Chinky

08/15/06

"China Part 7"

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Day 7

Man what a great freakin’ day. I wake up, I’m still refreshed from yesterday and I hear that we are climbing a cliff. Freakin’ awesome. We spend most of the day driving around mountains. It’s beautiful. Everywhere you look it’s richly green or grids of farmland. We finally reach our destination. It’s in the middle of a mountain face with rapid waters below and cliffs of insanity above. There’s a walkway going down towards the rapids. I grab my camera and lens start down the path toward the rushing waters.

It’s an estimated 500 steps to the bottom and the same amount of steps going up. This wouldn’t be so much a problem if China ever has uniform steps. Each step is a different height from the previous step. This is quite dangerous for elderly people of which we have a few in our group. For me it just means I trip sometimes. This is dangerous for the camera and lens but babies are carried around here less securely than my lens and camera.

In the typical Chinese style where there’s money to be made there’s already a gang of people there to do it. There are people here with seats that are willing to carry you up and down a mountain. Mom and grandma are hounded. Occasionally someone asks my dad. Only two people ask me. Here’s how my conversation went with them, translated of course.

"Hey do you want to ride all the way up the mountain? 80 RMB."
"No it’s ok, if I made you guys take me up the mountain I would be abusing you."
"No you wouldn’t it’s alright."
"Do you know how heavy I am? I’m about 130 kg."
"Oh my god! ... That’s ok we can still take you up."
"You guys sure are determined."
"It’s our lively hood."
"Then it wouldn’t be very nice of me if I broke your chair thingy and you can’t make money anymore."
"Hahaha."

Both conversations went something like that. The second guy actually told me they got a guy (an American he added with enthuse) that weighed 205 kg (about 450 lbs) up and down the mountain. If you saw the seats they had you will be amazed that a 450 lbs person can fit in it. Those seats are narrow. Still, I don’t know why the guy would take the time to lie about it after it was determined that I didn’t want a lift. For the interesting story I bought him a bottle of water. I should have bought him a coke now that I think about it. He would have gotten way more and he could have used the extra sugar and caffeine, dude was skinny.

More traveling around some mountains brings us to the city of Shangri-La, home of the Dali Lama, I think. This city is more like a town than a city. The food is decent but the hotel is awesome. It’s really freakin’ pretty and unique. Pictures will do it more justice so you’ll have to wait until I get back to put some pictures up.

Later that night we went to a (I think) Mongolian house where the family there has a big room and they serve drinks and food, sing and dance for guests. It’s really an interesting show. If you ever travel through China with a tour group and there are shows, go to them with an open mind. These shows by no means are like a Cirque del Solei show but they have their own little charms. If that’s not your thing you really won’t be missing much if you don’t go see them. They aren’t really worth losing a good night’s sleep for but they are interesting.

We dined on pig and lamb that night. It wasn’t very good and the space was really cramped but it was pretty high in elevation and they kept giving me this liquor that tasted like cheap vodka. I didn’t care, I was tired and my knees hurt like hell. I down 6 little shots of the stuff so I can get some alcohol energy and dull the pain in my knees a bit. It worked. I sang and danced in my seat. I started to get a little tipsy so I stopped drinking at 6. Man high elevation really does weird things to your body.

The best part of today though? The kids of the group didn’t bother me for (mostly) the entire day! Oh man it was great. They watched movies on one of the kid’s PDA. "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" is now my most favorite movie.