Our Trip

After only two days with our host families in Beijing our group reunited at the train station for a ten day trip that would prove to be full of fun, surprises and unfortunately, even a few hospital trips along the way. The first leg of our journey was a 26 hour train ride. Luckily we had a sort of bunk bed setup that allowed us to get some rest, however, needless to say by the time we arrived in the city of Chungdu no one was sad to leave the train behind. We were met at the train station by our guide, Cindy, who turned out to be fantastic. Over the next couple of days we visited the Panda research base, various Buddhist temples and all of the best shopping streets that Chengdu has to offer. We spent one night in Emei, a smaller city located at the base of Emei mountain. There we splurged on two hour massages that cost a total $20/person. I have to admit to fully enjoying the leg and foot part of the massage but that once my masseuse got going on my back and neck the relaxing effects of the massage were lost as she painfully kneaded my spine and cracked each one of my fingers!
The main attraction of Ermei is the mountain so after spending the night in the city we made our way up the tramway that took us up to a beautiful temple tucked away in the misty hills. After touring the temple grounds we made our way down hundreds of stairs (the Chinese opt for putting stairs on mountains as opposed to our simple trail method) in order to make it to the place where we could mingle with the monkeys. Our tour guide had told us the day before that we would see monkeys and even feed them from our hands. I was skeptical but the students were thrilled and powerwalked their way through the winding paths on the mountain with one thing on their minds; monkeys. I think everyone has an idea where this is going by now and I won't stretch the story out any longer. Two of our students were injured by the so called friendly monkeys. One was bitten and the other was scratched. The small wounds ended up bringing us to four different clinics and hospitals that day so that the poor students could recieve multiple rabies immunization injections. One the bright side of things, we now know how to maneuver the hospital system here and that a consultation with a physician will cost approximately 75 cents!
Monkey business aside we said goodbye to Chengdu (and Cindy) and took a quick flight to our next destination, Guilin. The next day we took a five hour cruise down the Li River to Yangshou. This part of China is breathtaking with huge limestone mountains crowding the horizon. We were lucky to have two rare warm days in the middle of winter and enjoyed walking around the small town, mingling with the other tourists and bargaining with the locals for silk scarfs and other treasures. Truth be told, I'm not very good at bargaining. Each time I would purchase something for what I thought to be rock bottom prices the same item would be offered to me for half the price at the next stall. One of the highlights of Yangshou was hiking to the top of Moon Rock Hill with a group of three local women. These women actually followed us up the mountain with coolers around their necks full of drinks, telling us in broken English of the difficulties of life in the countryside. Once at the top we purchased their drinks (how could you not?) and one of the women who was 69 years old pulled out a book for us to sign that was filled with messages from all of the tourists she had accompanied up the hill. I was amazed, 69 years old and here she was carrying a cooler full of drinks up the hill. It was a strange mix of impressive, inspiring and sad all at the same time.
The last night we spent in Yangshou I seem to have picked up a mild case of food poisoning and spent hours throwing up the local flavor. Luckily enough I was feeling better in the morning and was able to partake in the days activities which included visiting a brightly lit cave and the China Pearl museum. After one more night in Guilin it was time to once again board the train for another marathon trip back to Beijing. The students huddled in one compartment enjoying the last hours they would spend as a group before returning to their host families and I, enjoying the solitude, was perfectly content watching the China countryside roll by.