As seen on the frontpage, I’m sitting in an empty apartment in LeShan. It’s pretty cold. The floor, especially, is cold and even my fuzzy pink socks that a girl who broke my heart gave me a year ago aren’t enough to stave off the chill. The internet doesn’t work, so I have nothing to do but write this blog entry or watch the interminable China Channel 9. Outside the sun is a weak faded disk barely able to make itself visible through the almost constant white sky of winter Sichuan. Aside from the chill, though, the apartment is pretty nice – there’s a bedroom, a bathroom, a balcony; a desk, a couch, a coffee table; a fridge, a microwave, a washing machine; a TV, a phone, a computer – and starting in late February this will be my home for six months, or maybe a year. But for now, I’m just here for one night.

Let’s see, where did I leave you last? Oh, yes, I was in Kunming. I met a young guy (18 years old) from Britain named Freddie. We headed to Dali, in Western Yunnan.

After two nights in Dali, we headed up ChangShan, a 4000 meter mountain outside of town. We took a chair lift more than half way up the mountain, walked along a paved trail for a few hours and stayed at the Higlander Inn for the night. The innkeeper asked if Freddie was my son, which Freddie gave me no end of shit about, so I started calling Freddie, “Junior.”

 

In the morning, Junior and I hiked up to the top of the mountain, about 12,300 feet high, but we only had to hike the last 3000 feet of elevation. Near the peak the wind whipped wild and cold and we both had to kneel down occasionally for fear of taking a tumble. I had no gloves and my fingers ached with pain. We stood around for ten minutes at the peak, snapped some shots, and headed back down out of the wind. It was a ten-hour round-trip and we were exhausted by the time we made it back to the chairlift and down into Dali.

The next day Freddie and I parted ways – he went north to Tiger Leaping Gorge and I went west to Nunjiang Valley. I hadn’t met anyone who’d gone to Nunjiang Valley, so I figured I should go. A seven hour bus ride got me to Liuku, at the bottom of the valley, where I spent the night…

 

… and eight more hours of bus the next morning brought me to Bingzhongluo, near the northern end of the valley, 20 kilometers from Tibet.

Bingzhongluo is small town, about three blocks long. My guidebook told me there was a hotel called Tea Horse Inn where I could find maps of hiking trails and a helpful staff.  The Tea Horse Inn had an open door, but appeared not to be operating – during my three days in Bingzhongluo I never saw anyone in the place. I went across the street and got a room at what was apparently the only hotel in town. The room was pretty nice, had it’s own bathroom and TV and a nice view of the surrounding mountains, but it was absolutely freezing. I could see my breath at all hours of the day and if I wasn’t out walking around I could be found snuggled up under my blanket watching Channel 9 – the English channel – or random sports (snooker, weightlifting, badminton). Outside the hotel I found a bar-inn that proclaimed, in English, “cocktails! maps! hiking trips! jeep trips!” but it too was empty even though the front door was open.

My second day I hiked up into the hills without a map and walked past numerous villagers chopping wood and transporting it down the mountainside on donkey trains.  What the hell was I doing here? I couldn’t speak to anyone, it was cloudy and freezing and sometimes drizzled rain. Give it another day.

 

The next day I took a bus to the very end of the road, where a small village sits in the crook of the mountains. Later, a traveler I met would tell me that this village was actually in Tibet – but I’m not sure if it’s true.

Walking back along the road I passed a boy grinding corn into flour at this water powered mill.

Back in Bingzhongluo I had a bowl of noodle soup with cut up hot-dogs. Yum. Three days and I hadn’t spoken to anyone more than to ask “how much?”, “do you have food?”, “when is the bus?” and, of course, “thank you.”  Unlike my English self, in Chinese I am very polite.

On the morning of my fourth day I took a bus back to Liuku (8 hours), waited around the bus station for 4 hours and then caught a sleeper bus back to Kunming (10 hours). I arrived in Kunming around 6am and couldn’t remember what bus to take to get to the guest-house. A man on a motorcycle agreed to take me for three bucks. I hate riding on cycles with my backpack on, I feel like huge teetering mass ready to fall onto the pavement at any moment. It was cold and damp, the roads were moist and probably slippery, but the man on the bike got me to my guest-house in one piece.

From Kunming I took a night bus to Vietnam and went to Sapa, a mountainous tourist retreat with beautiful views.

I was too tired to do much there except eat and rest. Ivan, a Belgian I’d met on the bus, and I celebrated Christmas at a bar and watched the local tribe girls play foosball – the same girls who had offered me marijuana and opium on the streets. There’s a big Catholic church in Sapa and we wandered up there to see the Christmas festivities. A nativity scene with stage had been built behind the church and between blasts of music the people on stage would yell things into a microphone. Food vendors lined the street outside and kids wandered around with Santa balloons and Santa masks. It seemed like a lot more fun than the American version.

After Christmas, I headed to Hanoi and spent about twelve days there. I met up with Mike and Slawek, who I’d met in Chiangmai (see Happy Hippies). Mike lives in Hanoi and teaches English and Slawek, like me, was just passing through. We had a great time eating the street food (a bowl of steamed clams in wine sauce – $2) and drinking Beer Hoi, a two-percent Hanoi home-brew (30 cents a glass). Hanoi’s small streets are maze like, intersecting at odd angles, and packed tight with an infinite parade of mopeds.  I told Slawek and Mike I was thinking of teaching English in China. In fact I’d responded to an on-line ad for a teaching position in Sichuan province. On my way out of Nunjiang valley I had realized I was a little tired of traveling and site-seeing. My constant mobility was wearing thin, I needed a home for awhile. Maybe a long while. Teaching seemed the easiest way to live in China – I didn’t really know for sure. That was the plan anyway.

We celebrated New Year’s Eve at Mike’s apartment. As the hours crept toward midnight it seemed as if no one was going to show up for the party. Slawek sat at the kitchen table with a beer, smiling he told me in his Polish accent, “This is the best New Year’s party ever.” He yelled down to Mike who was on the lower floor organizing chairs for the supposedly impending throngs. “Mike! This is the best New Year’s I’ve ever had!” He wasn’t kidding either – he genuinely loved it. “Three guys, late 30s, 40s, and 50s – from all over the globe – alone in an apartment in Hanoi on New Year’s. It’s wonderful!” He laughed his laugh – a sort of elongated single “Ha!” You know, he was right – it was wonderful. I was almost disappointed when six or seven people showed up around 11pm and we had a proper little party going.

Slawek and Mike left Hanoi on the 4th, leaving me alone on my birthday (Jan. 5th). It was fine. It’s nothing new – all through my life my birthday has often fallen on the first day back to school or work and people are worn out from Christmas and New Year’s. I’m not looking for sympathy, I’m just telling you – it was normal. I don’t want you to feel bad. No, please don’t. I ate some clams, had a few beers and bought a train ticket for the 6th. Back to China.

I spent an uneventful four days working my way up to Chengdu, Sichuan’s capital city, watching Avatar in 3D in Nanning and getting stuck in a shitty hotel in Guiyang where I had to put on my headphones and listen to music to fall asleep because of the squeeze-doll like sounds of a girl getting screwed in the next room that came in seemingly unending waves, like a parade of police sirens – eeeh aahh eeeh ahh eeeh ahh.  Maybe she was easily aroused, but beneath my annoyance I was impressed.

I arrived in Chengdu – China’s fifth biggest city. I got a room at Sim’s Cozy Garden Guesthouse and the next morning went to meet my contact at Sunny’s English Club. Sunny’s is an English-Teacher Recruiter – they find people who want to teach English and pair them with schools that need teachers and, of course, they take a commission for themselves.

Sunny’s English Club is on the tenth floor of a nondescript office building. The office is one medium sized room with about eight people in it, all typing and clicking away on computers – no doubt emailing other prospective teachers like me. I had a bad feeling right from the start. Two Sunny’s recruiters sat me down, got me some tea, and told me about two jobs in towns outside of Chengdu. I could sign the contract now if I wanted to, they said. I didn’t want to, I said. Could I visit the schools first?  Well, they told me, it’s school break so no one is there. I’ll just go visit the city and take a look at the school, I said. I could tell they didn’t like this – they wanted me to sign then and there. Listening to the alarm bell in my head, I told them I would think about it and left.

A quick google search found a handful of very unhappy posts about Sunny’s English club and no good ones. I decided to look around Chengdu before deciding. Over the next twelve days I emailed a million different recruiters, met in person with four different private teaching schools and responded to various other job ads, but I never found anything I wanted. Most of the private schools seemed suspicious to me – I would ask how many classes I would be teaching and the recruiter would pause, smile, and say something that sounded good, but I just didn’t believe it. Most of the jobs at public schools were teaching young kids, I even got offered a job teaching kindergarten. Can you imagine me teaching a bunch of snot-nosed kids who don’t even speak English? I would probably end up getting kicked out of the country.  My plan seemed to be falling apart, maybe there were no jobs I wanted in China.  Maybe I should just put my pack on and keep moving.

But, maybe, I thought, maybe I’m just chickening out.  Maybe I’m afraid of teaching.  Well, I am afraid.  Terrified.  Standing in front of a bunch of students saying what?  “Umm, my name is Ben and I am speaking English.”  But the jobs just didn’t feel right – I wasn’t happy when I talked to prospective employers.  I didn’t know what to do.  I continued emailing and sitting around Chengdu.

To make a short story of it:  I finally found a job I think I will like, teaching English at LeShan Teacher’s College. LeShan is 2 hours south of Chengdu, a smallish city of 350,000 souls, and home to the Grand Buddha, the biggest stone-carved Buddha in the world. I was able to go down to LeShan and actually meet my future employers, see the school and my apartment.  I am still dealing with permits and visas, but I think the job will work out.  I guess the plan did work out in the end.

Freddie “Junior” Martin showed up in Chengdu after I’d been there two weeks and we went to see the Grand Buddha…

…then we headed to Emei and climbed EmeiShan (Towering Eyebrow Mountain) with a few other people. The hike is almost all stairs — it took 2 days, about 2500 meters up.  Along the way there are mischievous monkeys that steal food from unwary hikers, but we were accompanied through the “joking monkey zone” by two women who work at the mountain and wield their bamboo staffs with brutal abandon to keep the pint sized primates at bay.  On the second day we had to strap crampons onto our shoes to keep from slipping down the icy stairs.

EmeiShan is famous for the beautiful sunset and sunrise. There is also something called “Buddha’s halo” which is at sunset, when your shadow is cast upon the clouds below and you appear to have a rainbow halo around you. Specific levels of humidity are necessary and we didn’t see the halo. Apparently some people, so moved by this heavenly vision, have committed suicide upon seeing the halo, throwing themselves off the sheer edge of EmeiShan into cloudy enlightenment. Or something like that. Guardrails surround the peak now, with placards that read, “Loving life, do not turn around handrail.”

Freddie’s left now, and I had to go back down to LeShan to deal with some visa stuff. That’s why I’m here now alone in this apartment, my future home. Soon I will be off for a little travel, to Shanghai to visit friends, then to Hong Kong to finalize my visa, then back to LeShan. I hope to do it all without flying. Wish me luck.