I'm so well satisfied after an amazing
bbq. The Hump managers put on every Wednesday and Saturday a communal bbq, 35
kuai for a beer/glass of punch, and all you can eat in the courtyard of the
hostel. The meats; all marinated in different styles, then spit roasted and
barbequed to perfection. After the first few plates, live music from visitors
and locals challenges people to hush their vigorous meal banter.
So I spent my day relaxing in the
sun and walking along the city wall, chatting to Leah, from Israel; and Felix,
from Germany, who are stuck in Dali (keep checking out of the hostel but
staying another night because of the magnetic goodness of this place), and
awaiting the arrival of Josh, who has been on some scary and amazing adventures
to get here.
All I’d heard from him was that he
was stuck 100kms out of Luang Prabang, on the bus, at a huge landslide in Lao
countryside. I then found out, when he finally arrived in Kunming at 10pm last
night, that at the border crossing a guy on the bus he’d been on got angry for
the delays with stamps and validity of his new passport from NZ, had gotten
pushy and punches were thrown, and the border guards intervened with guns
pointed, assuming Josh had started a fight, so then searched his bags and
person, and the trip, in total, took 52 hours of cramped and agonizing bus
journey.
On arrival this evening he was
bubbling with the stories he can now tell with enthusiastic disbelief; that
they’d actually happened, as a first time traveler on mad visa mission to come
meet me for a few relaxing weeks in China.
We drank cold beers and ate an
average of four plates packed with fresh meat and veggies, wraps, lotus root,
deep fried eggplant and spicy tofu, all enjoyed in good company of course. It
was wonderful the way all the people I have been spending the last few days
with welcomed him so warmly and happily.
The
evenings invoke a chill and maybe a few lazy raindrops, but Brian’s country
music and the scattered groups of people with heads together in collaborative
conversations ensure the most pure energy enforced atmosphere that all hostels
should seek, and all travelers be lucky to come across.
