Termination and intestinal woes
Topic: Travel
[index] [bot]19:00 Sunday, 03 November, 2002
Endwell, NY
Hello,
Well, all good things must come to an end. I'm back in the states now, having rushed home this week when I was offered a job which I am very excited to take. I'm going to be the operations manager at a new Eastern Mountain Sports (camping gear) store in Ithaca, NY. Ithaca is a beautiful town on one of the Finger Lakes of Central New York. It contains Ithaca College (known for its music school) and Cornell University (very well-known for it academics), has a very environmentally-minded community, and has a lot of natural beauty in forests, gorges, and lakes. Anyway, it's a place I've always loved to visit and knew I would enjoy living in, and the job is perfect for me. So when it came up, even at short notice, I knew I should take the opportunity it offered.
So I found out I had the job on Thurs night (
24-Oct), and that it technically started on
Su-27-Oct, so I felt I should try to get home as quickly as was reasonable. At that point I was in Chengdu, capitol of Sichuan province, west of the Chang Jiang (Yangzi River). I already had plans to go south into Yunnan province with my Japanese friend, Kyoumeisha (from the Chang Jiang boat trip), so decided to make that into a loop back to Hong Kong, where I could fly back home from the cheapest. So Friday night we took an overnight train to Panzhihua, Sichuan, and in the morning took a tiny, bouncy bus down dusty, dusty roads to Lijiang, Yunnan. We rode with two Canadian girls I'd met earlier in Beijing, and they saved the trip: we got caught in a two-hour traffic jam caused by road work and stupidity after only having traveled for an hour. After not moving at all for half an hour, we decided to wander to the front of the line and have a look at the problem. It turned out that only one lane of the road open for about a 50-meter stretch, and even with the work being done, nobody was there to direct traffic. So it was just up to the individual drivers to try to get a turn to get through, meaning that, generally, only one lane moved, but sometimes no lanes moved, because someone would jump out of our lane and run at the other, and both would get stuck in the middle. The jam-up was compounded by these grossly over-loaded diesel dump-trucks carrying coal from a nearby plant (ironically, there were identical trucks, all full of coal chips, going _both_ directions on this road). They had major issues navigating the foot-deep potholes on the functioning side of the road, so that even the moving lane sometimes crept along, taking ten minutes to cover that 50-meter stretch. Anyway, it appeared that, really, nobody was ever going to come and fix the traffic jam. The one lane would just stay put all day (it was 9am) until the opposing lane became empty, and then ours would be able to go. But with the trucks barely creeping along this section but being able to barrel along the rest, there would never be a gap in traffic, so we'd probably seriously be there until the end of the work day. So Magnetic & Enthusiastic (the Canadian girls) decided it was time to take action, and just jumped out into the road and started directing traffic, pointing at smaller vehicles to pull to the side, and stopping the rest of the line behind them to give our lane a chance to go. And, amazingly, they all obeyed, immediately. In our country they would have been sworn at and run over, but maybe just their fascination with these foreign people made them not even question us, until we had them where we wanted them. And by then it was too late for them: the girls had recruited a few of the other foreign tourists on our bus to stand in front of the trucks to keep them from jumping back out of line, and then we let our lane go through, jumping into the bus as it drove past. It was such a funny adventure, because I thought Enthusiastic was crazy when she said WE would have to direct the traffic to get anything done.
Anyway, we made it to Lijiang, which has a gorgeous, little, Old Town section that preserves the culture of one of the Chinese minorities, the Naxi (say 'nah-shee'). Lijiang Old Town has narrow, cobbled streets and criss-crossing canals, different ones dedicated (still) for washing, bathing, and drinking. It's getting terribly Westernized, and over-run by Han Chinese (the majority Chinese group -- Han is what you're thinking of when you normally think of a Chinese person), but still has a lot of traditional Naxi culture. I really fell in love with the Naxi, and greatly prefer their music and art styles to the Han Chinese. Lijiang has been noticed by travelers and has become a backpacker's haven, but that has come at quite a price to the culture that made it popular. Everywhere you go you'll find English signs and English-speaking business-owners, which is hard to find even in most Chinese cities, let alone the villages with no rail connection. We found more Western food there than any other place we'd been (besides Hong Kong, Beijing, or Shanghai), though the cafes all also served traditional Naxi and Han Chinese food. During our few days in Lijiang we frequented the Jamaica Cafe, where they played reggae all the time, and I also ate one night at a place that showed MTV all the time. It was very weird walking around those ancient streets, seeing old women in traditional dress selling hand-woven bags, and hearing Bob Marley coming from the cafe stereo.
So we had a great time just exploring the Old Town on Sunday, and we went hiking on Monday to the top of a hill with a view of Jade Dragon Snow Peak, a glacier-topped mountain over the valley containing Lijiang city. That night I took a said good-bye to Magnetic, Enthusiastic, and Kyoumeisha, and got on a sleeper bus to Kunming, the capitol of Yunnan province. Kyoumeisha had warned me that she didn't like sleeper buses, but I love sleeper trains, and I figured there would be little difference. But sleeper buses are truly evil. The beds are about 5? feet long (not good when I'm 6 foot), and just narrow enough the my shoulders didn't quite fit between the bars. And unlike the sleeper trains, the bunks are
not open at one end (allowing me to hang my feet off), but have a barrier for the next bunk. So all night long I tossed and turned with painfully stiff legs that I absolutely could not stretch. That was bad enough, but I also felt
very sick that night, with a nauseous, tight stomach, a splitting headache, and a cough. I'd had a more sensitive stomach the past few days, but that's not uncommon when you're eating unusual foods, so I hadn't thought much of it. But Monday night it really got me, and not being able to lie comfortably did not help. So that was a downright miserable night.
We finally arrived in Kunming at 6am, and I had a train ticket for that night at 11pm, giving me all day to explore the city. So I went into the station to put my pack into locked storage for the day, and, in the process, had my US$500 camera stolen. How very nice. The police were very helpful, and told me that this particular station had some professional thieves lurking around, and that this was the third foreigner's camera taken from that spot this year. I was pretty upset, as you can imagine, since I've fallen in love with that camera (it was a gift this spring from my parents and grandfather) and have really enjoyed being able to take quality pictures. I wasn't careless at all with it when it happened, having taken it with me to the luggage desk when I checked in my pack, but someone must have been watching closely. Luckily it's covered with my Dad's home-owner's insurance, but the two rolls (at least) of exposed film in the bag are not (so, sorry, Kyoumeisha, Magnetic, & Enthusiastic: no doubles of Lijiang pictures to share).
So that took up most of my day, and the rest was taken walking all over the city following false leads to internet cafes. My stomach was still not happy with me that day, so I had to eat carefully and in smaller quantities. That night I got the train, a thirty-hour ride from Kunming to Guangzhou, and was able to lie around a lot and let my stomach recover a good bit. Thursday morning I got a train to Hong Kong, then barely caught my afternoon plane. 14? hours, and I can't sleep sitting up. Not a fun flight. Even though I felt relatively O.K. on most of the train ride, it was only because I was able to lie down when my stomach needed me to, and on the plane I didn't have that option, so I felt very ill that entire flight. I hadn't been able to get much food down on the past few days, and they went 12 hours on the plane without feeding us, so with the lack of sleep, the sickness, and no food energy, I almost couldn't walk when it was time to get off the plane. I had to transfer from JFK to LaGuardia for my little flight from New York City to Syracuse, and there my parents met me and took me home.
So for the past two days I've been lying around in pain, still trying to recover from whatever intestinal nasty I've gotten myself. I went to the doctor on Friday, and he ordered a stool sample (results due in four days) and prescribed a gut-numbing drug to get rid of the pain. Once we get the test results, he can prescribe an antibiotic or whatever I need to actually kill the bugs, so I just have to survive until then. This morning I finally felt well enough to do something more than stare at the wall or the TV (so much for rushing back to work), thanks to the drugs.
So I guess that's the end of my adventures. There's a few really good stories that I forgot to tell in previous letters, so maybe I'll include them when I let you all know I lived through my stomach disease (don't worry, it's not dangerous, only annoying and very painful). Otherwise, I have more regular access to e-mail now, so can actually send personal letters and won't have to do this as often anymore. I plan on finding an apartment in Ithaca, so will definitely notify of those changes. So that means it's someone else's turn to go have fun and write about it, so they can keep *me* entertained for a while. :)
--Fidget
[index] [top]
