Last night at dinner we had no idea that we'd be in for a show as well. Just after ordering the entire restaurant was beckoned into the back to see the snake dance for someone's supper. The French couple just across from us had ordered it and part of the deal was that you get to see it, play with it, watch it slaughtered, drink its blood, eat it and, if you want, take home its skin as a souvenir. I ran back to our seats just as the old cook got out her scissors. The wife kept looking over at us nervously and giggling while she waited for her snake saying, \"you must try everything once.\"
She seemed to have little enthusiasm for the whole affair while her husband was obviously titillated. The first course of their meal was snake soup. If she had exhibited any reticence before it turned to glee upon tasting the broth. \"*C'est bon!*\" they both exclaimed. We retired early in preparation for our last ride in China for a while. We both were hoping for a rural ride and we would have it. First we had to backtrack on Andy's least favorite road in China. After ten kilometers we turned off of it onto a pretty good but crowded dirt road. Everyone from the surrounding villages was arriving to or departing from the market with some form of produce, animal or vegetable dead or living strapped to their bicycle.
Within a few kilometers of leaving the main road the bulk of the traffic dissolved and we were left to see the karst limestone formations of Yangshuo on our own. For the first time in China I felt as though we'd found the countryside. We passed mud brick village after mud brick village. One nice thing about the ride is that there had obviously been some cyclists through before so we weren't plagued by crowds of poking and prodding locals at each stop (with one exception). A few more kilometers and the road lost its level character and we began mounting and descending the sides of the lovely karst formations getting a newfound appreciation for their height.
After our first water stop we hit pay dirt. Across a winding little stream, just off the road an ancient wooden bridge crossed the water. We left the main road to explore it. Clearly it had been grander at one point with benches set into the sides of the covered bridge and an intricate railing. What was left was beautiful. Set against the limestone peaks and an expanse of terraced rice paddies, all that was missing to make the perfect China pastiche was a little kid on the back of a water buffalo playing a flute. (All kidding aside, this was one of the most beautiful riding days since the Croatian coast.) Soon the clouds moved in, shading us from the sun and making the constant ascents and descents all the more pleasant.
As we approached the end of the riding day the only thing we found ourselves wanting for was a little smoother road surface. The roughness did make it all the sweeter when we finally hit pavement again, but not before stopping for water. As soon as we did get off of our bikes we were immediately surrounded by folks of all ages wanting to have a look at our now very dusty selves. The oldest member of the delegation was dead set on Andy giving him his helmet. We sipped water in their store with an audience of ten inside and perhaps forty outside sitting on little stools that barely cleared the floor.
The old one with an interest in the helmet fooled with my bracelet, pulled Andy's leg hairs and prodded my tattoo while we drank. Finally as we were getting ready to pedal back to Yangshuo he made his last desperate plea for the helmet. This time he produced a rather scrungy five yuan note and indicated he wanted to buy it. I couldn't resist. I was planning on buying a new one in the States anyway so I traded my helmet for the five yuan (less than a dollar) and made his day. Just a few meters after the store we rejoined the road and deeply appreciated the smoothness of the bitumen.
Riding the last eight kilometers into Yangshuo we realized where the tourists who had rented bikes were going. There were three or four huge signs advertising various caves with throngs of vendors trying to sell postcards, water and other items to the arriving travelers. We sped by a few on their way to these sites knowing we'd seen part of \"real\" China already. After nearly a month in the States I found myself missing the road again. I always start to feel pangs for it after a week or so of being off the bikes. Maybe some chemical that my body makes while we ride becomes depleted then?
Whatever the cause it was rather severe by the time we left. Not so severe that we couldn't stay for one extra day ... As we arrived at the airport we discovered that Andy had left his handlebar bag at our friends' house. Dante rose to the occasion, rushed home for the bag and zipped out to the airport to deliver it. To his surprise, instead of grabbing the bag and dashing for our plane, we piled into his car for another day in Tinseltown. The next day I found that Asia was not so far away. From the moment we stepped on the plane I felt I was back.
Arriving at our assigned seats we discovered that a Chinese family had ensconced themselves there. Under no circumstances were they going to move nor was the in-flight staff willing to help mediate the dispute. Finally the flight's purser intervened at my insistence and won our place back. The other taste of Asia was how our fellow passengers boarded the plane. When the ground personnel called the flight the entire waiting lounge stood and bolted to the gate trampling, shoving kicking anything that lay in their path. On the plane I was a casualty of this phenomenon. A nun knocked me out of the way looking for her seat, muttering something under her breath (which I imagined as being \"You foreign devil stand aside!\") The decibel level of speech increased dramatically as passengers shouted at one another loud enough to be heard in their home country, and we hadn't even left the terminal at LAX.
When we finally arrived in Hong Kong we connected with a Chinese friend we'd met in Paris. Dennis had been studying fashion there and now was in the bag business in his hometown. He led us on a tour of queer Hong Kong. Winding up the steep streets we arrived at a bar that was more Britannic than Chinese. When we found that Dennis was the only person of Chinese descent in the place we headed for yellower pastures. Propaganda was just that. More dimly lit, louder music and a hipper and decidedly Asiatic crowd made it more interesting for us and less for Dennis as he yawned over his sixth glass of white wine.
I can't figure out how he does it? Dennis seems to have a nearly infinite capacity for alcohol. Not once did I hear his speech slur nor did he show any other signs of physical intoxication. I was feeling droopy after just a few beers and a scotch later I was well greased up. The night ended relatively early with a frighteningly fast taxi ride back to our hotel in Kowloon bathed in the neon that is Hong Kong. The next day we were off to Macau. (one day was more than enough in HK's consumer haven for this traveler). We'd decided to take the subway to the catamaran terminal, which turned out to be more work than I'd anticipated.
Hauling all of our goods and the various chunks of bicycle through the maze of underground passages rendered my shoulders and back sore. By the time we arrived in Macau I could barely stand. From our vantage on the boat and from the taxi on the shore I was most unimpressed by Macau. I anticipated a quaint little peninsula that melded all the charms of Chinese society with those of Portugal. Cobblestone streets through Asian influenced colonial buildings, rickshaw porters prancing by espresso bars and elegant Monte Carloesque casinos populated by happy gambling Hong Kongers on holiday were among my misguided preconception.
Reality was a disastrous raping of the peninsula with horrific concrete high rises piled on top of barren landfills, noisy honking taxis racing down characterless streets and sweaty fearful and serious Chinese frittering away their life savings at massive boring casinos. I was not completely disappointed, however. Our evening walk revealed some of the more charming old Chinese neighborhoods and some well-preserved colonial ones. Along the way we stopped to watch the Malaysians play the Macanese at soccer in a massive football stadium. The next day we walked to the colony's hallmark church façade. Japanese monks who had been persecuted in their homeland and had fled had built the church.
An eerie exhibit displayed their bones at the outdoor museum that has been constructed on the site. Above the church stands a fort and the home of the fantastically presented Macau museum. Its entryway presents the cultural, religious, political, economic and scientific developments of Asia and the west in parallel. Andy and I both wondered if the panel discussing the benefits of democracy will survive re-unification with China next year. Atop the fort we stopped to watch master swordsmen and women practice their art on the ramparts. One man was so swift of sword I feared walking by, imagining that one of his strokes might take off an arm or some other appendage.
His huge chromed lance glinted and whooshed as he shouted and advanced on his imaginary opponent. We spent only only one full day in Macau before resuming our journey back to our bikes. The trip back to Siegfried and Roy took us across the border to China's SEZ (special economic zone; read \"place of frenzied capitalistic search for money\") of Zhuhai. We walked for what seemed like miles to get to the Chinese border. Aside for the massive hike, crossing there was far simpler than when we entered from Vietnam the last time. From the frontier the Zhuhai airport was a long and (by PRC standards) expensive cab ride.
There forty-five gates and a massive airfield stood behind the air terminal. In the cavernous terminal there were but fifty passengers in the place and as many small stores, each selling the very same goods. All of the folks in the airport were on our plane and when we finally boarded we were all fighting our way to the same part of the plane. Curiously the airline had chosen to put everyone in the same section, the very back. The airplane itself was a rotting old Boeing 737, nearly busting at its well-worn seams with so many seats I found it absurd and nearly physically possible.
They could have offered pre-boarding leg amputations so we could actually fit ourselves in the crevasses they called aisles. I became nearly hysterically claustrophobic when I found myself in a center seat between Andrew and the largest Chinese man (after Mao). I hustled up to the front and found my own row in the empty front part of the plane, leaving Andrew cowering in the back with the chairman. Luckily the plane did not fall out of the sky on the short hop to Guilin. There I found myself relieved to be back in familiar territory. We found standard cabby crookery at the airport, where taxi drivers told us that we'd have to use them to get to town because the busses were out of service.
In contrast to their flimsy story we found the airport bus waiting for us and twenty times cheaper than the cabs. We'd decided to experience the trip from Guilin to Yangshuo by boat rather than by car or bus. Neither of us wanted to face a ride on the road that was fifty percent complete and one-hundred percent crammed with honking traffic. Though everyone told us we could somehow save 20 agoutis by some weird scheme if we'd only visit their nasty calligraphy studio we booked our own tickets for the next day. We boarded the bus the next morning and it felt like we stopped at every hotel in town picking up one other occidentals at each.
The river port looked like the entry of Disneyland on a holiday weekend morning. There were seemingly huge numbers of people all cramming through the terminal to the massive lineup of boats. We were a mixed bag of folks on our little underpowered floating luncheonette on water. A British couple, a few Virginians and Andy and me shared a table. The Brits were extremely friendly but anything they said was articulated as though they had a mouthful of porridge. My head tired from nodding at what they said having grown weary of saying \"what\" after each of their happy outbursts. The Virginians didn't really seem like they realized they were actually in China but in some suburb of DC looking for a McDonald's.
The husband sat at our table and guzzled down all of the beer while poking at the curious stuff in front of us we called food. When he was finally drunk enough he dove into the tofu, probably mistaking it for custard. We did meet a god-like Austrian Olympic athlete and his dad who, like us, opted to stay up on deck and soak up the magnificent karsty scenery. The ride itself was a little frightening. Unlike the last time we'd been in Guilin the river was looking a little low on its banks. It seemed barely wide enough for a canoe much less our diner-on-a-boat.
The flotilla of boats wound their way down river single file. Occasionally when a boat came in the other direction we'd pass so closely as almost to rub. Back in Yangshuo we were quick to pick up our bikes and gear. The gear had been stored in the office of Bing, the PSB's (Public Safety Bureau's) captain of the tourist division. To reward him for his assistance we invited him for dinner. When we came to pick him up at the police station he introduced a woman we both assumed was his teenage daughter. We were both confused when he used the endearing term \"honey\".
It turned out to be his wife. She was twenty-three and to our surprise Bing was only 35. There were a few funny moments at our meal. First, when Bing started to quiz us about the \"Monica\" affair I told him I was embarrassed about it. I've never heard someone change the subject so fast. I suppose he was trying to help me save face. The next one was a little more disturbing. Our conversation at dinner was all over the map but somehow for a few moments centered on crime and justice. I suppose it was that we told Bing about how safe we felt in China that brought us there.
Bing launched into an incredibly gruesome tale of an unfortunate German hiker. He had been assaulted by two robbers while mounting a nearby hill. He refused to turn over his money so the thugs tossed him off the side of the slope nearly killing him. (which leads you to the obvious question \"Why didn't he just give them the money?\") Enter Bing who heroically captured the crooks. When asked about what happened to the criminals, Bing proudly replied that they were shot. The next night we'd planned dinner with the industrious Mr. Billy. His internet café and computer school is surely one of the most happening spots in Yangshuo.
He'd not only let us update our website from his café but stored our bikes while we were away. They'd been in the barren attic of his shop that was the home of one or more of his employees. His wife was so pregnant she seemed about to burst. Andy wanted one more dose of western cuisine so we took them to our friend Charlie's Red Star Café. The waitress (famous in Yangshuo for her height and general gorgeousness) insisted that Billy's wife try something western as well and ordered her a pizza. It seemed like a bad idea to us because she had stated that she hated cheese.
When it arrived we weren't surprised that she ate only a few bites before moving on to something tamer. The next day we were \"invited\" to grand opening of a college run by Mr. Billy's brother Owen. In our shorts and t-shirts we were somehow considered dignitaries and included on the stage next to professors and party members. It was at the same time amusing and boring listening to the speeches made by everyone involved. The funniest and scariest moment was when the dean of the college spoke of China's plans for America. \"We must catch up with America...and then take over.\"
Afterwards there was a luncheon held at a fancy banquet restaurant. There the beer flowed freely and some more unusual dishes were served. One was an entire plate of cock's comb in a brown sauce. I looked with horror at the red floppy bits of flesh off the head of a chicken while the grungy foul mouthed Brit at our table munched happily at them exclaiming \"mmmmm, tastes just like gristle.\" Later a big plate of \"bee worms\" that had been battered and deep-fried appeared. The larva (some mature bees as well) were crunchy and tasteless. During this course the Brit decided to tell the story of his American girlfriend he'd met in Greece.
He shared the fact that she was a \"superb shag\" much to the horror of the rather stately American woman seated on my right. Joy and her husband (whom she represented at the banquet) were the only Americans living in Yangshuo. She wowed us with her story of how she and her husband got their photo taken with the president on his visit to the hamlet. Somehow the statuesque waitress of the Red Star Café caught Clinton's eye at that moment and she was included in the photograph as well. To her chagrin the Lewinski scandal made her the butt of more than a few jokes on the subject.
After lunch we staggered through town full of exotic food and beer trying to find our bikes for an afternoon ride. When we finally did mount them I was suddenly high again. We pedaled over dirt roads around the huge tree-covered karsts and happy peasants. I'd forgotten how at home I felt on a bike. It emphasized how dorky and clumsy I feel traveling without it. Once we were back in town we passed the Red Star Café where we met the owner, Charlie and his antipodean girlfriend Julie. They were fascinated by our bikes and our trip and Charlie, though never having ridden more than 40 kilometers in a day, was challenged by Julie to join us on our next day's ride.