After touring around Songpan (松潘), we continued our journey back to Chengdu (成都). our next stop was Maoxian (茂縣), where we were to visit some friends we met in Ruoergai (若爾蓋 - refer to the previous Ruoergai entries).
"Alright, I did most of the hitchhiking work yesterday - let's let Jerry get us a ride today!" Larry announced, just as an SUV with plenty of empty room in the back passed by, before any of us could react.
"Fair enough," I looked forward to the challenge, though it was unfortunate we missed a good chance just by a few seconds.
So we start walking, and at the sound of a car coming, I would turn my head back, and stick out my thumb. But every time, I turned a bit too late, and the driver wasn't prepared to stop in time.
So Larry gave a few pointers:
"The key is to make sure you give the drivers enough time to react after they see you. That means you can't just surprise them by turning around at the last minute. This is how you do it -
1. While it's fine that to keep walking when there's no cars around, when you hear a car, you must turn around and stop right away.
2. Then point out your thumb and smile warmly, and finally,
3. Make eye contact with the driver and front passengers.
You're not stopping fast enough, and you keep walking backwards even when you see the car. That confuses the driver."
"But didn't you say yesterday that people admire those with an independent spirit, those who help themselves by pushing forward fearlessly regardless of whether they stop to pick them up or not, instead of those desperate leechers who merely stand by the side of the road? And didn't you say the reason we got picked up so fast yesterday was because people admired the fact that we wore our shorts in the cold?"
"Yes, that's true, but they need to understand your intentions too. You can't send mixed signals. They will see us walking on the side of the road from afar, but by the time they get near, we have to stop completely and face them."
Larry was right. I felt a chill, and decided to put on some long pants, though I shed the coat to reveal my short sleeves, as I felt we still needed to be a bit "威風" in order to have something to attract the attention/pity/admiration of kind-hearted drivers.
Soon, we heard the sound of another vehicle, and so I assumed the position:
The vehicle came to a stop. It was a huge orange truck:
"The passenger opened the door and said, "We're not going all that far - our house is just up ahead. However, if you want, you guys can hop in."
We all climbed up and piled into the seats, which was high above the wheels. They carried us several hundred meters before they had to veer off to a dirt path:
We thanked them, got off, and continued on. Occasionally cars did stop, though most of them wanted money. At least two of them asked for 300 RMB (100 RMB each). We declined. Along the way, there were villagers with their houses by the road. We waveed and greeted them as we passed. They looked as us curiously.
Finally, we flagged down on a bread van that asked for 60 RMB, after some negotiation. We hopped in.
The van was quite full:
There were about 10 of us. The driver made stops along the way, as people got off at their houses or wherever they were going:
On the way, we chatted briefly with one of the passengers, a Mr. Yue (越).
"Why don't we sing you a few songs?" Larry suggested.
"That would be great!" Mr. Yue was enthusiastic. "Is that okay with everyone?" No one voiced any objections.
"Alright, let us sing a few songs from different countries. First, here is a folk song from the United States." We sung our rendition of "Take Me Home, Country Road" and was met with warm applause.
"Why don't we do a song from Vietnam?" We performed Silver Canoe (I'm not sure if it is Vietnamese in origin, but that's besides the point), and again was greeted with a favorable response, so Larry pushed for one more. "We're going to end with one from our home, Taiwan." I wasn't clear on the words here, but I tried my best to follow along on "In the Springtime (春天里):"
春天里來百花香，
郎里格朗里格朗里格朗，
和暖的太陽在天空照，
照到了我的破衣裳，
朗里格朗朗里格朗，
穿過了大街走小巷，
為了吃來為了穿，
朝夕都要忙。
...
In the springtime flowers bloom,
Lang, li ge lang, li ge lang, li ge lang.
With the warm sun shining in the sky,
Shining on my worn-out clothes,
Lang yi ge lang, lang li ge lang,
Passing by streets to reach alleys,
To have enough to survive,
Work must start at dawn.
...
We continued to sing to our hearts content. In no time, we were there. The van dropped us off in Taiping (太平, about 60 km out from Songpan, almost halfway to Maoxian), a small town that the road cuts thru.
It is not too far from Diexi (疊溪), a village that was submerged under a quake-lake in 1933, the year of the last large Sichuan earthquake before this year's.
We paid and got off, and continued walking in the same direction. There was a strange guy wearing glasses and dressed in a white collared shirt, carrying a book.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"To Maoxian," we replied.
A few others overheard, and started offering us rides.
"Good sirs, come with me - I'll take you to Maoxian in no time."
"I'll do it for just 300 RMB!"
"No thanks," we replied. Their prices were ridiculous - after all, we were nearly halfway there already, and their prices were about the same as at Songpan.
"You'll never make it there without our help! These are the best prices you'll find!"
We ignored them and continued walking, betting that we would eventually find cars we can flag down and hitch a ride with.
About 10 minutes after we had walked out of Taiping, we heard someone running towards us. It was the slightly odd fellow carrying a book! He chased us down to join us on our walk. His name was Mr. Qi (戚). Apparently he was a student of architecture who had graduated recently. After working six months in Shanghai, he came to Sichuan to help out with rebuilding houses after the earthquake. He had been here two months, and appears to be a little lonely, since he was surrounded by country peasants for the most part. In fact, it seems he had rushed out to join us for no other reason than to chat with us! He said that he’ll just walk to the next bridge and take the bus back to Taiping.
Just then, a tractor pulling a cart came by, and we waved it down. "Unfortunately, we are only going to the road up a few hundred meters ahead, so we can't take you very far." Regardless, we jumped on, along with Mr. Qi, and sputtered down the road with the driver and his passenger:
30 seconds, later, we got off. Apparently it wasn't clear that the ride was going to be that short. It took more time and effort to get into and out of the truck than to ride it for that distance!
As the road wound into the mountain, we continued talking and chatting with Mr. Qi. He opted to continue on walking with us for a bit longer as we got deeper into conversation. Mr. Qi said he came here through his architecture firm to learn more about helping out in disaster recovery and rebuilding efforts. He helps design new houses for those affected by the earthquake. The whole project is funded partially by the government, but mostly by a couple wealthy Taiwanese through Tsinghua University, since it is difficult, due to the political environment, to grant the money directly. While the government has been very willing and open to accept outside help when disaster first struck, as the situation stabilized and media coverage lessened, they have been systematically trying to minimize outside help (and therefore outside influence). Mr. Qi goes on to explain why so many houses collapsed: “The structure in these houses was very weak and primitive. They build their houses with rocks, pretty much just stacked on top of each other above ground, with little or no foundation. It’s no wonder when the earthquake hit the houses would collapse.”
As we talked, we also tried to flag down cars, though without any luck. One car stopped, but kept going, changing his mind after hitting the breaks. After a few more minutes, Mr. Qi says he needs to head back, and thanked us for our company. We bid him farewell and continued on. He had walked with us for a good half an hour for no discernable purpose other than to make conversation.
We passed by a few folks building a house:
I wanted to ask them if they wanted help, but it was getting late Baba and Larry were walking ahead pretty fast. After another 10 minutes or so, we managed to get a black sedan to stop. Two guys were in the front seats, and they let us join them. They were going to Diexi, which was just up several kilometers ahead. Soon, we spotted the Diexi quake lake:
While the current Diexi village is near the lake, the entire old village of Diexi is still covered by the water.
A few minutes later, the driver got to his destination Diexi and let us out.
"You know, it is getting late. We are going to Maoxian tomorrow, so if you want, you can stay here in Diexi today. We can help you find a place to stay for the night."
"Thank you for your offer, but we are planning to get into Maoxian today."
"Sure?"
"I'm sure we can hitch another ride. How far do we still have to go?"
"It's another 73 km."
We walked on, next to the quake lake, which was majestic in its scale. The Min River (岷江), which was really quite small back up in Songpan, had exploded into a huge reservoir here. A boatman was rowing on the lake.
Perhaps someday we can come back and visit to do the same.
It was getting dark, and we feared that it would be harder to get a ride. However, Larry said that in his experience, hitching a ride in the dark might actually be easier, as people want to help travelers in distress.
Luckily, right at dusk, we managed to catch a passing car. The driver Mr. Yu (余)and his wife were in the front seats, driving an otherwise empty bread van. They asked for 60 RMB, and we accepted. The road got progressively worse as we neared Maoxian. There were mounds of dirt on one side of the road or the other, and it was a chore for the driver to either swerve around them or go over them.
We arrived at Maoxian an hour later, well after dark. We thanked the driver and his wife, and paid them before going off on our way.
Maoxian didn’t look all that damaged at first, which surprised us since the roads to the city were so bad. Pretty much all the buildings looked unscathed, and there were electric lights on the streets, even people dancing together in the square, forming a large circle dance. Furthermore, we were impressed with its size – it was a much bigger city than we thought. It was larger than Diexi and Taiping for sure, but probably Ruoergai and Songpan as well. It looked far more modern too, with fashionable clothing shops catering to the middle to upper middle class.
Next, we searched for a hotel. We found one that was extremely cheap – 15 RMB for the doubles room that Baba and I shared, and Larry took a singles bed room for 10 RMB. The rooms were pretty worn, but useable:
In summary, our afternoon of hitchhiking ended up being much more challenging than yesterday. We took 5 rides, 3 of them free:
Songpan - truck ride short distance
Songpan -> Taiping (60 RMB) with 10 people
Taiping - short ride in back of pickup truck
Taiping -> Diexi free ride with 2 guys in sedan
Diexi -> Maoxian (60 RMB) with a couple
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