Shell in China

I don’t even know where to start with this post. Maybe the best way is for you to go grab a map of China so that you can find the places the travelogue will mention! Seriously…we traveled on our break!

The first week of May is one of three “golden weeks” in China, where the masses move, en mass! (The other two are during October for National Day and February for Spring Festival.) We had the week off, so like most PCVs, we headed out to explore the country that is our home.

Our trip went like this: Home to Chengdu to LeShan to Songpan to Jiuzhaigou and then home again!

Thad and I started the trip by going to Chengdu, where he had a VAC meeting. (VAC is the Volunteer Action Committee and he is the representative for our province.) We were excited to get to Chengdu not only because of the possibility of some Western food, but also because we were meeting Justin there. He is our first visitor from home since we’ve been in China and we were both excited to see him. It has been great hanging out with him for the last week, although I have to say that actually having someone from home has made me a bit homesick. I think it just brings what we are missing a bit more into reality, rather than the abstract that I place it in as a coping strategy.

During Thad’s VAC meeting, Justin and I went to see the pandas. It was a cool day outside, so they were all frolicking and having a great time. There was one enclosure that had ten babies in it! I think between us we took a good 100 pictures of pandas! I will definitely have to do some editing of those shots.

Songpan was one of the highlights of the trip. It is a great little town in Sichuan that is known as a base for horse-trekking. We only had time for a one-day trek, although they offer rides of up to twelve days! We went up to a Tibetan village, high up in the mountains outside of the city. When I mean high, I am serious! Even though we got snowed on while up there, the altitude did a number in conjunction with the sun. When I got back to town I had the worst sunburn I have ever had in my life! I’ve been peeling for a week. (Now that I am back at site, many of my students have scolded me for not carrying an umbrella to ward off the sun!) Also, as totally not being a horse person, I was more than a bit saddle sore for the next few days.

The trip up was interesting, although I spent a good deal of it white-knuckling the saddle horn! My horse thought it would be a great idea to walk along the very edge of the precipice that the trail bordered. I know that some people trust horses and talk of their sure-footedness, but as I looked over the edge of the abyss, I had little to no trust in my steed! While up on the mountain, we met many different people. One Tibetan woman was fascinated with my multiple earrings. She wanted to touch them. Strange, but she is not the first person to ever do that.

We took a bunch of pictures while we were there and then once we got back into town we found a photo shop to have prints made. I then took the prints back to the trekking place to see if they would take them up the mountain to give to the people when they went again. As I talked to the boss about this, he called in a bunch of men who were standing around outside the shop. It turns out that they were all from the village we had been in and promised to deliver the pictures for me! Talk about timing! I am sure it was a sight to see though as I stood in the middle of a throng of Tibetan men, passing around pictures to see who knew or was related to anyone in them!

Juizahigou was the last stop on our May holiday vacation. My students have been telling me all winter how beautiful it is there and how I hadto go if at all possible. We were amazed when we got there to discover it looked a whole lot like the mountains in Idaho! Between the scenery and having Justin along, it was just like we were home again! Once we were inside the park we had two options: buy a bus ticket to the top of the park or hike. We opted for the second- hiking. It was amazing that even though there were thousands (that is NOT an exaggeration) of Chinese people in the park, for the majority of the time we were all alone. They all took the bus, so we had the trail to ourselves! We were perky and full of energy in the morning when we started out, but I have to say by late afternoon we were beat! We may or may not have just slipped onto a bus to get back down the mountain. J

Our trip ended with a REALLY long bus ride home. We spent eleven hours on three different buses to get back to site. As is typical of buses in China, our driver knew where our ultimate destination was, so when he saw a bus that would get us closer to home, he flagged it down and transferred us to the new one. This is pretty common in China…bus hopping is just the way we travel!

So now we are home again and getting ready to go back to school tomorrow. It is great to be back home and have clean socks and undies again, but traveling was amazing! Sometimes I can’t believe I only have a year left to see the rest of this country! You can bet that we will be on the bumpy, unpaved road as often as possible in the next twelve months! (That and bugging people from the States to come visit us and see our wonderful home!)

your trip is very successfull ,your artical writes bestly I can usully come to read it .GOOD !