I've been noticing a trend....countries and poop...man what has my world evolved too? NOT GOOD TOILETS..that's for sure.

So I visited a Tibetan horse festival, but soon realized we, the westerners, were the main attraction. Every second was filled with stares, touches, and just huge smiles. At first, people seemed afriad of us, but i soon realized they needed to feel our ease to feel at ease themselves, and soon enough everyone was having a good time. I have picked up quite a bit of useful phrases in tibetan..and am happy to say although I'm not fluent in Mandarin Chinese, I can get by with what I know...and i can't bleieve it! I never thought Id be able to speak this tonal language of death. This festival was amazing, as I saw many tibetans in their traditional clothing. Walking into this region was like opening the neverending box of crayons..so many colors..it was just beautiful.

the next day, i planned, and succesfully saw a sky burial. i woke up at 7 am, climbed up this monastary mountain for an hour, in order to watch 5 tibetans hack a man to bits, and feed him to vultures. I was far away (out of respect), that I didn't see many details. but I heard the noises, i saw the chunks of human flesh being thrown about, and I saw the vultures with their red blood stained beaks fest upon their long-awaited dinner. It was a wierd experience, but i am glad I went. It's a cyclical thing, that when kept in mind, makes it something quite gruesomly beautiful.

That day day, me and 5 others rented a 4x4 truck to take us south towards more smaller villages. Our first stop was Tangke, otherwise known as "the first estuary of the zig zag yellow river". yes im not kidding. this town sucked, as it felt like a real ghost town, but seemed to going through some major development for some unseen residents. after major stomache pains, bad sleep, and cold toes, we woke up at 7 am to catch a bus southward to Barkham, upon the suggestion of another traveller . The town was so absolutely deserted this early in the morning that we found ourselves in a real bind: we had 15 minutes to make it to an intersection 2 km away, in the middle of nowhere, where the bus would supposedly pick us up, and no taxi's in sight. With what few people we saw, we begged them to help us out, but they wouldn't. Finally a man with a tractor passed us and we desperate flagged him down. Needless to say, minutes later, 5 of us are on top of a poop filled tractor bed, with our huge backpacks on, speeding down the road at a mind boggling 0.0065 km an hour towards this intersection. Then in the distance, we see the bus, moving perpendicular to us. We urged our tractor driver on, as we tried desperatly to wave this bus down..it was just something out of a movie...we made it to the intersection with about -2 seconds to spare, to find out it wasn't even our bus...WHEW relief? yeah right. china does not spell relief. so we sat around, and far off in the distance we see another bus and are ecstatic that we haven't missed our bus at all! so the bus rounds the corner, we get up, the bus gets closer, we put our rucksacks on, the bus is within 50 feet, we begin walking, the bus zooms RIGHT PAST us, and we stand there with our jaws dropped. apparently there is no room for us, and they just left us there..2 km away from anything worth spitting on, except the hole in the ground toilet in the petrochina station which is now my new best fiend. i hate this town so much. i hate the bus drivers. we flagged down a man in a van, who agreed to take us for way less than the bus would have even cost us..stupid stupid stupid busses.

Barkham turned out to be an amazing adventure filled with tons of hiking that reminded me of New Zealand. One day in the town square, me and one of the girls jumped into this local tibetan line dancing activity for the hell of it, and drew quite a crowd as the women attempted to teach us this dance...Then the first day we went for a hike, we ended up crashing a festival at the base of some mountain. Because we were foreigners, we were now the guest of honors. We partook in the dance activities, and did so succesfully thanks to our random lessons we had the night before....then..we were invited into the politicians and police officials tent..where they offered us endless amounts of alcohol, and paid for our dinner bill. Then we had an entertainment-off, where we took turns singing for each other. I can't believe I was standing in the middle of this tent, performing for the top officials. I repeatedly had to say I didn't drink alcohol to get them to stop pestering me, but once they got the point, they endlessly filled my shot glass with orance and sparkling apple juice..man life is just grand. well it was grand... yes..i have finally fell victim to what other travellers fear most...food poisoning. The things i eat here in china consist of fruit, vegetables, tofu, and rice. I can no longer eat vegetables or tofu..at least not chinese style..so Im down to fruit and rice.. its bad enough chinese people stare becuase im foreign but now they think im insane for just eating white rice...man WHO ASKED THEM?! No amount of anything would ever get me to experience what I had to, in the presences of squatting hole in the ground toilets, and long bus journeys...my god its everyone's worst nightmare...but now that I've cleared it out of the way, looks like I'm home free!

so the next day, we headed south to Chengdu. I made it into Chengdu, and nearly dropped onto my knees with tears when I saw a bathroom that was not a hole, and toilet paper to accompany it..and most of all..a sink with soap afterwards. too bad i couldn't find this in my food poisoned state..but all in all..this is a rarity. I can't believe it...the ability to feel human again..to feel undiseased, and unbacterialized...i don't ever want to leave my current state....but that wasn't the main attraction of chengdu for me...that would be the Panda breeding research center. Pandas are, by far, THE cutest animals on earth. I want one soooo bad...

The stopover in Chengdu was only brief, as our main purpose there was just to catch a bus north again to Songpan, for a 3-day horse trek which was fun as hell. The 8 hour bus ride ended up taking 15.5 hours, as landslides and roadblocks are everywhere during this time of the year in China. One thing is straight: I do not hate anything in life as much as I hate Chinese Bus Drivers. It's like they see nothing on the road other than bumper stickers that say "Honk if you're human/breathing/hungry/male/female/bored/driving/smoking/spitting/barfing/ cursing/screaming or just stupid" They can't let off the horn for five seconds. After 1 hour on these buses, you are ready to scream your lungs out, but it wouldn't matter. No one would hear you over the freaking horns. It's so irritating, especially when you're busy concentrating on how to stay out of the way of projectile vomiting passengers. Once I got to songpan, i was ready to kill the next moving object that came into my vision..so the best thing to just sleep and pretend this day never existed. We organized our horse trek for the next morning, and took off at around 8 am. Riding a horse for three days can you leave you feeling a little bit sore in the arse, but well worth it. We camped under the open stars next to a river, and rode horses all day to an ice mountain. China is so beautiful, in these rural areas.

After the trek, it was time to take another long busride back to Chengdu. I was so nervous at this point, that I would get stuck in another death trap bus..but this one wasn't so bad. it wasn't the most comfortable bus, as the seats were falling apart, and the windows were held together by screws and L-brackets, but it wasn't 15.5 hours, so I was smiling. Except when i feel asleep, and ended up getting stuck by a bee on my forehead. Not so bad if that had been it, but I repeatedly hit it agains the window in my narcoleptic state, so I now am the proud owner of a hard red bump on my head Id like to call annoying.

So here I am, in Chengdu, trying to contemplate my next move..but enjoying a day or two of just rest, knitting, movies, sleep, and most of all, clean clothes. This is the first machine wash I have done in a month, and man did my clothes need it.

One more month until Ireland. Today is my official 6th month mark of my travels. I can't believe I have been gone that long, but yet it seems like nothing. Halfway there baby, halfway there.