Alright, so I admit the last post ended in a rather weak cliffhanger, as nobody (including the people in the story) actually cared that much whether or not we were going to catch the bus. Moving on...
"It'll be no problem," said the taxi driver. "We should be at the bus station in 10 minutes." And so we arrived at there at 7:50am, well in time before the 8am departure. We took the back two rows of the bus, which was almost full. In fact, by the time the last passengers, three girls from Shenzhen, got on the bus, they had no choice but to sit next to us.
Larry whispered to Baba, "Are you ready to sing with me?"
"Sure. What songs do you know?"
"More songs than you!"
"Perhaps... but mayby only 3 more songs than me!"
"Ha! Anyhow, let me ask the driver if it's okay."
And so Larry checked up front for permission from the driver. He came back to his seat gleefully with a thumbs up. Turning to one of the Shenzhen girls sitting next to him, he remarked, "Prepare your hearts. In a little bit, you're going to hear us make some very... strange noises in the back."
Already slightly uncomfortable due to having to split apart and sit in different seats, the girls looked even more so as Larry heightened their anxiety, but anxiety gave way to curiosity and amusement as their interest was piqued.
And so we were off. Given I failed to sleep an appropriate number of hours the night before, I tried dozing off against the side of the window, but I had picked the wrong side of the bus to sit on, and the merciless morning sun constantly disturbed my nap. Meanwhile, the "strange sounds" started coming out of the back seat, as Larry and Baba started singing away their mountaineering songs:
銀色的渡木舟﹐
飄蕩在綠波上﹐
對岸是我家鄉﹐
美麗安詳﹐
山上麋鹿成群﹐
路旁百花齊放。
硼地地來的﹐硼地地來的﹐硼地地來的﹐硼嘿﹗
My silver wooden boat,
Bobbing above green waves,
'Cross the shore's my hometown,
Nice and serene,
On the hills are some deer,
By the road flowers bloom.
Bong didi laidi, Bong didi laidi, Bong didi laidi, bong - hey!
Unable to sleep, I couldn't help but join in myself, even though I didn't know the words then. The Shenzhen girl next to me looked at me in surprise as she realized I was with "them." Then when we finished, the entire bus burst into spontaneous applause. Larry and Baba continued singing song after song, receiving applause and buoying the spirits of the entire bus, although there were a couple people moved from the back up to the front. Even the Shenzhen girls too were impressed too; they had postulated what we meant by "strange noises" was snoring!
We came upon a rest stop an hour or so later. The driver announced we'll be taking a 20 minute break, and we were all surprised. However, 2 minutes in, he was hurrying everyone back onto the bus. Maybe I misunderstood his Sichuan accent, but then so did Larry and a lot of other Sichuanese. After most of us got on, Larry stepped to the front and call out:
"Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please. I'm so happy to be here with all of you on this journey, and share our songs and voices with you. Do you like our singing?"
The bus people responded with waves of affirmative murmurs.
"Then in that case, I will be taking donations!" Taking off his hat and turned it upside down to collect money, he continued, "However, there is a minimum imposed! I don't want your small change! If you give, you give willingly and generously!" Though he walked back to his seat no richer, we were all the richer for the experience.
A few hours into the journey, we stopped to take pictures at a scenic point in Aba County (啊坝):
As we finished taking pictures of ourselves and scenery, a hoard of people rushed up Larry, treating him as a celebrity:
"Can I take a picture of/with you?", they begged.
"You want my picture? Where's the money?" Larry joked. They snapped pictures of him:
Off the bus, we also mingled with another fellow bus traveler, a Japanese guy by the name of Keiji. He was traveling all over the world by himself, and had been doing so for 2 years; about a month already in China, even though he cannot speak Chinese, and his English is rudimentary at best. Having already been to Latin America, South America, Africa, and Europe, and after China is looking to go to India, Nepal, and Central Asia, I marvelled at how this dude in his thirties actually manages to do this and still has his engineering career:
Later, at another stop, we stopped for lunch, inviting Keiji to come eat with us, as all the dishes were served family style. We then bought some local fruit - bananas, oranges, and a kind of date called zaozi (棗子), which we traded and shared with the Shenzhen girls for other fruits and crackers. In talking with them, we found out the three girls, Miss Dou, Miss Li, and Miss Wei, all worked together at Foxconn (aka Hon Hai), the Taiwanese company that happens to be the largest contract manufacturer of electronics in the world.
Meanwhile, as we got up higher into the mountainous roads, the bus was passing through some of the earthquake impacted areas. My first glimpse of the effects were these blue refugee temporary residences built in the last few months:
In other areas, they were blue tents:
Although the earthquake had happened almost 6 months earlier, it's destruction was still very much evident:
In fact, due to the earthquake, the bus journey is more longer and more strenuous than usual. Up in the mountains, it was a slow and bumpy ride, especially in the back of the bus. More than once, the bumps left us sitting in the back floating in mid-air for a split second. By now it was almost impossible to sleep well, and though many tried, their heads flopped about like ragged dolls.
More than 11 hours later, we arrived into Jiuzhaigou (九寨溝). As the bus was pulling in, the girls asked us where we were staying.
"We're not sure. We were going to go there and figure it out."
"In that case, we recommend the youth hostel - it's only 80 RMB for a 3-person room! Also, what are you doing tomorrow? We're planning to stay in the park with the Tibetans."
"Oh really? We had heard about that... but heard it's also not really legal. Plus, we didn't really know where to ask. How did you find out about it?"
"Online. We booked one night for 45 RMB per person per night, with dinner and breakfast included... why don't you follow us and we'll show you where we're staying."
And so we (including Keiji, who we brought along - apparently he also had no plan) followed the girls to Tian Tang (天堂) Youth Hostel, where indeed there were 3-person rooms for 80 RMB, and beds in a 6-person dorm room for 25 RMB per person. We booked 4 beds in the 6-person room, where Mr. Guo (郭先生), an English teacher from Beijing was staying as well. Although Larry had been here about 5 times already, and I had visited previously in the Spring 2004, we had never come this late in the year. And so we asked Mr. Guo how was Jiuzhaigou at this time of the year.
"The scenery is absolutely amazing. I've been here for three days already, and I'm still not tired of walking around here!"
"How much have you walked?"
"I've gone over 40km (25 miles!) each day for the past three days, so over 120km in the past three. I never knew I could walk so much!"
"Do you have to walk that much to see everything?" Baba inquired.
"Nah, there's a bus service that can take you around. But you don't need to use it if you want to walk all the trails yourself."
After dinner, the girls headed back to their room and we headed to ours, where Larry and I taught Mr. Guo how to play Three Kingdoms (三國棋). While playing, Larry provided insight into his strategic thinking, reading your opponents, and using reverse psychology. Though he won the majority of the games, his strategic deduction leading to the wins was at times wrong, which leads me to conclude he's actually just quite lucky.
The evening was drawing to a close, as it was getting rather cold. And so we retired early, hoping to get a good start to our journey tomorrow.
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