The last week has been a big learning experience, which means lots of frustration, but also some valuable lessons (doesn't that lemonade I'm making taste sweet?), and also some nice moments. To recap: from Lijiang we went to Xingyi in Guizhou Province, then to Guiyang (the capital), and on to Zhangjiajie in Hunan Province, where we are now. Here are the highlights and low points of the last week and a half, in flash-fiction style, non-chronologically presented. (How very modernistic of me)!

In Guiyang the first night we were there, we stayed in the sketchiest hotel known to mankind. This is due to the fact that all the other places we stopped into wouldn't take us because we were foreigners. Presumably this is for the foreigner's safety, but I label it paranoia rather than a concern for our personal well being. This place was down some dark stairs by a pile of trash and possibly open sewage - not exactly the oneymooners' paradise. The evening cam to a head when I encountered the largest bug I've ever seen alive hanging out in our squat toilet. Now bear in mind that our bathroom was two feet by four feet, so the toilet took up a substantial portion. To shower, one had to stand over the toilet. Thus, the large bug was rather disturbing. I tried flushing it, but it had super bug strength. It would not wash down; it clung to the smooth surface with some inner strength that I would love to channel into my own life. I eventually filled my nalgene with boiling water and poured it on the super bug, thus defeating it. I am, however, racked with guilt.

The scenery in the van from Xingyi to Guiyang was absolutely astounding. We had gone to Xingyi to hike along a gorge there, but that wasn't successful because of constant rain, so this scenery was a nice comfort. Essentially, we drove through mountains and clouds, but they were all mixed up so that it seemed completely otherworldly. Sometimes the clouds seemed to descend on the mountains, and at other times they seemed to close around our car. Occasionally, all I could see out the window were the knuckles of some mountain tops peeping out of the white. It was like Mordar - the scary place in Lord of the Rings - with fire and smoke, except for the fact that the scenery was beautiful instead of scary.

We have encountered some incredibly friendly people on this trip, and often they insist on buying food for us. This happens often on trains, but in Xingyi, the owner of the hotel insisted on buying us dinner. We asked where we could find a decent restaurant, so he led us across the street, ordered some local dishes for us, paid the bill, (despite many protests), and then left us to our meal. Unbelievable!

It rained like I've never seen for a few days, particularly on Friday, when we were running around trying to find a hotel that was not positioned next to trash/sewage, with all our baggage. There were rivers in the streets and our umbrellas could not save us. We were soaked through. Now I tell you this, because we went to see the Huangguoshu Waterfalls yesterday, a few hours from Guiyang. The falls are the largest in Asia, and we had heard they were spectacular. When we went to the bus station, we discovered that we had to take a bus to another town and then catch a second bus from there to the falls. So, we completed the first leg of the journey, and as we were trying to figure out where to buy tickets to complete the trip, lots of people were yelling at us to take their vans to the falls. (This is the usual scenario whenever we go anywhere. It's easy to peg us as tourists since we're usually the only non-Chinese people around). We talked to a woman from one van, but they were stopping off first at another tourist site where we didn't want to go, so we decided to find another way. The woman kept following us, trying to convince us to take her van and go to the other place first. Her reasoning went something like this: she claimed that there was not enough water in Huangguoshu right now, so "They have to turn on the water, and they don't do that until 3:00," so we should go to the other place first. Are you kidding me? When ones thinks of these falls, one thinks of another slightly smaller version of Niagara. They're massive. My friend Nicki and I thought this was one of the better scams we'd heard.

Last night we made a dinner of xiaochi, which literally means "little eats," In China there are food stands everywhere, especially at night, and it's some of the best grub here. Everyone just comes out with a little coal stove and sets up camp. We just wandered from stand to stand, trying whatever looked good. We made a ten-course dinner of it and paid something like a dollar apiece. Some of the highlights were stinky tofu, chuar (spicy kebobs of tofu, meat, or veggies), corn on a stick, dumpling soup, random sweet bready things, watermelon on a stick, (the latter in season now and is everywhere), lychee fruit, and fried flat bread. Yum!

Finally, last night after our luck had turned (the rain stopped and the waterfalls were spectacular and the xiaochi dinner was great), we got to the train station to catch our 11:00 P.M. Train from Guiyang to Zhangjiajie, only to discover that "our" train had left at 11:00 A.M. Therefore, we were about twelve hours too late. ACH! Luckily, we were able to get another train, but we lost out on the money, which made us angry since we had told the ticket seller that we wanted a night train and, therefore, figured we were all right. She had told us that it left at 11:00. In China it is written on tickets as 23:00, but it is spoken at 11:00. Oh well, live and learn. Apparently we didn't learn, however, since today we got tickets to Shanghai for the wrong date. Oy vey!

That's about it. We're going to the Zhangjiajie National Park tomorrow and staying overnight. Then it's a very long train ride back to Shanghai. From there we get on the plane for San Francisco. This is the last e-mail I'll send until I return again soon.

Molly