The previous post is On a bus to Wuyuan (May 03).
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Wuyuan Family Inn (May 03) · May 5, 10:33 AM

What can I say, after you’ve held on for your dear life behind two people on the back of a Chinese-built motorcycle careening (in every sense of the word) up winding mountain roads with a full pack and no helmet once — once you’ve done that once … you’ll have to do it again to get back down. Then there is the noisy negotiation of price, but I wasn’t involved in that.

After I was dumped out of the bus into the hot, sunny, hazy Wuyuan station, motorbike drivers swarmed, somehow detecting my foreign nature, and expecting to overcharge. Indeed they did, asking 100 RMB for a lift to somewhere that I wasn’t sure where it was but he said it had a cheap room. They enlisted a girl with some English, but all she did was point me to the congregation of mini-buses which I rode up to the same town for 7 RMB. On the ride I met a guy with good English who was the defacto leader of about 8 (myself included).

I’ve been following them around all afternoon — onto motorbikes, into a family inn, and off to dinner. We ate bamboo shoots with pork, green vegetables, egg & tomato soup, and an indeterminately mushy local specialty. Tomorrow I will tag along with that gang to a local gorge. There are swarms of tourists here.

Before dinner we wandered through the immediate village, admiring the very old buildings and a nearby river.

Every day is too much adventure.

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