Lugu Hu to Nanjing Odyssey

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Warning: This will be a long, mostly narrative (not many pictures) description of the arduous process I went through in getting from Lugu Hu to Nanjing…if you want a laugh or two at my expense, though, you may want to keep reading…

Well, after leaving Lugu Hu the morning of Sunday, November the 1st, all I wanted to do was to be in Nanjing with my business done. It would take me three days, some uncomfortable time, and a huge shipping bill in Kunming, before my goal was realized…

I retraced my steps because I had left my biggest bag, along with all the tea and tea equipment I bought in Kunming, with Alan and Grace (my coworker Janet’s, nephew and wife, you may remember) in Kunming. So, this was really an odyssey of my own making (which only makes it worse…it’s always better when you feel like there’s nothing you could have done to prevent your troubles!!!)…

But, I’m getting ahead of myself…our story starts on the first night in Lugu Hu…

Trouble at Lugu Hu

To start with, the hotel we stayed at had people who worked there who did the best they could to make sure we were satisfied, but there were some problems. One was that when we got there, there was no water. Apparently they have some equipment (I’m guessing a pump) they have to start to get the water running. Well, the person who did this was at dinner at the time. So, we went out looking for dinner. This poor girl caught up to us, out of breath, and explained how sorry she was and that it was her fault. She had left her dinner to track us down and let us know she would have the water on when our dinner was finished. I felt so bad for her. If you know anything about the Chinese, you should know that it is not good to disturb them when they are eating!

We asked her for recommendations for a place to eat and she suggested a barbeque restaurant. Then we found out that the place she was eating was a 10 minute walk away and was also a barbeque restaurant, so we all (four of our six Chinese friends, Saad (remember, it’s pronounced Sai-eed) and I) all headed for the restaurant she was eating at. I don’t have pictures, but the tables all had these tiny stools (common in China, but a little uncomfortable for my large frame) and a table that had a grill in the center with a bed of coals. We ordered several things, including pork, vegetables, fish, etc. It was OK, but it wasn’t great. There were only two dry condiments that were together in one small bowl for each of us – a hot chili type powder and I don’t know what the other powder was. Anyway, we made it through dinner. The reason I’m mentioning all of this is I’m not sure where I ate something that made me uncomfortable and gave me diarrhea on the bus trip, but it could have been that meal…maybe undercooked pork or something…

The next morning, another of our guests was very cranky, with good reason. His room did not have a heater (as mine did) and the water was again not working. The girl, whose name is Ivy (I don’t know her Chinese name), again profusely apologized, but our uncomfortable guest apparently made it clear that he was not a happy camper. When I spoke with her, she was clearly a little panicked at this. I told her over and over not to worry about it, that  everyone makes mistakes and that this was not the end of the world.
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Ivy

It might help to mention that in our conversation the night before, we learned that she lives a two hour journey “over the mountain” in a place that has no electricity or running water and is a teacher to the children there. She was trying to recruit Saad to be an English teacher, but no electricity or running water might be a little more roughing it than most people would want to handle in this day and age. Also, she comes to Lugu Hu on the weekends and works for free. She spoke passably good English, so she obviously is trying very hard to improve herself.

In any case, given the conditions she lives in and the fact that she wasn’t getting paid to run away from her dinner to satisfy our “needs” in our $13 hotel rooms with in-room bathrooms, I thought it hardly fair to come down on her for making any mistake. Especially since she was sincerely trying to help us out.

I felt so bad for her that I gave her one of these medallions that I had purchased from the US mint to give as presents. It has George Washington on the front and a handshake on the back with the word “Friendship”. Ironically, it has a peace pipe as well. I thought it was very strange to use the white man’s dealings with native Americans (mostly brutal genocide, land grabbing, treaty breaking and creating alcoholics) as the model for “Friendship”, but I liked the sentiment, in any case.

Before we left, Ivy told me that she wanted to give me something. First, she tried to give the medallion back, protesting that it was far too expensive (Including the display box, it was $6). I refused to let her return the gift. She then gave me a muffler that her Musuo friend had made by hand. I was really touched by the generosity of this girl from the Chinese countryside. I guess she appreciated my patience and kindness to her. I think that’s what life is all about, and that if you try to put yourself in someone else’s position, you won’t be so quick to assume the worst.

I got a picture with Ivy before I left…

Scott and his friend, Ivy, at Lugu Hu

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This brings me back to the odyssey…I hadn’t eaten much the day before. A breakfast in a local restaurant consisting of two fried eggs that were done “sunny side up” (with a liquid yolk, another possible food culprit), but with a unique type of flaky crust that was pretty tasty, and a big, pancake-like food without any butter or syrup. It, too, was very good.

Bus ride from hell…

I told you about the rest of the activities at Lugu Hu, so I’ll cut to the chase…I woke up the morning of our departure and knew today would be miserable. I had the same symptoms I had had in Lijiang after my bout with a food problem there…uncomfortable, diarrhea and extreme gas. The difference today would be that I was facing an eight hours bus ride over very bumpy terrain!

To keep this story from being too drawn out, I took my first crap in a public toilet in China, which was not pleasant at all. I did have enough tissue with me. I didn’t even feel embarrassed when squatting with walls that were only about 4 feet high and having tons of gas and noise come out, along with the unmistakeable sound of diarrhea. The reason I didn’t feel embarrassed is because I figured that I wasn’t the first to have this problem and I wouldn’t be the last. Besides, it was either this, or go in my pants, so I just sucked it up and dealt with it.

I felt a little better on the bus, though by the time I got to our Panba hostel in Lijiang (as Saad said, it felt like coming home after our long bus ride), I had to get to the bathroom to get rid of the last of the food menace, whatever it was…

Resetting and feeling better

I was going to go straight through (jump on another 8 hour bus to Kunming), but the diarrhea, the fact that I had no clean clothes to change into and that I would be arriving at 2 – 3 in the morning convinced me to stay a night in Lijiang. After recuperating, doing laundry, making reservations at the Hump Hostel in Kunming, and for a bus trip at a more reasonable hour, things were a lot better the next morning.

Saad, too, was not feeling up to par after all we had been through. He was going to go to the Tiger Leaping Gorge, but reneged on that idea and decided to get on the bus with me to Kunming….

This bus ride was uneventful. The only notable thing that I thought was unusual is that the ticket price included a stop with a free meal. It was a soup kitchen (or school cafeteria, or prison,…whatever picture gets you the idea) like set up where they took a sectioned aluminum tray and scooped a big, sticky lump of rice and three other dishes and gave them to you. You picked two chopsticks out of a bin (washed, not disposable), found a place to sit, and ate your chow. The food wasn’t great, but it wasn’t that bad, either. I didn’t take a picture, because I didn’t know that’s what we were stopping for.

The bus is the one in the main picture, and here are a couple I tried to have a conversation with on the way, though it took about 10 minutes and a lot of  head scratching to discuss even rudimentary topics. Not much fun when you’re tired and not feeling your best…

A couple on the bus from Lijiang to Kunming

The Hump Hostel

The hostel I stayed at for the night in Kunming is named the Hump (for flying the Hump in WWII, where Kunming was the receiver of many of the payloads of the cargo planes flying in supplies during the war). They had a wall with the Flying Tigers on it and the employees all wore T-shirts with the shark mouth like they paint on the airplanes. I had to let them know that I was actually a member of the Flying Tigers when I was in the Air Force. They recommissioned the wing and our C-130s actually had the mouth painted on them. As big and fat as they were, though, it looked more like a pig chewing on a plug of tobacco than a scary tiger shark, but it was kind of cool to be a little part of what the hostel was dedicated to.

The restaurant/bar at the Hump had a cool view from the deck:

View from the Hump Hostel in Kunming

Post Office

Alan picked me up as soon as he could squeeze a little time in. We went to the post office and packed up two boxes worth of stuff. He had a lunch meeting he had to attend, so we said our goodbyes. I knew it would be expensive, but with the Pu’er tea and the tea making utensils, I didn’t want to send them by boat. I figured it would cost $100 or so…I was in for sticker shock…It cost me $300 (US) to send two packages via Air Mail to the US. Ouch! Alan had already left, so I was very glad to have gotten the 2500Y from two different cards before I left Kunming the first time (their ATMs don’t accept 4 digit PINs, so Alan and Grace had to take me to the main office of the Bank of China, as I believe I detailed in another post).

Kunming to Nanjing

So, I had enough RMB (Chinese currency) to pay for the postage and the 1450Y that the flight cost, and enough to pay for the Sunflower Youth Hostel in Nanjing for three nights…but my comfortable reserve soon turned into a dire shortage of currency. But more on that in a minute…

I said goodbye to my friend, Saad…

Saad and Scott parting ways...

…then I got a taxi to the airport and bought a plane ticket. I was very flustered and my bags were in a state of disarray (since I just got my big one back and had sent things from it in the Post Office). I tried to get things together the best I could, but I wasn’t too worried, getting bags and things through airports in China was much easier than in the US, I remembered from my 2007 trip…

…au contrare, mon freir (sp?)…First, in checking my bags, the man would only let me check the large one, not both, because he showed me on the ticket where I had a 20Kg limit, and the bag was about that. I had been able to check both of them when flying from Luoyang to Kunming, so I was totally unprepared to be flatly denied. I thought I could pay more, or something. Finally, he indicated that I should carry it on…

Airport Security

OK, I thought, at least this won’t be as much of a hassle as I thought…oh, boy, was I wrong again…I suppose because of the Olympics, the security lines reminded me very much of the TSA lines in the US…but I wasn’t expecting to carry on the one bag. I had no idea what was in it. I also had a  backpack with a laptop inside, a camera bag and a jacket that had its pockets stuffed with odds and ends…I was as far from ready for a security check as I could possibly be…

So, needless to say, I got flagged to take off my shoes, all while having all my valuables stretched over half of creation after having gone on the X-ray security belt. I tried to put myself together after getting through that as best I could. In fact, everything was getting back to an even keel until we got on the airplane. I checked for my cell phone and couldn’t find it!!!

The only thing I could think of was that, as I was getting all my stuff from security, I missed the basked where I had placed my phone. I informed the stewardess and they let me off the plane to check with security. I thought this would just entail them calling a “lost and found” in security to see if they had gotten a cell phone in…but no…I had to go to the place where the screening was and ask them….while they were busy with a nonstop line of passengers to screen…all this while my plane was due to take off in 10 minutes…and in a foreign language, to boot!!!…

I thought it would be a small disaster if I lost my cell phone, though I could purchase another one and a sim card, this would take time and money and  I couldn’t let anyone know that I didn’t have it until I could send and email and…etc., etc.,…first, the security people after you give up your boarding pass kept my boarding pass to let me go look for the cell phone. The security person at the screening area wouldn’t talk to me, unless I showed him my boarding pass…go figure…so I ran back and they gave it to me…

now the security person at the screening area told me that they had my cell phone at gate 10. I asked, “they have it?” in Chinese, and she reiterated that “Yes, they have it.” I thought, this is very strange (as the gate for my plane was 35), but I ran through the airport like an old OJ Simpson Hertz commercial and got to gate 10…panting and out of breath, I tried to summon my best Chinese to explain to the boarding lady that she apparently had my shouji (cell phone)…she, of course, had no idea what I was talking about, and now there were 6 minutes until flight time…she made a call and told me it was Security gate 10, not Flight gate…and told me to go out and turn right…

So, I ran out and turned right and saw the security gates…thinking that I would be able to run to gate 10, grab my phone, dash to the plane and take off…only to find Security Gates 1-9…

…1-9…I checked again…oh, sh@t, I started to panic a little. I hurriedly asked the people at one of the security gates where security gate 10 was. One of the ladies calmly told me she would take me there. I showed her my boarding pass and showed her the departure time, which made her panic a little. We both double timed it through the airport, back to the original security screening area where I had asked about it in the first place. Five stalls away from the lady that told me to go to gate 10 was…you guessed it…Security Gate 10…damn…at this point, I was worn out and flustered, but happy that I would get my cell phone and not have to tell everyone that I lost another cell phone dealing with airplanes (as I had left one on an airplane in 2007).

Of course, this was not the end…gate 10 didn’t have any cell phone. I was told to have a seat in another gate, while several security people took my boarding pass and intently gazed at a screen about 40 feet away. I thought to myself, whatever happened to the good old lost and found. I would have thought if they had a cell phone, they could have figured it out without all the rigamarole. At the end of it all, they didn’t have it.

I got back on the flight, which they were holding for me, and profusely apologized to the passengers near me, now sweating up a storm and worried about having no cell phone, few RMB and no good plan.

I had two nice ladies from Annhui province who I talked with in Chinese during the flight. And things felt a little better (why worry about what you can’t do anything about?)…

Arriving in Nanjing

Well, when I got my checked bag, I found that I had put my belly bag in there and, yes, it had my cell phone in it. I made it to the hostel without too many issues, and had enough RMB to pay for it with about 350 left. I thought I would be able to find an ATM that would work in Nanjing and everything was working itself out.

That brings me up to Nanjing, which I will discuss in the next post.