How Did I Get Here?

Streetsign in Chengdu

Think of France and you have more cultural associations than you can wave a baguette at. The same goes for Italy; the cheek pinching Mamma, pizza, or maybe its most famous export, the Mafia. Each country has its emblems, cultural or not (just stay with me here). China is no exception. Mao’s flabby profile, dancing dragons and pandas, are probably some of the images which come to mind. For me personally, the reigning emblem of China is something far more humble. Enter the Thermos Flask. The people’s flask contains the mother’s milk of the biggest nation on earth, namely hot water.

[read on]

The morning I left Litang the industrious street cleaners were already at work: two tubby pot-bellied pigs sniffing at the pavement curb and meticulously consuming all the rubbish in their way. It gives recycling a whole new dimension…

The bus dropped me off in Kangding, a forgetable but convenient cross roads town used for passing through and not discovering. The town equivalent of a one-night stand. Nestled deep in the folds of a valley, its life force is a torrentious river coursing through its centre.
The only notable event happened on my last night just before I fell asleep. I kept on hearing scraping, shuffling noises outside the window, I thought it was people coming back to their rooms. Finally I got up and looked through my window which overlooked a narrow alley. To my utter horror I looked down on a man’s head, climbing up the wall (I was on the 2nd floor), towards my open window. With the volume pumped up to max, my voice was my only weapon: “Hey, what are you doing??”, I hollered at the faceless intruder. Thank god spiderman didn’t think it necessary to answer my idiotic enquiery into his crepuscular activities. It was enough to change his mind and he lurched onto the other side of the alley wall, scrambled onto the roof, and melted back into the amorphous darkness.
I had to tie the window closed with my shoelaces, as the iron pegs were missing (from a previous burglary?). While doing so it dawned on me that I have no problems in dealing with a prospective burglar, but confronted with a cockroach in my room, I’m reduced to a pathetic, hysterical wreck who has to accost complete strangers to kill or get rid of the harmless ‘tresspasser’.
I’ll be the one in the safari park that would rather throw herself into the jaws of a lion than stay in the car with a grasshopper. [read on]

Thurs-Sunday, 14-17 June The hope of an easy day's ride to Xiancheng vanished with the end of the paved road, just outside Zhongdian. The lady selling tickets to Xiancheng, under 200km from Zhongdian , informed me it would take 9 hours. ... [Continue reading this entry]

Sun-Wed, 10-13 June 2007 I never thought I'd miss Vietnamese men in any way. But I was wrong. On the bus to Zhongdian I fervently longed for their compact, small frames. In comparison, Chinese blokes match their country when it comes ... [Continue reading this entry]

Fri-Sat, 1-2 June 2007 I heard about the Tiger Leaping Gorge before even setting foot in China. So has everyone else it seems. It's one of the deepest gorges in the world, measuring 3900m from the waters of the Yangzi River ... [Continue reading this entry]

[caption id="attachment_42" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="a hybrid religious building, Dali. A chemple?"][/caption]Sat-Tues, May 26-29 2007 A frightening thing is happening...I'm beginning to sound more and more like a reborn Christian. The amount of times ... [Continue reading this entry]

Gateway to the new Thurs-Friday (24-25 May 2007) The smutty “guesthouse” (frankly, it would make a crack den look stylish) where I crashed for my first night in Kunming, overlooked one of the busiest roads. Strangely, ... [Continue reading this entry]

I've built up quite a reputation for being able to sleep everywhere and through anything. I fell asleep during my first tatoo, I slept through the cinema screening of The Excorcist, and even nodded off at the back of a ... [Continue reading this entry]