Bound for Vietnam

by Lydia Laube

  The operation on my tooth took a very long time. The dentist was elaborately painstaking and he did not have a nurse to help him. But even when he used the drill, this marvellous man was so gentle that he only gave me a couple of stabs of pain. Finally he took a piece of glass, swiped it clean with a swab, mixed the filling and very carefully packed it into my tooth.

  By this time the dentist and I had become the best of friends. I was full of gratitude and admiration for his skill, and my tooth was feeling better than it had for a long time. Then, deserting his post, the dentist personally escorted me back downstairs. He led me into the registry office where I was hit a further fee, the special foreigner’s price of 300 yuan – fifty Australian dollars. When the four girls in the office saw the account that the dentist had made out they fell about laughing hysterically. I was sure that this was because it was for such an enormous amount of money. The Chinese only pay one yuan for everything.

  The bad news was that I was told not to eat for the rest of the day and to add insult to injury, on reaching my hotel I had to walk up nine flights of stairs to get to my room to recover. The lift was not working because the electricity was off. The light, power and hot water went off regularly in Chongqing and it often stayed so for hours at a time. Sometimes when I was walking around the streets or the market at night, all the lights would suddenly go out. A loud, ‘Oooh!’ would go up from the crowd, but kerosene lanterns and torches would be quickly produced and, unperturbed, it would be business as usual.

  Another companion moved in to share my room with me. Strangely, I knew him. It was Joe, the Englishman Susan and I had met in Wuhan. Joe had been travelling in China for several months, and he told me some of his interesting experiences as he bounced around the room trying all of the beds like a middle-aged, bearded Goldilocks. It beat me why – all the beds were identical. I worried that I would disturb Joe the next morning when I got up long before dawn to catch my train, but he was more concerned about the presence of rats.

  I went looking for the thousand-year-old Luohan Temple – and found it! Luohan is a Buddhist term for the Sanskrit arhat – people who have released themselves from the bondage of greed, hate and delusion and obtained the status of saints or holy men. You entered the temple by turning off one of Chongqing’s main streets and climbing up a very steep, skinny alley to a narrow gate. From there you took the steps up a further incline, and marvelled at the rock carvings and shrines set into the natural rock face. Old ladies tended the shrines, bringing the idols offerings of incense and flowers.

  The Luohan complex contained several temples, the dwellings of the resident monks and the monastery. At its peak the temple had seventy monks, but now there are only about eighteen. In the grounds much fragrant incense was burning and candles, some of them gigantic, were being sold. In one place, luckily outside and away from the buildings, a great row of enormous red candles, enough to start a grand conflagration, roared and blazed away.

  In one temple a colossal gold Buddha enclosed in a glass case beamed down on me. The main temple was home to five hundred life-sized painted terracotta statues of arhats. Row after row of them gazed down on you from where they sat on platforms a metre off the ground. The route around the statues was cordoned off with string, so that once you started you had to keep going until you came to the end and not miss any – unless you hopped under the string and then you would be lost. The place was a maze. Without the string, you would never have got out again. Round and round I went in the temple’s dim recesses. Now and then I came across a big gold-plated Buddha or an attendant, old women or men murmuring low over their prayerbooks or reciting their beads. The statues were so uncannily life-like that it was spooky. I swore that at least one of them was alive. And every one was different. They were of all races and skin colours. The expressions on their faces all differed too; some were holy and saintly, some cheeky, some naughty, friendly or fun loving. Each arhat’s name was inscribed beneath his chair and each one held something, either a musical instrument, a child, an icon or an animal. Walking among them in the dark, gloomy atmosphere was a curious experience and when I came out of the temple it took a while to accustom myself to the light and the real world again.

  My friend, Denise, an American Buddhist I had met on the Trans Siberian Express on my way to Mongolia, had told me that she thought the communists had only re-opened the monasteries in China as a source of loot from tourists, but I think some older people had kept their religion, albeit underground.

  Chongqing also boasted other attractions. The United States and Chiang Kai-shek Criminal Acts Exhibition Hall was one. This offered such dubious enticements as a visit to the prison cells and torture chambers. No thanks. The dental department had been enough for me.

  5 Snakes Alive!

  At four in the morning I found a driver asleep in his taxi in front of the hotel. I poked him awake – drivers here weren’t protected by the plastic shields that I had seen in taxis in Shanghai.

  Off we drove through the pre-dawn mist. Suddenly I knew why a feeling of de ja vu had been haunting me since I had arrived in Chongqing. Seeing the city in the misty half light made the penny drop. It reminded me of Naples. It was nowhere near as beautiful, but the way the town ran clinging to the mountain-side along a cliff, and its narrow, crooked streets that went up and down all higgledy piggledy gave it a sense of familiarity. The memory of the two happy years I had spent in Naples will always remain with me.

  Deposited at the train station entrance – I’d had to pay five yuan at the gate for the taxi to drive the extra hundred yards from the road to the building – I enquired after my platform and was shown five fingers twice, which I took to mean ten. Continuing on, I enquired twice more and got two more answers. One man pointed upstairs, but I could see there was no platform up there and another passenger told me that it was the one I was standing on, number five. I settled for that.

  I stood waiting in the pool of harsh light that isolated the platform from the surrounding darkness, my breath steaming in the freezing air, and hoped I was in the right place. The train choofed in on time and to my relief it was the one I wanted. I settled into my soft sleeper compartment for a fourteen-hour ride; we were due to reach Liuzhou at seven the next morning. I had decided to go there and take a bus to Yanshu, where the country-side was said to be fascinating, and from where it was possible to travel to Guangzhou by road or river.

  Departing Chongqing, we travelled among gigantic peaked mountains, part of the great ranges that run east and west across China and separate the agricultural areas. It was still dark. High up here daylight did not appear until after seven. Now and then the train passed small huts that were softly lit by kerosene lamps or candles and it was a strange feeling to look into their interiors as we rode by, like seeing flashes of a different world flicked on a screen.

  The train went through the mountains via tunnels that followed one after the other, some stretching for kilometres. What an engineering feat the building of this railway had been! Considering that the country’s first railway had only been commenced at Shanghai in 1875 and that it had proceeded merely a short distance before being torn up by angry, superstitious mobs, China had come a long way.

  Initially the mountains were just wilderness, but later their steep sides were terraced to an incredible height. Rice and vegetables grew in tiny plots only a couple of feet wide. This was a green but stony province. The rugged cottages and houses in the villages we passed were all made of stone, as were the terrace walls that surrounded the small amount of land that was suitable for planting.

  I went to the train’s dining car to investigate the possibility of fodder. This was quite an occasion. I am not often up for breakfast at the hour that the Chinese indulge in it. I noticed that other hopeful feeders had tickets in front of them on their tables, and approached a small squat lady who, strategically positioned at the dining car entrance, seemed to be the source of the tickets. In exchange for five yuan a piece of paper was issued to me
that in due time metamorphosed into a bowl of gruel and some dumplings – neither of which had any taste at all. Showing the small squat one the food list in my book, I did an Oliver Twist and asked for more. At first she said, ‘No,’ but then she relented and pointed to fried rice and egg. I was delighted. Fifteen minutes later I was happily wading through an egg chopped up on rice and a bowl of spicy soup with bits of tomato floating in it.

  Then I fell on my bunk and slept like the dead for three hours. It was the best sleep I’d had for days. After that it was time to put the nose-bag on again. Lunch boxes were brought along on a trolley. For a small fee I was given two boxes, one containing plain rice, the other mangled bits of duck and lots of cabbage. I know the latter was fresh as I had seen enormous baskets of cabbages being brought aboard the train and lined up in the corridor outside the cook house.

  At first I shared my compartment with only one gent, but in the evening two others joined us. My companion and I, who did not exchange one word after our initial ‘Neehow’ – I speak excellent Chinese, only one word, but it’s perfect – consumed our lunch. Apart from his slurps and burps, and the noise of our neighbours in the next compartment chomping their food, we ate in silence.

  By afternoon the train tracks were still running high along the sides of steep mountains. Looking down with an eagle eye I saw a pretty mosaic of villages and fields. White ducks paddled among flooded rice paddies. Tough-looking ponies carried goods in woven pannier baskets that hung on their sides, and peasants in pyjama suits hauled buckets or baskets on wooden yokes across their shoulders. Washing was spread out to dry on rocks beside one cottage where two children played, possibly both in the same family. Where were the Baby Police? You never saw two children together in the towns. Pine trees lined the slopes and by the side of the railway line flourished cascading plants with red berries like cottoneaster and creepers with white and yellow flowers. A boy riding a buffalo waved to the train from among foliage and bamboo that was so lush it brushed the carriages as we went past.

  More mountains and tunnels followed as we passed downhill through smartly painted railway stations. I saw a military post by the side of the tracks; a small white-washed stone building that was guarded by a soldier with a rifle slung over his shoulder. I wondered what he was guarding and from whom.

  Lower down the land became flatter and I saw oxen and buffalo pulling ploughs in some of the larger fields. All possible space had been planted. Beans grew at the edges of paddy plots and spinach and greens on the sides of roads. In some places the harvest had been completed and the new green shoots of a fresh rice crop were coming up. In the fields hay was stored in stooks that were shaped like witch’s brooms or in small, round haystacks with peaked roofs that looked like goblin’s houses.

  The old ways continued here. I saw peasants harvesting in pre-revolution attire: a knee-length tunic girdled with a sash, loose mid-calf trousers and a round skull-cap for men, a three-cornered scarf for women. And some of the machines had been the latest model in the first century AD. I saw donkey-powered treadmills pumping water into canals and threshing machines that were operated by a person jumping up and down on a pedal.

  At dinner time I gave the menu’s promised ‘pried snall in bear sauce’ a miss, but the spicy Sichuan style cuisine was very good.

  At one stage I was in the loo when the train stopped. There was a knock on the door, then a male guard barged in, ejected me and locked me out. Happily I hadn’t been in mid-stream! The guards performed this routine at each station. I guessed that passengers were not trusted to refrain from using the toilet while the train was in the station. I watched the guard wash his hands and then dry them on the lace curtains of the corridor windows. It was not the first time I had seen this. I figured it must be common practice.

  By eight in the evening I had three room-mates and they were all fast asleep. One snored loudly. Only one, I reflected. Must be my lucky day. I decided to take the hint and retire up to my bunk. I was reading Brendon Behan’s, Borstal Boy, amazed to find that he’d had a better time in prison than I’d had in Saudi Arabia. There was not a lot of difference in the two lifestyles.

  The night was long. The train was not terminating at Liuzhou and I worried that I might sleep through my stop. Finally I slept so well that I woke myself up snoring. I hoped I hadn’t caught that from my neighbours – I might be spitting next. I had come to hate the sound of spitting. Even above the sound of the train I could hear people letting loose on the carpeted corridor outside my door.

  When dawn came we were in wonderful country. Outside the window soared huge mountains decorated with patterns of limestone rock, green grass and wreathing fog. The sun came up, slanting between mist-shrouded groves of pine and bamboo. In the villages ducks, buffalo and peasants stirred for the day.

  There were no more tunnels. Now we ran through deep cuttings between the mountains, or along their sides. Far away below a clear green river flowed. Nothing broke the mirror of the river’s calm surface except a lone fisherman who rowed a small boat standing up. What a contrast to the fast, muddy Yangtze.

  When I saw bananas growing my spirits lifted at this sign of a warmer climate. Further on flat fields of rice and vegetables stretched out to the horizon. A couple of large towns and more and more fields of food brought us finally to the city of Liuzhou in Guangxi province.

  Across the road from the station exit a mob of taxis waited. Lined up with their drivers standing beside them, they looked like the start of the Monte Carlo Rally. The eager drivers waved and shouted enticements to the stream of prospective customers who surged through the gate. I was drawn to a couple of laughing young girls. They loaded me aboard with much merriment and didn’t even try to cheat me.

  The long-distance bus station was the usual mammoth affair with smelly trough toilets. My ticket to Yanshu cost two dollars sixty for the six hour journey and I only had half an hour to wait for the bus. I was sorely in need of a wash, but I thought, too bad, another six hours on a bus and I’ll be worse.

  In the station yard I saw one of the sleeper buses I had heard about. Two tiers of vinyl-covered benches interspersed with back rests were bolted into them. You could reline, but not lie flat. I was dubious about this mode of travel – the buses looked very top heavy and I’d heard that they had an alarming number of accidents. But I still had the urge to try this novel means of transport.

  An announcement was made. The waiting horde surged to a locked gate where a guard stood behind a mesh screen and repelled all contenders except those who had the right bit of paper. She unlocked the gate and allowed the privileged few to pass through. I showed her my paper and made an attempt at the gate, but was repulsed back to my seat. The waiting crowd watched enthralled as this happened three more times (no wonder the Chinese think we are stupid) before I was finally admitted to the inner sanctum, the yard where the buses stood awaiting, and probably dreading, the onslaught of the passengers.

  The bus, a large local job, did not move off until it had been packed sardine-full. As soon as we cleared the town the driver put his foot flat to the boards and the bus rocketed along, rattling over the rough dirt highway. My seat had been worn through to the metal and the edge became uncomfortable after a while. I couldn’t open the window in front of me because it had a broken catch. It was not the worst bus I have been on, but I don’t think Greyhound have much to worry about.

  The other passengers were predominantly male. I had noticed that this was the norm in China, particularly in the younger age group. I supposed it was evidence of the one-child family program and the preference for boys. As usual the passengers smoked heavily and spat out of the windows or worse, inside the bus. My luggage was thrown up front near the driver where it was convenient for everyone to drop ash over it and put their feet on it. It survived the trip but came out absolutely filthy.

  After Liuzhou there were towns and flat fields until we came to hills that were terraced and had cultivated plots in the valleys between them. Farme
rs wearing big saucer-shaped coolie hats dug potatoes, ploughed with buffalo or harvested grain. Here the hay stooks were shaped like little men wearing peaked hats. They marched across the fields looking like Cousin Id. Then mountains rose before us. Like nothing I had seen before, they were skinny and pointy, heavily wooded and dotted with patches of limestone. And what was this? The sun! I hadn’t seen the sun for at least two weeks.

  The sunshine made the bus pleasantly warm and the ride improved when we reached the mountains, as they slowed the driver considerably. It didn’t stop his action on the horn though, a super-loud number that he blared every two seconds. But it did drown the voice of the woman behind me and gave a brief respite from her irritating discourse. She had started shouting to her neighbour, a complete stranger, the moment she got on the bus and she never let up for three-and-a-half hours, hardly drawing breath until she got off. Perhaps they didn’t let her talk at home.

  The scenery became wild and beautiful as we started climbing into the mountains. Eucalyptus trees with long white trunks rose sixty feet before their branches forked out; they looked as though they belonged in the Australian bush. We crossed several rivers and countless streams and stopped now and then to shovel more people into the bus even though there were no seats for them.

  Three hours into our journey we pulled into a small bus station. The loo was another public exhibition job, although it did have small half doors that could be pulled across to cover the business end of you while leaving your head and shoulders on view. But by now I had become so blasé about displaying my charms to all and sundry I didn’t see the doors until I was leaving. I didn’t even look for a door. So much for my maidenly modesty.