Last spring fest stories
ok so this is going to be a speedy overview because obviously we have issues with keeping up to date and I want everyone to hear all the great things that are happening now instead of three months late.To leave off where we were we Tingri/Dingri. Did I mention no running water or electricity in this town, Man it was really weird going to the bathroom and having to flush with a bucket of ice water, and when I mean ice water i mean there was ice chunks in the water, all trying to do this in the pitch black. Our guide told us the next morning to get up at 6 so we did. It was still freezing and dark. We piled into the land cruiser and made for The everest base camp. As we neared the first of many roadblocks,( set up by the Chinese government) we were greeted by grumpy soldiers. We were told to give them our passports and permits, so we did. Joe and I waited in the car for 30 minutes while the men talked. It was interesting to just watch the way the soldiers treated our driver and guide. There was no human respect given whatsoever. It was as if the men were children. The soldiers barked at them for about 45 minutes, finally they got back in the land rover and turned back toward town. We got to tingri and they said that they had the wrong permit, but were looking to get the right one. So they called everyone they knew and we just waited. Problem: It was the Tibetan new year and there was no one in any office nearby. We were two days car ride from Lhasa and have no permit to cross over to base camp. Boy was Joe furious. We spent a lot of money on this tour guide and they didn't get the most important piece of paper for the whole trip! So we continued to get angry and after half a day of waiting our guide was able to negotiate a deal with the guard. The guard said we could go to a pass near the base camp with the same altitude, but we had to come right back. Whooopy we thought. and without giving us a choice our guide got in the car and away we were going. We made it to the pass and got to see everest although it was in the distance. We were definitely the grumpy ones going back down the mountains that day. We arrived back in Lhasa and after being on the road for two days we seemed a little more calm. We thought just forget about it, but then the tour group that we paid the money to called our guide and told him that if we complain that he wouldn't be paid for the week and the driver might be fired. Our guide then told us this story as if to make us not complain or try to get our money back. We felt horrible. How was it that they were putting us in this situation? Why was it our choice? Our guide told us he would give us money not to complain, but we said how much is seeing Everest worth to you? We told him there was no price tag and that it was a once in a life time chance that had been crushed. Finally we just agreed not to say anything and that was that. We felt bad that they wouldn't get paid and we certainly didn't want the driver to get canned, so we did what we thought was right. The next day we got on a plane headed for Chengdu. It was strange to be on a plane again. Most people fly when they are headed somewhere then headed back home, but this was just to cross China, so it felt weird to get off and be in a new place again. This was the longest vacation in history for us too. We took a look at our budget and planned the rest of our trip accordingly. We decided we'd see the pandas, a good opera, and the largest buddah in the world. Then make our way to a couple other cities before heading home. The pandas: The pandas are so cute!! up close they are the laziest animal I have ever seen. They just lay on their backs munching on bamboo all morning, then sleep all day. We visited the breeding facility that just brought 13 new babies into the world. Such a great thing for the pandas because they are still very small in numbers. Joe and I tribute this to the Chinese possibly eating all of them. :) Biggest Buddah: The biggest buddah or Dapusa can be found in Leshan, about 1 hour away from Chengdu. The Buddah is carved into the rock cliff facing a river. It is also surrounded by a large botanical park complete with caves and huge statues . Theres even a laying buddah. You climb all around the mountain passing statues bigger than skyscrapers. Finally you reach the top and you can see the giant buddah as you climb down the cliff on its right side. His feet are enormous. He was also recently cleaned and painted, but hes fully intact!Sichuan Opera: The opera was amazing! this is where we decided to spend our valentines day. When you walk in you are greeted by ladies that escort you to your seat. Near the seats are small coffee tables full of tea cups and peanuts. throughout the performance the ladies would refill the tea. The performance consisted of a variety show with musicians and dancers. This is one man that danced and performed with a puppet. They also did the famous changing faces dance with the common Chinese music in the background. If you have seen Beijing Opera I felt like this was similar, but I'm told not to confuse the two.Western food: On one of our walks around the city we saw many western shops and food stores. We bought Pepper jack cheese!!! we love cheese and its one thing china doesn't have!! we were so excited. We also saw an Ikea on the way from the airport.... Chengdu is this city in China???? At one of the restaurants we ate ate called Dave's Oasis we met a foreigner from Canada. He had been working here for 2 years now and just makes burgers and western food for people that stop by. It was a crazy place to eat, it kinda actually reminded me of my friends basement in high school. Pool table, spray paint on the wall, insence burning people smoking, yep my friends basement. The guy really liked Joe's shoes. The ones he got in Beijing. Joe didn'y really like them so he said, well you wanna give me a good deal for them? Joe tried to bargin with the guy. It was so funny Joe has learned alot from those little chinese women sellers. Finally he got the guy to agree to 160 with a free meal. He paid 100 for them, so he made a profit and got free food. Way to go Joe. Well you know us foreigners gotta look out for one another!We also met another foreigner there. He was from England and also a teacher here in China. We talked for awhile and realized finally we were going to be on the same train back to our province. When we boarded the train the next day we found he had the bunk right below us!!Train to Liujiang:Well we wanted to go straight to Guilin, but the trains just don't work that way. We decided to continue our "traveling without schedules" routine, which I am convinced is the only way to travel when you have this long or are back packing anywhere. It leaves your life and vacation out of your hands and puts them into God's. Where ever god thinks is a good place for us to go we were going. I mean if any body I'm sure God knows better then expedia or travelocity right?? So we were off. At first we were a little worried because our bed car was three foreigners, 1 middle aged chinese man and two little kids who had the bunks above us. We were alittle worried because the kids seemed to be going crazy, running all over the train, bored outta there minds. Finally when they stopped for a minute I tried all the chinese I could muster up and started talking to the little boy. He knew a little english and once his mom ( a train car away) saw that I had interest in her kid immeaditly made him get out his english school book and try to study with me. I'm not sure if at first he was too interested. We thought he just seemed alittle frustrated with not being able to play with his cousin, but as we talked he became more open and wiped that bratty little kid look off his face. We spent the entire 36 hours ( while not sleeping) on the train speaking English, sharing our western hot cocoa and playing cards with these hilarious little kids. He even thought Joe looked like mr. Bean, so the kid nicknamed him Ronnan Atkinson, which with his chinese accent came out anything from Lauren attkisn, to nonnan stikinson. He would ask just before his mom made him get into bed.. hey Ronnan Atkinson what time is it?? and he and his cousin fell right to sleep after a full day of foreigner fun. As all of us hit the shack he rolled over and looked down at me, I pretended to be asleep . then woke up and scared him, he whispered to me Ming tian jian, and then in English whispered good night, see you tomorrow. It was so cute. The next night we made Huge sub sandwiches on the train with our pepperjack cheese and we had an amazing foreign free for all. Our new English friend was so nice to talk to it was like having a road trip with your friends. We played cards and just chatted about issues. It was great. As we got off the train we said goodbye to our English friend. Normally when you get off the train the train door to the next car is closed and locked. The kids ran up to sit with their parents for awhile, so we thought aww I guess we wont say goodbye. Then as we were getting off the train through the next train car door window there they were screaming( which we couldn’t really hear) Emily!! Ronnan Atkinson!!! We waved goodbye and blew kisses just like on a cheesy movie. I just want to say I love speaking Chinese to Chinese children. They are the best to practice on. They speak slower then adults and generally just want to know general things about you. Theres never anything to difficult to deal with and they automatically without thinking invite you to be their best friend after 5 minutes of talking to you. Its really the best way to learn chinese. Oh yeah another story about these kids. We were all just playing cards when all of a sudden the girl ran in from the other car laughing , she kept gesturing to her teeth and saying the little boys name. In runs the little boy holding a tissue to a place where a tooth used to be. I guess she had tripped him as a joke and the kid ended up loosing a tooth!!! crazy!When we arrived in LiuJiang we needed to take a bus to Guilin. The problem was that it was chinese new year. The exact day of new year and there was no buses! We walked around wondering what to do and finally found a van that was offering to drive us there for 100 kuai a piece. Well without a place to go we bargined down to 75 kuai and drove all the way to Guilin. When we arrived in Guilin we still needed to go two hours to our destination Yangshou. We managed to find the bus to Yangshou at the Guilin train station. This is what I'm talking about flying on the seat of your pants. God wanted us to visit Yangshou, so somehow we got there.
When we arrived in Yangshou we were greated by the most touristy street I have seen in central Chjna. Any foreign item you may want was there. Really over priced , but all there!!
We found a decent hostel to stay in which again I will say china has some of the best and cheap hostels I have ever seen! The hostel was right on the western street, just a block down was the river. So we spent many days just walking down and seeing the beautiful hills and mountains of that area. If you’ve seen the 20 rmb bill, this is the place its painted for. The scenery actually matches the bill exactly ( its their claim to fame). We spent most of the 4 days there relaxing and just wondering around. We rented two bikes and biked all around one day, in and out, on and off the road. We biked up to the moon cave and got to go exploring inside a old cavern. Defiantly unsafe, defiantly made for Chinese sized people. Joe hit his head so many times I thought I was going to die from laughing. We were the only people in the cave at the time; I guess this is off season, so we had our own personal guide. At the end of the cavern there was a huge mud pit you could go swimming in. So we took all our clothes off and got into our swimming suits. And jumped in. There was even a mud slide. ( view photos on flickr) We got out and realized.. uh oh there was no shower!!! The guide lead us to this little spring, but the water was freezing , needless to say the rest of the day we had mud coming out of our ears as we biked around. We saw rice terraces and went on alittle hike in the bathroom slippers that the cave people gave us. Pretty hard to hike in shower shoes.
On our way back to the western street we were stopped by this women. She kept wanting us to eat at her restaurant. Finally Joe and I agreed that it would be ok, and she lead us down this street to her so called “restaurant” Finally we arrived and it wasn’t a resaraunt at all but her house!!! We sat there while she cooked for us and just couldn’t believe this is how this women makes her money. In the end she was a nice women and didn’t cheat us, we got a home cooked meal and were on our way. The next day we took a bamboo boat and had the driver drop us off down the river. We decided to walk back.. As we walked back, not really knowing where we were we walked into several graveyards. Kinda creepy especially the ones that weren’t really dug, just a pile of rocks… hmmmm so we found our way outta there quickly. We managed to make it home and go down to the river where they were doing fireworks for new years. Man have you ever seen a 4 year old hold a roman candle!!! Wow china!!

After our fun time in Yangshou we decided to go back home. We thought it would be great to just hang out and we were running short on cash. SO we packed up, ate our last American style hamburger and found a bus back to Changsha. The bus was an overnight bus, so it had these medal type bed cocoon compartments inside it. For Joe it totally sucked. His knees didn’t fit inside it at all. It was very Lost in translation for him and a hole alotta un comfortable. The bus had carpets in the aisles and there was three rows of beds in this thing. A death trap I’m sure!
Weird thing was you had to take off your shoes when you got on to the bus, so it made getting off to use the bathroom at the stops a big ordeal for everyone. We drove in the night for about 4 hours and the bus stopped , Everyone except like 7 people, I got off to go to the bathroom and joe stayed on. It was this horrible , discusting restraint where the bathroom just happened to be in the kitchen. I guess this was one of those deals where the bus drivers get a little cut if they stop the bus here for 30 mins and make the people get off and eat. I went to the bus to get back on and the door was locked. Luckily there were some girls on the bus that wanted to get off, so they found the door open button inside and pressed the button. When they got off I got on, but I was met with screaming from behind me. The driver started yelling at me in some dialect mandarin that I could only pick out like 2 words per sentence. Plus he seemed angry so he was spitting out words left and right! He said you cant get off the bus , its dinner time. I said I have already eaten, thankyou. But he continued to tell me no one could be on the bus, he even grabbed my arm trying to pull me off. I was like man ive had it with this guy, he locks people in the bus and makes me go to this horrible stop to pee and if there was a fire the people on the bus would be dead, and I just wanna sit in the seat that I paid for! So I say Joe and joe is at the back of the bus and says what… just so this guy could hear that there was people on the bus still. The driver got all huffy and I just bolted for my bed/seat. He called after stupid foreigner women. I got so pissed! And turned around and just starred at him. Then I jumped up into my bed and then the driver noticed there was 5 other Chinese people still on the bus just starring at him also. He looked at them and mumbled something and just got off the bus, locking the door behind him. I couldn’t believe that they lock the people off there own bus just so this filthy restaurant can have business, it made me so angry. You could see all the pissed off people outside the bus just standing there in the dark waiting for them to unlock the door.
Finally the bus was moving again and we slept for a short time. Then they dropped us off in Changsha and we took a cab to the train station. There wasn’t another train until 1 in the morning so we had to wait around until then. When we got on the train we thought surely there would be a seat at this time in the AM, but there wasn’t. So with our big packs we just crammed in and found a spot between the two cars and slept with ours heads resting against the doors. Luckily that space was free., but as we got off the train a women came in and couldn’t make it to the bathroom, she just puked all over the floor., then looked at me and Joe and just gave us this friendly hello smile. It was really weird , funny and grouse all at the same time. Trust me nothing will faze us after China and just so you know Chinese trains is where the sickness lives. I always get sick after being on them.! So this is what travel in china is all about. Sickness, no schedules, going with the wind. We then made it home finally at 3 am , with no sleep all day. The streets are so quiet at that time. And our school too, no students, no yelling ,everything was so peaceful.
The next morning we were faced with our liaison assistant coming to our door at 10. We told her we didn’t sleep and that we were coming back. Big mistake! She came to our house and after not answering our door she opened our bedroom window and just started screaming at us. Saying there was a lunch in our honor. I never wanted to smack her more then that morning. We got up, because what are you supposed to do when someone says there is a dinner in your honor, you cant really refuse! But we were un showered and with no sleep, we went to this thing and found that it was actually a dinner for the alumni of our school. Not a Lunch for us but more to show us off. It was awful, Luckily we got to go home quick and get into bed.