Below Belief

Rise, early for us at 11am to vacate our room and have breakfast in the fiery sun out on the terrace for the last time. We head out to finish off our shopping, realising for the first time the ridiculous quantities of cloth and marble we are trying to take back to Britain. Llew picks up his outfit, neatly tailored. I buy another pair of trousers and Llew another top and some shorts in a mad rush to spend last cash reserves.
By the time we have eaten and the time has come to board our bus out, our bags are distinctly larger and heavier than when we first arrived in Dali. Our bus is just like before and we suffer the usual Chinese mentality “rush to claim seats that aren’t yours”. If only they could understand the word organisation, everyone would be so much better off. For some reason, although this bus is noisier, has an even less well-functioning gearbox and keeps breaking down, we actually get a better night’s sleep than last time. I’m not sure if the same goes for the two American women on board who’ve been on the beers all afternoon and were under the impression there’d be a toilet on board. Some hope. Standard long-distance bus practise is start dehydrating yourself at least 6 hours before.
We chat to a Dutch couple and a German chap who are all a bit more relaxed. I wake up sometime in the middle of the night to find us travelling through a surreal landscape of red-sandstone. This is where they are building the new road but haven’t yet finished. The road descends down the mountainside in a series of sweeping but narrow bends on what is now a barely passable building site. I look out to see the headlights illuminating a lunar-like surface with ruts I wouldn’t consider driving a car through, let alone a bus full of slumbering tourists. But our driver suffers no such reservations and takes the bus slithering and lurching over the craters. Because we are going down hill and he’s running a business, the engine is actually switched off to conserve petrol. So it’s brake only. Interesting driving technique. There is one moment where we hit very wet mud and the driver has to use bursts of acceleration to send us skidding and sliding like some majestic ice-dance across the road.
Not everyone wakes up and I feel almost privileged to witness this: China at it’s least safe.
Monday 28th July
Amazingly, we arrive on time after only 14 hours. So Happy Cafe it is for a Western breakfast in that unique Eastern style of not quite getting things right. On the way back to the Camellia, we weigh our bags on a set of roadside scales. 20kg for Llew and 23kg for me means we must do some careful optimisation if we are to get through check-in for free tomorrow. Decide to fill our handluggage with vases.
Crash at the Camellia and try to recover lost sleep. By 6pm we are ready to face China again for the last time. Kunming realises pretty quick that we have been to Dali since last we walked here since it is as two circus performers in baggy, striped, preposterous pants and tops that we make our last promenade through the warm evening streets. We find the tatty Beijing restaurant, deceptively hidden behind the stalls of a fruit market still bustling at 7.30pm.
The restaurant is cheap and the crockery is dirty. We wish we had Peter here to complain but we don’t so we take China as China. We order some northern cuisine from the menu in Chinese, including Beijing Duck, squid soup and two chicken dishes. It is all remarkably tasty and we have plenty to get through. As usual we have chosen a time to eat when we are alone in the restaurant. Perhaps Chinese restaurants are always this empty. Filled to the maximum we heave our bloated bodies back for relief at the Holiday Inn followed by a last beer at the ‘Cowboy’. Here we reminisce about our trip before a long and detailed discussion about marriage, of all things.
Our room is now full of Japanese travellers, sleeping under the eerie blue light of an insecticutor. I fall asleep after ten minutes of Paul Theroux. Tomorrow we leave China and it seems too soon – like an opportunity to stay longer is being wasted; like we’re throwing away an investment we’ve made in getting to know this country and in all the fun we’ve already had. The frustrating moments fade, leaving only the good memories.
Sometimes though I get the feeling that it is the journey itself and the people-watching that I love the most about travelling and that the country itself just forms a varied backdrop on which our adventure is enacted.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 1997 at 1:59 pm and is filed under China. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.