Bye Bye China

Four days ago we rode a train then a tuk-tuk (a scooter converted into a mini taxi) to the border of China and Vietnam. In many ways, I was sad to leave. In one very important and overriding way, I was happy - happy to have discovered the country when and how we did. China has been the unparalleled pleasant surprise of this trip. Admittedly, I entered with only the vaguest notions of what was in store. Due to such vacancy, China had only its immediate predecessors to live up to. Being that the most recent of those had been the decidedly inhospitable Laos, the ground was fertile for an upside surprise.

Boom truck, decorative rocks and billboard outside Dali

China's natural beauty, comparative tidiness, ambition & industry but most of all her people, coalesced into an unfailingly pleasant place in which to spend time. Again, our visit here has to be qualified by the caveat that we visited only three provinces quite far from the political and population centers. Nevertheless, if New Mexico, Washington State or Missouri can be said to typify at least a few things American, our travels had to have touched on some of what is China in 2007.

Neon sign that covered the entire side of a building in Kunming. Check out the small blue symbol of an atom on top.

And if a country can have a collective mood, it's really 1960 for the people of the 'Middle Kingdom'. China is ebullient, genial and above all else, welcoming. For many Chinese, things are looking up for the first time in their lives. Kids are all going to school. People are (again...for better or worse for the planet) are buying things they could never buy before. Chinese are traveling in their own country, a place of which they are very proud. Folks are out trying to make money in all kinds of ways - and, from what we saw, there is money to be made....even if some of the ways are entry-level.
Tami and our bikes on a bamboo ferry - Cost for two: about a buck.

One-girl band at a big, outdoor night market in Yangshuo.

Very, very nasty looking truncheon carried by men guarding an armored truck. There were NO smiles when I took photos.

For those such as the Tibetans, Uighur or any other ethnic minorities out of favor with the ruling Hans, the same cannot be said. We didn't see any repression or talk to anyone who had but that might have been due to the language barriers and the short length of our stay. We certainly read enough about cultural hegemony, restrictions on freedom of speech, punitive economic treatment, among other curtailments of rights. I suspect plenty of that does go on. It just was not apparent. Some residents of New Orleans, former and present, might say something similar about their plight.


Post-Katrina New Orleans


Before leaving, we'd spent the prior few weeks cruising around areas that are, for the most part, barely touristed by non-Chinese. It's a bit of a mystery to me why hordes of Western travelers set their sights on the countries of Southeast Asia when China, just to the north, offers such an interesting and fun array of possibilities. Even more, China ain't gonna stay like it is for long. I know I've said it before but, from when we arrived to our last minutes in the country, you can see evidence of the gargantuan energy going into modernizing the country.

For my money, most of that modernization is a tragedy because what China is losing is rare and becoming harder and harder to find.

One-man sawmill carving a beam from a tree for a traditional style bridge. Check out that pipe.

So, that's it for China. If we're lucky, we'll be back. If you're lucky, you'll go.

Artful Farming

Since we've left home, we've spent time in chili pepper plots that filled the shallow valleys of southern New Mexico; cotton fields of west Texas that were plowed so close to the dirt roads that there was no shoulder or ditch, tulip fields laid out in Holland that looked like a Mondrian canvas - only brighter; fragile, high-mountain fields of barley and buckwheat in the Himalayas that (and this is a fact) will not exist in twenty years because the glaciers that supply the water for irrigation will be melted; super-verdant planes of rice that stretched to the horizon in the Mekong delta where conditions are so fertile they can plant and harvest three crops in a single year. There were others but, for sheer, fully-realized beauty, none hold a candle to what we hiked through in Guizhou Province.

Wandering around the developing world, you come to the undeniable realization that most of the world's population is still involved with farming. In the US, something like 40% of our population still farmed as recently as the early 1900's. Now, the number is closer to 2.5%. Not so in almost all the countries we've visited. During planting or harvest, fields are CRAWLING with PEOPLE digging or cutting or threshing or carrying or plowing.

In the hills of southern China, for example, they don't even use gas powered roto-tillers. Almost all the farmers still plow with Oxen and hand-made, wooden, single-bottomed plows. We even saw one guy pulling a plow himself while his wife steered it. If you think you have any idea what hard work is, try doing that. I will forever remain humbled.

Imagine if this were your office.

They work hard but, wow, what beautiful plots they tend. We traveled around this area for a few weeks. I haven't felt so at peace since we were isolated on an island in Thailand or high in the Himalayas of Nepal. I have no idea how long areas like this will remain. China is undergoing such huge and sweeping changes right now. The largest migration in human history started some twenty years ago and is accelerating each year. Rural, farming Chinese are flocking to the cities for higher paying work. The trade-offs don't make the choice look simple.

Like farming a skyscraper

Chance Meeting in South China

Travelin' Tish Hendershot and Tami Quest

I think we have a new category in our "heroes" gallery.

Perhaps it had to happen eventually. If you're out here on the road long enough, you start bumping into other travelers who you've met one, two or three countries prior. It doesn't occur often but we've met familiar backpacker types in back alley eateries or sitting at the other end of a restaurant full of people - sometimes months and months after last seeing them. Maybe your eyes develop a latent sensitivity to picking the known from masses of unfamiliar faces teeming the cities and streets of Asia.

That might help explain my reaction a few nights back while Tami and I were eating dinner on a side street in Yangshuo, a tourist destination in Guanxi Province. It was a Saturday night and the street outside had a steady stream of strollers like the midway at a fair. Suddenly, a profile and walk looked distantly familiar. Without even thinking, I got up, ran around the corner and tentatively uttered the name of the person I thought it was - "Tish?" She turned around with an "I've just seen a ghost" look but we knew right away we'd just made a very, very....very low-probability connection.

For the first few minutes I think we were all too stunned to say much. After we came back down to earth, we realized that Tish had some time, we had some time and so, we spent the next four days doing a bike tour around some of the most sublimely beautiful country on this planet.

Back to front: David, Tamara, Tami, Tish, Sarah

I've known Tish from San Francisco for quite a few years now. Her work takes her all over the world but I was still stunned to meet up with her unexpectedly. As a further note of coincidence, a few years ago, Tish bumped into Captain Ken on a street in Bangkok - the same Captain Ken who just visited us! Tish and Ken get around.

She was in Yangshuo because she'd just finished a project up in Beijing and Shanghai. She came south with some friends and we all rode to Fuli town the next day to a market.

Man at the Fuli Market selling all manner of creepy crawlies that bit stung and otherwise apparently work wonders when rendered in rice whiskey for you to drink or rub on that aching joint. The original snake oil? Note the elderly patrons to his left.

The day after, we headed north into the countryside with the town of Xiping as our destination. No decent maps were available so we set off with a hand-rendered tourist diagram and asked farmers along the way for guidance. What we thought would be easy to reach in a day proved utterly elusive with only an hour or so of light left. We covered a lot of ground but we had yet to cross (or find a ferry to take us across) the Li River. Plus, every time we asked people which direction to Xiping, they invariably got agitated and launched into an indecipherable monologue in Chinese.

David practices some circus moves during recess.

Luck was with us, though. As we entered a small village, two people were motioning animatedly for us to go just up the hill to . . . what looked like a small guesthouse. Low and behold, after riding for seven and a half hours through nothing but seventeenth century farmland, we'd found refuge. The proprietor, Zhao Qiao Young, could not have been happier to see us nor more hospitable. He loaded his refrigerator with coveted beers and we settled into a long spell of relaxation.



Things at Camp Zhao were so comfy, in fact, that we stayed for a full extra day just to explore and soak up the beauty of the area.

Tami, Mr. Zhao and Tish above the Li River

We finally did make it to Xiping - two days later than planned but I remember no one complaining. Tish departed north and Tami and I, as our visa was running out, made for the Vietnamese border. If life's best pleasures are those that come unexpected, Tish helped make our already wonderful time in China that much more magical.