Mostly about Mac and Cissie
Trip Start
Jan 09, 2009
1
4
44
Trip End
Feb 23, 2009
Mengla, Yunnan, China
Monday, January 12, 2009
Firstly, we landed in a backstreet bottleneck, stymied by a load of kindergarten, or was it primary school kids, who dominated the road as the entrance to their school was right on it. If we'd tried to push through all the other associated vehicles, the car wouldn't need a metal crusher. Mac, despite all his meticulous efforts with the hostel staff, still couldn't find the correct highway down to the border, stopping here and there, opening the electronic window to ask locals at the side of the road for directions.
Once rounded up onto the correct highway, dismal drizzle occurred prompting Cissy to open her window in true Chinese style, letting in the freezing drafts and not having the courtesy to ask if anyone objected. This is something Chinese love to do, keep windows and doors open in freezing temperatures without closing them. It keeps the skin healthy, apparently.
This predictable behaviour soon had me objecting:
"Cissy, it's freezing. Would you mind shutting the window?"
"OK, oh, sorry!"
Thinking of closing it was something she intended doing after awhile anyway had me regretting my outburst. She was a bit hyper, hysterical, loud. Given the students I have, mostly girls, who are also of this temperament, and noisy, got me thinking:
"Oh, here we go again. Is there any getting away from them."
She vaunted an attack on Mac. "I DON'T LIKE HIM!! and repeatedly slapped his arm, jabbering back and forth in Chinese, and kept me well out of the proceedings by saying, she couldn't speak English. Loman knew enough Mandarin to join in any fluent small talk.
It turned out that Mac and Cissy had got together by chatting online, and his designs on her had them traveling together. He even persuaded her to come with him as far as Laos to see how serious his flirtation would go, despite that he was married with a teenage daughter. It seemed, though, that she had other ideas.
We stopped off for a toilet break and to buy some snacks at a service station. Further down the motorway, the weather began to get significantly warmer and sunnier where we bought some juicy green star fruit from roadside vendors. Cissy eventually rejected a few which also eventually had me retrieving them. 'Waste not want not' is a good motto to live by.
Cruising down through the rolling hills of Xichuanbanha and Jiehong which we saw virtually nothing of due to the speed at which we were going, it was becoming evident that this wouldn't be the off the beaten track travel experience I'd sort of hoped for. However, time, money and circumstances also played a big part. Still, it was enough that I'd extricated myself from the environmental rut I was conditioned in. Travel is as much about becoming psychologically 'unattached' as 'attached,' and is also about 'finding out' about the world of oneself, quoting and according to the Indian sage Krishnamurti. I'd experienced some inner pain to break free. Shocks should invariably help an evolutionary process. In fact, the only way to experience truer travel is really to do it off your own bat, spend more time at it, become more unattached.
The only things of note were passing over the world's highest bridge, apparently, and stopping at a wild elephant sanctuary. No elephants!!
After a long day, we arrived in Mengla and soon found a cheap Chinese hotel. At 40 Yuan per room with two beds, I shared a room with Loman.
We all got together and had a barbecue served by roadside vendors with a few beers at hand from a nearby store. I was getting further involved in this close circle, or was it a tangled web? Time would tell. The proprietor of the hotel gave us a fitting Chinese send-off where we toasted each other's happiness. Chinese know how to link with each other well, better than Westerners.
Walking along the main street where our hotel was situated, Loman couldn't help remarking about the prostitute parlors frequently placed along it:
"Prostitution's supposed to be illegal in China. But there are all these. I've seen others, too."
It's not the only institution where laws are conveniently disregarded, and Mengla's a small town.
Such was our last night in China, and mine for at least a few weeks.
