Spring Break: Day Three

My doubts about our tour group had began the day before, when we handed over our money.  I have never traveled with a tour group before, but I have seen drug deals on TV that were less sketchy than the exchange we made Sunday.  Our Chinese friend, Lu Zheng, had made the arrangements for the tour.  On Sunday, he received a call and informed us that we would be heading to the travel agency to hand over our money.  If you're picturing a glass fronted business with plastic palm trees and men in ill fitting suits, you're way overestimating this travel agency.  "Going to the travel agency" actually turned out to mean we were meeting a man in a black Mazda 3 in the parking lot of a rather large hotel.  This made us, or at least the Americans, understandably nervous.  I wasn't handing over my life savings or anything, but I wouldn't sneeze at losing the equivalent of $80 by handing it over to some guy in a leather jacket.  As if that wasn't bad enough, he then produced a contract that we were told to read and sign.  That's great, except for one small issue...it was in Chinese.  You might be saying, "But, Ethan, you know Chinese, don't you?"  Have you ever read a contract in English that you actually understood?  Yeah, now try that in another language.  Thankfully, we didn't sign anything, apparently the travel agency representative wasn't really worried about getting the foreigners permission, so he just let Lu Zheng sign for all of us.  Things were starting out great...

Monday morning we awoke at 5:00 to meet the bus that would transport us to our destination, Jiuzhaigou Park in northern Sichuan.  This day started on an even sketchier note, when were told that we would be transported to the bus by another car.  After walking to the meeting point, we waited on the curb.  We joked that after this thing was so cheap, we would probably be transported in a truck bed filled with livestock.  It wasn't all that bad, but the tiny, unmarked van that pulled up did little to settle our growing nerves.  After squeezing eight people and their luggage into something with the interior dimensions of a phone booth, we made our way to the waiting buses.  We boarded, along with the thirty odd Chinese tourists with which we would be traveling.  We were definitely the only foreigners.

The flat tire that sidelined us for an hour after only twenty minutes of driving would prove to be an ominous sign.  The ride was pleasant enough for a while.  We were mesmerized by the amazing geography that seemed to be around every corner.

We came out of a tunnel to find this.

Better than your average gas station view.

This was quickly broken up when we came to two conclusions.  First off, the bus would be stopping along the way to visit "places of interest."  The second conclusion was that our definition of interesting differed from that of our company.  We found ourselves stopping at locations that sold themselves as possessing "authentic" architecture and goods.  That's all well and good, but the buildings were clearly built about three years ago, and the hodgepodge of beads and plastic that the locals were selling as authentic art was undermined even further by the presence of modern children's toys being sold right next to them.  The most fascinating thing about the experience was that the Han Chinese tourists with which we traveled ate it up and asked for more.  You see, when people think of Chinese people, they picture the Han Chinese majority that lives mostly in eastern China.  This fails to encompass the dozens of minority groups that inhabit other parts of the country.  This is a gross oversimplification  but it is important in understanding why the Chinese tourists with which we traveled were so fascinated by the "places of interest."  I don't mean to insinuate that they were unintelligent or ignorant, they just had a knack for ignoring the obvious fact that these places were contrived shows of "minority culture" that were merely a way to extract money from the relatively wealthy Han Chinese tourists that visited them.  I don't blame the minority groups in the least.

We quickly tired of our frequent stops, and we soon despaired that we would never make it to the park in the ten hours we had been told to expect.  This proved more correct than we imagined.  About five hours in, we realized that our bus was stopping, and an hour after that, we realized it wouldn't be moving any time soon.  A chat with our guide revealed only that there was a "disaster" that had resulted in the traffic jam in which we found ourselves.  Thankfully, the view from the bus wasn't bad.

Realizing we were in for a long wait, we went about finding things to do. I myself watched a funny Chinese movie about a grown man that wets the bed, and the effect that has on his relationship with women.  Great stuff.  About three hours after stopping, we were finally told to board the bus.  As it turns out, the "disaster" was a landslide that had covered the road and had to be cleared.  Crossing our fingers that it would be our only "disaster" of the trip, we drove on.

What followed were more trips to places that completely lacked interest, and one of the worst meals I've ever had.  Who knew you could mess up rice that bad?  We're in China and they can't cook rice?!?!?!?  We finally reached our destination around 9:00 PM, about thirteen hours after starting.  We weren't done yet, however, as we still had a cultural ceremony to attend.  This involved drinking yak butter tea, and eating a variety of mysterious vegetables.  This was capped off with a wine that tasted like bad apples, and a bit of yak meat.  

Man, I am such a good photographer...

In  a separate, hilarious side note, one of our party was a vegetarian, and had hyped themselves up to eat their piece of yak meat.  Unfortunately for them, they were also a girl, and soon realized that in the super patriarchal minority culture we were imitating, women didn't get to eat the yak meat.  Much laughter ensued.  Frankly, I would have happily given them mine, as I would hesitate to call it tasty.  After ending the ceremony we milled around for a while, eventually finding ourselves in a tent where they were playing the ever annoying "Gangnam Style" (You know, because that is a traditional minority song, obviously).  Maybe it was the bad apple wine, but we soon found ourselves dancing in a circle.  After what was quite literally ten seconds, we had attracted a crowd of probably twenty Chinese tourists, all of whom wanted a picture of the foreigners dancing.  We happily obliged them.

We were finally dropped off at our hotel around 10:30.  It was only about 45 degrees out, but our hotel rooms were somehow much colder than that.  To add insult to injury, the air conditioners that were featured in some rooms had cords that were too short to reach the outlet.  That building was clearly built to very high standard.  I didn't care, I was so tired that I passed out in minutes.  It may sound like we hated every minute, but that's not true at all.  Thanks to a good attitude (at least from most people) and some well placed jokes, we had a wonderful day.  And, the next day, I would get to the most beautiful place I've seen since Yellowstone National Park.