Eric's Beijing Diary

Back in Beijing. Left Portland yesterday morning. It never gets easier to say goodbye. Heather and Melissa took me to the airport. Heather was desperately trying to find a nice place to have a farewell breakfast, but everything seemed to be packed out, so we ended up just going to the airport. It turned out well, though, because we had a little time to chat as we were eating pizza. Grandma guessed right. Heather ordered veggie pizza. Not bad. And we brought Juliana into the party by calling her on the phone.I was a little nervous about going through security in time, because I couldn't remember the exact exit procedure from the last time I left the States, and I didn't know how long it would take--didn't want to miss my plane. I needn't have troubled myself. There is no exit procedure. You don't have to show your passport to any official in order to leave the country. Airline officials will ask for it, and if you fly Northwest, they will check to make sure you have a visa for China. They had a problem a few years back with a couple nurses who tried to get into China without visas, so they're really picky about it now. But no immigration official stamped my passport. I hadn't remembered that, but when I look at my old passport, I can see that there is no exit stamp from any of the times I have left the US.

It's good to go, but also so good to come back. Still, coming back from a visit with my daughters leaves me with a lot of mixed feelings. I can't say that I really miss America. But I do miss my daughters. It would be good if they could be here, but my daughters are American. Very American. I guess I shouldn't be surprised by that. We did not live an international life.

And I haven't lived much of an international life the past six years. I have spent most of my time in China. I have left the country once a year, but not to go very far. My last trip to the US was in February of 2005. I guess I need to be getting back there a little more often. It is getting easier to do the international thing. Still a bit of a problem with China, because China--USA flights are so severely restricted to protect business for Chinese airlines. If the airways were opened for competition, rates would be significantly lower. That will come, eventually. It's all moving in the right direction, albeit ever so slowly.

Just got back from Arizona. Melissa and I flew down there for Mom's birthday. It was a quick trip, and I was at first somewhat unsure how it was going to go, but the discount airline actually turned out to be more convenient than flying out of Portland.I suppose you wouldn't feel that way if you actually lived in Portland, but Melissa lives in Monmouth, so the drive to the airport in Eugene is actually shorter than going to the Portland airport, with a lot less traffic.

During the party we all talked with Little M who is in Japan with the JET program. It's becoming a small world.

Sunday morning we went to the Japanese church in Tempe, and I was telling a young lady there about our flight, because we had to leave right before church. She was excited at first when I told her what our tickets cost, but she changed her feeling about it when I told her that we were flying on a small regional airline. She said, "Oh, I don't like small planes."

I guess the term "small" is relative. They aren't small in the sense that a general aviation light plane would be. The MD 80 has been flying since the early eighties, so that makes them close to 30 years old, but they aren't really that much smaller than a 737. And quite comfortable, actually. But no frills. No meal, no snacks--you have to buy everything separately. That being said, the ticket price is a huge discount ($60 one way), so I think it's worth it. But, again, I say that in part because the Eugene airport is so easy to get to from Melissa's place.

Went to church with Melissa in McMinnville this morning. They happened to be having a special "Worship in the Park" at Wortman Park. The guest preacher had worked with Child Evangelism Fellowship at one time, and it showed. He presented a very simple gospel message, followed by a short invitation. It was uniquely suited, I thought, for a family-oriented picnic Sunday. After church, we had a picnic. They had an old ice cream maker. That thing had been obviously been around for quite awhile. it reminded me of what we used up in Nojiri to make ice cream, except that it was quite a bit bigger. A few of the men were taking turns cranking the mixer. I decided I might as well help them, since Melissa was busy talking with the other church ladies. Hard to beat ice cream from a hand-cranked mixer.

This evening, Melissa hosted a gathering for some my friends from college. It was her idea, and it turned out to be a good one, because with all I had to do, I probably would have settled for a few phone conversations. It was nice. Interesting how we have all changed, yet there is a certain something about each person that remains the same. This is especially true, of course, for those who are of the household of faith. It's been over 30 years, now, since I graduated from college.

The Oregon coast is the Oregon coast. Too cold for swimming, but for hiking, it's as good as it gets. During the years that I lived in Oregon, I did go swimming in the ocean two or three times.But I was never able to do it without getting an ear infection or a cold. The water is icy. But the Oregon coast is rustic. Lots of interesting rock formations. Weather is predictably unpredictable, so there is never a guarantee of a sunny day. But the coast is mystic and beautiful nonetheless.

When I was a child, we lived about five minutes from the sands of the Japan Sea coast. That was a superb swimming beach. I have never experienced anything like it. Not sure why the waters of the Oregon coast are so cold, because the latitude is pretty close. But, as I said, the Oregon coast is beautiful. There were many times during my youth, that I stood on some rocky prominence at the Oregon coast, and looked out across the ocean toward my home. The words of the prophet always came to mind, "Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn." I looked and looked, but I could never quite see it. As a matter of fact, I left my home when I was thirteen, and did not return for 32 years.

Left the lake behind us this afternoon. Hard to beat the serenity of the Cascades. There isn't anything like this in the Beijing area. But there sure is in western China. The difference, of course, is that China just has so very many people. But if you get up to the Tibetan Plateau, and you can find a place that isn't listed in every tourist book, you can really find some pretty peaceful areas. Another thing about China is that tourists generally go for the well known sites. So when they come through the little village where I often go in the summer, they go to the sky burial, or the monasteries. I don't. I get up early and hike up the canyon. In the evening, I hike up the ravine. There is no one up there, except the eagles overhead, and a few sheep grazing on the hillside. Once I met some local people picking berries, but that is about it.

Solitude. I guess it's not easy to find anywhere. The campground where we have been staying for the past few days could not really be called solitude, because we were surrounded by a lot of other folks. But you could get it here if you wanted to get up at the crack of dawn and hike around the lake, or something. But any way you look at it, the struggle for solitude is a challenge for anyone trying to live a modern life. So difficult is it to find sometimes, that many people have managed to learn how to live without it. They have come to think of it as a luxury, and some, I think, are even afraid of it. I don't know how many times I have been climbing the mountain out at Fragrant Hills, and someone will come walking along with a boom box strapped to his body filling the quiet air with relentless noise. Drives me nuts.

And it's not just Chinese young people, either. Here in Beijing, it is not unusual to meet foreign teachers who never go anywhere. They haven't taken time to learn the language, so they feel uncomfortable traveling. Their only experience of getting away from the daily grind is an evening of drinking or hanging out an an electrically charged atmosphere of loud talking and ear-splitting music. They never really get away. Beijing is an interesting city. But it is a city. Everybody needs to get out of the city once in awhile. It's not enough just to have free time. You need to find a place of repose "far from the madding crowd," as Hardy expressed it.

More than a couple, it seems. Actually, this kind of craft is not very easy to use in open water. It's billed as a four-man raft, but that is only because it has four oars. It's really a one man or two man raft. This kind of raft doesn't capsize very easily, so it is pretty safe (as long as it doesn't lose air), but because of that, it is not that easy to manoover on a lake. Better on a river or stream.

I'm not talking about long river trips. For that purpose, I would rather have a canoe. When I was a boy scout, I took a 50 mile trip down the Crow Wing River in Minnesota. Canoes are great for that kind of trip, because you can carry a lot of gear. Our boy scout troup had three canoes as I remember. We carried tents, food, a camp stove, sleeping bags--everything. Four days. We were moving downstream, so there wasn't a lot of work in it. There are things you see from the river that you would never see otherwise. It was a real Huck Finn experience--paddling lightly downstream; stopping to spend a lazy afternoon jumping into the river from an old railroad trestle; lying in our sleeping bags at night, feeling our sunburns, and beating eaten alive by mosquitoes--scouting at it's best. For that kind of a trip, you definitely want a canoe. And on lake on a calm day, a canoe is good, because you can explore a lake much more efficiently with a canoe. Canoes glide across the water and are easy to steer. And capsizing isn't that much of an issue, as long as you don't stand up and it isn't windy. But for shooting rapids down an Oregon river, like we did on the Metolius years ago, you can't beat a raft.

As I mentioned previously, I had never been to this lake before this trip. I guess maybe it's because it is a private area. We are not staying at a State campground. But this lake is really pretty nice. The rainy season in Oregon runs from November to June, so the end of the summer and beginning of Autumn, you get the benefit of the natural beauty produced by the rain, without the rain.

Left Beijing 9 o'clock Wednesday morning, and got into Portland just before 9 on Wednesday morning. I don't usually sleep very well on planes, but I really did my best to get some sleep, because jet lag always bothers me more when I am flying east. Going against the sun, I guess. Arriving before you left, you know.

Yesterday morning I got up to go get some coffee and do some reading, because Melissa had to work pretty late the night before. I walked out to the main street and decided to walk across to the old city park. I was a bit frustrated when I was trying to cross, because there was a car parked right in the middle of the street, and I wasn't sure if I should go ahead and cross. I waited for awhile and then looked in the other direction, and saw another car doing exacly the same thing! It suddenly dawned on me that they were waiting for me. That would definitely not happen in China. Two cars and both are stopping for the only pedestrian on the street. Never. In China, if they saw me trying to cross, they would have speeded up in order to intimidate me into backing off.

Mark looking at Mt. St. Helens, with Mt. Hood in the background.
After Melissa got up we drove up to Lost Lake north of Sandy, where I taught many years ago right after I graduated from college. Jason had gone up in the morning to stake out a campsite. Problem was, that campground is pretty big--lots of sites, and cell phones don't work there. Mark was also supposed to be meeting us. When we got up to the campground, it was starting to get dark, so we were in a hurry to find Jason, but it was really like looking for a needle in a haystack. You know how those things are--not sure what to do, and feeling really frustrated. The first thing I usually do is to start trying to figure out what to do. But there was no figuring. We needed God's help. I don't know why it always takes me so long to come to that point--I guess it's the weakness of my faith. If we really believed God would help us, wouldn't we ask Him first thing? Anyway, I prayed and asked God to guide us.

As soon as I finished praying, I saw a white car, and told Melissa to stop so I could ask the guy for information. The guy happened to be Mark. He told me that they had come earlier that day. They were not able to find Jason, so they had spent the afternoon hiking, and they were just about ready to give up and go into Hood River and find a motel. As we were standing there talking, Jason drove up in his pickup. He had decided to go out looking for us a few minutes earlier. We all went back to the camp and had something to eat.

This morning, we hiked up the trail to view the mountains. The campground is right near Lost Lake. I lived in Oregon for eleven years, and I had never heard of the place. Really pretty. The trail brings you up an extra 1500 feet or so to an incredible view of the North Oregon moutains. It's really quite impressive, and very quiet.

Facebook and Twitter are blocked in China right now. It's because of the riots in Urumqi. At least, that's what provoked it. But that is certainly not the only reason they are staying blocked. CCTV ran a feature on Kaixin, the Chinese version of Facebook. It's quite clear that they want to keep Facebook locked out long enough to give the home brand a chance. My blog is blocked, too, but I have manged to get in with a proxy. Blogspot has been blocked before. In fact, it was blocked for the first three years I was in China. But in the past, they always left the update site open. Now they have both of them blocked. I have found a proxy for each one, but they are clunky. I think I can get caught up when I get to the States, because I always write my blog first in Notepad. Sometimes in a real notepad (remember those?), but always in Notepad on my computer. Open Notepad, press f5, and start writing. I do that for a couple reasons. One is that when I first began to use Blogspot, Blogger (the update site) was unpredictable. Growing faster than they could keep up with it, I guess. And there was a time difference once I moved to Beijing, which meant that I could not publish posts directly. But I also do it because it gives me a very portable and complete backup for everything I have written. I can search my own notes using the Windows search utility much faster than I can do an online search. Facebook, though is going to be a problem. I can see it with a proxy, but I cannot publish. I am not much of a social networking kind of person, but I was hoping to use Facebook as a host for jpegs and videos.

Holly's coworker kindly helped me to get to the airport shuttle this afternoon. We were a bit early for the shuttle, so we went to a coffee bar near the bus station. I have really not had very good luck this summer with train tickets. But Eason has the connections to get pretty good flights for me. I gave him a call, and he found a low cost flight, then forwarded the e-ticket to my cell phone.

It was good to go, but also good to come home. But this time, I won't be home long, because I have to fly to Portland on the 19th.

Click picture for larger image.
Last night, Jessica and her sister and I walked to the meat market near their home in the village. I wanted to buy some mutton so that they could cook a dinner with meat. Folks in the villages in China do not eat meat very often, because it is just too much of a luxury. But boy do they know how to cook it when it shows up!

Jessica's sister had to stay out of school because her family could not afford to send her. But she is now going to be going to college in Hezuo. She will also go to a teacher's college. Jessica's salary as a school teacher in Linxia County would not be considered high at all by city standards, but it is a big boost to a farm family in the village, so it is understandable that her sister would want to follow the same path. When someone from the countryside wants to get a higher education, there are always two factors to consider. One is the given student's score on the National Entrance Exam. The other is the cost, which must be borne by the family. Several years ago, I visited a
village in Shanxi Province which was the home of a teacher I had met in Beijing. When she took the National Entrance Exam, her test scores were quite high, but her family did not have much money, so they decided to send her to a teacher's college, because that would be less expensive. Even at that, her father had to sell his horse in order to pay her tuition. So the a high score on the National Entrance Exam is no guarantee of a good education. But there is another factor that enters in. Kids who are educated in poor village schools often have a real disadvantage when they take the National Entrance Exam. They just don't have the background to perform up the the level of students who have gone to better funded urban schools. Years ago, when I was teaching in a rural School in North Dakota, I felt that students in the country schools actually got a better education than their urban counterparts, because class sizes were smaller, and state funding made up for the difference in local tax valuation. Not so in China. So even kids who are quite bright will not tend to do as well as they themselves would have if they had been given the opportunity to attend a good grammar school.

This afternoon, I took the local bus into Linxia to board the express bus for Lanzhou. The last time I visited Jessica in 2007, we just stood out on the road and flagged down the first bus we could find that was going to Lanzhou. I don't want to do that again. The bus that stopped was one of those private buses that stop at every little hamlet until they get enough passengers to make a profit. The three hour trip from Linxia to Lanzhou took five hours. I guess you could call it an experience, because we took the back roads through village China rather than the highway, but it was quite exasperating, and I didn't want to get to Lanzhou quite so late.

When I got to Lanzhou, I was instantly approached by a black (market) taxi driver who wanted to take me to the train station for 20 yuan. As a matter of fact, I did want to go to the train station, so I could get a local bus to my lodging, but I didn't want to take a black taxi. I started to head out toward the street, but the driver of the bus I had been on saw me and pointed me to the train station shuttle. It was a minivan with people beginning to pack into it. Three kuai per person. The black taxi driver immediately brought his price down, but it was too late. Actually, it's always too late where I am concerned. I don't take black taxis unless there is no other option.

Since 2006, I have always stayed at least a night or two at the Guest house at Northwest Normal University. I had called Holly from Langmusi and asked her to book a room for me. When I got the the Guest house this afternoon, Holly was not on duty, but her friend was working, and she had been told to expect me. The place has been remodeled a bit since I was here last, and Holly had lined me up with a very pleasant room.

Took the bus from Langmusi to Xiahe yesterday. Took me a little while, but I finally found a cheap room near the Labrang Monastery. Labrang Si is the largest Tibetan monastery outside of Lhasa. It is the main reason people come to this town. I have been through the place before, so I really didn't want to do the tour. I started nosing around in a residential area where tourists weren't really supposed to be, and met a monk who invited me to his quarters. His "flat mate" was an old, old monk who spent the entire time we were there fingering Buddhist prayer beads. I don't think the poor old man does anything else all day.

I was struck both by the friendliness and loneliness of the monk who invited me to visit with him. The Labrang Monastery is the largest monastery outside of Lhasa. There are lots and lots of monks there. And it isn't as if they don't do things together. In fact, in contrast to the mountain hermits, it appears that they do everything together. But in fact, the don't seem to have real companions. This guy had a roommate, but his roommate was a very, very old man who spent literally every waking moment mumbling and fingering his prayer beads, working his way into Heaven.

This morning, I got to the bus stop just as the bus was heading out of the bus station toward Linxia. I took the bus as far as the village of Shuangcheng, and got off. Jessica came to meet me with some of her school children. This is the third summer that I have worked with Jessica and her kids.

Jessica is a local school teacher who conducts a private school during the summer vacation, teaching English and math to local children. The first summer I worked with her, she had many more students than she does now, but she also had other teachers working with her. This summer, she didn't have any other teachers working with her, so she raised the tuition a bit, so that she would have fewer students.

Life in a village in western China is quite different from life in the big city. This village is near Linxia, so the Hui Muslim influence is quite noticeable. Also, since this village is not a tourist stop, the life is much more typical of village life in China than it would be in Langmusi, where there are a number of businesses (such as the horse trekking) that rely on tourists for their income.

I spent a good bit of time teaching the children a song. The are learning English, and their progress is quite impressive, but it is largely rote, because they recite their lessons together, repeating after the teacher. I spent a lot of time having them recite one by one, in order to enforce independent learning. It really is a unique opportunity that these children have, because, if they follow through with this, they have the potential to become very proficient in English. Most of these kids are pretty young. All of them are certainly below the age of native language acquisition.

My last day in Langmusi for the summer. How the time does fly! I tried to hike up the canyon this morning, but when I came up to where the Tibetan shepherds had moved down into the meadow, I suddenly realized that one of their five dogs was loose!

I don't know why. I suppose perhaps they had some trouble with someone trying to steal sheep or something. Five barking dogs would certainly let you know something was up if a thief came in the middle of the night. But if the thief had managed to figure out that your dogs were all tethered, he might be bold enough to take one of them away. After all, the shepherds in the canyon have hundreds of sheep. This is not a small flock. Or perhaps they were having trouble with attacks from wild animals. Five barking dogs would not be able to prevent this. But one loose dog would make short work of any kind of thief.

I saw it running toward me full speed through the crowd of sheep. Suddenly I decided it wasn't that nice a day for a hike. I turned around and started running, but immediately realized the unworthiness of my plan. Dogs can run faster than people. I turned around and prepared to square up with the beast. Kill or be killed. I was ticked. For one thing, Tibetan Mastiffs are huge, vicious animals, and I intensely dislike being chased by them. I was almost savaged by a Mastiff three summers ago when I was hiking across the prairie on the Gansu side of town. The dog was lying in the grass, and I didn't see him. The old Tibetan lady who was standing by her tent when I walked up didn't speak English or Mandarin, but she yelled a warning just in time. The dog jumped out of the grass and came charging after me, but he was chained, and I was just beyond his reach.

Today, though the dog was not chained and he was definitely in attack mode. But, as I said, I was pretty ticked, too. Three years ago, when I was attacked, I had deliberately walked up to an encampment that was out in the middle of the wide prairie. I didn't have a particular need to be there, or to walk through that particular camp. I have been told since then that I was crazy to go hiking alone on the grassland like that, and, in retrospect, I agree. You are absolutely defenseless against a dog that happens to be loose. I didn't even have a stick with me. But today was different. The canyon belongs to everyone. Certainly I have no problem with the Tibetans being there, especially since they are so friendly, and they often give me tsampa.

But their camp spans the entire width of the canyon. You can't proceed (at least up that fork of the canyon) without walking through their camp. So, you see, I also felt infringed upon. I took my book bag and started swinging it and yelling at the dog. I was really ready to kill him, and I think he could sense it. You should have seen me. Then again, maybe it's a good thing you didn't. Anyway, the dog finally gave up and ran back to camp.

A high school kid I met in the village invited me to his room at the Sichuan monastery. He is studying for the summer. He's not going to be a monk, or anything; he's here to study Tibetan language and culture under the tutelage of a local monk. I think he wants me to teach him English, but I am not going to be here long enough to accomplish much of anything. Nice kid, though.

Most of the young boys I see in the monasteries are here to stay. Supposedly. Some of them do opt out when they get older. The thing I have never been clear about is how there could be so many boys in the monastery, when boys are the desired child for rural people. Are they really so dedicated that they would sacrifice their only son to Buddhism? I don't know. They sure seem willing to sacrifice their money.

When the monks introduce themselves, they ask me where I am from. When I tell them I am an American, they smile and shake my hand. I was hiking in the ravine on the other side of town with a couple young ladies. One of them said, "Tibetans don't like us." I told her that it wasn't really her--it was that the Tibetans were upset about how the government treats minorities. I told her about the government's plan to destroy the traditional homes of Uygur people in Kashgar, and move them into government-built apartments. She said, "the government doesn't only do that to minorities. Look at the Three Gorges project." I couldn't argue.

Tibetan women spreading yak dung on the ground to dry.
Had breakfast with some Tibetan shepherds this morning when I was hiking out of the canyon. I bought some yak butter from them, or tried to. The guy I talked to remembered me from 2006. He refused to take any money. I'll have to try again tomorrow. That stuff is pretty good on Leisha's banana pancakes. The shepherds live a very efficient life. They don't have to pay rent, because they live in tents. They cook will small stoves that burn yak dung. I stopped at a place in town that sells these stoves, and they are not expensive. And if they yak dung is dried properly, it's actually a pretty clean burning fuel.

Talked to a government official today who was sent here after the Tibet riots. He told me that the restrictions I had noticed were directed at groups, not at individual travelers like me. Interesting. That is just about the opposite of what I had concluded. I told him what had happened to me in Lanzhou, and he said he thought those folks didn't understand the policy properly. He also told me that he thought I should be welcome because I supported the one China policy. He had heard me say last night in discussion that I thought Ma Yingjeou was using wisdom in his approach to this policy--supporting reunification, but laying down specific conditions, i.e. issues that needed to be resolved.

Had dinner with one of the volunteers from the youth hostel and the British guy, who has finally come back from his search for rabies vaccine. He finally found some in Lanzhou. I don't know if it was really efficacious, because I understand the first dosage is supposed to be taken in the first 24 hours, and he sure didn't make that deadline. But he is still alive.

As I have mentioned before, the town of Lanmgusi is on the border of Sichuan Province and Gansu Province. So if you want beef noodle soup (a Lanzhou specialty), you can find it. But there is also the spicy Sichuan fare that is more commonly associated with that province. But it's better. If you go to Chengdu or Chongqing today, you see lots of restaurants advertising the modernized Sichuan hotpot. But the little place we went to this evening was an old, old Sichuan country restaurant. The proprietor of the place wore an old Mao jacket and looked like Deng Xiaoping. Really delicious food. I'll take this over the modern places in the big cities anytime.

There was a mural on one wall with the old Chinese expression, "Ma Dao Cheng Gong," which means, roughly, "Ride a horse to success." Or maybe, "Be a horse to success." Or "Horse your way to success." I don't know. Hard to translate.

I stepped into a little coffee bar in the village and heard beautiful Christian music. It would be nice anywhere, but quite special here in this little mountain village with nothing but two monasteries and a mosque.Somewhere this guy has learned to make really good carrot cake, apple pie, and a few other nice deserts. And the coffee is good, too.

He had become a believer when he was in University, I think. There sure aren't many Christian churches here on the Tibetan Plateau. A city of more than a million people might have one, but there aren't any cities of that size, except, perhaps the capital of Qinghai Province, which is technically on the Tibetan Plateau.
I think there is one church in that city. But Lhasa, of course, is on the Tibetan Plateau, and I am quite sure there is no church there. It's just pretty slim picking in the Tibetan communities, which are dominated by the monks and the monasteries.

But while there are no churches, there are a few English teachers, and, no doubt, a few family fellowships, which are allowed in China, as long as they are just family and a few friends. Anyway, I don't know where he got those music CD's, but it sure made for a pleasant atmosphere.

Click here for larger image.
Eva was planning to leave this morning, so I told her she could come with me to the canyon if she could be ready to leave by six. It never ceases to amaze me how many people come through Langmusi and never bother with the canyon. She was glad she came. And I was, too, because that morning it turned out that the shepherds had moved down into the meadow, and they had several very fierce dogs. She yelled several times to the shepherds to make sure the dogs were tethered. When it became fairly certain that the dogs were not going to come after us, we walked up among the sheep and cattle and had a nice chat with the shepherds.

Eva's friends decided not to leave today, so she actually went back up the canyon after breakfast and spent some time with the shepherds. To me, the canyon is the most beautiful part of this area (although I also like the ravine on the other side of town). I would say one of the most important reasons for spending a few days in this town, is that you can walk any direction for five or ten minutes, and you are in the hills. Most people, though, stop and see the monasteries, maybe attend a sky burial, and then leave.

Met a young college kid from Hunan who is traveling by herself around Western China. Invited her to breakfast at Leisha's. While we were eating, she got a call from her mother, who was worried sick about her twenty-year-old daughter traveling by herself.
I asked Eva about her life. She said, "I want to believe in something. It doesn't matter what it is. I just want to believe in something.

The British guy was bitten by a dog. He went to the doctor and the doctor told him not to worry about it. There is no rabies vaccine in Langmusi, and chances are he would have been fine, because the doctor has seen lots of dog bites, and they always treat it as a first aid issue. But in the end, the British guy didn't want to take any chances, and left for another town in an attempt to get the peace of mind the treatment would give him.

Met a Tibetan guide from Xiahe. He told me what the deal was on my difficulty buying a bus ticket. He said that the government was trying to restrict all the Tibetan villages to tour groups, so they would only sell tickets to groups with a permit. Sounds like they are trying to implement the same kind of thing they have in Tibet. I hope that's not the case, but it does make sense in a way. Linxia is a Hui Muslim city, but Hezuo is a Tibetan village. So the lady at the ticket window would talk to me about how to get to Linxia, but was very tight lipped when I asked about anything beyond that. I'm not sure, but he could be right. Doesn't explain, though, why had no trouble at all buying a ticket for Langmusi at the ticket window in Hezuo. Both Hezuo and Langmusi are Tibetan villages. If the government really is trying to keep backpackers from the Tibetan villages along the Lanzhou to Chengdu route, that would be a huge mistake. Backpackers are apolitical, harmless, and they bring a lot of business to the villages in this area.

Good to be back in the Sichuan Canyon. Yesterday I flew to Lanzhou. Since I had taken an early flight, I went immediately to the South Bus Station in Lanzhou to see how far I could get into the mountains. I thought perhaps I would go to Hezuo, and then leave for Langmusi the next day.When I went to the ticket window, the lady told me she could not sell me a ticket to Hezuo. She would only sell me a ticket to Linxia. I asked her why, and she didn't answer. I didn't really want to spend the night in Linxia, so I asked her if I could buy a ticket to Hezuo as soon as I got to Linxia. She shrugged. I was annoyed by this bizarre behavior, but I decided to go ahead and get the ticket. She told me I had to go to a local place and get a photocopy of my passport. The guy standing next to me showed me where to go. She also told me that I could not buy a ticket for another 20 minutes. That struck me as odd, because the guy standing next to me was also going to Linxia, and she sold him a ticket right away. Obviously, it had to something to do with the fact that I was a foreigner, but I have never encountered anything like this before. Nothing to do but wait. I waited 20 minutes, bought a ticket to Linxia, and got on the bus. When I got to Linxia, there was a bus just getting ready to leave for Hezuo, so I got on. I don't usually do that, because buses that arrange fare informally can sometimes be quite exasperating. They won't leave until they are close to full, and if they aren't full, they will keep stopping to try to recruit riders. For some reason, after talking to the driver, I figured this one was going to be OK, and it turned out to be not that bad. So I made it all the way from Beijing to Hezuo in one day. Yesterday, all that was left was the three hour ride here to Langmusi.I went to the Langmusi Binguan where I have stayed in the past. The lady who runs the place recognized me right away, which resulted in a bit of a discount (about 5 kuai), but still a little more than in the past, because they have completely remodeled the place. So now it's 25 kuai for a bed. I put my stuff in my room, and headed over to Leisha's for something to eat. I met a couple Israelis who told me they had a private room for 40 kuai at the youth hostel, and the place had free wireless. They were leaving the next day, so I arranged to take over their room. I have never taken my laptop with me in the summer because it's a little bulky (I hate small monitors), but I decided to take a chance this summer, because the Internet bar in Langmusi is so bad. Really glad I decided to take it, because the wireless here is actually pretty good. On par with the coffee bars in Wudaokou.

After lunch, the two Israelis, a British guy and myself hired a car to go out to the hot springs. It was fun, I guess, but the place is not developed at all, and not very clean. Mind you, I am a little spoiled. Once you have been to a Japanese onsen, nothing else quite lives up to it.