China underground by Mexico Zachary

Author:Mexico, Zachary
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Brooklyn : Soft Skull Press ; [Berkeley, Calif.] : Distributed by Publishers Group West
Published: 2009-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHINA UNDERGROUND

Our group occupied the “back of the bus,” a five-person bunk that takes up the rear. In order to chase away the smells of cigarette smoke and unwashed feet that combined to form the aroma of the bus, we had to open the little windows on each side of the bunk. Unfortunately, when the windows were open we could look past the side of the road, hundreds of feet down the mountain to the ground. The bus driver was blank-faced and driving way too fast. There were no guardrails to protect us from a potential fall. In three days, I was to turn twenty-one; the thought occurred to me that I might not make it.

Nevertheless, we arrived safely in Lijiang, where we hung out for a couple more days, eating and drinking and walking around the beautiful Old City alongside tens of thousands of Chinese tourists. On the day of our departure, we woke up early, still a bit sore, mentally and physically, from the rigors of the overnight bus. We left Lijiang in the late morning. After a comparatively luxurious and uneventful three-hour bus ride through stunning mountains, our group arrived in Dali in the late afternoon

We eagerly snatched up our backpacks from the belly of the bus and pushed our way through the crush of barking touts crowding the station, hawking food, rides, and hotel rooms. Once we had broken free from the throng, we clomped through the cobblestone streets of the Old City, burdened by our backpacks, searching for our destination: the Golden Sun Hotel.

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AS EVERYONE WHO has visited Dali—and many Chinese cab drivers who haven’t—can tell you, the place is beautiful, so beautiful that it doesn’t seem real.

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