Ready to Roll

Beds in China are commonly very hard, and my poor old back is sore.  This is the first comment of my posting because my bed is the part of China that I'm most familiar with right now.  I've spent way too much time in this hotel room in the last 2 days, and I'm starting to go a bit nuts.  Yesterday it did end up raining all day, which it really really needed to do.  I think it was actually raining mud - the air was so thick and brown right before it started.  But since it was nasty out, we opted to stay in.  And I slept most of the day.  Today I was eager to get out and do something.  We had to go to the Bureau of Forestry to pick up some lab supplies we ordered and have those plus a box I brought shipped over to Urumqi.  For those not familiar with our saga - we're working with a different group this year from last year, because we encountered a "conflict of financial interests" with the group we worked with last year.  This year, we were originally supposed to work with folks from the National Academy of Forestry in Beijing, but the processing of my visa paperwork was apparently too "politically sensitive" and difficult, so those collaborators pulled out.  After a brief third collaboration with the Chinese version of the CDC in XinJiang, we are now set to work with XinJiang University.  But since as of about 3 weeks ago, we were working from Beijing, we went ahead and ordered lab supplies through the office in Beijing.  So now all of that has to be shipped.

The guy who showed up to pick up our things didn't have the box that was requested to package some of it, so Shaoyuan and I had to hop in his little van and go with him to his "company".  Ironically, we ended up just a few blocks around the corner from the hotel where we stayed last year.  Oddly, we turned down an alley into another alley and pulled up to a house.  That was the shipping company - 5 young guys running an EMS mailing station from their home.  It's supposed to arrive in Urumqi in 3 days, so we'll see what happens.  I do a lot of following and smiling without really knowing what's going on here.  Note to self - must try harder to learn Chinese.

So then after a trip to an outdoor store for boots for Shaoyuan and pants for me ($11!!!), he convinced me that he just wanted to come back to the hotel.  I wanted to try to keep him awake since he slept all day yesterday and didn't sleep last night at all.  He was in pretty bad shape today.  But I didn't hear from him for dinner tonight and decided to just leave him alone.  I think he's going to be miserable again tomorrow.  Oh well.  I could get out and do some sightseeing by myself, but I saw so much last year.  I'm kind of done with Beijing.  We're going to get out and about tomorrow, and I've requested Beijing duck for dinner tomorrow.  Mmmmmm, Beijing duck.....

I saw Santa Claus!

So I flew Continental from Newark direct to Beijing this time.  Never flew Continental internationally.  Didn't even realize Continental flies internationally.  Apparently they do, and to a lot of destinations.  And it was a nice flight.  So everyone always asks "which direction do you fly to China?"  It *is* pretty much exactly on the opposite side of the northern hemisphere from Boston, and last year we went west up over Canada and the Bering Strait.  So that's what I thought would happen again this year.  Noooooo, we went right up over the top of the world!!  It was the most awesome thing.  I can now say that I've seen the North Pole.  Albeit from 31,000 feet in the air.  And whatdyaknow, there was Santa's Workshop!  Okay, so maybe not.  And so maybe I'm not sure that I saw the precise location of the North Pole since it's not like there's a big red flag that marks its location.  But the little airplane on the little map on the little screen in the back of the seat in front of me went right over a dot that said "North".  I looked out the window as we passed over Baffin Bay and the west coast of Greenland, and you could see icy mountains and glaciers.  And the North Pole is just a big sheet of ice.  It was a little worrying that there are "rivers" running through the polar ice where you can see it's splitting.  Of course I don't know what it looked like decades ago by comparison, so maybe it's supposed to be pretty chunky.  I'm sure it shifts around a lot.  And it never got dark for the whole flight.  In fact, the window was screaming hot, and it was so bright out that I felt bad about peeking for too long, since folks around me were trying to sleep.  But it was soooo cool.

We arrived at our hotel around 3 pm, and I have internet in the room for the next 4 days.  Thanks to everyone who responded to my email.  The 25 or so of you kept me busy this evening :)  I'm going to try to respond to everyone who writes to me while I'm away.  It's great to hear from people, so I will reward your efforts.  Still waiting on the other 86 of you  ;)  hehehe...

We leave on Tuesday for Urumqi (apparently pronounced "wulumuchi"), the capital of Xin Jiang Province.  Our plane tickets are supposed to arrive at our hotel in the morning.  I'm looking forward to this.  Xin Jiang is supposed to be much much much much more beautiful and interesting than Inner Mongolia.  Mountains surrounding the desert.  So even though we'll still be in the sand dunes, there might be something a bit better to see on the horizon besides more sand.  And the food is supposed to be really good - middle eastern influenced, since we're closer to that part of the world.  So I'm looking forward to some good kebabs and naan.  I'm sure the liquor will be the same rotgut as last year, so I picked up a couple of treats at the duty-free shop.  I will be sharing a nice bottle of Talisker with whomever my companions happen to be come my birthday.  If I'm going to be turning 30 in the middle of nowhere, I want something to make the experience that much more enjoyable :)

I'm going to try my best to sleep.  The air here is warm and thick and has formed a curtain of brownness.  It's supposed to rain tomorrow, and I sincerely hope that it does.  

Does this country make me look fat?

I know that I'm a slender person by US standards, but being in China is enough to give anyone a body image problem. I've spent a little bit of time in Beijing shopping, and I'm a size XL by Chinese standards. Even the biggest size in some items is too little for me. Reminds me of when I had clothes made in Vietnam, and the seamstress kept smacking my behind :)

I spent yesterday with my friend Dai Chao. We met on the Yangzi River trip in 2005 when I was with Vicky, and he quickly became our friend and guide since he was the only one of several hundred Chinese who spoke English. Not even the official "English-speaking guide" who was assigned to our group actually spoke English. We've kept in touch since then, and I wrote a personal letter of recommendation (basically vouching for his spoken English skills and positive personality) for his application to be a visiting student at USC in LA. He recently found out that he will be able to move to the US in September to start his studies, and he's very excited - quite brave, too, for a guy who has never left China let alone lived anywhere else. It's going to be quite an amazing experience for him. Apparently his parents are very grateful for my advice and help, so they arranged a car and driver to take us around Beijing all day yesterday, and we met some of his college classmates for dinner at a fancy restaurant where another family friend hosted an amazing feast of roasted duck. Before this trip duck and lamb were my favorite tasty animals, but I think a month in China has killed my taste for these two meats for awhile. Michael, if you're reading this - this is the country for you, dude! I will also say that I plan to be vegetarian for the first week that I return to the US. Here if the food isn't some huge hunk of meat, it's cooked in copious amounts of animal fat - probably another reason for my body dysmorphia. I'm the same size that I was when I left, but I feel blechy from the change in my usual diet.

This is definitely the best way to travel though. I've had such an authentic China experience on this trip that I'm starting to feel like I actually live here. I've seen the most popular foreign tourist sites, but for the most part we've just wandered some of the local neighborhoods and eaten at wonderful authentic restaurants. Lunch today was on a lake in the heart of the city where a lot of the buildings have been turned into Western-style fancy bar and restaurants for the tourists. But the place that Ms. Xia took us was set back a little bit from the lake and was an older very traditional southern Chinese restaurant with no tourists and nothing in English. It was a bunch of wonderful and refreshing cold dishes with lots of vegetables!

This will be my last post for this time in China. I fly out tomorrow at 1 pm and arrive in Boston on Friday evening. I've missed everyone and can't wait to get caught up on life back home!

DAMN YOU MONGORIANS!!!

For those of you who aren't South Park fans and don't understand that reference, that is not me being culturally insensitive. That's me quoting the cultural insensitivity of others, which I'm not entirely sure is all that much better :) I stood on the Great Wall today! And I did it under the condition that we in the US call "Montezuma's Revenge", but in China I'll call it "Genghis Khan's Revenge". Hopefully you'll understand that well enough without me having to go into great descriptive detail of my bodily functions these days. I'm all well, though. It's just part of traveling under varying conditions (weather, food, activity level...) The wall was amazing. It really is like the spine of a dragon winding it's way through the hills. The thick and still muggy air made it difficult to see much in the distance, but it was fantastic enough as it was. We hiked about 1.5 km of the wall, up and down ramps and short little steps that make you wonder how Chinese soldiers in heavy armor would be able to maneuver very quickly. The best part was the last stretch up to the end of the section where tourists are allowed - past that point is the rest of the wall that hasn't been restored and opened for tourism. I scrambled just a bit up that rocky stretch (out of the immediate area that has been turned into a natural toilet of sorts for hikers that need a respite from their bladder). The reason for getting past the pee
targets was that I wanted a bit of the old wall to take home for my dear Daddy, and I figure he'd appreciate a non-pee soaked piece.

My response to foreigners the last few days has been funny. We got back to Beijing on Saturday night, and I realized I hadn't seen another Westerner for more than 3 weeks. I didn't even see myself for 2 of those weeks since we were in the absence of mirrors for so much of the time. So I found myself feeling like a Chinese person staring at all of the foreigners yesterday. I was wandering with Shaoyuan and didn't really stop to talk to anyone else that day, but today on the wall I had my first chances to have brief conversations with native English speakers!! It's been a month tomorrow since we left for the field station, and I've spoken directly to 2 people in those long 4 weeks - Shaoyuan and Ms. Xia. While I've appreciated and enjoyed their company very much, I've realized I would go batty if stranded on a deserted island for ever after. Well, I guess I'd be okay while on the island, but if returned to contact with other people I might drive everyone else batty with my incessant chatter.

Four more days, and I'm back in Boston. Aside from the smog and the fact that I can't understand the overheard conversations around me, Beijing feels a fair bit like Boston. Hot. Though I hope it's not that hot there yet. Today reached about 100 degrees, and it's supposed to be about the same for the rest of the week. But I'm not letting it deter me from my sightseeing. I'm going to hit some of the shopping districts tomorrow with Ms Xia, then a good friend from Wuhan is coming up on Wednesday for a visit. He and I are probably going to head for the Summer Palace. I may just wander some of the smaller historic neighborhoods on Thursday, have dinner with my colleagues in the evening, then I board a very long flight on Friday morning. I'll probably write at least once more before I leave here, so stay tuned
for another episode...

Vomitous Vulture

We'll leave on Thursday for the trip back to Beijing. This will involve a 2 day stop in Erdos again for more merriment. We'll be having one banquet here at the field station tomorrow night for our send off, another in Erdos Thursday night with the General Secretary, and a third also in Erdos on Friday with the regional Minister of Forestry. This is where we'll get all of the permits for exporting the embryos and tissue samples that we've collected in our 3 weeks here. Things in China happen a LOT differently back home. Bureaucratic business happens over copious plates of food and cases of beer and liquor rather than forms, faxes, and phone calls. A major way to gain respect is by showing your prowess at eating and drinking, and lasting friendships are established for initial reasons of business. All in all we will have had 8 such meals by the end of this trip.

I figured I'd make a quick list of things I will and will not miss about working here. So to end on a happy note, lets start with things I won't miss:

1. The toilet situation, obviously. 2. The pervasive smell of dead animal and "lime scented" bug spray that smells more repulsive than regular scented bug spray. 3. The flies that I try to forget originate in the first thing that I won't miss and are EVERYWHERE hence requiring part B of number 2. 4. The taxidermied vulture in the hallway with a 5
ft wing span and the major cause of part A of number 2. It's a gift for the Forestry Minister and stuffed and mounted by our own Mr. Liang. 5. Only showering twice a week. 6. The perpetual feeling that I'm crawling with my personal collection of fleas and ticks (that one, again, is for Jenna).

And the things I will miss:

1. Rooming with Ms. Xia. She's a lot of fun. 2. The food - dried cheeses, yoghurts, homemade noodles, lamb out the wazzoo, little dried fruits that are like a cross between a date and a prune. 3. Gambei - ing (bottom's up) beer or baijiu with our new friends at every opportunity. 4. The temple. That was incredible. 5. Seeing Mr. Liang up to his wrists (or elbows) in the carcass of some animal, barehanded, with a cigarette hanging from his mouth. 6. All of the non-verbal communication with the kind people around here and seeing shocked stares when people catch a first look at my white skin and light hair.

We should be in Beijing by Saturday night, then I fly back on the 15th. That gives us enough time to handle a lot of the paperwork and for me to see a few more sights around Beijing. I still have to stand on the Wall!!

Seeking Water in the Desert

It's probably a good thing that we're only going to be at the field station for another week before we head back to Beijing, because I think we're developing a serious case of cabin fever. We've collectively decided to head out each day to do something to explore the region a bit further, even if it's just to wander the streets of the same three towns we've already been to. Today we went in search of a spring-fed swimming pool that the chair of the field station drew us a map to. It was an adventure getting there since his directions weren't so great, but after about 10 miles winding along a bumpy sandtrap road, we finally found the pool! We had to go through a couple of farmers' fences which made me proud of my country-girl upbringing. I was the one to jump out of the jeep and pull back the gate, then refasten it once the jeep drove through. This was a self-appointed job since the gates are wooden post and wire a lot like ones I grew up opening and closing with my dad. The top and bottom of the tree branch making up the end "post" of the gate have to slip into wire loops attached to the fence to latch the gate shut. I think my companions were surprised by my hidden "skill".

Sadly, the pool was closed and empty. It's a proper tiled pool measuring about 40 square feet with a deep end and a shallow end, and it's fed by the same pipe that irrigates the local crops. We stopped at a nearby farmhouse and learned that the pool doesn't open until the end of the first week of June when it gets "hot enough". It's already in the 90s here, so I shudder to think what they consider to be hot enough for a swim.

Failing at a swim, we stopped in the nearest town for our twice-weekly shower and found what must be the seediest hotel on the planet - and this is coming from a gal with pretty low standards. Thankfully we weren't staying the night, just hoping to abscond with a bit of cleanliness, but after undressing and standing in a moldy bathroom with a sink, a urinal, and two shower heads (what I originally imagined to be a spittoon must have been a chamberpot), Ms. Xia and I quickly realized that there was no water to be found there either. Our shower would have to wait until after dinner in another town, so we consoled ourselves with ice cream.

We stopped again at the temple from my last post, but everything was closed up so we decided to let three young boys be our afternoon entertainment. They were between the ages of 6 and 8 and the cutest giggly little guys. One of them has been learning a little bit of English from his father who is apparently a computer teacher in the village. The boy kept saying "I'm sorry, and you?", and he could count at least to 39. He might have made it higher if his friends hadn't knocked the Ultraman hat off his head. After a bit more wrestling, the little Ultraman quickly jumped up and skated to a nearby store on his little roller blades and came back with two ice cream bars. He was such a sweetie and opened one of the wrappers and handed the ice cream to me. Only about 6 years old and so considerate and bold! Then he opened the second bar, licked it a few times, and handed the rest to Shaoyuan. Hehehe. I thought they were all so cute and considerate, so I went and got them each an ice cream of their own. I can't imagine kids back home especially at that young age buying ice cream bars for total strangers, but apparently that's not uncommon here. They probably learn hospitality from a very young age from their parents since folks here are very warm and welcoming.

Wushen Zhao Temple

What started out as a very frustrating day turned into an amazing experience. We haven't had much to do lately because the capture rate has been pretty low. The chair of the field station is self-appointed to be in charge of collecting our animals, and he hasn't wanted to accept the offers of several of the locals to help catch more. He insists on taking the same two young guys with him every night, and with the full moon interfering, it's just not enough. He's a very nice man, but he seems to want to keep most of the control and money for himself. As a result, we had only 4 females to dissect yesterday and were done by 9 am. We've been engaging in the dance of convincing him that he wants to get more people to help us get more animals – in part by visiting the Ministries of Forestry, Husbandry, and Conservation to get them to gently light a fire under his rear.

Since there wasn't so much to do yesterday, we visited a nearby temple that we were just told about. It's about 20 miles away and is a complex consisting of four temple buildings, a pagoda, and a stupa as well as living quarters for some of the monks. It's walled in concrete with bronze prayer wheels encircling the complex. The site dates back to 1577, but most of the construction was finished in the 1700s. It's been damaged three times in history – most recently during the tragically ironic "Cultural Revolution" in the 1960s when two of the temple buildings, including the three story memorial hall, and over 200 memorial stupas were destroyed. The oldest temple from 1577 survived because it was being used as a school for the commune at the time, and the pagoda and stupa are still standing because their height made them perfect places for flying the Communist flag. Go figure. Fortunately the newest powers that be are supporting the
reconstruction of the two destroyed temples and the restoration and preservation of the entire site.

We walked around the temple complex for about 20 minutes before an old man climbed the stairs at the front gate to ring a gong that called the monks and faithful lay people to the noon service. Shaoyuan and I entered the main hall of the temple that is currently in use (the first of the two to be rebuilt) and were standing along the side when a woman from across the room waved us over to join her and her family. The temple layout and services here are a little different from temples I visited in Southeast Asia. The branch of Buddhism here is Tibetan, whereas it's Theravada in SE Asia. In SE Asia, the monks sit on the floor whereas the temples here have rows of low benches that run from the front to back. About 60 monks, most 60+ years old, sat at the low benches with one bench on the far side reserved for lay people. The monks were dressed in brown, black, and yellow robes in order of seniority, and all were wrapped in cloth of various hues of plum to red. The noon service was also lunch time, so we sat as each received their meal to the sound of chants and the occasional outburst of cymbals, drums, and conch shell horns. Two head monks wore elaborate multicolored vests and tall headdresses that resembled bright yellow mohawks and walked around serving the meal while the faithful lit butter candles and filed up and down the rows receiving blessings from each of the monks.

After awhile, we decide to go to the nearby larger town for our lunch where the woman serving us took one look at me and ran out the door to collect her baby and camera. Her little girl is about 1 year old and cute as can be, but really didn't want to have much to do with me. I posed for a few photos with them, which turned out to be the first of many in these two days. The funniest has been today when we went to another county town, and six young women working in a grocery store all wanted to snap photos of me and them with me using their cell phone cameras. They were so giggly and funny, and I think I smiled through about 30 photos.

After lunch, we returned to the temple to have ice cream on the steps of the temple well shaded by the branches of a large old tree wrapped in prayer flags. As we sat, a younger monk approached us and spoke a little bit of English with me before asking if I would take a look at their signs. The temple has just recently opened for guests, and I think I may be the first foreigner to visit due to its remoteness, but they are prepared with signs at all of the sites in Mongolian, Chinese, and English. He wanted to be sure that the signs are correct since they were translated to English by a Chinese-native English teacher from a school about 300 km away. For the most part, they were well done in the sense that I understood the meaning. Some of the grammar was incorrect, and they'd squared up the text to match the linear form of Chinese characters by word-wrapping and using hyphenation in all sorts of incorrect ways. So I happily agreed to follow him all over the temple complex and with the assistance of my Chinese-speaking colleagues, we got all of their signs translated into native English. The amazing part of this experience is that in addition to a personalized tour of the entire complex, he took us into the living quarters of the highest monk to meet and have tea with him. I got a quick crash course in appropriate customs, and we were given blue silk scarves to drape over our hands an offer to him as we greeted entered. He's a very pleasant older man, but not at all what I expected. While the other monks were all dressed in traditional robes, he was wearing trousers, a long-sleeved red undershirt, and a white button up shirt. The funniest thing is that this holiest of holy men of this temple was wearing a silver ring with the Playboy bunny. Apparently since pornographic magazines are banned in China, Playboy has turned to marketing the bunny as a line of clothing and accessories. So a lot of men in China wear Playboy clothing without even knowing that it is a corporation that thrives on female nudity.

We were served a generous array of dried cheeses, cookies, dried beef, and some sort of thick yeasty yoghurty thing with yellow rice – all very traditional Mongolian food. They were so kind and kept pushing food on us, so I continued to eat even though I was stuffed from lunch and ice cream and wondered how floral the food was. But that's why one should always travel with a good supply of antibiotics – you never know when you might be given the honor of an audience with a high monk. At the end of our visit with him, he presented us each with his blessing and a while silk scarf identical to the blue ones we'd offered him as well as a small gold amulet. We each gave him 100 yuan (about $12) as a donation to the restoration of the temple and were
surprised when we were presented with red fabric-covered boxes holding two stone and silver-plated cups as a thank-you for our gifts. They had us write our names in their ledger because when the restoration is completed in 2 years, they will place our names on a wall listing
their major contributors. Mine will be the first English name at the temple.

Our monk friend then finished leading us around the temple to each of the buildings to finish the sign translations. We developed quite an entourage including a teenage boy with a ponytail who kept snapping photos of me with his cell phone, and I surprised and entertained the painters at the main temple hall. Construction of the three-story main hall has been completed, and there is a team of painters from Tibet who are completing the ornate and spectacularly colorful paintings on the entire structure inside and out. They're funny guys with blue faces from the paint, and it looked like they may have intentionally colored themselves since one young man had deliberately blue outlined eyelids.

We were then taken to another of the temple buildings that houses 103 of the 108 Buddhist sutras. Each sutra is a volume of pages that covers a particular subject, such as math, astronomy, ethics, etc., which one must study to become a well-educated monk. They're housed
in two cabinets with cubicals that measure about 6 inces square and 2 feet deep. The texts are delicately wrapped in yellow cloth with embroidered flaps covering the number of the volume and title of the subject. It's quite an impressively colorful library that makes libraries of ordinary books seem stodgy by comparison. They're written in Tibetan, therefore in addition to Chinese and Mongolian, all of the monks read and speak Tibetan. Even before learning of his formal
education, it was easy to tell that our new friend is very intellectual and spiritual. He has a presence about him that seems older and wiser than his 28 years, and his calm and kind way of
speaking makes you feel very peaceful. The sutras are also taken by the most faithful of worshippers in a sort of walking meditation around the outer wall of the complex. After the evening service, we saw several women who each had a sutra wrapped in a sort of sling hanging over her shoulders and across her back. They walked around the entire perimeter of the wall spinning each of the 108 prayer wheels. One frail older laid walked hunched over and had great trouble with the occasional doublets of steps, but she continued on in her ritual devotion.

Lastly, he took us to the pagoda which is a very interesting looking structure topped with a bronze spire suspending wind chimes. There are apparently only 2 similar pagodas in the world – one in Thailand and one in Nepal. The middle section is square and yellow with pairs of blue piercing eyes painted on each of the four sides. The bottom section is white with an elaborately painted wooden-columned patio and huge sliding doors that were padlocked shut. Our guide held the mighty keys and slid the doors back to reveal a short tunnel with several relics and a huge canvas painting of what the complex was like in its original splendor. This was where he explained to us how much destruction there was under Mao's rule and their hopes for rebuilding.

The whole day had an air of serene significance that is one of those moments for which one could travel for years and never be so fortunate to experience. It's something that you can't find in a guidebook because it's a series of chance occurrences and the people you meet who make the moment special.

The Myth of Trousers

I bet none of you had to kick aside a tumble weed and bat away swarming flies to get to your toilet this morning, now did you? Things here are going pretty well. We tried to go out to the field the other night to learn the rodent trapping techniques but our trapping experts don't seem to want us around. So when we're not offing animals for specimen preparations or building cages to house some of them, we're just sort of sitting around. I'm glad I brought two 400+ page books to read because I'm flying through them. Internet is agonizingly slow, so I've been checking email and posting here once every 2 days or so, and can't tolerate doing anything else online. Today we made a big trip to the county city, which is bigger than the one street town where we shower and only about half an hour away. We got some supplies and feed for housing rodents and fed ourselves a hearty Sichuanese lunch. Apparently one of the diners in the restaurant exclaimed "I didn't know foreigners like spicy food" when we walked in the door, which I thought was kind of funny. People are really curious about me. Most stare with a blank look that borders on disdain, but there are often smiles when they realize uneasily that they've been staring. Older women and children smile the most, and the children are fun to play with. They're really curious and a little afraid of me at the same time, so I played a few games of peek-a-boo with some girls who looked to be about 9-ish. One woman in her early 20s almost got hit by a car because she was gawking at me while trying to cross a busy street. I felt kind of bad about that one. There are no tourist destinations here, so the folks in the smaller town have never had a foreigner come through, and the city only rarely sees foreigners.

I think I'll also take this as an opportunity to introduce you to our "cast of characters". Shaoyuan is a graduate student at Harvard who works with our colleague over at Organismal and Evolutionary Biology on the Cambridge campus. He's a bit taller than me and skinny as a
rail, but you wouldn't believe how much food that guy can put back. He's super enthusiastic about everything and talks a mile a minute, always getting himself a bit ahead of the task at hand. He's from a town in southern China that is apparently known for its quick people.
We've been having nightly lessons to practice his English pronounciation. His vocabulary is quite good, but his tongue gets caught up on a lot of words. When I want him to slow down and listen
to me, I just get him to try to repeat the word "Thursday". Yesterday his favorite word was "anesthetization", and he has a curious habit of whistling "The Star Spangled Banner".

Ms. Xia is a graduate student and also my roomate for the duration of this trip. She's very pleasant and smiley and loves poking fun at the guys with me. Her English is quite good, but she's so quiet sometimes that it can be a challenge to figure out if she's understood me without assuming she didn't and risking offending her. She's the one who made sure we were prepared for the apocalypse out here by packing snacks and bottled water to supply a small nation.

Mr. Liang is our group leader. He's in his 50s, smokes 2 packs a day, and has a fabulous comb-over. In the beginning he was always joking around and laughing, but within the last few days he's turned into a grump and has cast a cloud over the mood of our whole group. He was
apparently having difficulty getting his daughter moved to a good school in Beijing, but fortunately that's been resolved. I think we're starting to see a bit of his jovial side again. He speaks no English, so it's a bit tough on me when he's in a bad mood and growls in my direction, but it sounds from the others that it's probably better that I can't understand the words coming from his mouth. He just turned and smiled at me, though, so I think things are getting better.

Mr. Bayor is the chair of the field station. He's a bit of a rotund guy with deep dimpled cheeks. He also speaks no English and more or less ignored me for the first week, but since my birthday he's been making more of an effort. Through Shaoyuan he told me last night that he's going to be traveling this fall to 8 European countries for an agriculture and environmental conservation trip, and he's been making more eye contact with me lately. It's little things like that that make it a bit easier to connect with people here.

Mr Sidi is our cook. He's got to be one of the kindest people on the planet - very quiet and gentle. He's probably in his early 60s and has three grown sons and a daughter. He lives just a little bit up the road, and he's here with our meals on the table breakfast, lunch, and dinner and runs a farm in the in-between hours. He rolls out dough and makes handmade noodles and dumplings. I love dumpligs - they're like little silky pillows of secret yumminess. You never know what's going to be inside of one, and they're quite thrilling if you're an adventurous eater. His have been filled with lamb, garlic, green onions, and lots of yummy spices. They're great dipped in a bit of vinegar and pepper sauce.

So those are the major players. Oh yeah, I just realized that I titled this "The Myth of Trousers" without explaining why. That was on a sign on the side of a building in the city we visited today.
Don't know what the sign was for since the rest was in Chinese, but I love the funny and random uses of English here. And I wanted to let you all know that your pants are not real. Sorry...

My First Chinese Birthday!

Today has been a great day, and I'm very touched by the hospitality of our hosts. I woke up this morning to a breakfast of noodles for "longevity", and was soon wished a happy birthday by my colleagues. Soon after that, 6 men from the Ministries of Forestry and Conservation arrived to check in on us and see how our progress with the field work is going. I'd known for a week or so that something was in the works for my birthday, because my colleagues kept dropping little hints, but I had no idea what. Turns out that in addition to checking on our work progress, all of these people had come here to celebrate with me :) We all loaded into 3 cars and drove further up the road to a farmhouse where a huge spread of food was waiting. Lamb, dried beef, dried
cheeses and yoghurt, dumplings, blood sausages (which I didn't ask about until I'd eaten one - Natazsa: I've eaten dorsal mesentery :) and lots and lots of fruit. And lots and lots of alcohol. We were about 12, and I think we went though at least 6 bottles of Baijun. I didn't fare too badly - everyone else is sleeping it off right now, and I think i paced myself just right so that I don't feel as rotten as they all do. The plate with two glasses went round and round the room, and we all made little speeches about how much we appreciate each other's support and collaboration in this project. They were all so warm and kind to me, and I actually teared up a bit when the cake came out. They'd even gotten candles and a crown for me! Then more people entered the room, and it turned out they were performers! There was a man with a traditional Mongolian stringed instrument and another man with an accordian. I got a little bit of video of them playing to share with you all when I get back. It's really fantastic music, and so much fun with everyone singing along. Then appeared the third performer - a woman in an ornate green satin dress with a beautiful headdress that had two strands of pearl beads draping from the temples. Her role seemed to be to sing and make us all drink more. At this point, we'd been doing rounds from small shot-glass sized cups, but this woman wasn't messing around and produced a silver bowl. She held a blue scarf draped between her hands and balanced the bowl in one palm. She sang a traditional ceremonial tune and bowed to each of us in our turn, offering the bowl. The expectation is that you finish the bowl at the end of the song, but you can sip bits while she sings. Dr Yang's young graduate student made the mistake of emptying the bowl before she'd finished the song, so he got a second pour to finish as well. I was allowed to just take little sips, which is probably what saved me from the fate of my companions. While I'm up typing this, my colleagues are all sleeping it off. Poor Shaoyuan had the worst of it. He insisted on drinking what was offered him, even knowing that he's not capable of drinking that much. I'm checking in on him every once in awhile, and he's doing alright. He's going to feel pretty rotten when he awakens, but fortunate it's only 5 pm, so he's got a chance to recover by dinner. The weather has turned a bit better, and I think we may be able to get out and do some of our own collecting tonight. We did wake up to an unexpected surprise this morning - the locals who have been helping us with the collections went out last night and caught about 19 animals. So I got a couple more litters of embryos dissected this morning as a great present!

Friendly Rodents

So we're in the desert. We arrived on Thursday and were immediately welcomed buy rounds of the local rotgut. It's called baijun, and it's distilled from some sort of desert fruit. It's strong but not too bad. The tradition is that the host pours two thimble-sized shots.You're only expected to take one of the two unless you want to flaunt your "manhood" and do a double. One is more than enough. After a few rounds that set a nice buzz, we retreated to the rooms that will be home for the next month. The bed's not too bad. More like a wooden platform with an inch of padding, but I tripled a comforter to made it more padded. The toilets definitely leave something to be desired. It's an outhouse of sorts with a brick enclosed concrete platform suspended about 12 feet above your "nature". There is a slit cut in the concrete about 5 inches by 2 1/2 feet through which to do one's "business". I'm becoming one with my hand sanitizer these days .

The first night we set out with our cook and another local man. The locals are of Mongolian descent and are very calm and reserved people. My favorite is the oldest of the bunch. He's tall and thin and wears a sweater vest. He's got dark leathery skin and eyes that disappear behind huge square-framed glasses when he smiles. You can tell that he's excited about catching the rodents - probably sort of takes him back to his boyhood. So the first night we drove out into the sand
dunes and stopped along the way to cut 12 foot branches from some tall shrub growing along the side of the dirt road. For those of you who laughed when I used the term "whacking rodents", I'll have you know that's exactly what happened. They shine a flashlight at the jerboas, and when they're stunned by the light they get whacked with the leafy branches at the end of the stick. It's enough to stun them just long enough to catch em. It's apparently also a semi-lethal blow, because
of the 3 we caught, one came to an untimely demise in the process and the other two died in transit back to the field station. Night two was much better. The local guys attached wire loops that strung a cloth bag to the end of long sticks. They used the car headlights to drive around the dunes, and when they spotted a jerboa, the guys on foot trapped it in the net. They caught 17! Of the 7 females that I dissected, we got 2 litters of 3 pups each, so not to bad for a night's work.

We kept several of the adults to put them in cages and try to house them in captivity. First they spend the night in live traps in our ad hoc procedure room. Several escaped in the night which made us worry that they'd be impossible to catch, but they're remarkably tame! They're wild rodents, but you can reach right down and pick them up. They even climb up on your feet, and one hopped up into my hand when I placed it in front of him! They're soooo cute. They walk and hop around on their enormous hindlegs and only use their forelegs to eat and dig. I want to bring one home!!!

Pickled People

It's real, but it isn't what you think. Someone out there is out to keep me from seeing the preserved remains of the world's famous communist leaders. When I was in Hanoi, Uncle Ho was "on vacation" in Moscow, and this time the mausoleum that holds the body of Mao is closed for reconstruction until September. Boo. Ah well. We spent most of the afternoon walking around the Forbidden City which was amazing and probably more fulfilling than seeing a dead guy. I can't get over how huge that place is. It stretches for maybe a mile or so north south and reportedly has over 9,000 rooms. The whole thing isn't open to the public, but the majority of it is, and it looks pretty cool. It's fun to imagine the emperor perched high at his post watching the formation of his troops and ministers in the courtyards. Everything looks like is has recently been or is currently being freshly painted - probably in preparation for the throngs of foreigners that are expected to descend upon the city next year. Another interesting little tidbit - the opening ceremony of the Olympics is slated to begin at 8 pm on august 8th 2008. Apparently 8 is a very lucky number in chinese tradition, so they're milking this one for all they can.

This is going to be a long entry since it's been a couple of days, and with the speed of this internet connection, I'm not sure how often I'll have the patience to wait for this. As it is I'm typing in Notepad so that I can just copy and paste when the stupid thing finally loads.

I had my first "wow" moment on this trip yesterday, and it wasn't nearly as beautiful as the one from my last trip. It did almost bring me to tears, though. We drove yesterday for about 6 hours, and the sky was thick brown with dust from the desert plains. Really quite nasty. Even in the car with the windows up and the AC off, my eyes, nose and throat were getting gritty with sand. At one point it started to rain, but the rain was actually coming down as mud. I can only imagine what a month in the desert is going to do to my mucus membranes. Anyway, that wasn't the wow moment. That came as we rounded a corner and crested a hill into a small town that had a major coal burning power plant. I'd already seen a bunch of mines and towns with huge piles of coal, and he dust from that adds to the nastiness that's already in the air. But seeing this coal burning plant was something else. Several square miles of smokestacks billowing plumes of black smoke. It was figuratively breathtaking in a very not so good way and did almost make me cry. The sky in that immediate area was even darker than where we'd been through already. And then as if by some ethereal coincidence, the sky cleared right over the site of a nuclear plant with 3 reactors generating thick white plumes of steam. One would think nuclear energy would be a nice, clean alternative to the coal burning plants that predominate in China, but given their history of safety standards, maybe not so much. I'm a huge advocate of wind power for this country. That's a resource that is in absolutely no short supply. Holy cow the winds can whip you right off your feet here. It is pretty amazing, though, how many nuclear plants there are in China. I think I've seen about a dozen already. The largest had 8 active reactors, and the city of Baotao alone had at least 7 independent plants with no fewer than 3 reactors at each one. It's incredible, really. Hopefully they're all for power...

So we're spending the night in a city called Erdos (or Urdos, depending on the sign). The cool part about this part of the country is that in and around Beijing the signs are in Chinese and English, but soon after you cross the border into Inner Mongolia, the signs switch to Chinese and Mongolian. Not so useful to me, but interesting nonetheless. I am also witnessing firsthand the mass migration of people from the countryside to the cities. Everywhere you look in the countryside, there are ghost towns of villages that you can tell once had active storefronts. Of the dozens of houses, maybe half a dozen or so still
look occupied and pretty run down at that. Then you get to a city of any significant population, and greater than 80% of the structures are new construction - as in the last 5 years or so. I'm convinced that this country must have about 99% of the construction cranes in the world. Shaoyuan claims (and I haven't seen the numbers myself) that in the last 20 years, 200 million people have relocated from rural areas into the cities. It's almost creepy to drive into a city that looks like it just sprung up overnight. So that's Erdos in a nutshell. We spent the day here so that we could grease the palms and bellies of some local officials. We had the most obscene amount of food for both lunch and dinner today with some folks from the Forestry Ministry, the Wildlife preservation group, and some guy who is apparently a hot shot discrict secretary. He was clearly the most imporat person at the table, as well as the most self-important, if you ask me. He sauntered into the room, sat down, yammered on and on while people fake-laughed at his jokes, and didn't look anyone in the eye at all. Just a weird vibe. However, I couldn't understand a word of the conversation at either meal, so what do I know? :) All I could do was sit and eat and drink and be told to eat more and drink more. It's really isolating and kind of strange to be in a room full of animated conversation and be of no part in it at all. And a little frustrating since I would like to know what their thoughts and plans are on this whole project and how they forsee accomplishing our goals. And additionally, I can tell that Shaoyuan is explaining the purpose of our work, and when he tells me what he's said all I can do is smile and nod since the translations in both directions are so difficult. I'm just feeling a bit intellectually distanced, but I think it'll all get much better when we're in the field actually doing the work and I can at the very least get my hands busy again. That's it for now. The blog page still isn't loading, so I think I'll be having Darren log into my account and post these for me. I seem to be able to access gmail but not blogspot so well. Take care and write to me when you can. I miss everyone - most especially my coffee crew! Oh yeah, and Jenna - if you're reading this (or if someone is who points here this way): I have found Shoe Mecca. Each department store in this town has an entire huge floor of the absolute cutest shoes ever that puts DSW to shame. And remember that this is coming from a woman who doesn't get so excited about shoes! Shaoyuan says that Beijing has the same shoe selection but cheaper than here, so I think I may come home with a new pair of shoes :)

An early birthday for me..

... and a bit unexpected. I have to buy myself a new camera because mine in fried :( Not exactly the best way to start a trip, but at least it happened in Beijing and not in the middle of nowhere. The chip seems busted. Ah well. It lasted a good 4 years. Probably time for an upgrade anyway.

Yesterday I made enough paraformaldehyde to fix a horse. That probably doesn't mean much to a whole lot of you, but it excites me in a weird way. We're pretty much ready to go now. Traps, lots of food (for us and rodents), DEPC water, PFA, tubes and tubes and tubes... After the prep work, I caught the train downtown and walked for about 2 hours to get down to the Forbidden City to meet Shaoyuan (he took his wife to catch the train to her hometown). If it's true that the best way to learn a city is to get lost in it, then I must know Beijing pretty well by now. I had no idea how EVERYTHING on the map is very very very tiny compared to real life. And to you Texans out there - you aint got nuthin on China. Nothing is bigger in Texas compared to this place.

I was doing fine on time until I got to Tianmen Square. The Chinese flag in the square is lowered every day at sunset and is cause for a huge spectacle. They shut down all foot traffic past the flag as a crowd of several thousand forms. I had to take the underground passages to get around everyone. But not until after I snapped a fantastic shot of a guy posing in front of the police formation. That's one thing I love about Asia. People here will pose for a picture in front of just about anything. As a result, I've started a bit of a collection of my own pictures of people having their pictures taken in front of random things :) So after a bit of a walk around, Shaoyuan took me to some famous restaurant where we had the most AMAZING duck I've ever eaten in my life. That line ought to make Darren jealous since duck is one of our favorites. It was so juicy, and the skin was the most perfect brown crispy deliciousness. And we had a beer with dinner which only the tiniest sip made Shaoyuan turn the brightest shade of red. Ahhh, the glories of alcohol dehydrogenase :) That's it for now. I'm going to help get things ready to leave tomorrow and then we're going back down to see the inside of the Forbidden City and visit Chairman Mao's pickled bits. Later...

Good morning!

All I've managed to do so far is eat and sleep, and I have been wonderful at that. Ms. Xia (a research associate in our collaborating lab) brought me to lab yesterday morning to get started on the preparations for the field work. That didn't take very long, so she took me to an outdoor recreation store (like REI) and then to a tourist souvenir market. I quickly decided that I needed lunch and sleep, so after trying to choke down a bacon, egg, and pickle (!) sandwich, she took me back to the hotel for a "nap". Said "nap" turned into a 5 hour sleep. I woke up in time to catch dinner, read a bit of my book, and go back to sleep for a full night. I think I've shown that jetlag what's for though. I will have to say that Shaoyuan knows good food. With the exception of that questionable sandwich (for which he wasn't present, and I should have known better since the menu was in english), all of our meals have been fantastic. I had a really fantastic pork and tofu dish last night, and brunch today was a bowl of spicy chow mein noodles with mushrooms and chicken. I may still lose a little weight on this trip, but it won't be for lack of trying to keep myself full at all times. I've also learned from every country I've visited that it's better to go to places with no english menus and point if you have to. If you're willing to risk eating calf intestine, you're likely to get a fantastic meal.

I feel like my english is a bit strained from speaking so slowly and simply to everyone. Our collaborators do speak pretty good english, but I'm trying to simplify my vocabulary to get my point across. It seems like that's carrying over a bit to writing here and in my emails to people. Ha!

I woke up in China today

Which is good since that's where I went to sleep last night. The flight was frickin long, but uneventful. I didn't find out until I got to Logan airport that my flight was to La Guardia and then out of JFK, so I had to catch a cab across Brooklyn. Then it was a bit of a game of musical chairs to get my seat. I boarded late so that I didn't have to take part in the herd of chinese folks. Read some of my past trip to China to see what I mean about people "lining up". So I was supposed to be in Seat 42A, but there was a guy in that seat. He was supposed to be in 41A, but there was someone in his seat who was supposed to be in 40A. I decided "screw it" and ended up in 40A. That apparently very much confused Shaoyuan when he came looking for me midflight and I was not the person in 42A. I was dead to the world for most of the flight anyway, so I didn't notice much of a thing. My brain is sort of mush right now from the jetlag, and we've started right to work in Dr. Yang's lab getting things ready. I'm taking a quick break to update you all. I got to see the Olympic stadiums this morning. They're super cool. And the institute of zoology is really nice. It's a new building with new lab space. I love new lab space. We're going to finish getting things ready today and tomorrow and maybe have a bit of time to see the Great Wall and the Imperial Palace before we head off for Inner Mongolia. No Jerboas yet, but there is a great big Tibetan rabbit sitting in the corner of the desk watching me type. It's Dr. Yang's pet, and it's a little snotty and keep sneezing. Kind of funny to see a rabbit sneeze. I'll try to keep you all updated. Thanks for the emails!

I'm off again

Hello all,
I leave town again tomorrow morning (May 10th) for China. I'm going to be spending a couple of days in Beijing and about 4 weeks in the desert in Inner Mongolia. I'll be working with a team of colleagues to collect rodents of the family "Jerboa". Image search them - they're cool. If you're interested in looking at the satellite image of where we'll be - it's roughly 38 degrees N 108 degrees E. I've developed a new fascination with Google Earth :) I'm not sure exactly where we'll be and how well connected we'll be, but I'm going to do my best to update this as often as I can get online. If you look at that satellite image, you'll get the correct impression that it probably won't be often. Also, I remember from my last trip that China has this pesky little habit of blocking access to any "opinion" sites, so while I can access my email and post to this blog, I won't be able to see what I've written once it's posted. Please forgive me if I repeat myself!

long awaited photos

I finally got photos posted. It's enough to keep you busy for awhile, but I haven't gotten to China, yet. Stay tuned for more. You'll find them organized into albums by country at photos.yahoo.com/zebrafish96

I'm safely home!

It was a long trip back, but I've made it and am recovering well. You'd be amazed how much easier it is to get public internet access when travelling that it is when at home. Anyway, I left Luang Prabang on the second to take an 11 hour bus ride to Vientiane, then the 12 hour train from Nong Khai (on the Thai side of the border) to Bangkok, spent all day walking around Bangkok (which I like much better since I avoided the trashy backpacker ghetto this time), slept at the airport, and flew home in about a 16 hour journey. The train ride was nice, but the light shines all night into the top bunk. I tried to duct tape the curtain hooks to the ceiling so that I could block out more of the light, but the curtain was too heavy for the tape :( A nice Thai guy travelling with his family gave me two bottles of water as they got off the train - that was really nice. After I got off the train and put my pack into left luggage, I was walking toward the shopping and financial district of Bangkok when I passed an older monk collecting food. He stopped me and handed me a little bag of fruit jellies and wouldn't accept one of my bottles of water in return. It was all in all a really nice send off for Asia. So I walked around looking at a bunch of clothes and stuff, went to see Narnia (I'm going to miss $2.50 movies and 75 cent popcorn) and dropped into a department store to buy new clothes that cost more than at the market, but I got to try them on!!! I felt disgusting from not showering the two days, so a new change of clothes sounded lovely. I cleaned myself up with a pack of babywipes and changed into fresh clothes at the airport, then discovered that the massage place offers showers for $4.50. Oh well. With my mat on the floor and my travel pillow under my head, I managed to catch a couple hours of sleep (along with several dozen other backpackers - that's a busy airport at all hours of the day and night!) I think the worst of the jetlag is over now. I'll be in Seattle until Jan 17th, then in Texas and off to Boston on the 23rd. I've enjoyed this whole blog thing, and maybe I'll even continue one after I get moved. I'll definitely post again in about a week to let you know where I post my pictures. Can't wait to see as many of you as I can while I'm around.

A long blog to catch up on the last week...

So I'm actually going to make it to Bangkok to catch my flight at godawful early o'clock on Thursday. That was questionable for a bit this morning. When I asked, all trains and buses were booked, so I crossed the border and went to the train station. Fortunately I picked up someone elses cancelled ticket, so I've got my sleeper for tonight!!! Now to book myself into a posh (for my budget standards) hotel near the airport for a good night's sleep before returning home.

On the 26th, I made it by songtheaw (little pickup truck packed full of people, produce, packages, puppies and pigs) 4 hours from Luang Prabang to Nong Kio. It's a nice little town on the Nam Ou river. The first night, I was walking along and was invited by a nice family to join them around their fire (no Lao Lao this time, whew!) They got a good laugh when I toppled over backwards off the little stool that my friend Mark rightfully calls the "wooden enema". The next day, I rented a bicycle and went about 10 out through a few villages, the last of which seems to rarely see farang. You can tell because the children that do see foreigners (closer to town) run up yelling "Sabaidee, hello, pen?!" I took a bunch of great photos along the way, in part to entertain people because they all LOVE to see themselves on the digital screen. BTW, I've had no luck getting photos posted here (tried several times), so when I get home, I'll sort through my 6 CDs of images and post the best ones on a free online photo album somewhere. I'll send a link when I get a chance to do that.

So the second night in Nong Kio, I met the MOST OBNOXIOUS traveller on the PLANET!! He's an older, retired German guy who is arrogantly and earnestly travelling the world. He's got the next 2 years of 6 month trips planned already. I say obnoxious because a bunch of us were in a restaurant, and at about 9:30 the owner's family was getting ready for bed on the balcony about 20 feet from our table. This town shuts down at about 10 pm. We (with the exception of obnoxious man-OM) were quieting down, trying to be respectful and just finish the last of our beers, when OM started rapping on the floor to get the attention of the cat. The owner politely asked him to stop, and OM started loudly ranting about how he was a paying customer, and if the guesthouse and restaurant wanted to stay in business, he should be allowed to make as much noise as he wanted. So I got up and left immediately, not wanting to part of that scene anymore.

On the 29th, I hopped a boat up river through some amazing scenery to Muang Kwa, which is itself a complete pit of dingy buildings and trash everywhere. I've had some pretty nasty rooms along the way, but this is the first time that I've woken up to the sound of rats in the walls. I slept with the mosquito net tucked in even though there were no mossies, just to make it a little more difficult for anything else to land in bed with me. I met a woman along the way who had a rat fall through her ceiling in the middle of the night and scurry across her forehead. Ew.

I ran into this guy, Mark, who I'd met in Vang Vieng. He's super cool and a lot of fun to hang out with. His 51st birthday was on the 29th, so we had a mediocre dinner to celebrate and spent the next day hiking about 12 km entirely uphill (about 3000 ft elevation gain) to a village called Omaak. Most foreigners just blow through Muang Kwa in one night and don't spend any time in the surrounding area, plus the dirt motobike road that we followed termininates about 24 km out of Muang Kwa, so most of the people along the way really rarely see foreigners. We felt like travelling minstrels because we'd dance around and make funny noises to entertain the kids, then entertain them with photos of themselves. We met a random english speaking guy at the last village, which was a bit unexpected way out there. He was super nice and offered for us to stay the night in his village, but we both wanted to get moving on again early the next day, so we just made the full 12 km back. Too bad, though. I bet that would have been a great experience.

So the morning of the 30th, I went down to the boat dock to get my ticket back down the river to Muang Ngoi, only to find out that 5 other seemingly richer short term travellers had stupidly chartered the scheduled boat for $70. The official price for the boat is 60,000 kip (about $6 per person), and when I told them that they said the boat guy told them that if they paid for the whole boat, they could take pictures along the way. Dumbasses!!! I watched this guy hand over a crisp new $50 and $20, and about a dozen Lao people gathered to drool over them like kids with candy. A few minutes later a little girl came along with a few bottles of Beer Lao, and they celebrated their successful scam. So then of course the ticket for me to get on a boat went up to $15 since I was alone, and they wouldn't just let me pay the stupid tourist my 60,000 to get on "their" boat. So I set my pack down and just got really politely and sweetly obnoxious saying "who's going to put my on a boat for 60,000 kip?" After about 45 minutes, I finally got a guy who begrudgingly put me on his boat and took what I was willing to offer. But that really irritates me about travelling - so many travellers are willing to toss around money without doing just a little bit of research to find out how much things SHOULD cost. The result is that prices skyrocket for everyone else. And in a country where the average Lao person earns about $1 per day, that either raises prices to where locals can't afford goods and services anymore, or it makes it difficult for them to get what they need because everyone would rather cater to the "rich" foreigners. Argh!!

Anyway, I made it to Muang Ngoi, which is a sweet little village where the power is cut at about 10 pm, and there is no phone or internet anywhere in town. It was lovely. A couple of guys and I hired a guide who took us down the river by boat and led us up into the hills to an Hmong tribal village. They were celebrating the new year, so everyone was decked out in their traditional dress. I played catch with a couple of sweet little girls and entertained a group of boys by taking short videos of them with my camera. It's really really beautiful up there. And since it was the holiday, I decided to stay an extra night in Muang Ngoi to spend New Year's with my new friends. There were 4 of us staying in bungalows for $1 each (whoo hoo!!), and the woman who runs the place (Mama Tjuum) had invited us to join her and friends and family for a pig roast for the holiday. We asked how much we should pay them for our share, and she said about $3, so we thought that was fair enough. When we get to the table, almost no one spoke english which shouldn't matter since there are many ways to welcome people across the language barrier, but no one at the table tried. Then we find out that the other foreigner at the table, a 40 some-odd year old woman from San Francisco who was dating a 20 someodd Lao guy, had bought the pig for $30. Her boyfriend tells us that we should buy a couple of ducks and a chicken for the table. We're suddenly feeling like this is an opportunity for them to take advantage of us and try to get us to pay for their holiday meal, and don't feel very welcome in the first place. So to avert the akwardness, the woman buys a case of beer for the table. We're being shunned, and she's getting loads of attention. When one of the guys that I was with decided to buy a couple of beers for the table, he suddenly got more attention, and we quickly realized that the only way to be welcomed by these folks was to show them the money. So we politely made out exit. There were plenty of other parties in town where the people were absolutely lovely and warm, and we joined with them in dancing an bought rounds of beers for people, but it was out of our hearts and not by demand. Although I gave in at about 11:00 and missed New Year's. Too bad too, because the town kept the generator running until midnight just for the special occaision ;)

So now I'm mid travel back to Bangkok. I caught the boat/bus to Luang Prabang day before yesterday, and made the 11 hour journey by bus from LP to Vientiane yesterday. Barely, at that. The bus station was in mayhem because all these foreigners had bought "tickets" from travel agencies in town for VIP bus that was over booked. Basically, you pay $12 (instead of $10) for a useless piece of paper that you then have to take to the bus station in the morning and hope that they have a seat for you. Since no one seemed to know this, there were a lot of pissed off people who got to the bus station and were told they couldn't get on the bus that they were "booked" for. I managed to hustle for a seat on the $8 bus that everyone was jammed into (complete with plastic chairs down the aisle) and finally got into Vientiane last night. Laos is a beautiful place with some really amazingly nice people, but I see that it's been marred by the greed that comes with tourism, and I don't think it's quite the place that it was even just 3 years ago. That's too bad, too, because I bet it was really wonderful. Not I'm on a quest to find the place that is now what Laos once was and get there before it's ruined as well. I'm starting to think the best places to visit are post war torn countries right after their safe again but before they become corrupted by over tourism. Any ideas anyone?

Happy New Year!

Yes, I'm still alive and here. Sorry I disappeared for a bit. I went up the Nam Ou river for a week without realizing that there is no internet or phone anywhere up there. In fact, there's limited electricity, which made it wonderful. I've never seen so many stars in the sky. This is going to be a short one for now since I've got a ton on internet stuff to catch up on, but I'll write a longer post tomorrow from Vientiane. Toodles!

Merry Christmas from Laos!

Though it's really surreal to be saying that. I'd sort of decided that if I couldn't be home for Christmas, then I'd rather Christmas just didn't happen. So the original plan was to head out of Luang Prabang and go up north somewhere that most people have never heard of Christmas. But then I got sick the night of our gourmet dinner which was a bit disappointing as well. It was good and as close to gourmet as I've seen traveling, but maybe I just hyped it up in my head too much. Ah well, it was even worse the second time around when I was sick all that night, then fevered and feeling crappy all the next day and couldn't get out of bed. I'm worlds better now, eating again, fever is gone and all, though I've still got a bad head cold. Grrr. Ah well, it kept me here which is probably good because now I'm with friends for Christmas. It's just so funny in Luang Prabang because it's such a tourist town, and the locals have put up trees and laid out decoratively wrapped boxes, and hung wreaths and Santas. But it's warm here, and I'm in a Buddhist country along the Mekong river surrounded by coconut trees. My friend Gen had an interesting observation. She said even the time she spent Christmas in Hawaii still felt like Christmas, so it must be something to do with having the holiday celebrated consistently for decades in a country that makes it feel more like Christmas. Here it just feels like the glitzy material part of Christmas without the spirit, and it's sort of like just another accomodation for tourists, which granted is in itself very sweet of the Laos people.

But that said, Merry Christmas to all!! I hope you're all able to be with family and friends and feel warm and loved this holiday season. Thank you to everyone who has written their holiday greetings to me on the road. It means a lot to me to have you all here virtually if I can't be there with you physically. Take care!!