TripTik

I feel like stir-fried shit

Looks like my Halloween costume this year will be a bed comforter. Sometime during my overnight, nine-breakdown bus ride from Lijiang to Kunming -- easily the worst experience of this trip (and I will write about it as soon as I can stay upright for more than a few minutes) -- I came down with either food poisoning or the flu. Whatever it is, it sucks ... and now -- yesterday, especially -- I am the sickest I've been in China. I am getting better, though, thanks to a steady diet of Imodium AD and Cipro. And, thankfully, I am not living with strangers here. My Kunming contacts are old friends Bryan and Shannon, who recently relocated here. This is good -- I don't know how to say anti-diarrheal medicine in Chinese. (At least I have my Pocket PC back, and the wireless internet is working. So I was able to write this in bed ... and in the bathroom.)

I heard my name today

Someone yelled "Dan Washburn!" This doesn't happen very often on this trip. OK, it never happens. And I never thought it would happen in Southwest China, in an obscure corner of Lijiang's ancient town. But there was Rose, sitting by a fountain, all the way from New York University. Wild. I am leaving Lijiang today. My 12-hour sleeper bus for Kunming departs at 6:30 pm. Anyone know of a good Halloween party ... in Kunming?

If you tried to email me ...

... earlier this week, there is a good chance I never got it. Why? Because nothing freakin' works on this trip. Anyway, my email works now, so if you haven't heard from me regarding an email you sent, go ahead and send it again -- but not if you are trying to sell me a Rolex, some Cialis or a penis-enlargement pill. (I buy that stuff on the streets of China.) So, if you are keeping track of my technology woes, here it goes: email broke for two days (unknown reason), camera broke (had to buy new one for $450), iBook broke (my fault ... still searching for a remedy), mobile phone lost or stolen (using backup phone now), internet on Pocket PC broke (now fixed and awaiting me in Kunming ... just in time for the last four weeks of the trip).

Go Figo-ure

Everyone who has met me since, oh let's say Harbin, has told me that I look tired. Very tired. Even strangers have said this. Think they're on to something? One person -- a tour guide here in Lijiang -- took it a step further, however. After he told me I looked tired, he told me I look like Luis Figo, the Portuguese soccer star. Yes, Portuguese. Interestingly, he is not the first Chinese person to make this comparison. Eagle, the front desk guy at the Le Hu Guesthouse at Shanghai University actually used to call me "Figo." Yes, his name is Eagle. OK, I need to go. Guess what ... I am tired.

OK, here's the situation

And no, my parents didn't go away on a week's vacation. (Everyone loves a Fresh Prince reference. Right? Right?) The situation is this: I am running out of time on this trip. I have about a month of travel time left -- and around eight places (Dali, Kunming, Xishuangbanna, Guiyang, Nanning, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Xiamen) left to visit. It's going to be tricky, but I think I can pull it off. But here's the rub: All this time traveling leaves very little for writing. Stories of 3,000-6,000 words don't just appear on the screen by typing the F9 key. There. I just tried it. Nothing. This trip's previous long entries have required a solid day or two spent sitting in front of a computer (I fill most of the time by fiddling with my fantasy football roster, until I think of words worth putting together into sentences). I won't be able to dedicate entire days to typing during this home stretch, so it will be the TripTik and the Photo Gallery. Now, please don't think I am ditching this project. I think I have proven my dedication (did I mention I tried yak butter tea a few days ago?). This is just a minor delay. Everything will get written. Everything. Don't forget: I am a freelance writer. This basically means that I am unemployed. So I will have plenty of time to dedicate to the completion of the writing portion of this trip project. So the stories will keep coming long after the trip has been completed. Not exactly the way I imagined it -- but it's the way it's got to be. Hope you understand. Think of this as the trip that keeps on giving.

The happiest people in China

Just might be the Mosuo minority of Lugu Lake, a pristine body of water -- nearly 9,000 feet above sea level -- which blesses both Sichuan and Yunnan with its presence. I loved this place and its people. No wonder 80 percent of the Mosuo live to be 100 years old. In time -- in other words, a couple months from now -- I will write thousands and thousands of words about Lugu Lake. For now, please take a look at the photos from my visit. You'll be glad that you did. It was one of the friendliest places I've ever been too. It's also one of the world's last active matriarchal societies. Coincidence?

I am alive

But my camera is not. I will write more about both of us tomorrow. Right now, I need food and sleep ... and the front gate of my Lijiang guesthouse closes at midnight (52 minutes from now). Expect photos from Lugu Lake tomorrow -- and expect to start planning your own trip there after seeing them. I won't spend too much time on the computer tomorrow, however. Lijiang is pretty damn nice itself, and I plan on doing some exploring -- with my new $450 camera in tow. More soon.

The deep forbidden lake

OK, it's not forbidden -- just a forced Neil Young reference. About 5km north of Xichang is Qionghai Lake. Take bus No. 14 or 22 and it will cost you a whole 1 yuan to get there. The bus will spit you out at Qionghai Lake Park, entrance to which costs 6 yuan ... or 5 yuan if you only have a 10 and the cashier doesn't feel like scrounging up some singles. The park, as is the case with many Chinese parks, has seen better days. But the lake, and the mountains that serve as its backdrop, are what your eyes will spend most of their time focusing on. Actually, there are likely better locations from which to enjoy the lake. In fact, I'm sure there are. Across the way, appeared to be not much other than countryside. But it was the middle of the afternoon. I knew I was heading to Lugu Lake the following day. And the park is where the bus plopped me. So I checked it out. It is my suspicion that all amusment rides found at Chinese parks were constructed at approximately the same time ... the 1950s. They are scary looking machines, rusty with faded paint and images of psychotic cartoon monkeys. A walk though a deserted park is like living in a creepy Ray Bradbury novel. In the rare instance that a parent allows a child to occupy one of these contraptions, the child usually cries. Today, all the rides sat empty. (I, by the way, can never say no to bumper cars. No matter how rusty. Alas, no bumper cars here.) Most of the people at the park -- the ones who weren't shooting bee-bees at balloons -- were wiling their time away on the water or by the water or eating things that were once in the water. The lake is loaded with long, narrow boats. There are boats you can ride in, rusty ones you steer yourself, wooden ones that come with your own personal upright rower -- and, it seemed, another person who barbecues fish. Other boats were occupied by those who supplied the fish. I saw one very big boat. It docked late in the afternoon and said in big gold letters "WELCOME TO SATELLITE CITY." Xichang is home to the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, famous for its Long March rocket program, which is infamous for a couple serious crashes, one of which killed a family of six -- or perhaps hundreds of villagers ... depends on who you ask. A smattering of people line the lake with poles, bobbing for tiny fish with hooks and bits of worm. One fisherman told me that big fish -- he held his hands three feet apart to give me an idea just how big -- occupy Qionghai Lake further from the shore. I didn't see any big fish, but I ate one pretty damn big clam. There is a tent filled with many people barbecuing pretty much the same stuff, and you can eat it at tables right along the lake. It's all fresh, too. Directly from Qionghai. Not sure if that is good or bad, considering China's poor record of water quality. I tested three items: two types of kebabs (chuan in Chinese), and the clam. The first kebabs were typical, bits of fish meet on a skewer, 2 mao per stick. The next was an entire fish (3 yuan), cut in half and flattened, sticks stuck through the poor guy's eyes. But he tasted good. The clam -- as big as my hand -- was my favorite, however ... probably just because of the way it was prepared. The meat was chopped up and placed in one half of the shell which, once cleaned, was a beautiful iridescent purple-ish hue. The other half was on the grill, serving as a bowl, in which a mix of liquids, seasonings and, um, other stuff sizzled. Then the meat was added, and after cooking for a while longer, the whole concoction was served in the shell. All for 4 yuan (which, I have a feeling, was a laowai special -- locals likely pay much less). I washed it all down with some beer that a friendly customer insisted I chug with him. We actually chatted for a while. About what, I am not completely sure. I have photos of all of this -- the beer, the boats, the big clam -- and I'd love to share them with you ... but the USB connections at this internet bar, as they are at most Chinese internet bars, are for display only. Bus for Lugu Lake leaves in eight hours. Not sure if I'll have internet access there or not. You'll be the first to know. NOTE: There are few things more sad than watching a desperately bored girl sit in an internet bar while her boyfriend ignores her and plays Counter Strike. She slept a little, I believe. And then she started coughing. You know, the cough that says, "I know one target you won't be hitting if you keep playing that game." He didn't seem to care ... and kept on playing. ... Wait, I can think of at least one thing sadder than that story: The Yankees losing four straight to the f**king Red Sox!

Bambino, where the hell are you?

We need the curse ... and soon. Yankees down 8-1 in the top of the sixth to the f**king Red Sox. I arrived in Sichuan Province's Xichang in the middle of the first inning. Right now, there is no place I'd rather be -- as far from the bloody mess going on in Yankee Stadium as possible. Hopefully, Kevin Brown punched a locker room wall again ... this time with his pitching hand.

My train leaves in 90 minutes

Well, no more run-ins with the police here in Chengdu -- but I did have a run-in with a big plate of meatloaf last night. And that was followed by some warm apple pie and vanilla ice cream. I washed it all down with a mug of root beer. Gotta love the new China ... or at least Grandma's Kitchen in Chengdu, a restaurant that is about as close to small-town America as you'll ever get in big-city China. There's a lot to like about Chengdu -- and it goes beyond the city's surprisingly expansive, tasty and affordable selection of Western food. It's also a modern-ish city that is a great hub for travel through one of China's most dynamic and outdoorsy regions. Which is why there is a pretty steady flow of backpackers here. Which is why there are a good number of affordable guesthouses, bars and, yes, Western restaurants here. See, it always comes back to the food. But, actually, I've been eating a lot of local cuisine in Chengdu. Very local. As in home-cooked. My host's mother seems to be cooking for me constantly. And then we sit alone together and eat in relative silence -- I can't understand her Mandarin and she can't understand mine -- while her son Bo, my host, is off at school doing what medical students do ... studying. She is not as constant a cooker as the woman downstairs, however. She was cooking this morning. She was cooking this afternoon. She is cooking now -- after I thought I already heard her complete dinner. It's the clang clang clang of spatula on wok or the chop chop chop of knife on cutting board. The acoustics are rather good here in the apartment complex. Or, I suppose they are bad if you are trying to sleep. Noises carry from ground level outside, or from inside through open windows. Right now, in addition to the kitchen sounds, I hear someone practicing a wooden flute, the loud clatter of some sort of building-up or tearing-down project -- a constant in China -- and several people talking in normal tones (which for Chinese means they sound like they are sitting on the bed next to me). But at any time you can also hear singing, children screaming, dogs yelping, vendors hocking rice and tofu -- and everybody else hawking up phlegm. I'm not sure how Bo sleeps at night. Maybe he's so tired from studying -- he's preparing for the GREs, as well -- it doesn't matter. Me, I would be lost in China without my earplugs, handy tools that don't exist in China. I will need the earplugs tonight ... I will be on a train. I am heading to a town called Xichang, home of the Yi minority, which someone told me has a strange tradition: stealing. "They think nothing of it," I was told. Guess I'll have to take this 10-hour "sleeper" ride with one eye open. After Xichang, it's a rough bus ride to remote Lugu Lake, reportedly the the Shangri-La James Hilton wrote about in his "Lost Horizon" novel, and definitely home to the Mosu people, the only matriarchal society in the very patriarchal China. Then I'll be in Yunnan Province for a while: Lijiang, Dali, Kunming, Xishuangbanna. Not sure how long this will all take. Also not sure how much time I will have to sit in front of a computer and write another one of my 4,000-word diddies. So the TripTik will have to suffice for a while. I hope you understand.

And then the police got involved

Actually, I got them involved. I didn't know what else to do. You know your back's against the wall when you turn to the Chinese police for help. But the damn guy just wouldn't stop following me. And for a while there, it actually seemed like the police were on my side. I wonder what the crowd was thinking -- maybe a hundred strong ... crowds gather quickly in a nation of 1.3 billion -- as they looked upon the laowai, the two police officers and the man in camouflage pants. I wonder if any of them took a photo of us. It would have been a good one. But, then again, taking photos is how all of this got started. Foreigners, I now know, are not allowed to photograph Chengdu's "human market." Well, unless you are willing to pay someone off. It all started with my host Bo, who I met through hospitalityclub.com. He is a good host. And for a 21-year-old, he is rather wise regarding the way people think beyond China's borders. When I asked him to recommend some Chengdu sites for me to check out, he didn't spout off a list of the city's "famous" sites -- you know ... parks, pavilions and pandas. He told me three things: the "she-male street," the "stolen bike market" and something he called the "human market." Yesterday, I chose the human market, also known as the "labor market," which is similar to the painters' corner in Xi'an I wrote about -- only much larger, much more depressing and, theoretically at least, more organized. The security guard didn't say anything as I walked on in. There was no reason for him to say anything. Anyone can enter. But some of us have more trouble staying inconspicuous than others. If you've ever been to China, you have likely been to an open market before. And you've likely seen the rows and rows of stalls selling fruits, vegetables and about 1,001 kinds of animals and their respective parts (all of them). The stalls are always overflowing with produce. Well, in your mind, substitute the produce with people. Now you know why Bo calls it the human market. That's exactly what it is. Hundreds and hundreds of unemployed human beings sitting patiently, hopefully, waiting to be bought. Imagine the heartache you feel when visiting the pound -- and double it. At least the pound feeds all the homeless dogs. The women and the men are separated. Everyone has a sheet of paper -- a resume of sorts -- on which is written their field of expertise and their various skills. Some people hold these papers at their chest, the same way criminals display their booking number for a mug shot. Others lay the paper on the ground, near their feet. With a handful of the prospective employees, no paper is necessary. I spotted three men sitting expressionless, a chef's hat balanced on each head. There was no mystery regarding their desired job. Beyond the people are numbered cubicles containing people behind desks. I assumed that is where all the processing was done. After they complete the paperwork, you can take home your new employee. I think this whole operation is government run. It seemed rather official. I was walking by myself, but not for long. Soon, a young man wearing a black polo shirt, camouflage pants and shiny black loafers was walking with me. He was very smiley and friendly and looked a little more clean-cut that the folks at the market looking for work. I thought I understood, from what he told me, that he worked for the market. And I thought he understood, from what I told him that I was just looking around. I was just a tourist. I had no need for any employees. It seemed like he had no problem with that. But he still continued to walk with me. And so did dozens of others. I was left alone, initially. But once the man in camouflage pants joined me, and once people heard me speak a little Chinese, I was mobbed. It was a controlled mob, mind you. But everywhere I went, at least two dozen others went with me. Some seemed to tag along just for the novelty of it all -- the man in camouflage pants told me I was the first foreigner ever to enter the place -- but most, understandably so, followed me because they thought I would hire them to, to ... I don't know what they thought I would need them for. But I was a foreigner. And all foreigners are wealthy. Maybe they thought I would pay them to count all my rich foreigner money. They shoved their "resumes" in my face. I felt uncomfortable. I didn't know what I had gotten myself into. I felt bad for getting their hopes up. I told the man in camouflage pants again that I didn't need any workers. He told the crowd, but it didn't make them disperse. I wanted to get out of there. I told the man in camouflage pants that I was going to take a couple photos and then I would leave. "Photos?" he said. "Can I see your name card?" Surrounded by 30 or so people, I pulled out my wallet and gave him a business card. I put my wallet back in my pocket, pushing it down as far as it would go. He looked at the card briefly and said, "OK." I snapped a few photos, quick ones. They were crowd shots. I didn't want to focus on individuals. I thought that would be too humiliating. But even the crowd shots made me feel bad. I put my camera away and started to head for the exit. The man in camouflage pants followed me, as did our entire entourage. I asked the man for his name card. He didn't have one, but agreed to write down his information in my notepad. I had him write down his job title in Chinese. Later, an owner of a bar translated it for me: "Freelancer," he said. "That's never a good sign. Usually it means they're some sort of rascal." I said goodbye, shook his hand and left. He left with me. I thought perhaps he was just being kind, perhaps he just wanted to make sure I made it past the crowds and through the gate OK. But we made it through the gate, and he remained by my side. I said goodbye again and smiled. I told him I was just going to go and see some sites. I told him I could do it by myself. "No," was his reply. "Yes," I said. "I am going to go by myself." I walked away again. And, again, he followed me. "You took photos," he said. "I know. You told me I could." I kept on walking. He grabbed my arm. He had a strong grip, and seemed like a rather physically fit young man. "Money," he said in English. "What?" I said, forcibly removing his hand from my arm. "Money," he repeated in English. And then he said again in Chinese, "You took photos." "I am not going to pay you to take photos." He said something about the police, but I didn't quite catch it. Was he with the police? I decided to stop talking to him. I walked on. And so did he, matching me step for step. It was a slow-paced chase scene. I'd circle back, and so would he. I would cross the street, and so would he. It was a busy street, too. Four lanes. For a moment there, we stood side-by-side on the double yellow lines, traffic whizzing by before and behind us. If he was really crazy, I thought, he could have pushed me into traffic. He didn't. Wouldn't have gotten his money that way. Across the street, I hailed a taxi. I opened the front door, and the man in camouflage pants opened the back. I shut my door. He shut his. He smiled, one of those evil smiles from a likable villain in the movies. Was he enjoying this? I walked on. I made eye contact with the taxi driver. He creeped his car along and then stopped. I broke for it and opened the front door. The man in camouflage pants opened the back. I slammed the door, and walked away. The taxi sped off. I wasn't sure what to do. I was the only foreigner walking along a busy street in a strange city. I couldn't turn down a side street -- or, I should say, I wouldn't. I needed to stay where the crowds were. My heart was beating quickly. I was sweating -- and not just because I decided to wear long underwear on an unseasonably warm October day. I called Bo. "Just walk away," was his advice. "I tried that," I said. "He has already grabbed my arm." "Oh my God." "OK. I see a police car. Think I should approach them?" "Give it a try." "I'm going to give my phone to a police officer. You can talk to them." That the man followed me to the police car and stood beside me at the door did not make me feel any better about the situation. Shouldn't he have run away? I mean he was the one shaking me down for money. The cop talking to Bo on my phone, made eye contact with me -- I was leaning over, looking into the car window -- and he moved his eyes toward the man's camouflage pants as if to say, "Is that the guy?" I nodded. Maybe the cops were on my side, after all. The police officer gave the phone back to me. "They are going to pull over and talk to him," Bo said. As they did, I slowly walked away, thinking that was the plan -- they distract him, while I escape in a taxi. I had one leg over a short street barrier, and my eyes focused on a getaway cab, when the policeman called me back over. "Did you take photos in there?" he asked. "Yes," I said. "You are not allowed to do that." "But he told me I could." "You are not allowed to take photos in there." "I understand you. But he told me I could." The police officer shook his head in disapproval. Meanwhile a crowd had gathered. Suddenly. It was a large one. I'm not sure where they came from. But I have seen crowds like this in China before. They surround traffic accidents and arguments on the street. Usually, there is a lot of yelling. Guilt and innocence are decided right then and there. There's no justice quite like mob justice. "Wait," I said. "I will call my friend again. You can talk to him." I called Bo, and handed the phone to the police officer. After a short conversation, he handed the phone back to me. "They want you to delete the photos," Bo said. So the problem was the photos. But the problem wasn't really the photos, because if I had paid the man in camouflage pants -- how much money, he never said -- he would have never followed me and the police would have never been involved. I'm not sure if the police ever knew of the man's monetary demands, and I'm not sure if they would have cared. The Chinese police are about as corrupt as they come. So, I let them watch as I deleted the photographs. I said I was sorry. I shook their hands. The man in camouflage pants said "sorry", too -- in English -- and smiled a less evil smile. He didn't get his money, but maybe he got some sense of satisfaction. The foreigner was forced to delete his photos. I hopped in the first cab that drove by. And I locked all the doors after I got in. "I want to go here," I said to the driver, pointing to my map. Here was a place called Dave's Oasis, a bar with a very friendly Chinese owner and a clientele that is 100 percent, Grade-A laowai. The menu has not one Chinese character on it. Dave's is an American-style dive bar in every sense of the phrase. It was perfect. It was just what I needed. I sat down, had a couple 5 kuai beers and listened to Joel, REM, Hendrix and Floyd. I chatted for a while with a Canadian guy who was trying to make a living as a pedicab driver. He faces some obstacles, of course: Most noticeably, his poor Chinese skills, his lack of knowledge of Chengdu streets ... and the fact that most of his waking hours are spent drinking beer at Dave's Oasis. He is homeless, sleeping on 15 kuai a night dorm beds -- or one of the couches at Dave's Oasis. Maybe he should try to get a job back at the human market -- if they let him in. Back at Bo's, we laughed about the day. He told me that the police told him that the man in camouflage pants was a recently retired military man. He also told me of an unwritten rule in China (well, he thinks it is unwritten): "Foreigners aren't allowed to take photos of everything." Especially if that thing is considered a societal stain by the government. And then I showed Bo my photos from the human market -- the two that I "forgot" to delete.

Mianyang: Music City PRC

I didn't know what to expect from Mianyang. But I definitely didn't expect this little Sichuan city to be home to some of the best original live rock music I've seen in China. That's not saying much, but the college students I heard last night at a bar called Mandian were definitely better than I expected. And yes, it was rock music. No ballads. No boy bands. No Carpenters or Eagles covers. That says a lot here in China. (You can see and hear these bands in my Photo Gallery.) This was a no-frills show. It was all about music. Well, OK, there was a smoke machine, and one of the bands did have matching necklaces with big hanging pendants engraved with their English initials. It was kind of a battle of the bands format -- although many bands featured some of the same musicians. We heard Red Hot Chili Peppers covers, post-punk and indie rock (featuring a violin), 80s power rock, GWAR-esque thrash metal and jangly power pop. No group played more than two songs. And they all used the same instruments -- poor college students and can't afford their own. The two-song sets served a purpose, too. Even though it was a Friday night, all of the bands -- mostly students from Southwest University of Science and Technology -- had an 11 p.m. curfew back at the dorms (this is the norm at Chinese universities). So much for the rock 'n roll lifestyle. But, one of the lead singers admitted, his band couldn't have played more than two songs anyway -- they only had one day to practice. Sadly, the same guy told me that concerts like this only happen about once a year. He ran out the door, to beat the curfew, before I could ask him why. Mandian was a very laid back American-style bar ... the kind I wish we had more of in Shanghai. The walls were brick, the rest was wood. The beers were 10 kuai. There was a dart board, a pool table, animal skulls and soccer posters on the walls -- and Kenny Rogers' smiling mug taped next to the bathroom mirror. It's been a relaxing couple days here in Mianyang, an interesting little city of less than 1 million people. Emily and Brandon have been great hosts. They have a great apartment, plenty of DVDs and, most importantly, an ADSL internet connection. Brandon even cooked pancakes and scrambled eggs this morning. I'm well-rested, well-fed and, after two days living in a very comfortable American bubble, ready to once again tackle China. I leave for Chengdu this afternoon.

Vote for donkey, don't eat it

I was going to write a longer piece about my 21-hour train ride from Lanzhou to Mianyang -- to where I arrived safely this afternoon -- but, frankly, I am tired. Let's just say I got along great with the three Chinese men who were my bunk mates: I was sipping bai jiu with them at 9:30 this morning. Blech. The previous evening, we drank beer together, and one of the men offered me something from a plastic package. It was some kind of meat, but I couldn't understand what the man called it. He said it twice, but it was not a name I was familiar with. I asked to look at the bag, which surprisingly had a description in English on it. Here it is in its entirety: "Our Company products five spices donkey meat, smoked hoof, smoked chicken, eight treasures phoenix claw, five spices beef, pungency tripe slice, niubian and donkey kidney, etc. "This product is made of high quality donkey meat and add 22 kinds of condiments with washing, steeping, cooking, smoking, disinfecting and vacuum packing, etc. "The donkey meat is rich nutrition, high protein, low fat and contains many kinds of vitamin and mineral, fragrant and delicious, good to stomach and spleen, so it is a kind of best food for party, feast, travelling, old and young, relatives and friends. "Main ingredients: Donkey meat, salt, daxiang, anise, the root of membranous mile vetch, etc." He squeezed the fibrous pink substance to the top corner of the bag and urged me to try it. I politely declined.

I clogged my hosts' toilet yesterday

The darn thing nearly overflowed. I think the gods of plumbing are telling me I'm overstaying my welcome and it's time to leave. Of course, my Lanzhou hosts -- Cai Lanzhen, a former student of my father, and her 16-year-old son Du Fan -- would never say as much. They have been amazingly gracious. I have dominated their computer for the past few days working on, among other things, my latest story. And Du Fan was kind enough to offer up the top bunk in his bedroom to a 6-foot-3, 30-year-old American. He talks in his sleep, by the way -- sometimes in English! Lanzhen said I could stay indefinitely -- and I think her dog Dou Dou did, too -- but it's time to move on. Next stop: Sichuan Province's Mianyang, an oft-ignored city a couple hours north of Chengdu. I leave at 3:46 p.m. today. In Mianyang I will visit Emily and Brandon, who have kindly offered up their couch to a total stranger. After Mianyang, I head to Chengdu as the guest of Bo Feng, a university medical student who I met through a site called Hospitality Club, basically an international community of freeloaders. I've always been a little wary of the whole meeting people online thing. In fact, I still think it's a little strange. But I'll try just about anything on this trip. And, based on emails and phone messages, Bo seems like a pretty cool guy. I had considered first traveling further north to some other sites in Gansu, or west to Qinghai, or to northern Sichuan's famous Jiuzhaigou National Park. But I decided against it. I need to stick to the places where I have contacts. The stories, I believe, are better off that way. I could go crazy -- literally, I believe -- trying to track down every famous or almost-famous site in China. And besides, I am running out of time. The original aim was to get back to Shanghai before Thanksgiving, and right now I have serious doubts about that happening. Still left to visit: Mianyang, Chengdu, Kunming, Dali, Guiyang, Nanning, Guangzhou and hopefully some place in Fujian (I don't have a contact there yet). I am slightly concerned that my final southern swing looks to be simply a tour of big-ticket attractions, often-visited cities that have been written about at length. But I need to go where my contacts are. So, if any of you live in an out-of-the-way place along my route -- or if you know of anyone who does -- please let me know. Maybe I can pay a visit. OK, I need to finish packing. I've got a 20-hour train ride soon ... and, unfortunately, no Pocket PC on which to type. It's strange. I've been traveling through China for nearly three months now, and the most frustrating part of the whole trip has been dealing with an electronics company back in Shanghai. Everything else has been -- dare I say it -- pretty easy. Well, easy for China. It's all relative.

Alone again, naturally

Saw Bliss off at the airport yesterday afternoon. Part of me really wanted to follow her on that plane and head back to Shanghai. I could start over, have some sort of normal life -- sleep in my own bed. The idea sounds rather inviting. But I started this trip project -- back in July -- and I am going to finish it. Besides, I'm still having a good bit of fun out here on the China road. Still in Lanzhou. And I am quite sure that is what my hosts will be saying soon: "Dan is still in Lanzhou." I was originally going to wait for my Pocket PC to be shipped here before leaving, but I can't wait any longer. I have no idea when it will be fixed or shipped by the Panda Corporation. I don't get any straight answers. It's been a real pain in the ass. So f**k it. I'm moving on. Sichuan looks to be next on my agenda. After a few stops there, it's off to either Yunnan or Guizhou. I haven't decided which to tackle first. Tibet and Qinghai will have to wait (I visited Xinjiang last year). I just don't have the time or money to make the vast west part of this trip -- I am trying to get back to Shanghai by the end of November -- but I am pretty sure I will make that region the focus of a separate trip sometime next year (when it is a little bit warmer). I have spent the better part of today working on my story from Dandong in Liaoning Province, which I know happened almost six weeks ago. Blame the Panda Corporation. The story will be posted sometime on Tuesday. And I promise every single location on the trip will get written about before it's all said and done. The trip may conclude in November. The stories will likely keep coming after the new year. OK, time for bed. I get to sleep on the top bunk. Evan, in the bottom bunk, leaves for high school early in the morning.

I am a good American

I have cast my vote. I mailed in my absentee ballot yesterday. Or, at least I think I did. I have a feeling mine was the first piece of mail the post office here in Lanzhou had ever been asked to send to America. I got many confused looks. And then the workers scrambled around to find a chart that would tell them how much to charge to send this oversized envelope off to this far-off place. I hope it arrives in time -- I am registered in Pennsylvania, one of those crucial swing states. The deadline, I believe, is October 29. Who did I vote for? Glad you asked. His name is Paul E. Reichart ... and he's the Democrat nominee for Representative in the General Assembly of Pennsylvania's 109th Legislative District. I know you've been following that race closely.

Marching bands in China?

I didn't know they existed ... until perhaps the only one in the entire country woke me up this morning. They've been playing the same 20-second refrain since 8 a.m. Over and over and over and over again. I could see them from my hotel window here in Lanzhou, marching around in their little powder blue uniforms. It is now past 11:30 a.m. And they were still playing when I escaped my hotel room. Why all the practice? Does a Chinese marching band actually ever get to perform? Doesn't Lanzhou already have enough of the other kinds of pollution? Why add noise pollution into the toxic mix? I could forgive them for the noise -- actually, I might even enjoy it -- if there was a chance their performance would be followed by a football game ... an American football game. Saturdays and Sundays in the fall just seem rather empty when they are filled with hand-pulled noodles and eight treasure tea -- not hand-offs and touchdowns.

Looks like cocoa, tastes like dirt

If somebody tells you it takes eight hours to get from Lanzhou to Guyuan, they really mean nine-and-a-half hours. If somebody tells you it takes seven hours to get from Guyuan to Lanzhou, they really mean nine-and-a-half hours. Not interested in squeezing into another minibus for our trip back over the mountains to Lanzhou, we took Benjamin's advice and made our return trip to Lanzhou via Pingliang, a small Gansu city that, if you check it out on the map, is in exactly the opposite direction we wanted to go. But, we were assured, the trip from Pingliang to Lanzhou is fast -- "maybe five hours, maybe four" -- because the buses can use the freeway. So we squeezed into a minbus at 8 o'clock Thursday morning and headed east to Pingliang so we could then head west to Lanzhou. "Fifty-two yuan," the super-friendly (seriously!) ticket lady at the Guyuan bus station told me when I ordered our tickets to Pingliang. "One foreigner and one Chinese, right?" (Bliss is American-born Chinese.) "No," I corrected her. "Two foreigners." She looked a bit confused, said "Oh," and then quickly canceled our order and started typing in a new one, this time for two waiguoren. I stopped smiling, expecting the price to double, even triple. She finished typing and said, "Fifty-two yuan." Now I was the confused one. "It's the same?" I asked. She continued smiling and said, "Yes." The ride from Guyuan to Pingliang takes two hours, but it could easily take half that. The first 45 minutes are spent creeping away from the city -- seriously, we maybe hit 10 mph -- while the bus "pimp" hops out and tries to round up passengers for the ride to Pingliang. Empty seats mean empty pockets. From what I gather, money from passengers that join the ride after the bus leaves the station goes directly into the wallets of the driver and his tout. Every bus does this. As we crawled along, we were actually gaining on a bus in front of us that was going even slower. In Pingliang, we easily purchased tickets for a "fast" bus that was leaving in around 45 minutes. Lanzhou-bound buses leave almost every hour -- perhaps even more often than that -- and perhaps we should have waited for the bus that left after ours ... or perhaps, when ordering our tickets, we should have requested "faster" instead of "fast." Because, as we lumbered along the "freeway" -- which turned out to be a bumpy two-lane road -- at least five other buses headed to Lanzhou sped past us. But at least the bus was relatively comfortable -- everyone had seats ... and one of those seats was not my lap. And the scenery, as usual in rural China, was easily worth the price of the bus ticket. Gansu's terraced mountains remind me of a chocolate layer cake covered in cocoa powder. It's the people -- the region's Muslim minority, which often feels more like a majority in these parts -- that add color to the largely colorless landscape: The men in their brilliant white pillbox caps, the women in their brightly hued headscarves, the children with their ruddy cheeks of red. The area is torture for a fledgling photographer speeding by in a bus -- so many images, but no way to capture them, no way to make them last. We arrived in Lanzhou at 5:30 p.m., exactly nine-and-a-half hours after our first bus crept out of Guyuan. NOTE: Expect the next extended story from the trip early next week. Sorry for the delay, but even those of us on "vacation" need a vacation sometimes.

Turn right at the giant Buddha

OK, I'm really going to keep this one short. (Missed the hot water deadline last night ... and Bliss has "hinted" that could really use a shower.) Just wanted to let you know that I actually found a tourist attraction that I enjoyed today. Actually, the Buddhist caves of Xumi Shan -- about an hour drive from Guyuan -- may very well be one of my favorite sites in all of China. Carved into a reddish rocky mountainside (think the American southwest) are literally hundreds of caves, each the home or former home of Buddhist sculptures and paintings more than 1,000 years old. The most prominent cave -- it's actually viewable from the roadside -- houses a huge handsome Buddha who has aged rather well. He is in fantastic condition, and more than 20 meters tall. Most tourists, and there weren't too many today, stick to the caves that are relatively close to the big Buddha. But if you hike a bit further -- to the top of the mountain and over to the other side -- you are blessed with better caves ... and silence. Scrambling down a crumbly ridge, wandering through narrow passgeways created by tall walls of rock, I was all alone. It was peaceful. The sky was blue, and the weather was just cool enough to be comfortable. The last cave on the trail is the best -- a large room occupied by seven large Buddhas. It was slightly cooler in the cavern, and each tiny move I made echoed from ceiling to floor. But it's best to just stand still and stare anyway. The Buddhas are beautiful. But, be warned that not all are as impressed by the Xumi Shan caves as I was. "I don't find them interesting," said my local contact Benjamin, a Guyuan native. "I have no interest in history." This, I have found, is a common way of thinking in China -- a country whose long history, it seems, can be overwhelming.

We are experiencing technical difficulties

My Pocket PC should be shipped to me soon, which means I will finally be able to write and post stories from places other than internet bars again, which will greatly increase my productivity -- long train rides are great places to get writing done. This ordeal has been a colossal one-and-a-half month headache that has made me never want to buy anything in China again ... ever. The motto here: The customer is always wrong. (I should note that the problem was not the Pocket PC itself. It was with the GPRS compact flash adapter and SIM card that allowed me to access the wireless internet.) Anyway, hopefully I'll be writing on trains and buses again soon. Another thing. You'll have to wait until after this weekend for new photos -- and there are many. Bliss brought my iBook to Lanzhou, but I "accidently" hit it with my fist when it froze on me -- the road is starting to wear on my nerves, I think -- and now all I get is a blinking question mark when I turn it on. This is not a good thing. About 10 years of stuff are on that hard drive. Hopefully, it is a fixable problem. Regardless, Bliss will upload the new photos from her iBook -- which she treats very nicely -- when she gets back to Shanghai. (In brighter news, I just won my fantasy baseball league. Not bad for a guy traveling through China.)

Greetings from Guyuan

I need to keep this quick -- my hotel cuts off the hot water in 55 minutes ... and I need a shower. The bus ride from Lanzhou was not enjoyable. It began at 6:30 a.m. and lasted close to 10 hours (not eight, making my previous TripTik post even more frustrating). The bus was a small one, with only 28 seats. Not to worry: we still managed to squeeze about 48 bodies in at one time or another. I had an aisle seat, which meant I served as a human arm rest, a human stool and, at one point, a human snot rag. The ride was bumpy. The road was curvy. And the terraced mountains we traveled through were the color of a brown paper bag. When I get around to writing my extended Ningxia and Gansu entries, expect to read a lot about potatoes and bricks. If you've ever traveled in this part of the world, you know what I am talking about. They are piled everywhere. Guyuan itself is a small, nondescript city in southern Ningxia that is famous, according to my contact Benjamin, "for its poverty." Guyuan straddles the line between deserts and mountain forests. Today we hit the mountains, and it turned out to be a relaxing getaway. Liupan Shan's foliage is beautiful this time of year -- even the evergreens turn a brilliant yellow here ... weird -- and there are plenty of brooks and streams and hiking trails alongside them. (Real trails. Rugged ones. Dirt ones. And oddity in pave-everything-in-sight China.) We dined at Benjamin's family home in the "suburbs," a part-brick-part-adobe-part-tile mini-estate in a poor dirt-blown part of the city. His mother, part of the region's Hui minority, cooked us rabbit -- killed in large quantities because they destroy the potato plants -- and, of course, several dishes made from potatoes. There was some very interesting dinner talk ... but you will have to wait until my extended Ningxia entry to hear about it. (And at my current pace, that post will probably be written sometime next spring. But my current pace should get better soon. Read my next TripTik entry for details about that.) Only 30 minutes of hot water left!

Traveling in China is a waste of time

Or, at least, it can be. Take today, for example. Tomorrow we leave for a short stay in Guyuan, a poor city in southern Ningxia. The bus ride there will take up much of the day. And much of today -- almost all of it, actually -- was taken up by failed attempts to purchase the ticket that will allow us to spend most of tomorrow on a bus. Let me explain. Late this morning -- we thought we could get this task out of the way before lunch -- we asked the friendly girls at the hotel front desk which bus station we could use to get to Guyuan. South Bus Station was their answer. They both seemed very sure. Forty-five minutes and a traffic jam later, our taxi dropped us off at the South Bus Station, where we learned that we needed to go to the East Bus Station if we wanted to go to Guyuan. So, at the East Bus Station, a 30-minute ride away, we discovered that we could indeed get a 6:30 a.m. ticket to Guyuan there ... but, we were told, the ride would be 10 hours, not the eight hours we had expected. I called my contact in Guyuan (more on him later) and he said maybe it was the train that was eight hours. We went to the train station, and there we learned that the train, too, takes 10 hours ... and it doesn't leave until the evening, which doesn't fit into our time frame. I decided to check with a travel agency -- in the clusterf--k that is China, there are always other options, other methods of getting from one place to another ... you just need to find the person who has access to the magical information, and is willing to share it with you. So, we went to a nearby internet bar and looked up some travel agents. There were several different listings for China International Travel Service -- allegedly they all accuse the other ones of being frauds -- but none of them answered their phones. We planned to visit a recommended branch in person, but when we asked an internet bar worker whether its address was near or far from our current location, he said -- after checking with his associates -- "That street doesn't exist." So we set off in a three-wheeled taxi for a CITS situated on a road that, we were assured, did exist -- but its building number did not. We instead got dropped off near our hotel. Lunchtime had long since passed. We had no tickets, and our patience was wearing thin. On the walk back to our hotel, we spotted a sign that said "Western Travel Agency -- Welcome To You." We decided to give it a shot. The door appeared to be locked. We knocked anyway. No answer. I called the 24-hour "hotline" posted on the door. I was told to knock again -- someone was supposed to be at the office. I knocked again. That knock managed to wake up the worker, who answered the door still groggy from his midday nap. He mumbled, in very good English, "How can I help you?" We asked for the fastest method of travel to Guyuan. He recommended the train -- it was "much safer" than the bus -- but the only train was still the one that left at night. We asked about the bus. "The bus leaves at 6:30 in the morning," he said. "And it's 10 hours?" I asked. "No. Eight. It arrives at 2:30 in the afternoon." "Is this from the East Bus Station?" "Yes. Correct." "They told us it arrived at 4:30." "They were wrong." He suggested we head back to the East Bus Station to buy our tickets. At least we knew exactly where we had to go. Back at the East Bus Station, the ticket-purchasing process went smoothly ... until we were asked for our insurance certificates. Gansu is perhaps the only province in China that requires travelers to purchase insurance for bus travel, and the insurance is separate of the bus ticket itself. And according to some sources, this insurance doesn't insure anything other than the fact the government can't be sued in the event of an accident. Whatever. We didn't have insurance. And we needed it. "Where can we buy insurance?" we asked the ticket lady. Of course, we couldn't buy insurance from her. That would be too easy. That would make too much sense. She told us there was a travel agency right next to to the bus station that could take care of us. We went there. And they couldn't take care of us. "Sorry!" the man at the office said with a big smile. "You can't buy insurance today." It seems the one person at the office who sells insurance wasn't at the office today. "Is there any other place we can buy insurance?" I asked. He pointed us down the road. In 10 minutes, he said, we would see another place that sold insurance. The Chinese are perhaps the worst direction givers in the world. Rarely are numbers or names used. No specifics. Just a wave of the hand in a general direction. Walk that way a little, and you have to ask someone else -- and they do the exact same thing. We walked 10 minutes, asked someone else, and he pointed us down a different road. I called our friend at Western Travel Agency. He said he could help us out. This time when we arrived, he hadn't been napping. But he still appeared tired. Tired of life, perhaps. Lanzhou seems to do that to people. "Why do we need to buy bus insurance?" I asked. He shook his head and sighed. He didn't understand, either. "I don't know," he said with a hint of helplessness. "It's just a policy." He helped us fill out the papers. He never asked us for an ID. The information we provided him didn't seem to matter. Just the fact that we paid our RMB 50. Just the fact that the paperwork had the all-important red stamp. I looked at the back of our insurance certificates. All the information was in English. "Do Chinese have to get insurance?" I asked. "It's different for Chinese," he said. "How much do they pay?" "About two yuan a day." He looked at our papers and said, "This is expensive." "So," I said, "if our bus crashes, I can use this insurance? I can get some money out of it?" This seemed to cheer him up. He chuckled -- laughed, even. "Sure," he said with a smile. "Right." He gave us our halves of the forms, and stuffed his into a desk drawer. "Do you have to file this information with anyone?" I asked. "No," he said. "So, you just keep it in your desk?" "Yes." It was approaching dinner time as we arrived at the East Bus Station for the third time of the day. They got their red stamps. We got our tickets. No one ever checked to see if the information on our insurance forms was correct. No one cared. I need to go now. My bus leaves in six hours. Well, it's supposed to. You never know when traveling in China. NOTE: I met my Guyuan contact -- a college student with the English name Benjamin -- at an internet bar back in Yinchuan. After a couple minutes of talking, he invited me and my girlfriend to visit his hometown while he was back home for the National Day holiday. He seemed really excited about the idea. I accepted the invitation with little hesitation ... and little information about the person or place I owuld be visiting. Seemed like it might make for an interesting story. Add this to the long list of things that I have done on this trip that I would never consider doing in America.

Not exactly a warm welcome

It seems even the hotels here in Lanzhou wonder why the hell their guests would ever want to come to Lanzhou, a city of 3 million that in 1998 was named the world's most polluted city. In our desk drawer our hotel has provided us with a guidebook ... for Guizhou, a province located several hundred miles to the south. We are staying in one of Gansu Province's only four-star hotels, which means a nightly rate of $50 -- but no heat. And the October nights can get chilly up here at 5,070 feet. You see, China has this rule: Only buildings located north of the Yellow River are allowed to come equipped with central heating systems, which explains why winters in "southern" Shanghai suck so much. Lanzhou, part of it at least, is north of the Yellow River (which is actually very brown). But, you see, China also has this other rule: Buildings equipped with central heating can't simply turn it on when the people inside start to feel cold -- they must wait until the government tells them it is cold. And, I have been informed, the government doesn't start to feel the chill until November. That's OK, the maid brought us an extra comforter. Somehow, the lobby and restaurant manage to stay relatively warm. Maybe it's the music. Our hotel's soundtrack is a short and eclectic loop, instrumental versions of all of your favorites: "The Theme From Godfather," "Take Me Home, Country Roads," "Memories," "Auld Lang Syne," "Silent Night," "Moon River" and, of course, "Yesterday Once More." It just wouldn't be China without The Carpenters.

If I give you the finger, maybe you'll drink

So, I am getting drunk, and I thought I would send you a note before I actually got drunk. I am currently drinking Blue Diamond beer, which has this English slogan on its can: "Blue Diamond Beer is suitable for all seasons and all the people." I believe the beer is brewed in Guangzhou. I am drinking with the owner of a car parts distributor. This was his answer to the question, "Do you like Lanzhou?": "I have no choice. It is my fate." Yikes. No wonder we are drinking so much. The game we are playing you will see played out at many restaurants and bars throughout the greater Gansu area. It involves two men sticking up fingers and shouting numbers at each other. If the number you shout out equals the total number of fingers shown, you win. And the other guy drinks. Although everyone pretty much seems to continuously drink here. Helps us forget that we are in Lanzhou. Tomorrow my beautiful girlfriend arrives in Lanzhou, and we get to spend more than a week together. Don't expect to hear from me much. Happy National Day, you commies!

Lanzhou needs some love

Does anyone have anything good to say about Lanzhou? Anyone? Anything? Even the locals -- or perhaps especially the locals -- have trouble coming up with ideas. "Lanzhou is not very beautiful," one man told me today, my first day in Gansu's capital. "But the people are very hospitable." Oh, and the noodles. Can't forget the noodles. Lanzhou is famous for its noodles -- must be something in the dirt. So today, in addition to playing 3-on-3 basketball -- in my jeans, as is the Chinese custom -- with two middle-aged women and three teenage boys (the middle-aged women and I housed the teenagers, by the way), I was the guest of honor at an English class for pre-teens. My contact here, a professor at Northwest Normal University, does these night classes on the side. Most of the students likely had never interacted with a foreigner before, but that didn't stop them from asking more questions than my Shanghai University students probably would have (although some of these questions were a tad vague). Here is a sampling:

• What do you usually do?
• What do you like?
• Do you like to swim?
• Do you know Jay?
• Which do you like better: China or America?
• What is the climate in America?
• What is your favorite color?
• I think you like computer games. Do you?
• Do you have a girlfriend? Yes. Is she beautiful?
• Do you like Chinese food? Yes. Why?
• Do you like Yao Ming? Yes. I think he is a good player and he seems like a nice guy, too. Do you? No. Why? I think he is bad. And he is too old. Too old? Who do you like? Who is your favorite player? Jordan.

Weren't the Olympics in August?

And isn't it now October? Has anyone turned on CCTV-5 recently? Are there any other countries on Earth still replaying -- over and over again -- Olympics coverage? I mean, I love a good badminton match as much as the next guy ... oh, wait, no I don't.