The Good Times Are Killing Me

“Money’s just something you throw from the back of a train.”  - Tom Waits

China is eating away at The Balance.  On the plus side, the food is cheap and I don’t feel I’m overstating things to say that I have mastered the art of eating well for under 3 USD per day.  On the other side of the coin, I’m staying in dorms for what I paid for an air conditioned single room in Vietnam and the transportation costs are sucking my lifeblood.  An 8 hour bus ride is about 12-16 USD, which wouldn’t be so bad if this country weren't enormous.  I’ve taken 6 of these buses (and one train) already and I’ve only been here two weeks.  When it came time to buy my ticket for the 15 hour train from Chengdu to Xi’an I panicked a little when they told me the “Hard Sleeper” class was 34 USD.  I asked for “Hard Seat” for 15 USD, knowing full well that this was an overnight train, 9pm to 12:45pm, and that I would be considering suicide by the time 3am rolled around.  The ticket agent was horrified.  “Haarrd seeeeat?!  It’s FIFTEEN HOURS?!”  I told her I could take it.  She shook her head, “You are very strong!”  I paid, walked up to my room, stood by my bunk for awhile, turned around, walked back down to the desk and told her I’d like to change that to sleeper, if possible.       

Hot-Pot

It was my last night traveling with the Spaniards.  Gabriel and I had been looking for genuine set-your-head-on-fire Sichuan cuisine ever since we arrived in this fine province and although we had enjoyed several fine meals, we had yet to experience anything particularly incendiary.  We felt it was time to look in the guidebook, rather than just wandering into random locations and pointing, so we took an LP reference and wandered out into the darkening streets of Chengdu.  Naturally we couldn’t find the place, but on the way we were intrigued by a crowded establishment furnished with boiling bowls of chilies and oil set into tables, each table surrounded by cases of beers and men with no shirts.  The chilies made our eyes water and throats itch just walking past the door.  We decided without much debate that this was the place, checked with the host, and waited for a table while the other diners bought us tea and ice-cream and asked to have their pictures taken with us. 

We got a little carried away.  Ordinarily Gabriel and I spend between 1 and 2 dollars on dinner, but when they brought us the menu with all manner of strange pictures of food, each intended to be thrown into the chili oil…well…we just kept on pointing at things, running up our tab to a shocking 7 USD each.  We had more food than we could possibly eat sitting before us when the courteous staff brought the huge, two-chamber hot-pot to a rolling boil and helped us to dump our feast into the appropriate concoctions.   

The food did what we asked of it.  Special, round “mouth numbing” chilies set the stage for the roaring taste-bud-fire that was to follow.  We boiled the beef and meatballs and mushrooms and greens and we ate and ate, sweating and coughing and throwing new food into the caldrons until we could take no more.   We paid our ransom and headed back to our hotel, buzzing off chilies and beer and the weirdness of China.   

The Spaniards have gone south now, as is their wont, and I am catching a train north to Xi’an.  We traded email addresses and hugs and music from our iPods and promises that each of us, respectively, has a place to crash in London, Barcelona, and wherever I end up.   Tonight I’ll be catching the train alone, but it doesn’t feel bad.  Short friendships are part of “this thing of ours” and freedom to part ways is the best part of traveling alone.  There seems to be a unique solidarity among travelers in China and I’m looking forward more than ever to the next batch of friends in the next crazy metropolis.  

Hang On Saint Christopher

"I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that my instincts were right." - Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

China is a blur. I don't know whether I've been here 3 days or 10. I see flashes of activity that I have difficulty connecting in my memory. Two blond girls, one American and one Dutch, with whom I shared two, separate, intimate conversations on a rooftop bar while surrounded by revelry seem relevant (although the details of the
conversations bleed together), as does a movie discussion with an American who has taken on the extra challenge of living outdoors during most of his travels. There seems to be an image of a Chinese Michael Jackson impersonator singing in an unbearably loud, but deliciously weird club while the Dutch girl sat across from me awkwardly. I know for sure there was a serendipitous meeting of Spaniards along with a Canadian Of Chinese Heritage and some wandering the streets of a metropolis together, each unsure where we were, each asking strangers to look at our maps and repeatedly getting conflicting advice in the form of directional pointing. I tend to doubt my recollection of the Canadian sobbing in our shared-for-price-not-romance two-bed hotel room after I advised her (since she asked), at 1am after a few drinks, to end her two-year, long-distance relationship with a Frenchman - who in spite of her desperate pleading has stated that he doesn't want to marry her - knowing as she did, with painful clarity, that this advice was obvious and she should have done it already but now, at age 37, she was terrified of being alone. I am almost certain that the one of the lesbians, the one who spoke Mandarin, and the same one who beat the Spaniards and I at Texas Hold 'Em, declared that she had a crush on me when Regina Spektor, The Shins, and Joni Mitchel came up consecutively on a playlist I had made. I am painfully sure that I vomited in my bed that same night, managing at least to lean out and deposit my half-processed soup and hideous Chinese liquor on the floor rather than the sheets, although I have no recollection of the act. A man named Ray may have sang a rock song in Chinese in front of a glowing fireplace in a town called Shangri-La. I know I have climbed mountains (or perhaps hills) with my head throbbing from the elevation. I have helped to turn the largest prayer wheel I have ever seen. I have exited a bus in fog and rain, stepping into a muddy mountain highway, 4 hours from anywhere, because the driver was uncertain if he could both get the bus moving and keep its four wheels in contact with the precarious ledge while it was loaded with passengers. All these things most likely happened, but I can't help feeling there is a strange momentum at play here that has packed this short time with moments which I can barely accept as reality, much less make into any coherent sense. But I love it all. I know that much.

Off The Grid, Again

Off the Grid, Again
Today I'm in Dali; another medium sized city, part smoggy industrial
center, part rural farmland, part recently manufactured tourist
attraction. The city is split into "Old" and "New" sections; the
"New" being the standard ugly offices and manufacturing centers; the
"Old" being guesthouses, handicraft shops, and elaborate gates, all
built in the traditional Chinese style sometime within the last couple
of years. The impression the "Old Dali" gives is one of manufactured
charm, which is not to say it's unpleasant. The city surrounded by
rolling hills and sits on the edge of a massive lake, which my Spanish
and Canadian companions (with whom I have remained loosely affiliated
since our meeting on the bus to Kunming) and I spent the day observing
from the seats of rented bicycles.

When we returned to town "Gabriel" and I went for a bite to eat at a
local restaurant. While we were going through the familiar but
nonetheless arduous ritual of placing our order with gestures, we
heard Mandarin being spoken and turned around to find a couple of
white girls, one of whom was, against all odds, fluent in Mandarin.
We immediately asked her for a little help, which she gave happily,
and invited them to join us for lunch. While we ate, we received a
peculiar travel suggestion, which as Mr. Vonnegut tells us, is a
dancing lesson from god. The girls (Americans who I am all but
certain are a lesbian couple) were going off the beaten track, taking
local buses then renting a van to get to the spectacular geography of
Southwest China, planning to seek shelter in some small villages and
do some trekking in places that do not appear on my Lonely Planet map.
They said we were welcome to join them and share costs. I asked them
if they were serious. They said that they were. I told them that if
they were serious, I was in. We're leaving tomorrow. Gabriel has to
ask his traveling companion, "Emilio" and get back to us. I'll be off
the grid for a week at least.

Welcome to China

Kunming is a gleaming metropolis. A medium sized city of 5 million
souls. I checked into a pristine dorm room bed in "The Hump
Guesthouse" sold to me for 7 USD per night along with a Canadian woman
and two Spanish guys that I met on the bus. We were partners in
confusion getting here. My Mandarin was satisfying to use in
inquiries with locals about exactly where we were, but it was
ultimately no help, perhaps in part because my Lonely Planet is 5
years old. A lot changes in 5 years in China including, apparently,
the location of the bus station. On our second night, a Monday, we
hit the clubs a little along with the cadre of random revelers we met
at The Hump. Chinese people apparently don't ever take a night off
because the town was alive with strange dancing and drinking well into
the wee hours of the morning. I couldn't connect with Yang Yang, my
kind Couchsurfing host, apparently due to a cell phone malfunction, so
I'll have to delay my first CS experience until a later town. So far
China is as strange and wonderful as I had hoped in ways that I never
expected.

Busted Flat - Update #2

Crisis averted. After 7 penniless hours I am once again carrying the
local currency. Money never looked so good coming out of an ATM. I
had to postpone my couchsurfing (www.couchsurfing.org) by one day and
I'm hoping my host doesn't think I'm crazy as this is the second time
I've delayed my arrival. The hotel man is paid and I never had to
explain myself to him. Life is pretty good.

Even now that I have the money, I am beginning to realize how
difficult China is going to be compared to my other stops. When the
taxi drivers don't understand "bus station" you know you are not in a
place set up for tourism. Still, there's something refreshing about
nobody calling to me from shops or following me down the street trying
to push trinkets into my hand. I strolled into a local eatery today,
pointed at some things, and felt pretty sure the 75 cents I paid for
my gigantic bowl of pork noodle soup was not adjusted for my
complexion. I think China is going to be fun.

Busted Flat - Update

After a walk around Hekou I've established that there are a variety of
mouthwatering street-food options. There are also several grocery
stores. However, none of them take my visa card. I think I may be
fasting tonight.