With my Internet fix only partially satisfied, Ammon was back on his feet and ready to start the day when I was ready to end it. It wasn’t even noon and I’d already exhausted myself visually and physically. Of course, no one cared what I thought about anything, so it wasn’t long before we set off on our next expedition.
Chapter 13: Eye to Eye
I didn’t know what was in store for the day and just followed along as usual as we were whisked away by a local lady who spoke little, if any, English. Setting eyes on the simple bicycles that we rented for the day, my first thought was, Oh, yay! I haven’t ridden in, geez, forever. This should be fun! But not here so much. Despite the familiar phrase, “you never forget how to ride a bike,” riding became surprisingly complicated by the sheer number of obstacles ahead. Bree and I turned to each other with pinched expressions; hers, eager and ebullient, and mine, worried and intimidated.
Two lanes were being used as a four-lane highway. Chaotic didn’t begin to describe the scene we witnessed. Imagine something akin to a bus passing a worn-out tractor that was passing an ox squeezing by the biker who was pedalling slightly faster than the oriental dude chasing a cat with a butcher's knife! Women balanced feather-spewing boxes of chirping chicks and basins of sloshing fish in their arms as they dashed across alleys and streets. I tried to visualize how on earth I could break into that thread and weave myself into the pattern.
And this is supposed to be fun?!? I’ve been hoaxed into their little games of amusing ways to commit suicide once again! Given no options, I stepped on my pedals, mentally preparing myself for take-off. The puffs of smoke escaping cracked mufflers made me cough. I wobbled all over the place, and I was clipped by oncoming bicycles and cut off by three-wheeled trucks, not to mention nearly crashing several times into piles of crates and a few caged, singing birds. Constantly checking side-to-side, the most peculiar sights flashed around me. I could hardly make out any single images. Shifting shapes whorled by, causing my brain to spin round and round like a rotating glass door. This must be another test of “travelhood.” Don’t I get some sort of Scouts’ badge for this?! Badge #1 – Foreign toilets. Badge #2 – Foreign roads. As I gradually gained my bearings, though, I had to admit that I was passing this test with flying colours. Literally!
Dodging my share of quadrupeds and motorized vehicles, I raced behind our darting guide, fearing how quickly she might vanish amidst the bedlam. This was no time for second guessing; I had to be alert and move instinctively. Soon there was just one last stretch before we reached the arched pathway of greenery. I kept on peddling towards the clearing. A truck was coming at me on the left and a pair of bikers on my right as I swerved around a herd of goats. I could only close my eyes and hope for the best.
Barely escaping the havoc, I was suddenly encased in a bubble of silence in the fields on the outskirts of town. I heard Bree comment, “I don't know why they even have lines on the roads. No one uses them! Everyone just honks at each other to get the heck out of the way.”
“Tell me about it! I thought I was a goner back there,” I responded. My ears were still ringing, but I was inordinately surprised by my own delight in having made it through.
The rumbling chokes of broken mufflers dissolved into powerful commands directed at water buffalo as we rode single file along dauntingly narrow, elevated dirt paths with ever-present mud on either side. Farmers weeded and worked their land, stomping barefoot in the rich, wet soil that stretched as far as the eye could see. My pale face was warmed by the soft sun, while my exposed legs were cooled by the gentle breeze. The light caught my waist-long hair as the wind wrapped its fingers around every strand.
Back roads led us deeper and deeper into the heart of the Yulong River Valley where we delighted in the river’s glistening waters. The dirt track opened up as we approached the green banks of the river, and our guide slowed to a halt before jumping off her bike where two simple rafts waited for us. The rafts were each only eight bamboo poles wide and tied tightly together with rough rope. They were barely wide enough for the two bamboo chairs that were perched side-by-side on what served as the deck. The colourful umbrellas exceeded the width of the entire raft.
We were handed over to the care of our two captains who helpfully put our bicycles in the small space behind the chairs, making for an even heavier load. Mom and Ammon were already on their raft when my captain held out a hand to assist me. I checked his baggy shorts and vertically striped t-shirt before noticing the wet plastic sandals he wore onboard. I hesitated before I cautiously stepped on with one foot, questioning whether what looked for all the world like a young schoolboy’s woodwork project could really support our collective weight.
Bree and I pushed off from shore as the young captain steered from the back with his long, thin, bamboo pole. Enjoying virtually complete solitude, with only birds and the gentle splashes created by the bobbing rafts for company, we slowly floated downstream.
“Welcome to the Chinese version of Venice,” Ammon said, floating beside us on the river.
“What’s a Venice?” asked Bree.
After a long, disbelieving pause, Ammon gently explained, “The famous place in Italy where they have all the long, skinny boats in canals.” Anticipating that she might also ask what a canal was, he quickly continued, “You know, where the guys stand on the back with the long poles in black and white striped shirts.”
“Oooh, yah, that place! Why didn’t you say so? Yah, it is like that!! This totally beats being in school!” she squealed joyfully. The sun was bright and there was not a cloud in the sky. Now that Bree had brought it up, maybe I could see the downside of sitting behind a desk all day under fluorescent lights. This felt so much freer and was just so beautiful.
And yet, the stress of taking an entire year away from my studies and friends kept threatening my enjoyment of this tranquil, relaxing experience. All this fun and play is going to catch up and bite you in the butt. You’re gonna pay later when everyone else is free while you’re the one sitting alone doing homework to catch up and graduate. Slamming the imaginary door to my thoughts, I retaliated with the practical notion that I HAD to put any future cost out of my mind before it ruined this amazing present. I may as well enjoy it now if I’m going to have to pay for it later. My rationalization didn’t last forever, but it bought me some time until my negative thoughts inevitably returned.
The volcano-like figures towering over us reinforced the fairy-tale-like setting that surrounded us. It seemed as if some sort of mythical creature controlled these lands, and we were tiny pixies dancing on the glistening ripples. I dreamt of a dragon lord swooping down to take me away to the top of one of these fascinating, natural towers.
“What are these strange things anyway?” Mom asked, as if reading my thoughts.
“It’s called a karst peak; they’re typically made of limestone or other carbonate rock shaped by the dissolution of layers of soluble bedrock,” Ammon read out from the guidebook.
“Limestone, huh?” I repeated as I looked up. They were everywhere around us and were no less magical at closer range. The vibrant greens shone as brightly as the reflecting waters. Waterfalls spraying misty clouds off to the left caught my eye.
“This is INCREDIBLE!” Bree announced. I was afraid she was about to stand up and lead us in a cheerleading routine, for heaven’s sake. Pointing to one of the bigger waterfalls we saw ahead of us in the river, she launched into the “what if” game we’d always play. “Look at that! What would you do if we had to go down THAT one?!”
“I’d be scared,” I said bluntly.
Moments later, reality intruded and we turned instinctively towards each other, blank-faced, before Bree stuttered, “Wait a sec. What’s going on here?”
I caught on quick and cried out, “We ARE going down it! Aaaah!!!!” From a closer vantage point, it became clear that the single fall was one giant, river-wide semicircle pouring over a rather steep edge. Totally unprepared, we screamed in unison as the whole fron
t half of the raft dipped under the churning foam, soaking our sandaled feet before the raft popped back up and sloshing water poured through the cracks.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The trip that was somehow both idyllic and terrifying inevitably came to an end, and we slipped onto grassy shores with our wet feet. In a small village near the soft banks of the meandering river, we were dropped off at one of few open-faced wood huts. Upon entering one of the larger huts that posed as a restaurant, my eyes focused upwards on the thick, dusty cobwebs hanging from the sooty wooden ceiling beams. Unfortunately, it was dark, or perhaps that was a stroke of luck? It was the last place I’d usually want to associate with food.
Aside from what looked to be the chef and his various family members, we were the only people in the place. There was no menu on the table, but thankfully, it was a set meal, so we wouldn’t have to decipher each Chinese symbol with our guidebook.
As we waited, a younger girl offered us a bush with orange fruit dangling from the branches. She placed the bundle on the wooden table before showing us how to peel the thin skin and eat the juicy middle part.
“Seriously, this is so yummy!” Bree said, picking a bit of thin peal from her tongue with sticky fingers. She enthusiastically plopped another one in her mouth, then spat out the few big seeds left over. The loquat was citrusy and sweet and had the same sort of texture as a kiwi.
While we discussed the new fruit, a couple of the ladies and a man cooked in the back, while two girls entertained an infant at one of the outermost tables. The baby’s sex was clear from the exposure of his nether regions through the open slit in his pants, and he was definitely going commando. His red one-piece was designed to be bottomless, a style worn by children and babies in China.
“At least people won’t ask a thousand times, “Aaww, is it a girl or a boy?’” Reminiscing about her own child-rearing experiences, Mom joked, “Like DUH! Can’t you see she’s dressed in pink, is wearing ribbons, and has her ears pierced?! Could I have made it any more obvious?”
“Or maybe Bree was just always kind of manly,” Ammon teased.
“Hey! You shut up!” Bree barked.
Mom’s Marge Simpson glare made him laugh and pull back a bit, anticipating a whack. Just as we were discussing the downside of crotchless infant clothing, the goo-goo/ga-ga sounds and kiss-smacking coming from their direction turned into hysterical squeals. The younger of the two girls was flapping her arms, standing stunned and wide eyed, as if someone had just--- Oh wait! I thought, just as the irregular spray caught the sunlight. His tiny penis was erect and flying, as was she, directly into the sanctuary of the garden.
“EEEW! That is just nasty!” Bree said, her general distaste for kids showing.
The girls’ hysterical shrieks moved the baby to tears, and his weepy eyes became large and pouty.
“I can imagine they learn quickly not to do that. See how scared the little guy looks?” Mom said, expressing a tiny smile. “Poor thing, he looks so confused!” I felt more sympathy for the young lady running in circles around the garden, trying to somehow escape her own skin. Her friend had finished pacifying the traumatized infant and was giggling at her suffering pal’s comical plight.
Outside was very bright in contrast to our dark corner of the wooden shack. A dog swiftly snuck by the unsuspecting cook. My eyes traced his steps as he scavenged in the garden, circling ever closer towards the kitchen where he eventually found his prize. Snatching up a freshly slaughtered chicken, he began contentedly gnawing its neck with the limp body strewn across his front paws.
“See? Now that is when you know your food is fresh,” Ammon said, admiring the beauty of the scene, despite his inherent dislike for dogs. Just then, a man came over with a steaming, soot-smeared pot and shooed the dog away to retake possession of his chicken. Picking up the dead bird, he dropped it with a splash into the hot water and put the pot back on the stove. The dog took momentary refuge in the shade of a bush before sneaking back. Though he cautiously observed the boney, yellow feet sticking out of the pot, hot steam prevented the dog from making a second attempt. He scampered off on his way, seeing no fresh opportunities for more lunch. Minutes later, the cook returned to finish his task. He began harshly stroking the chicken’s skin, which by now had the texture of a newborn mouse, until it was completely bare. Grabbing its ankles in one hand, he took it to the kitchen.
“Mmm, chicken!” Bree drooled. Just as we were getting excited about enjoying organic meat for lunch, our completely vegetarian meal arrived.
“Eggs?! Where’s our chicken?” I said, disappointed when the free range chicken “babies” were laid before us instead. Nonetheless, I was elated by the dishes set before us, so full of new and exotic flavours, including my first taste of eggplant and that wonderful orange fruit, loquat, that is indigenous to Southeast China. It wasn’t the Chinese food I knew from home that’s dry and crunchy in places it shouldn’t be. It was WAY better than that; in fact, it was delicious! Several different vegetable dishes were placed on the table along with one very large bowl of plain rice. Everything was steaming and succulent. This impressive gourmet meal, with more food than we could possibly consume, came to the equivalent of just a couple of dollars, though the setting certainly did not match the exquisite quality of the four-person meal, which would have cost more than a hundred dollars in Vancouver.
Our last real local meal in Hong Kong had consisted of soggy, lukewarm noodles that tasted like they’d been bathing in a bucket of fish remains, and I hate fish. I’d had a terrible time trying to stomach the dish and had characteristically assumed that such would be my new diet and that I’d starve to death before the end of the year. I was so relieved that this meal was not only downright edible, but even delicious.
“Oh, poor Ammon. You hate tomatoes,” Mom said, sincerely.
“Yes, I’m very aware of that,” he said, frowning at the juicy red dish.
“But of course,” I quipped as I dug into the delightful dish, “this comes from the guy who will happily eat ants!” As one of his many scare tactics before we’d left home, he’d enlightened us with tales of his noodle soup experiences in Southeast Asia. Having anticipated the worst and concluding that the whole of Asia would most likely be suffering an ant infestation by the time I arrived, I’d had frequent nightmares where noodles came to life like in Donald Duck’s stolen picnic cartoon. I’d envisioned my entire bowl walking off the table with an army of ants scurrying beneath it.
“Oh, you can learn to just eat around them,” Mom had said, trying to soothe the innocuous sibling rivalry. Not me, boy. I’d rather starve!
“But by the end,” he’d grinned as he finished his horror story, “you start to overlook them completely and treat them like little flakes of pepper.”
“Oh, no. I most certainly will not!” I’d told him, foreseeing absolutely no possibility whatsoever of ever failing to notice that my “seasoning” was little walking bugs.
Aunt Plastic’s warning, “… rather have my arms and legs slowly severed …” echoed in my ears.
Tomatoes, for my taste, were much more appetizing, though in this dull lighting, ants could conceivably be overlooked. Glancing subtly under the food I’d lifted with my fork, I checked one last time before putting the next bite in my mouth.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The blur began once more as we stepped out from the dark restaurant into the light and bicycled to the enchanted Moon Water Cave. We had been told about the restorative mud bath hidden deep within the cave that extended three kilometres beneath three mountains. I reluctantly looked over at Bree, whose eyes lit up in anticipation of the opportunity to get dirty. I knew what I was in for.
“C’mon, Savannah. You have to go!” she said.
“I don’t have a suit,” I insisted.
“But he said you can get them just over there in that hut.”
“Used suits? Gross! Seriously, no!”
“Well, I’m going,” she said, making her way towards th
e thatch hut to choose her rental suit. I chased after her to try to change her mind, but her will overpowered mine once again.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” she said as she sorted through the bucket weaved from blue plastic that contained mismatched, partially disfigured bikinis. “Where are you ever gonna find an underground mud bath again!?” she argued, using her wide, expressive eyes to convince me before adding triumphantly, “Only in CHINA, that’s where!” Always the braver, fiercer sister, she took charge and I once again crumbled under the force of her conviction.
“You girls are going to be all gross and dirty. Think about the bike ride back. You’ll be all muddy and wet,” Mom scowled and tried to save at least one of us, but Bree would have none of it. Mom didn’t need to voice the rest of the worries that were already crowding my brain, but as much as I didn’t want to be cold and wet in a swimsuit that had been worn by who knows how many people, I was even more afraid of being left out of something spectacular. I could probably live with the regret of not going, but I knew I could not deal with Bree having the best time of her life without me.
“Okay, I’ll at least get a suit on so I can decide later,” I said, swiping one from the bucket.
“Wicked!” Bree said. She already knew my submission on that point meant I was in the process of convincing myself, though I still denied it.
We floated into the darkness of the cave in a little wooden rowboat. The low, flowing river was too narrow for oars, so we relied on muscle power to pull ourselves through the entrance using a thick, wet rope attached to a rock somewhere in the cave’s inner shadows.
“Here’s an interesting fact, guys. The local villagers from around here used this cave to hide out from the invading Japanese army in World War II,” Ammon gravely informed us.
“See? Now I just think that is so great!” Mom said, her eyes taking in every inch of the experience. “I love learning new things.”
Five Bestselling Travel Memoirs Box Set Page 93