It All Started With Asia the Strange When the Chinese stop making you laugh, it's time to go home." I made it home after an exhausting 6 months then lived in Mexico for 2 years, before making England my temporary home. But don't be fooled by this seemingly one-place-kind-gal attitude...

Well, Readers...

The bus ride was NOT 22 hours long, but closer to 30. I won't quite go there yet, since, plot-wise, we still haven't left ChengDu. We acquired a new rooomate one of our nights in ChengDu, Irishman Liam, who joined us for a self-guided tour of ChengDu his first and only day there being the good sport he was. That same night, we set out on the town in search of an Irish bar playing the F.A. Cup finals - how hopeful and naive we were...we dropped that plan, agreeing instead to meet at "the pub" (apparently there is only one) in LiJiang on Tuesday night at 8pm. So Liam left the next day for LiJiang, and Jess and I allowed ourselves one more day in the ChengDu area so that we could visit the much-famed Giant Buddha in LeShan. A literal stopover in JiaJiang at the Thousand Buddha Cliffs had us in complete awe, and a minibus ride to LeShan had us feeling drowsy. Headed for bus No. 13, which would take us to see Buddha, we were approached by a fine, English-speaking university student, Mickey, who was "so excited! You are here!" When we informed him that we had wanted to take a boat to see Buddha from the water, he got extremely giddy, clapping his hands together, even jumping a little (while his more mellow, and mostly shy friend stood by), but had enough calm in him to find out where the cheaper boat departed from. "I am so excite! to go on a boat trip!" were Mickey's words when he discovered that, indeed, the boat ran. And like our cave guide in Yangshuo, Mickey's voice would turn from loud and emotional when speaking Chinese to quietly enthusiastic and soft, but high-pitched when speaking English.

The Chinese, especially those who come in contact with foreigners regularly, such as hostel employees, and many university students, often choose an English name. It's much easier for foreigners then to remember their names and gives them an identity in another tongue. I have, so far, run across two Apples, we've caught wind that there is a Tantalus living on the East coast according to an acquaintance who met the man himself, but Disney character names consistently dominate China's English-name dictionary. If it's not Alice (In Wonderland), it's Mickey or Minnie. Debbie was a one-off, and we've met a Simone. What would you re-name yourself if Star Magazine and Shakespeare were your only sources for nominal selection?

So, for 1 yuan, 49 yuan less than the speedboat option, the four of us chugged across the river to an island which brought us perfectly close to the Buddha - from the water, it was possible to see the Buddha's two guardians who were carved into either side of the cliff face surrounding him. Mickey had brought a fan that he hand-painted himself so, naturally, we took a picture of him with it in front of the Buddha and promised to send it his way, then experienced a bit of celebrity as Chinese tourists crowded around us taking it in turns to have their picture taken with the "laowais." Though the term "laowai" once carried a negative connotation and is still occasionally used in such a way, it has generally become a neutral and common word for "foreigner" and is used among old and young alike.

We thanked Mickey for his hospitality and got on bus No. 13 finally. However, this particular bus was on its way to deliver the day's collection of money and so, as the sun descended and the closing hour of the Buddha Park drew near, we sat on a random road in the opposite direction of where we wanted to go while the bus driver ate noodles and the money-collectress sang to herself. Not only did we make it to the Grand Buddha in time to see him, but a student price existed AND we were relieved of the masses of tourists who flood the park during the day. Sitting at over 71 metres tall, the Buddha was understatedly "grand" and an incredible sight. We were pleased with ourselves for managing to do a two-day trip in just one, and returned to the long distance bus station hoping to catch the last bus back to ChengDu. The bus driver dropped us off at the station, beeping his horn at us as he took off and sent us a long farewell kiss when we looked back at him. We arrived only to find that the bus station was closed and that the last bus had left at 6:30. No matter, we decided, we'd just go to the Central Bus Station. It turned out that noone knew where this station was, but rather than suffer the embarrassment of having to admit this, we were just pointed in various directions and sent in circles by the people that we asked. Even worse was that the bus station no longer existed in the location that we had it at on our map - and for all we knew, it no longer existed at all. The options were not good. Having left our passports in the safety deposit box at our hostel in ChengDu we wouldn't have a chance at getting a room for the night, but all buses from LeShan bound for ChengDu had already left and we had to pack to leave for LiJiang the next morning. We determined that we had to get back to ChengDu that night. Our good fortune led us to a group of people who didn't speak English, but also didn't laugh at our MISfortune, and organized for a taxi driver to take us to a place that, according to their body language, they were certain would have a bus so we hopped in. The driver took us to the newly located and not-so-central Central Bus Station, dropping us off at its locked front doors. Thanks but no thanks :) Of course, this is probably a common occurrence, and so we were immediately smothered by taxi drivers competing to take us to ChengDu. We agreed to a price and thought we would be leaving on our time. We waited to FILL the taxi, in fact, and left only once it was full - and our fee didn't fluctuate, funnily enough...Despite the deafening techno played for the entire duration of the ride, the 140km/hr speed that had us over-taking police cars, got us back to ChengDu in under two hours. The driver maintained our price, charging the other couple half of that, then dropped us off at the outskirts of the city before taking off with the couple! We returned unscathed but mildly angered. Whatever the case, we were where we wanted and needed to be, and celebrated our relief with some veggie street skewers.

It's not that my entire life's entertainment is found in China's overnight bus rides, but this one deserves mention. Outfitted in unwashed pink linen and devoid of any form of air-conditioning system, this sleeper wasn't the one you would want to spend 30 hours on if you had to. And had I noticed the dried blood on one of the blankets (from a nosebleed, most likely, as this journey takes its riders into high altitudes) or known that many Chinese are not accustomed to travelling by road and often buy snacks, stuff themselves silly, then end up vomiting out the window along the curvy roads on this route, perhaps I would have considered the more pricey and lengthy trip down to Kunming first...we departed at noon on the Monday from the heatbed that is ChengDu, which finally brought a breeze through our open windows, but also signalled to its mostly male passengers the beginning of a smoking marathon. Most of the passengers and all three drivers chain-smoked, which in the stifling heat that had collected during the midday station stalemate where we'd sat for an hour prior to leaving and lack of air-conditioning created a toxic cloud in which Jessica's asthmatic lungs were at their angriest. The windows helped for air flow, but were strangely large. At just over 2 feet tall and sufficiently long that a 12-year-old child could easily topple out of the space should the driver take a sharp turn, the window seemed an accident waiting to happen, but we just need that air.

The drive was beautiful, as we climbed higher and higher Tibetward-bound, but the roads were unpaved in places, there were no barriers lining the cliff's edges, and the previous week's heavy rains meant that landslide leftovers were numerous and landslides themselves were a serious concern. Our driver-with-a-death-wish didn't help. My nervousness was dismissed as unnecessary and confirmed as legitimate as I watched the seven-year-old beside me get thrust off his middle row bed into the aisle on one such sharp turn which we took at dangerously high speeds. As you might imagine, sleeping became an issue. When I wasn't tensed up from the fear that I might die tonight, I was having to save myself from rolling into the aisle as we sped along the mountain sides, sometimes cutting corners by driving on the opposite side of the road, or hold my head as we raced over potholes at twice the speed of every other vehicle on the road. You know that falling feeling you sometimes get when you're on the verge of a deep sleep? Not so cool when you might actually be falling. I finally did get myself into a half-awake, half-asleep state, when the whole bus was startled by a loud "BOOM!" At 1am our engine blew. Though a minor two-hour delay, Jess and I were stunned not by the noise but by the clear sky when we looked out of our enormous windows. We were finally grateful for the size of the windows, and through them, decided that every star that does exist was out that night. They were incredibly bright against the moonless night, and the air so clear that it enhanced their light from bright to brilliant. The drivers, with their seemingly minimal mechanical skill, managed to get us moving, but not without a steady clanking noise whenever we reached speeds above 10km an hour. A very long and slow journey brought us to a short strip of dimly lit shops - they were closed, of course, but the drivers simply banged on one of the metal doors hoping for a response. Many businesses in China, especially guesthouses and some shops, have an employee sleep in the reception room with the valuables for security reasons and also in the case that someone might return late. In this case, it was likely that the mechanic's home was attached to his business and so it wasn't a completely hopeless effort. The mechanic, much to my surprise, emerged and after a drowsy half-hour of drilling and chit-chat, we got going again, and relatively noiselessly at that!

As 10am approached the next morning, the supposed 22-hour mark, Jess and I attempted to determine where exactly we were. When we finally saw a sign, it read the name of a city that was about half-way between ChengDu and LiJiang. This was a disappointment in itself, but the worst part was that we couldn't even ask how much longer the bus ride would be. While the bus was stuffy, dirty with nosebleeds, smokey, and not the most desirable place to be for what turned our to be an additional 8 hours, the scenery was unbeatable and made the extra time spent on the bus much more bearable. What was almost UNbearable though, was the two official bathroom stops that our male drivers made in the entire 30 hour trip. There were two "lunch/dinner" stops, but if your bladder didn't comply with these times, it made for a long trip. We arrived in LiJiang at 6:30pm on the Tuesday night, set ourselves up in the Old Town Youth Hostel, turned around, and made way for Frosty Morning to meet up with Liam. Although we'd thought we'd given ourselves ample time to make this date, we had instead arrived with not even enough time to shower or change before we had to meet Liam. But this wasn't a problem - the chips and drinks were calling us from two days before and we certainly didn't want Liam to think he'd been stood up.

So here's another lesson for THIS week: if the bus only runs twice a week and is only half-full when it does leave, you might want to consider its reliability.

We decided that with the weather being so amazing, we'd get onto the Tiger Leaping Gorge trail earlier rather than later, and joined Liam the next morning (after a deep and undisturbed, but short, sleep) on his way to the West entrance in the town of QiaoTou. A hearty breakfast at Jane's Guesthouse, yak meat, vegetables, and noodle soup for moi, had us raring to get going, if not for the fun of it, for the next Naxi meal that awaited us at our first night's stay.

LiJiang is located in the northern region of China's south-western Yunnan Province. This area sits on the fringes of the Tibetan plateau and is home to the large but still very local Naxi people, who are a Tibetan minority and bring all of the wonderful colours, textiles, and food of Tibet into this more accessible territory of China. So for any visitors who are unable to make it to Tibet still get to enjoy Tibetan culture here, one that is the most relaxed and welcoming that I've experienced so far in China.

The entrance to the Gorge trail was little more than a wooden plank of wood painted with the words "Ancient Trail" on it. There was little the locals could hassle us for along these parts, but we did have a man on a horse follow us for most of the day waiting for Jessica and I to collapse under the 20kg weight of our bags. The tactic is to follow the hikers closely, pushing them to their limits, and exhausting them so that they will require your conveniently nearby horse. With this in mind, I made sure to stop whenever I wanted to take pictures, which halted him, and took several pictures of him on his horse. He liked it. He also eventually abandoned us. The landscape was undescribable - almost - I'll try, but the pictures are much more articulate on their own...the Gorge was how you might imagine a gorge to be: there was a muddy river at the bottom, which was lined by incredibly steep, endlessly tall mountain slopes. This sight alone was grand. In the distance, there were snow-capped peaks that lost some of their white as the sun came out over the course of the day and were eventually only capped by the sun's beams at its end. On our side of the gorge, a narrow trail had been walked over thousands of times and blazed amongst a barren landscape of long, wiry, dry grass and short shrubbery. Two hours got us to the Naxi Guesthouse, where we reloaded our water supplies, and the next hour got us up the fearsome 28 Bends - which weren't actually that bad. If you haven't climbed the 100-rung ladders of the West Coast Trail, I could see it being overwhelming, but it wasn't so steep and hard-going as slippery with loose slate on an unsafe mountain side and so mostly slow-going.

At its summit, also the highest point on the trail, we spotted a viewpoint. We crawled underneath a suspiciously-smooth wooden bar supported by two trees about 3 feet high and laid across the only path to the viewpoint, but didn't think much of it. It was the wilderness, after all, and trees fall, branches fall. We took our pictures and turned around to return to the path, when we saw that a little old lady, clad in simple navy blue pants, navy jacket, matching cap, and simple cotton shoes had snuck out from hiding and was on one of the rocks nearby blocking our way out. So, there we were on a rocky finger of a viewpoint, just metres away from a heavenly fall down to the gorge, and we were being pressured for money. I don't know what services she had provided exactly, certainly nothing that warranted a fee, but apparently putting up a bar and trapping people on the cliff's edge is reason enough to charge people or at least bribe them for their freedom. We became concerned about this comprosing position, and she became excited at our resistance and began flailing her arms about. In all of this, Jess got poked in the eye by one of the old lady's dirty fingers and received only a soft pat on the shoulder as an apology and consolation from Crazy Bends, as we named her since she was at the top of 28 Bends and was arguably crazy. We managed to carry our conversation TO the wooden bar at least, where the argument continued. From what we could understand, the lady wanted 5 yuan per person, and though it was only a dollar to each of us, it was more the principle - that she'd hidden on us, then trapped us on a cliff's edge and demanded money of us. I paid my 5 yuan and wanted to see if she'd let us ALL out, but when Jess went to climb under the bar, she was abused by this woman yet again! As Jess put her head underneath the bar, the woman put her hands on her face and pushed her right back under! Knowing that there was little chance at communication, Liam demanded from this woman, "a written apology. In the Queen's English." When she shouted back, "Woo-guh yuan" (5 yuan), Jess asked, "Do you take Visa?" This petty, but satisfying, battle of words went on for some time before Liam just handed her another 5 yuan and we were on our merry way again. We contemplated the chances of Jessica contracting pink eye and various other infections from her run-in with Crazy Bends' fingertip, then forgot about the whole thing. We arrived at Tea-Horse Trade Guesthouse just in time for dinner, and joined a travelling GAP Adventures group and a lone traveller from Quebec, Eric, for the meal.

The name of this guesthouse, though seemingly random, was in fact relevant to the history of the Gorge trek. This trail was a part of the China's famous Silk Road, less known for the silk that it did not trade, and the tea and horses that it DID trade between Tibet, Yunnan, and Sichuan (the province north of Yunnan). So not only was it significant that we travelled the same trecherous path that traders centuries before us did, but it was also a special experience to spend a few nights on the trail. It was, at the least, a quiet, cheap refuge (and the best outdoor bathroom view I've ever had) from the usually crowded and incessantly loud city streets of the places we'd been staying at.

We rose the next morning for a leisurely start to our next trail destination, Sean's Guesthouse. It was a mere 3 hours, comparatively relaxed considering the previous day's 6-hour trek, and an hour in, Eric caught up to us while we were taking in the view (and catching our breaths!), so we had his company for the rest of the road there. It actually did turn into road near to Sean's, but this didn't take away from the scenery. We dropped our luggage, raised our tired feet, and gave-in to our craving for pizza. It was relatively early in the afternoon and we had planned on taking a trail down to the Gorge via the Lower Tiger Leaping Gorge Trail. Walking into the dorm room to deliver our bags there, we noticed that each bed was host to a teddy bear - each of which, we discovered, Sean had picked out at the store - and someone (Eric) thought it would be fun to bring the teddies down to the Gorge.

The idea was funny, but seeing two grown men practically skipping down a path with teddies stuffed lovingly under their armpits topped all the day's humorous events. We managed to get lost on our way down and after passing through a local's garden we encountered another old lady. Liam had read something about entrance fees and we assumed she was the money collector. As we neared her, she began waving two fingers at us and we spent little time trying to understand what she was trying to tell us since a) we thought we had it figured out, and b) we were a bit distracted by her one eye an single long tooth that crept over her bottom lip and halfway down her chin. She was perfectly kind though, and so I gave her 5 yuan. To this, she received the bill with both hands, (an indication that she considers it a gift) and let out a high-pitched, "Ooooooooooooooh!" Her eye became wide and her mouth began to curve around her tooth in a close-lipped smile. She waved two fingers at us again, and so the boys each got out a few bills, and again, she exclaimed, "Ooooooooooh!" After we'd given her all of this money and witnessed her surpised reaction, we realized that her finger-waving could have meant "Peace" or "I wish you a happy journey down to the river" or "You're going the wrong way, turn around." Regardless, we'd obviously made her very happy in our mistake so we carried on considering the priviledge ours to have met her.

The Gorge was magnificent. Standing beneath a kilometres-high cliff on a rock (supposedly the "tiger" leapt across the rocks at the bottom of the gorge where we were) in the middle the raging Yangtze River was nothing short of magnificent. We had an amusingly long photo shoot at one of China's most spectacular scenes - with the teddies - and just chilled on the rocks for an hour before hiking the arduous kilometre-long hike back up to Sean's. "Be back before 7 o'clock," they advised us). The GAP group we'd encountered at the previous guesthouse was having a few drinks when we got there, and after a shower and a meal, some of their lot joined us for bai jiu and Sprite. Beer Goggles kept us occupied until the wee hours of the morn...and everyone was feeling it the next morning.

Not too many people were hiking the road to Daju (which more or less completes the 3-day version of the trek) as landslides had made it difficult to climb and for all transport to get through. It was an estimated 3-hour journey by foot to the Old Ferry, so we decided to make a day of it. It turned out to be 4 and a half hours, but we didn't know this of course. After the first hour, the gorge basically "ended" and opened up into a plateau full of small villages, soft hills, and green valleys. At 3 hours in, without any bearings, in the 30 degree noon sun, and completely without water between the three of us, we unanimously decided to take a break. As we sat there, we noticed a truck with a canvas canopy in the distance slowly making its way up the dirt road towards us. We thought for a moment that we ought to catch a lift, but since it was going in the opposite direction that we supposed we were to be travelling and probably had someone in it, we watched it drive past us instead. There were a couple of plastic bags in the back, but no people...when suddenly, an old lady (yet again - they were very amusing in this part of the country), pulling herself up with her right hand curled over the half-closed window's edge, poked her head out and said in a coarse voice, "Bye Bye." As she spoke these words in her E.T.-like voice, she simultaneously thrust her left hand out the window and flapped her fingers against the palm of her hand, the way a 3-year-old might wave goodbye. This gave us some energy, and we continued taking a few wrong turns but eventually making it to the boat, and up the insanely steep opposing side of the river. We arrived at a guesthouse only to discover tha we were half-an-hour away from the last bus' departure for LiJiang - that was cutting it a little too close. We were thoroughly pooped from another long day's hike and stuck to a simple Naxi meal once back in LiJiang then a bottle of blush wine for dessert at The Sexy Tractor - this is what you get when an Irishman meets a Naxi woman.

We hired bikes the following morning and sped along the 10km stretch that passes through LiJiang in order to reach a more quiet route to the north of town. We made a few scenic pit-stops, refused to pay a few entry fees (being the penny-pinchers that we are), and arrived at the village of Baisha in the afternoon, where we were directed to Dr. Ho's clinic.

A Julia Berg put together a short film about "The Most Admired Man," and Michael Palin recalls his first (but apparently second) visit with Dr. Ho in his travel book,"Himalaya," at his famed clinic in the small village of Baisha, skirting LiJiang's more populous reaches. The Lonely Planet also cites him in a section of their Yannan Chapter and tour buses flock into the narrow, cobble-stoned streets daily having "pilgrimaged" to receive consultation from him. His clinic was difficult to miss as his proud son, Dr. Ho II, whose own son is currently studying medicine at university to become Dr. Ho III, had decorated the modest building's exterior with billboards of articles written on his father over the past 8 decades. These boards had flooded onto the street and mostly highlighted Michael Palin's mention of him, displaying blown-up photocopied pictures of Michael Palin shaking Dr. Ho's hand. We parked our bikes outside of the clinic and climbed up the three steps into its perpetually open door.

Two L-shaped glass counters occupied two opposing corners of the "waiting room" and long, darkwood benches took up whatever extra space there was. Just when we thought that the room was full, a pile of energy burst into the room from the back door of the clinic, arms open wide and with his right hand a metre ahead of the rest of his body ready for greeting. This was Dr. Ho II, Dr. Ho's extremely extroverted and genuinely kind in his enthusiam only son, a relaxed man clad in sandals, shorts and a t-shirt who spoke English very well. He welcomed us as though we were the first and only people to have ever set foot in his father's establishment, then, using his open left hand, he swung his arm backwards, leading our eyes back to the door from which he'd entered the room where his mother now entered carrying a tray of small, handleless tea cups. At 84, Mrs. Ho was keen to provide all of her husband's patients with complimentary "healthy tea" as they waited, moving in and out of the waiting room frequently only to collect used porcelin tea cups and replace them with new, full cups. She spoke no English and so was not as sociable as her son, but her face exuded only happiness as she watched her son interact so fluently with the hoards of strangers entering the clinic.

Everything a person might want or need to know about Dr. Ho was on display inside of the clinic. There were large picture frames with their mattes removed and the entire glass space filled with collections of hundreds of business cards that had been given to Dr. Ho and his family by previous visitors over the decades. Every article that had ever been published had made its way onto this museum wall telling of Dr. Ho's success and gifts from patients and guests were hung from the ceiling. But the clinic still had an air of disorder about it, as any doctor's office does. Paper filled the counters in piles, but messy piles. And just as any doctor can find his way around the disorder, we would occasionally see Dr. Ho scurry out of his room and behind the counter, then locate exactly the piece of paper that he required from amidst the chaos. There was little one could do to distinguish Dr. Ho's office from the waiting room since obviously many of his "supplies" were located in the waiting room itself. Dr. Ho's son handed out a plastic-covered write-up on his father's history for the wait, which we balanced on our knees while sipping our minature cups of tea using both hands. There was no doubt that the Ho family was proud of their patriarch and enjoyed his celebrity not for the perks, but for the recognition that Dr. Ho received for being the good doctor he supposedly was.

There was an air of mystery about Dr. Ho. As a Daoist who practices Traditional Chinese Medicine, Dr. Ho's practices had proved effective and life-changing for many patients before us, but also required that his patient had faith in him, his diagnoses, and methodology. As was his standard in the past and as it remains to this day, Dr. Ho consults and treats his patients by donation, so for those who cannot afford to pay for his services are not required to. This was a blessing and was much appreciated by the villagers of Baisha and the surrounding towns and villages as they suffered through famines and general hard times in the past. Dr. Ho's generosity and kind-heartedness during those times and these, is largely why he is so revered both locally and now, worldwide.

The waiting room order was based on a trust system, so you had to be careful to notice who joined the group after you and who was already seated when you had arrived. We were uncertain whether or not we were "next" in line, and so remained seated when the previous patient emerged from Dr. Ho's office. But as Dr. Ho's hand lowered itself bound for a bell on the nearest counter and noone else stood up, we realized that our turn had come. Liam and I went followed Dr. Ho's short stature into the adjacent room.

The office was characteristically stuffed with enormous plastic, red buckets brimming with crushed herbs - all local and perfectly powdered. There were shelves on the north face of the room that were packed with wide, shallow bowls also containing herbs. The smell was intoxicating and I felt as though I'd just stepped into a pool of scented essential oils mixed with fresh dried herbs. I stood in front of Dr. Ho's desk, between the desk and the only window in the room, when he placed a short wooden stood in the narrow aisle between the numerous buckets and gestured for me to take a seat. Liam stood behind me, observing, while Dr. Ho's assistant moved between bowls and buckets all the while scooping various herbs into a separate bowl for others' remedies to their ailments. Her concoctions filled my olfactory senses, distracting me from my one-chance meeting with Dr. Ho. I sat down. Hands overlapped casually infront of his white coat, Dr. Ho looked down at me with his wispy white, but wise, beard which pointed at me accusingly. He asked me my age:

"What is your age."
"22."
"Where are you from."
"Canada."
"Mmmm," he hummed curiously.
"But I was born in England, and my father is Chinese."
"He speaks Chinese."
"No...English. A little bit of Chinese, only a little."
"English."

He asked me to stick out my tongue, and with his mouth in a silent "O" shape, he peered into my mouth from above. He lifted my left wrist with two fingers and a thumb for a moment. He lifted my right wrist for another, then backed away in a somewhat clinical manner.

"Do you have PMS."
"No...it doesn't seem to be a problem..." (and I don't want to know otherwise from anyone who cares to stir the pot.)
"Not even a little."
"Nope. Not even a little."
"You are sure."
"Yep." Was there something I didn't know?

He held my hand for a long minute, then turned around quickly to face his desk. He shuffled the papers around on his cluttered desk, hurriedly, then picked the cardboard label out of one of the herb bowls sitting on his desk, showed it to me with two hands holding it just under his chin, and explained, "Healthy tea for you." He tossed the label onto his desk which splashed herb dust all over the papers it landed on, instead of returning it to its appropriate bowl, and rushed out of the office. While he was absent, I resumed my position in front of his desk now that my consultation was presumably finished, proud that I was prescribed only "healthy tea."

Dr. Ho returned with a sheet of paper which he lay ontop of the desk clutter - instructions for my prescription and dosages. He underlined and underlined various parts of sentences again and again, then pushed the pen tip into the right margin of the page where it read in handwriting, which had obviously been added some time after the instructions had originally been printed, a url address.
"Guggle. You can find me at Guggle. Just, 'Dr. Ho.'" Google. I could find him at Google. Here was a man who, at the age of 84, was most likely only mildly familiar with computers but knew enough that he had a cyberspace presence on a site called "Google." I wondered if he simply recited these instructions without much understanding - would he be able to locate himself on Google? - or had he been following his own popularity on Google all this time? The way he said "Google," which was transformed into a soft gurgling, "Guggle" and his probable unawareness of its meaning made me just want to cuddle him...but the closest I got was an awkward sideways stance next to him in a picture of the two of us.

Dr. Ho pulled out a thin sheet of paper, piled two generous scoops of healthy tea onto it, then folded it into a triangle. He painted the words "healthy tea" on its front with thick black ink using a traditional Chinese paintbrush, plopped it into a small, red, plastic carrying bag, then smiled at me as he held it up for me to grab along with the sheet of instructions.

"Say hullo to yuh fathah."

And that was it. I had been diagnosed as healthy by "The Most Admired Man" and much to his apparent disappointment I did not suffer from PMS. Liam was next. Liam is a freckled Irishman and is whiter than snow. On this day, he was wearing something like a third degree burn on his skin despite his efforts to prevent such a result by slathering himself in 90 SPF sunscreen all day, but Dr. Ho paid no attention to this. As Dr. Ho passed Liam's healthy tea to him over his desk, he pulled up his sleeve and urged us to rub the skin on his wrist: "See, healthy tea. Everyday."

This was what he claimed was keeping his skin smooth and if not that, I can attest to the fact that he moves with the confidence and perhaps more ease than a 30-year-old, strong and without any sign of a stumble in the future. Like me, Liam was healthy. This was a relief, but he was still burning from the outside in when he left Dr. Ho's office. Jess went in solo and was equally healthy, but at informing Dr. Ho of her asthma he gasped, then concocted some sort of relief in powder form for her and sent her off. I returned to ask him for something to help my mum with her back pain.
We returned to the waiting room where Dr. Ho's son insisted that we sign his guestbooks - he has one for each and every country that has visited his father's clinic and got into a bit of a panic when he discovered that we were infact Canadian and not American and had contaminated the USA guestbook with our comments. We corrected the problem and signed our names again in the Canadian guestbook. Liam was well pleased that he even had an Irish guestbook, and in the excitement that Dr. Ho's son had built up in us over who knows what, we all celebrated our general happiness with a group photo, which Dr. Ho's son was starting to collect in preparation for an online museum he is in the process of creating.

We ate at a quiet restaurant next door, leaving our bikes parked where we'd left them a few hours earlier in front of the clinic, and when we went back to collect them, the now empty doorway to the clinic was open, but Dr. Ho's office door was shut. The crowds had dispersed and so we figured that he'd finished up with his day's work. We were just about to set off when we heard a "Goodbye!" and when we turned around we saw Dr. Ho and his son both standing in the doorway waving us off like we really had been the only ones to have ever visited them. It finally felt like a village and I felt my day was more than complete. It was a quiet ride back, rushed only by Liam's need to make his sleeper bus to Kunming at 6:30. With the bikes returned and goodbyes said to Liam, Jess and I went to LiJiang's Black Dragon Pool Park for a view of the China-renowned lake and its near flawless reflection. We'd had a late lunch and weren't terribly hungry, so indulged in an apple strudel - a rare find done properly - and had a browse of the Tibetan goods in the stores lining LiJiang's old town streets.

The next morning, we prepared to make way for Dali. Although we weren't impressed by the road and scenery coming into Dali, especially when we compared it to that of LiJiang's ride into town, we were still glad to arrive in the ancient town which was much less touristy than LiJiang (there were no yellow flags flying above the crowds conducting a tour group in sight) and far quieter. We stayed at the No. 5 Youth Hostel, a converted school with a treehouse feel, and infact had our dorm room to ourselves the first night. We bought some bai jiu and Sprite and lounged for our first day. There was hiking and biking to do, but we were more than satisfied with what we'd done in LiJiang and instead decided to wander the 200-year-old streets of XiZhou on foot the next day. My curiosity got the better of me and my photographer's eye drew me to frequently invite myself into any door that was open, forgetting that it was someone's home. Fortunately one family had noticed the curiosity that foreigners had to see inside one of these tall-walled homes and realized the potential for profit in actually showing their home. Apparently, it was the home to The General - whoever that was, but the woman seemed nice enough, and the man who stood back quietly as we toured the courtyard and indoor stables, kindly invited us to drink tea with him. As I stepped up to join him, I found myself climing over something's freshly removed entrails and also found myself not so keen on the tea. We had a leisuredly look at the two-storey wooden exterior that bordered the courtyard, but were eager to leave only when the woman began chasing us with some handmade horses that she insisted we buy at 15 yuan each. We didn't particularly want them, but thought we might find some way to pay her for the tour, however, when she wouldn't budge on the price, we signed their guestbook, thanked the nice couple and left.

The day's slow pace had us dying to make some quick cash exchanges, so...we went to the local "tourist" market. I stumbled upon one stall which, like so many others, had Cultural Revolution pins pressed with Mao's profile and various slogans and dates strung from table end to table end and boasted various other items that would fall under the category of Maobilia. What distinguished this stall was its large collection of "Revolution" magazines and enormous piles of Chinese comics, which, unlike the comics as we know them, are thicker and much smaller, about the size of a flip-book. I picked up the occasional Chinese opera printed into comic form, but didn't feel as though I could follow the plot well enough to justify the $3 spend - this was only important because I couldn't, and still can't, read Chinese. As I picked up and put down comic after comic trying to find one of sufficient interest to me, the woman, being the business person she was, directed me to a new dusty pile that I'd ignored on my way in. In it, I found an incomplete series of Chinese Tin-Tin comics dating back to 1984 and 1985. Presumably there was a comic distributed monthly: there were 7 comics from 1984, and 5 from 1985. Seeing that the 1984 collection was more complete than the 1985 collection and it was my birth year, I tried to get a good deal but failed miserably. Instead, I abandoned the 1984 dream and paid the price in full for the 1985 collection. Whether or not they're worth anything, the deal is sealed and I am now the proud owner of 5 1985 Chinese Tin-Tin comics and a Communist propaganda magazine from 1973.

As advertised at our hostel, the "Breakfast for Buffet" (and also for $1.50) met every expectation a breakfast buffet possibly could. I even managed a fried egg on toast with soy sauce AND it was delicious. We went to ErHai Lake that day which only made us nostalgic for the bodies of water we'd left behind 4 months ago and also made me want to swim in a pool, mostly just to feel clean water against my skin and then to float weightlessly away in it. Heat can make you feel heavy. It was our departure day - another nightride, another sleeper. Lucky for you, I have no horror stories to tell for this one. Infact, not only was the bus clean and the ride short, but our driver was extremely friendly - without hesitation, the nicest we'd had. We interpreted this as being indicative of what we could expect in the south, where we'd planned to spend a few days before heading into Laos, and came to expect even greater things from the Lao people.

Sunny, hot, humid, and tropical was where we landed the next morning, in the busy southern city of JingHong. My Communist propaganda magazine, which was too big to send home in our last package and when I communicated that I wanted it sent home flat I was told "No" - it couldn't be done because it didn't fit into any of the boxes that they had at the Post Office, was literally disintegrating at its corners and I needed rid of it. So we made a stop at the China Post in JingHong and waited an hour for its packaging. Thankfully the women there were innovative enough to wrap it correctly, and the wait wouldn't have been so bad had one of the other waiting customers not been slapping her poor baby in the face hard for crying. It was unbearable! Everytime the baby would cry, the woman would slap him up his face, sometimes grabbing its nose and pulling it up forcefully. I was only one slap away from slapping her myself, but as is the belief in China, it is not your business to intrude on someone else's troubles, especially when it comes to parenting. We were completely appalled by this very publicly abusive "parenting" method and made sure to at least give her disapproving looks. It's strange, the things that you need to be careful about in China, but you have to remember that it's not your country and they're not your customs to criticize. So all we could do was bite our tongues, sit on our hands, and get on with what WE were there to do. To say that the Chinese have to keep to their own business is ironic since there wasn't a single pair of eyes that wasn't on my hand as I filled in my mailing form, all necks straining to see where my package was going to and trying to place me in a catergory: I was Canadian, and now that they knew this, they were relieved. Still curious though.

During our rendez-vous with Liam in LiJiang, him and I had done a book exchange: my "Red China Blues" for his "Wild Swans." I own a copy of "Wild Swans" and had it ready for reading and in my pack before I left home until I discovered that it was banned in China. It is, infact, only banned from being published on China's Mainland, as far as I know, mostly to keep the Chinese majority uninformed and to maintain loyalty to and a sheening image of the political body that still runs this country: Communism. But it is very possible that its possession is also banned - customs is lax and oftentimes doesn't search foreigners bags. Liam had carried the book INto China and I ended up carrying it back OUT. And actually, I unwittingly placed it on the customs counter as the officer checked my passport photo (as well as the rest of the line-up, who again, craned their heads to look over the desk at the computer screen) then continued to read the book as I waited on the other side of customs on the street curb. So much for control...I should add that I've now finished the book, which I couldn't put down, and it was so movingthat it had me shaking by the time I got to its end. The thinking and reflecting has been unstoppable since I finished it, and having just arrived in Laos from China, where I had focused a good amount of energy on visiting WWII and Revolution hot-spots, made the book that much more poignant. If you're interested, prepare to relive some of history's most vivid atrocities.

So...back to happy Laos, we crossed the border and dug into our pockets to pay for our on-the-spot visas. Jess had forgotten her passport photo in the bus which had already crossed the "border," and, naturally, we thought this would be a problem. Instead, the officer waved a couple of loose fingers in the direction of the border and, still looking down at my passport, said, "No problem. Go." It was an honest introduction to Laos: relaxed to the extreme. She retrieved her passport photo and the process was completed.

In just four hours, we'd driven from MengLa, crossed the border, and made it to Luang Nam Tha's poor excuse for a bus station - a dusty parking lot with a wood hut ticket office. So the bus stations between China and Laos differed in architectural standards, but there was no spitting, no hacking, no pooping babies, and the people were immediately more friendly. This was more than a pleasure...We'd finally left China behind and I was, despite my apparently resentful feelings towards it, sad and was only comforted by the fact that we had to return for our flight back to Canada in August. To this end, I concluded on thing: I am so grateful that I know how to use chopsticks. As if it wasn't embarrassing enough to not be able to speak the language after admitting that we were, indeed, half-Chinese, not being able to use chopsticks would have been completely and utterly disgraceful. But we were not submitted to this level of shame thanks to you, Dad. :)

We went to the bank after the bus ticket office refused our US dollars, which we figured meant that we needed to obtain some local currency: kip. The woman who served us was a 25-year-old with two children who spoke English brilliantly and also happened to own a guesthouse. After checking out trekking prices and deciding that they were too expensive, and in keeping with Lao attitude, we just "went with the flow" and checked ourselves into this nice woman's guesthouse, Zuela's Guesthouse, named after her daughter Zuela, who was named after the country of Venezuela.

These rooms were among the more "pricey" of guesthouse rooms in town, but $6 is worth it when you're in a place that produces fat, 3-inch long cockroaches, and it got us a fan, a clean, comfortable bed, and a new bathroom. Also nice was the request sitting above the hallway entrances that "Everyone is to be quiet. Step quietly, like good Buddhists." We were required to take off our shoes before stepping into the building, and the same went for internet cafes, the tourist information center, and virtually any building that would like the custom abided by. Luang Nam Tha isn't a particularly interesting town, but it's for the trekking and surrounding village bike-rides that foreigners come here at all. There is one language school where you can learn Lao if you wish, and one main street, which has about 10 blocks behind it. The town is puny, really, but the people are remarkably friendly and there is a restaurant here that cooks up some of the best Indian food I've ever had, so Luang Nam Tha has been a great introduction for us to Laos (it is pronounced with a silent "s").

We went biking through villages in the surrounding area for 4 hours today and it was amazing, of course, made only better by the fact that we've hit low season (who would come here during the rainy season? Us). The fresh air, though heavily humid, was a relief to my lungs as I believe I now suffer from a smoker's cough due to my time spent in the tobacco chamber that is China. Seriously - I cough stuff up every morning. We were given one piece of advice by a fellow West-Coaster today, which I was glad to have at the beginning of our visit here rather than the end, and that was, "If you love it in Laos too much to leave, then don't." We will inevitably have to leave, but like so many others, I think we may end up just taking it easy, which may translate our two-week planned stay into three weeks...then four...who knows. It's nice not knowing sometimes.

Unfortunately for YOU, readers, this is not the end of my depressingly long emails but it does conclude the first part of my trip to China. And so, for now, I'll say, bye bye to "lao-wai" and hello to the Laos-way...

Love Katie