Out Of Laos And Into China.

Our last night in loas was spent camping in a burnt over wasteland, which turned out to be some hilltribe lady's garden. We found this out after we had pitched our tents and stomped all her seedlings to smithereens. $1.20 made it all better and off she went on her merry Akha way. Incidentally, the woman was like a million years old and had perfect teeth. I'm pretty sure they weren't dentures but maybe her village has comprehensive dental coverage. We ate a dinner of watermelon, cucumbers, french bread, and water and went to sleep. Around 2 am, the moon disappeared and lightning and thunder began to break up the sky. I realized we had pitched our tents on what would quickly be a flood plain, and yelled over to charlie that bad things were about to happen. Racing an oncoming torrential downpour, we hauled all our gear up the muddiest, burned-overiest hill ever and buckled up for a roller coaster ride. The sky tore open and for the next 4 hours that little laotian valley rocked and rolled. The lightning was so fierce I could of read a book without a flashlight. I didn't of course because books are for intellectual elitists.

We packed up, soaking wet, and set off for the Chinese border in a downpour. It was amazing how fast the landscape and village scape changed. Brick started replacing thatch, and laotian slowly started giving way.

I'm not going to lie. I had my doubts about china. Anyone who's read my last blog can attest to that. The fact that the last town before the Chinese border sold nothing but libidinal aids did not assuage my fears. I'm not making that up. It was a town devoted to selling dildos. One of the oddest things I've ever seen. That being said... China has been absolutely, drop-dead, shiver-me-timbers, awesome!

We've been here for about three days and we have yet to meet anyone who was not gracious, patient, kind and downright awesome. The culture shock, for me, was pretty extreme. No one here, and we've been here for 4 days, speaks english. No one! When we want to eat, we walk into the kitchen of a restaurant and start pointing at things. I refuse to speak pidgin and they refuse to speak english and it is a ton of fun. That actually might be one of my favorite things about the chinese so far- even when they know you have no idea what they are saying, the don't dumb it down for you. They keep on jabbering at you, and you can keep on jabbering back in english and eventually something happens. For instance...

We had ridden big, big hills all morning and by the time lunch rolled around, all we wanted was some mcdonalds- that or pizza hut. We got stopped at a tollgate by some very friendly tollgate workers and after Breckan drew a very detailed picture of a McDonalds extra value meal (complete with the golden arches on the fry container), we were assured there was one in the next town. I felt it was a little dubious, but then Charlie started yammering about how McDonalds is in the real estate business and the next town was a great place to put a mcdonalds and then two minutes later I was on board and ready for some cheeseburgers. Three minutes later, with very broken hearts, we rolled into a dirt scratch of a Chinese town. Literally, the first guy we stopped to talk to, started scratching things in the dirt. It was sad. I was sad. Jesus was probably sad too.

Somehow we ended up at cop station (this happens to me quite often in the states). However, in China were everything is wonderful and people aren't jerks, instead of being arrested and told I owe the state of Utah a lot of money, a police officer offered to drive us to a town 24 kms away so we could buy some pizza. We stood their dumbfounded for a moment. Perhaps this was some kind of tricky communist trick. You know the kind that ends with people reading CNN articles and being like, "Oh man! What idiots! If I were in China I would never get into a police car. Those guys deserve the bamboo slivers under the fingernails." But because we are awesome, and not lame, we jumped in the car. It took 24 kms to figure out each others name and before you know it, we were dropped off at a pizza place. The cop made it known he had to get some gas, and that he'd be back. We gorged ourselves on pizza (which is way better than rice) and like clockwork, our police escort showed up again. Before driving us back we stopped at his friends house who taught us Chinese for "Pork," "beef," "chicken," and "can we camp here." This has since saved me from drawing stupid pictures of farm animals on my palm while trying to order food.

So there you have it. The Chinese are freaking awesome. The bathrooms leave a little bit to be desired... but you can't get everything you want. I'll put some pictures up soon. Right now though, go check out Charlie's blog.