaks English….

There’s not.

Good.

Great.

It’s sign language time.

Trust me when I say I tried ever way possible to relay my inability to expel fecal matter by using drawings, speaking painfully slow, and by pointing to medicines I thought might do the trick (all the while…attempting to remain somewhat discrete about my problem as I didn’t want a huge audience…but then I realized, theres not a SINGLE person who would understand what I’m saying anyways!!) Just then I remembered the piece of paper with “Laxitive for serious situations” in mandarin on it so I showed the woman. She quickly handed me a box with pills and I noticed a small line written in English, and it read:

“For relief of chronic diarrhea.”

Was this her idea of a joke? Seriously? I hadn’t crapped in over a week and she just handed me a box of pills that would plug me up more? Sick. The woman I was dealing with was just plain sick.

Clearly she misread what the paper said…or perhaps what my guide wrote down said something about diarrhea not constipation…

I had to rely on my own vices now…. I hadn’t come this far and this close to turn around and just give up….This was all up to me.

I put my game face on, this was it. My performance in the next 3 minutes was going to determine whether or not I attained the assistance I so desperately needed. And desperate times call for desperate measures…so I did it...

I assumed a firm squatting position and proceeded to squish and contort my face in an extremely strained manor. I closed my eyes, clenched my fists and even allowed a small grunt to escape. I was going for it. There was no holding back. This was an academy award-worthy performance and all I wanted as recognition for my efforts was a laxative.

So at this point I can hear the inevitable snickering from the passer-bys…and any attempt at being discreet about the situation before was completely thrown out the window. Jen had gotten to the point of laughing so hard there was no noise anymore…but I refused to let that compromise my performance. I peeked one eye open to see if my actions had registered with the pharmacist well enough to find what I was looking for. (Still squatting, still with the fists clenched…) not only was Jen laughing, but now the pharmacist, her assistant and a few shoppers were getting a good laugh at the expense of this crazy foreigner with the digestive deficiencies.

Pride aside, my performance was enough for the pharmacist to grab a different box off the shelf, I checked if this one had any English (which it did…) and it said “for relief of chronic constipation” BINGO!!!!!!!!!! These were the magic pills I had my heart set on. Still laughing, the four of us headed to the register and it honestly felt like I was running a victory lap!

We celebrated our huge victory by having an ice cream cone on the walk back to our hotel, and then got into bed and watched a Chinese show called “Just Go” which is pretty much MXC with even more coordination-less falling and humorous subtitles.

PROLOUGE

For those of you who are diiiieeeing to know… I took two pills before bed and at 8:30 SHARP the next morning, I gave myself a high 5 for the small victory I had in the bathroom!! :-P
As all good stories go…this one had a happy ending, but it was a good reminder and a further testament to smiles and laughter being a universal language. And to be able to laugh as hard as we all did without using any language was one of those priceless moments in life…and one of the many wonders that travel can bring.



DALI

Dali is a small city tucked away in Eastern China- very close to Tibet. Its an old fashioned sort of villiage and is the exact sort of place I have grown to love. Slow-paced, time to chit-chat with the locals (assuming they speak English) and countless hole-in-the-wall bakeries and cafes to try all the ethnic foods, snacks and baked goodies!

So on the first day for exploring this new place, I headed out by myself and decided to see where the wind would blow me.
I headed down the cobble stoned street from our hotel and felt inspired to rent myself a bike for $1.75- and i had it all day!! i bought a map (thought it might be a good idea seeing as i had no idea where on earth i was headed, or what there was to see in this area...) so i picked a pretty looking place on the map, and the guy pointed down the street and to the right.

Id like to take the opportunity now to let you guys experience the ride i was about to embark on...
clearly, after paying less then $2 to use a bike all day, one cant expect much in terms of the quality of performance the thing is gunna put out, but i went for the mountain bike thinking that the gear shifting might help make my journey a little easier...as it turns out, the gears gave the appearance of a mountain bike, (as did the word "MOUNTIAN" painted across the body of the bike) but alas, moving the gears up and down made a nice clicking noise, with no effect. so it looked as though my journey was going to be uphill, downhill, flatlevel - gear one.

Thats alright, gears are over rated anyways...but it was about 15mins into what was supposed to be a relaxing little ride that the pain i was suffering from the narrow seat was becoming unbareable. (as it turns out...i am quickly discovering that asians make jeans, bench seats, and now bicycle seats waaayy to narrow for the size of my westernized budnkadonk.
thats ok. mind over matter, maybe ill just focus on the scenery instead.

**THUMP***

ok so i have hit a rather large pothole and my bike has come to an abrupt stop. i am now painfully aware of just how invasive a bicycle seat really is. as i look ahead there appears to be a 2-3km stretch of this gravel road with an array of scattered potholes. so this should be fun.
and yes, it was.

about an hour and half later i had passed a half a dozen pig farms, the worst smelling crops in the country, a few stray horses, about 8 trucks spewing out black smoke and a small village filled with people who had clearly never seen a white girl truckin' along on a piece of shit bike peddling stupidly fast just to keep moving in a forward motion to prevent from tipping over (again, gears are over rated, i was perfectly happy staying in first…and clearly it was the most practical way of doing things.)

I opted to remove the map i had flapping from my pocket and pointed to where i wanted to go. the man I showed it to promptly threw his head back and began to laugh at me.
A few drawings and plenty of explanatory hand-gestures later, it was clear that i was about 5 hours away from my desired destination.

I decided that my adventure in this direction had reached a sad end, and opted to retrace my steps and start my adventure back at the beginning.
So again, i trucked past the crops, the village of stare-ers, the scattered horses, the shit smell..and best of all the 2-3kms of gravel and potholes. (this time i nearly pissed myself laughing tho…if any of you had have seen me on this tool of a bike it would have been an instant flash back to leslie neilson in Naked Gun. the bumps, and the rather frail structure of this 1-geared bike definitely gave off the appearance of hydraulics, and just for kicks, i started playing a mexican rap song on my mp3 which i listened to while bouncing around side to side along this stretch of road, chucking to myself and thinking of how freakin hard everyone at home would have been laughing at just a glimps of this scene.)

I finally made it back to the village a couple hours later (the afternoon sun, and the literal pain in my ass... as well as taking a wrong turn set me back a little...)
i decided it was meal time :-) so I sat down in a cute tucked away little cafe and had a fruit salad with granola and did a little writing.
while munching, I thought it might be a good idea to see what else on the map might be within a more reasonable distance.

The lake seemed like a good place to start! maybe ill try fishing... could be fun…
so about 10minutes after I decided I would venture my way down to the water, a man sat down at my table and asked me if I would be interested in going on a fishing boat for an hour. interesting proposal...and interesting timing:-· …so we negotiated a price and he agreed to be back to pick me up in an hour.

So he does, and we drive down to the water where I meet up with another man who takes me out on a row boat (which btw was covered with these black pelican-like birds just waiting to be fed!!!!) a couple minutes later the guy starts throwing the birds off the side of the boat- like...just SHOVING these things off...and I’m about to flip out on him, but these birds diving into the water and going down down down!!! like fish!!! I cant see any of them for a few minutes, but then they all started to pop out of the water and look up at this boat guide like expectant children. He grabs one of them by the beak and brings him back onto the boat. (i thought this looked a little mean...but the bird was obseeeeenly comfortable with it.) so he opens the birds mouth, and it regurgitates a full-sized fish!!! AND ITS STILL ALIVE AND FLIPPING AROUND!!!!
Turns out this is what the guy meant when he said we would be going fishing...but that was fine by me, this was all very entertaining.

After the boat ride i felt like a nice relaxing massage (and for the cheap ass price here, why not!) so I asked the guy who originally presented me with the fishing idea if he knew of any places (which he did) and that’s where the taxi headed next.

here is where adventure 3 of the day begins...and this ones a kicker :-P

He brings me down the side-street and around a few corners to a tucked away house sorta place and theres a frail old man about to feed himself some rice with chopsticks (and I didnt mean to stare, but Im pretty sure not a single grain actually met his mouth...) so Im about 5 seconds away from spinning on my heel and saying I need someone who can actually give me a massage without cracking their withering fingers off...but then from another room steps the sort of woman you just KNOW has a firm grip :-· shes about a foot shorter then me...and at least 75lbs heavier.

we agree on a price and I head into a white room with 6 beds. all have fresh linen and nice big pillows.

Now this rather butch woman doesn’t speak a word of English. In fact...Im convinced she doesn’t speak a word of mandarin either. She speaks GRUNT. The up-side to this however, is that she grunted in various tones, which informed me whether I was doing something right or wrong.

I laid down on my tummy and she instantly let out a low, bellowing sort of grunt, so i started to flip over, and I got another bellowing grunt, so I immediately stopped. and then slowly went back to the way I was, and then she let out a mid-toned sort of grunt so I stopped again, and then she nodded definitively.
so i was on my side...waiting for some sort of grunt to direct me what to do next. but no, that’s exactly how she wanted me to be…so she could start the physical harassment of my left thigh. I wont go on about the brutality I had to endure over the next 60minutes...but it should be known that i felt like a huge chunk of dough. Hard dough that must be handled in an aggressive forceful way, and kneaded with enough energy exertion to begin a light sweat (or in the case of our grunting bulldog masseuse...a heavy sweat)

The atmosphere was cooling quickly now that the sun had gone down...the smell of Chinese food was wafting, but the only sound that broke the silence was her gruff exhaling and occasional grunt of approval or disapproval. That was...until whatever the hell this woman had for lunch snuck up on her in a most horrible way :-·

I kid you not...this woman started lettin’ em go like it was the world championships and she was a defending champ. A rather serious competitor...these were loud, fierce sounds escaping her body...and yes dad, you would have been impressed.
I however, was not.

It became apparent about 30mins into the massage that her hands of brute fury were loosing stamina...this was good. This was excellent. She was lightening up a bit, and now, she had decided that she was no longer interested in making the journey from one side of the bed to the other. So she stayed on the right. Massaging my right side in her fading, yet still forceful way...and then just leaning across me to get the left side done- at least half of me was getting a break…

Without making this whole adventure sound like complete fiction (which I assure you, is certainly not) please now picture with me what you think of when you think of a traditional Chinese massage. Does it involve the "chop suey" hand motions where you use the side of your palm to judo chop the shit out of some one more as a joke then an actual technique?? Ill bet it does!!! And you betcha i got a whole lotta that too!!! At this point I focused my eyes onto the giant clock that was on the white wall...and counted down the minutes as my now frail-feeling body was thrashed around at the hands of this barbaric woman.

Finally...we reached the end of the allotted time I had agreed to pay for and I got up to put my shoes back on. just as I was picking up my bag though, she grunted and motioned for me to return to the bed. so timidly, I walked towards her and she gestured for me to remain standing but sort of bend over and place my hands on the bed (turning my back to her) I said I was ok and that it would be fine if i just paid, but that feeble attempt at stopping her rampage was just redundant. she didn’t speak English...she spoke grunt :-·
so she contorted me the way she asked and then from head to toe, proceeded to give me the "chop suey" one more time for good luck I guess.
I really couldn’t help but start laughing at this whole situation... mostly because I was already hearing the words in my head that I planned to use to describe this whole scene... but also because it was just plain funny that I paid money to get assaulted like that for an hour.
Out of sheer fear that she would mistaken my grin for enjoyment...and then possibly continue this madness, I made sure to smarten up and let a solemn, yet relaxed facial expression take over when I stood back up-right.

I paid her...and then nearly broke into a sprint to get the hell outta there :-P
when i left the room, the guy who took me out today was still waiting for me. Asked if I wanted to go for some tea...and at this point i was cold...and wanting a little comfort, so the answer was most certianly yes (after i went to get a sweater)

which brings me to present... i am in an internet cafe right now, enjoying ethnic music, tea, and complimentary internet usage (which is slow as molasses...but free, so you cant complain!!)

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and so concludes the second of three entries in China!!! The third installment should make its way to the internet in a few days...i just need to sort through the notes i have of our adventures in HongKong!!!

Thanks for reading friends/family!!!

take care and we'll talk to you all soon!!!
xoxox

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