China

It was the beginning of September, 2000 that Laura and I found ourselves on a plane headed for the People's Republic of China.

This was Laura's first time abroad, and in retrospect there were likely a number of slightly less traumatic destinations for her first trip but then, there we were. The original plan had been to find teaching jobs in China's capital, Beijing, but as it turns

out our timing was less that ideal to that end. Most of the places that we might actually want to teach at had already done their hiring and before long we realized that our best bet might be to flee the capital and soak in the countryside instead.

We were in Beijing for about a month, and in that time we managed to take in a number of the sights, although for much of the time we were mostly trying to focus on survival.

We did manage to make it out to the Badaling section of the Great Wall, which was absolutely spectacular, even if I was convinced that we wouldn't make it there alive.

A temple roof in Beijing.

We hired a taxi for the day, and our driver was able to demonstrate what we already suspected: people in China don't seem entirely sure about how to operate motor vehicles. To get to Badaling we had to take the freeway, at which point the driver accelerated to about 150 kilometers and hour. The trouble was that he didn't seem to know what to do with a car that was moving that quickly, and we swerved wildly all over the freeway. The second most frightening moment in my life was when the driver decided he had better put on his seatbelt. The most frightening time was when I looked down and realized there were no seatbelts in the back.

When Melissa, Laura's sister, finally came to Beijing almost a month after we had arrived, Laura and I were ready to go. Laura had been in terrible culture shock, which wasn't helped by the fact that the water there had made her so sick that her teeth had become transparent. Within a day of Melissa's arrival, we were on a sleeper train hurtling South toward the Yangtze river.

Sunset on the Yangtze river.

Laura surprised me on that train with a miraculous act of willpower. The train, and the toilet in particular, was so filthy that she somehow managed not to go to the bathroom for the entire 22-hour train journey. The 'plumbing' on the train toilet left you with no illusions as to how it worked: you could see the tracks whizzing by through the hole in the floor.

Our goal was to head down the Yangtze river by boat until we got to Sichuan province, and in so doing to see the Three Gorges before they were immersed in the waters following the colossally stupid Three Gorges Dam Project. That one of the most enduring symbols of China was being deliberately destroyed and that over 2 million people were being relocated in the process seemed to significant to miss.

The packed eight person cabin on our much nicer second boat down the Yangtze.

In order to save money on a hotel, we negotiated with the boat company to let us spend the night on the boat that would be leaving the next morning. Although it was a free place to stay, it also turned out to be a hellish steel coffin that was literally crawiling with cockroaches. Not a good night's sleep.

As it turned out, that boat just turned out to be a particularly horrible one, even by Chinese standards. The second boat we went on didn't seem to have the same infestation problem, which was a treat to say the least. Both boats, however, had absolutely shocking bathrooms which used a novel trough system which was intermittently flushed out the side of the boat and directly into the river (be careful not to lean out too far on the lower decks!). Riding on these boats made me realize that if ever a floating cess pit like them tried to approach Canadian waters, the coast guard would likely be obligated to torpedo it...but I digress.

This brings me to Wushan, a small town that we stopped in at along the way. If you look at the picture to the left, and if you can see through all of the smog, you will notice that the city seems to be built in two distinct layers. This, my friends, is the genius of the Gorges Project. The fields and all of the lower part of the city is going to be underwater within a few years. The city is actually being entirely rebuilt from scratch on top of the mountain to avoid the waters, and the rest is to be

A street market on the steep steps of mountainous Wushan. All the red you see are bunches of hot peppers...this is Sichuan after all. This entire area will soon be underwater.

consigned to oblivion when the time comes. It was an indescribably surreal experience walking through a city that was entirely condemned. Everything we saw, we knew would soon be destroyed.

The food at this point in the trip was absolutely incredible. We were pretty far into Sichuan province at this point, and the food here is, I believe, some of the hottest in the world (after this, I found the famed 'spice' in Thailand laughably mild). The Sichuanese use a spice they call hua-jiao which actually numbs your mouth - rather like licorice flovoured Novacain - so that you can eat more hot peppers than would otherwise be humanly possible. The result is a quasi-religious experience which has you light-headed, drooling and slightly giddy. I bought over a kilo of hua-jiao before leaving Sichuan...which is actually a good story in itself.

The Chinese seem to love gathering in public, and scenes such as this one are charmingly common. Here a group of old men are enjoying the heat of the afternoon as they challenge eachother to a game of Mahjongg.

The Chinese seem to be natural business people, and are willing to do anything for money. I wanted to get some of this spice, but didn't know where to get it from. I went into what I think was a medicine shop and asked the guy if he knew where I could get some. He said he did, and asked me how much I wanted (it was started to feel like a drug deal) whereupon he ran across the street to a payphone. After a moment, he left the phone dangling and came back to confirm a price. I was rather amused at this point, and so I was happy to agree to a price just to see what would happen. Ten minutes later his friend showed up on a motorcycle - still in his cook's apron from whatever restaurant he had been working at - and produced a kilogram bag of the spice for me. I paid the man, he split the money with the shop owner and then sped off on his motorcycle without further ado. I'm still impressed. Now those are people who want to make a deal!