Five Bestselling Travel Memoirs Box Set

by Twead, Victoria

  Though she could not understand our words, our body language was quite clear, yet she didn’t simply slip back into the crowd as we expected, and before I knew it her hand, knobby, rough and crow-like, reached out for me. She grabbed me and sank her claws deep into my arm. I was caught off guard and was too surprised to cry out. My terror blocked my air supply for about ten seconds. I wanted to run, but my pack and the crowds limited my options. Had I forcefully pulled away from her, I’d likely have fallen on my back like an awkward turtle. I tried tugging to resist her, but she didn’t budge. Why me? Why is it always me? I asked myself. The slightest conflict was enough to push me overboard at this early point of the journey. She clung there desperately, her grip becoming stronger and her nails pinching deeper into my arm. I tugged again, looking frantically for help from my family, who were close by but failed to notice my dilemma, let alone rescue me. Whatever happened to sticking up for each other? I thought furiously at I tried to either attract their attention or to pivot away from the old crone, but I was trapped. It felt like she and I hovered in the eye of a whirlpool as the rest of the world spun around us. I didn’t know what else to do.

  In desperation, I finally gave up on the idea of escape, at which point an inner strength came over me and I turned to her, still angry and terrified. Facing my trepidation directly, I experienced an adrenaline rush that seemed to reveal a completely different facet of this encounter. Suddenly, I became aware of what a rough life she must have had. Her hunched back, her weathered, wrinkled face, and her rotted, gummy snarl told me I knew nothing of her pain.

  We somehow stood alone in time, and I imagined her peeling her cloak back and emerging from the shadows of her ancient roots to reveal her inner core. In her eyes, I saw a playful and innocent childhood and began to hear a story of her once shiny black hair and a cheery grin that boasted small, pearly white teeth. What has this world done to her? She was screaming at me with her eyes and I stood very still and listened to words only I could hear. It seemed an eternity before she was gone. Had I not had proof in the form of the bloody scratch she’d left behind, I might’ve thought she was a figment of my imagination.

  And now here I was, having to deal with a second old lady. I cautiously stepped deeper into the garden courtyard of the guest house. I still felt a bit shaken by, and not quite able to grasp the full significance of, that first encounter. Sensing my hesitation and nudging me along, Mom advised me, “Don’t let past experiences affect your view of new people.”

  The woman who had led us on this agonizing twenty-five minute hike reached out a hand to introduce us, “This is Granny. She will take care of you.” Granny responded with a big, joyous smile. She didn’t hesitate a moment before gently taking Mom’s hand to lead us up the narrow, steep passage from the porch.

  The wooden stairs creaked and complained beneath our feet as we climbed to the peak. It was all made of wood, and our heavy steps made dust fall from the cracks between the roof and the stairs. Numerous cats were already flirting outrageously. By nightfall, they’d be mating and scrambling in the shingles above our heads and we learned that there really is nothing that can keep you awake quite as well as a cat in heat and the obnoxious moan of the male as he begs permission.

  Squeezing awkwardly into our attic space with our packs, we were able to unload them at last. There were five beds in our dorm, and a plump, unravelled backpack already claimed one of them. Luckily, the occupied bed stood apart in one corner of the room. Three beds almost touched, but that worked fine for us three girls. Ammon was in another corner, across from the anonymous traveler. He was happiest there, preferring to pretend he wasn’t part of our group. Nobody believed that he had three girls tagging along anyway.

  Granny was waiting for us when we came back down. The lady who’d led us here had vanished, most likely to return to the station, and we were alone with the little old Granny who spoke not a word of English. That was generally the case among the older generations. The younger a new acquaintance was, the more chance there was that we might have a few words in common. In recent years, the tourism industry had grown to the extent that we even occasionally heard some Celine Dion songs playing in city streets. People Granny’s age wouldn’t have been exposed to anything other than Mandarin but the language barrier didn’t prevent us in any way from having a good chat with her. It took a lot more skill and effort to communicate without a common language, but it made for an exciting, mind-expanding game and, before I knew it, I was laughing helplessly. The tones, emotions, and actions devoted to our charades quite possibly explained more than simple dialogue ever could have, and immediately established a more intimate connection between us.

  Granny’s face was worn, to say the least, and she had thick, wrinkly dimples. She looked like an animated mole pinching its face in the sun. When it came time for us to explore the world outside her garden, she was very confident that she could direct us. She didn’t know where we were headed but then, neither did we, so her directions would do as well as any. Leaning out the door, she took Mom by the hand and pointed left and right to show her the way. We watched her waving arm intently, imagining the path ahead. Mom eventually put her hand on Granny’s and nodded thankfully. As a last note, Granny let us know that “eating,” signified by raising and lowering her hand to her mouth in a shovelling motion, was at seven o’clock.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Our physical ailments were far less burdensome once we shed our 35lbs (15kg) packs, so off we went. Granny’s seemingly random collection of motions did eventually lead us to the town centre. Twinkling canals alongside brick pathways wound their way around homes with thatched roofs. The streets were nearly empty aside from a few local shoppers scattered along the way and a little crowd that had formed in the main square, where local women dressed in blue aprons and white vested costumes linked arms to dance and spin. Onlookers joined in, raising and kicking their legs as the giant circle rotated. All the participants were smiling and laughing.

  Lijiang’s major tourist attractions are its large, double waterwheels and the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain located fifteen kilometres away. It formed part of the southernmost glacier in the northern hemisphere. The view of the mountain was clear from the town centre, where domestic tourists huddled with their cameras. On the bus ride to Lijiang, the driver had announced the first glimpse of the mountain as its snow caps appeared in the distance. Straining our necks to see what all of the oohs and aahs were about, we were surprised by what we considered to be an exaggerated reaction to a simple mountain. Being from Vancouver, a city surrounded by majestic mountains, we thought them lovely, but these attractions were not why we’d come to Lijiang.

  It was neither the Jade Dragon nor the waterwheels we walked miles to see that impressed me. Rather, it was the enchanting beauty of the village itself. Hanging plants and vines dressed the shingled roofs and passageways. Wood planks were used to bridge the narrow waterways between shops. It was the everyday normality and the still beauty that made this town memorable. There were no signs of shopping carts, automatic doors, or escalators. My own personal normality had completely disappeared. It was all so simple and so authentic. The streets were dripping with red from bubbly paper lanterns hung one atop the other. The bold oriental lettering and designs on the lanterns added more character and spice to the stone alleyways.

  A temple with many curved and then pointed roofs exuded spirituality. The snow-capped mountain’s image was clearly reflected on a pond’s surface. Hanging willow branches touched the still, crystal-clear water. Reflections of the many dainty, arched, wooden bridges formed the other half of complete circles. Ducks paddled carelessly as hundreds of colourful Koi, splotched and fat, surfaced with their gaping mouths begging for food. Stairs led down to brick canal ways and stone carved dragons drank from the winding waters. It appears I had to conquer my first “villain” to reach this fairyland, I thought, thinking back on the first old woman.

  This sauntering walk led us through the quiet, d
eserted residential areas. We found ourselves at one of many local watering holes, each consisting of a three-tiered system of square, cement pools surrounded by a small courtyard. The upper level poured out an abundance of fresh, crystal clear water that the villagers collected for cooking and drinking. The water that flowed from there into a second pool below was slightly murky and was used to wash vegetables. The third and last pool was a pale, soapy, blue colour, and it was there that the villagers did their laundry on their hands and knees.

  We noted that many of the men and women sported heavy loads. Some were hunched over, carrying large baskets of produce or other goods, while others had encased, woven baby carriers on their backs that youngsters could comfortably sit or stand in. Both types of baskets were strapped with thick fabric crisscrossed the carrier’s chest diagonally for support.

  Baggy topped hats with hard visors in a variety of colours, like the one we’d seen on Granny, were worn by most of the villagers. The other thing that consistently stood out was the Chinese people’s apparent passion for camouflage patterns. The design decorated everything from cars to suitcases, from pants to hats, and everyone from little kids to soldiers in uniform sported it.

  To absorb as much raw culture as we could, we sat around a cement table beside the wells and pulled out our deck of cards to continue our ongoing game of Daifugō. A plump, fuzzy caterpillar crawled across the table, and I poked it with my pen. I wryly commented aloud that I had better not suck my pen anymore. Of course, a few minutes later, Bree caught me with it up my nose and shrieked, “Savannah! You’re going to get caterpillar disease!!” Gasping, I recoiled at the potential result of my involuntary fiddling as the others collapsed in a fit of laughter at my expense.

  I counted the caterpillar exposure as my second near-death experience on this trip. I’d also thought that I was poisoned and might surely die after I touched a plant off a beaten trail in the stone forest, but I’d survived that first encounter with the non-fatal, apparently very common plant called stinging nettle, only to now potentially succumb to caterpillar disease. One way or another, this trip was surely going to kill me.

  What started as a few locals casually doing their wash and other daily chores gradually grew into a group of men intently watching our every move as they squatted like ducks along the walls surrounding us. Others merely stopped for a quick peek as they passed by. Our card playing always attracted the Chinese men’s attention.

  “Oh, no. What are those guys doing?” Mom said, noticing a small group of domestic tourists, most likely from the city, dipping their hands in the uppermost well. “Don’t they drink from there?” she asked Ammon.

  “Yah, it is supposed to be for drinking. That’s gotta make the locals angry,” he said. Just as we were discussing the domestic tourists’ apparent ignorance of the villagers’ customs, one of our squatting friends who’d been watching our game got up and flapped his arms and successfully shooed them away. Our suspicion that the locals most definitely did not appreciate this careless disregard of their drinking water was confirmed.

  Our audience continued to watch our game and discuss the rules amongst themselves. The way we switched positions and how we traded cards depending on our current rankings was what always confused people and made it hard for onlookers to learn the game. The entire group got braver and inched closer. Every once in a while, one would come to help us and recommend a card by pointing at it, glancing alternately between my hand, the rest of the cards on the table, and lastly my face to see if he was right.

  “No, that one doesn’t work,” I smiled cheerfully at the first attempt and shook my head. He sat back down with his fist under his chin and returned to the drawing board.

  The next try resulted in an encouraging, “Yah, yah. Good choice,” from Ammon as he threw down the suggested two fives, but just when they thought they’d got it figured out, we’d get up and change our seats again. Perplexed, they’d sit back on their heels and again try to figure out what we were doing, and why we were doing it.

  “Hey, what time is it? We better get back for Granny!” Mom said, glancing at her wrist watch. “Oh my goodness, we better get going! Can you believe we’ve been here for three hours?”

  With a hurried adieu to the crowd, we rushed back for our seven o’clock meal.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  We expected dinner to be on the table and were eagerly anticipating what it might be when we got home, but all five-feet-nothing of Granny, dressed in her grey collared, button-up jacket with an apron strapped around her waist, was waiting for directions from us. We sat in the open garden as she made trip after trip to her kitchen to present different raw roots and vegetables as options. She explained the difference between spicy and non-spicy, and we managed to tell her we were evenly split. Two of us had an adventurous palette, but the other two could not tolerate a lot of heat. Mom and Bree put their hands around their own necks and stuck their tongues out to demonstrate what spicy foods did to them. Granny giggled and smiled with her beautiful, expressive eyes before running back to the kitchen yet again. Ammon didn’t really enjoy hot spices but was not going to go through the trouble of explaining it as he also enjoyed the adventure of exploring local cuisines. Bobbing as she ran, her layers of skirts swinging, Granny presented us with choice after choice, a process we enjoyed despite our hunger: tomatoes or cauliflower, eggplant or lady fingers (a long, cucumber-shaped vegetable that is flower shaped when sliced into pieces widthwise) were just a couple of her suggestions. We’d point and rub our tummies to signify which ones we liked. In a surprisingly short period of time, she prepared a wide assortment of vegetable dishes accompanied, of course, by rice. Given that the toppings were fairly bursting with spices and with tasty, unfamiliar flavours, I managed to overlook the fact that rice was still just rice. After a healthy and delicious vegetarian dinner, Granny graciously rubbed a restorative honey and oat mix on my dry hands and feet before she sent me gratefully off to bed.

  Chapter 20: Don’t Let the Travel Bug Bite

  As was the case in many guest houses, we were allowed one hour of free Internet service each day at Granny’s. I never knew how I’d feel after that hour. Sometimes I received emails that lifted my spirits; other times, my inbox would be empty and I would get depressed. The state of my email correspondence controlled me as if it were my own personal happy meter.

  I was often irritated because MSN Chat was rarely installed on the computers, and I’d have to spend half my allotted time downloading it. There was nothing I craved and looked forward to more than a few minutes of catching up and chatting with friends, but the download too often either took the whole hour or failed entirely. The time difference worked against me, too. What was noon local time was the middle of the night back home. The whole experience of trying to connect electronically using antiquated equipment was as much an exercise in frustration as anything else.

  “I just want to go home!” I’d shout at whoever would listen, slamming my fists on the keyboard and wanting nothing more than to throw the whole thing out the usually non-existent window. “Why does it have to be so slow?!” I would cry when my emails were erased or when the few live conversations I managed to instigate would freeze in the middle.

  After one such frustrating episode, I took a seat outside on the ground under the shade of a short tree on the patio. I slipped my dusty flip-flops off and pushed them to the side with my toes, feeling the warm stones under my dry feet and leaning forward with my elbows on my knees to feel the sun on my back. It had been chilly in the drafty, cement internet room.

  The lovely silence was abruptly broken by a bearded man’s comment. “I saw you on the Internet earlier. You seemed pretty upset.”

  He pulled out a chair at the wooden table and looking up at him I answered directly, “Yah, I want to go home. I miss my friends.” Suddenly ashamed of my cracked, worn feet, I promptly crossed my legs and tucked them under my thighs.

  “So, you’re missing your friends, eh?” he started, us
ing a familiar Canadian dialect. “You must be in high school. How old are you then?”

  “Almost fifteen.” And no! I’m not in school at all. Do ya have to rub it in?

  “Trust me, I’ve been there. High school is really overrated. Kids think it’s so important, but as soon as you’re spit out into the big wide world, it changes. And your friends? They won’t be there forever. After school, everyone goes their own way,” he told me in a practical manner that effectively translated to, “My two cents worth. Take it or leave it – that’s how it is.”

  I’d heard this lecture many times from Mom. For some reason, his nonchalant delivery made it seem that much more convincing. He wasn’t saying it to talk me into staying; it made no difference to him either way. He was just a man with an opinion. Annoyed with myself for almost being swayed by his argument, I thought, Yah, but he’s a weirdo traveller, too. What’s with these guys’ long hair and scruffy beards anyway? He’s just a bum who wants to give up his life to be here. I’m not like him. I didn’t want to believe any of them, ’cause they just didn’t get how I felt.

  “I mean, already you’ve been out how long? A few weeks?” he guessed. “How many of your friends are actually still contacting you? Are they all as connected as you’d hoped and expected them to be?” he asked, truly interested. My brows furrowed and I shrugged. I shook my head uncertainly, not really wanting to answer. I couldn’t help feeling slightly angry and sorry for myself as I was forced to face the unpleasant truth that perhaps I’d been trying to overlook. He’s right. My so-called friends, even those I considered my closest friends, had only sent one or two emails, if that. Less than half of them read our family blog. It sometimes felt almost as if I’d never existed, that I had vanished and no one seemed to notice. Though it hurt to no end, I was in the process of discovering who my true friends were. I began to realize that the people who would always be there for me were those I had usually undervalued and taken for granted, even a few I had only just met. Sandra, our helpful guide through Hong Kong, was a perfect example. Despite our brief, four-day encounter, she often sent me sweet words of support that gave me strength. “Savaaannnii, I am so proud of you.” I could still hear her long, drawn out, “Sandra-ish” accent.