through the looking glass

took a side trip to a small town about an hour outside the city via two busses called (I think) longxi, dragon river. could have sworn I had taken pictures but they seem to have mysteriously dissapeared. strange.
anyway. wonderful little river town, too many hotels to not be a tourist attraction in better weather but some great side alleys if you looked for them. after walking across the river and through the plantations for a while took a rest at a riverside cafe where no one would leave us alone to drink our tea. I took out my journal to record some thoughts and ended up with two sellers over my shoulder. “what’s she doing?” “writing.” “can you read it?” “no, it’s in english. can you read english?” “nope”. hehehe. decided not to spend the night there but by the time we got the the bus area there was nothing. cabbies and hotel girls said there were no more busses but who knows. I spotted a big bus pulling up to the town gate and inquired where they were heading, tour bus to the chengdu airport. can we catch a ride? maybe, all three tour guys will have to agree. we get into a conversation with guy #1 about my flower, he’s a fan. while waiting for guys #2 and 3 I watch a small local girl whose right eye was covered with a patch but whose left eye was only outshone by her smile. I asked her name, she laughed at my chinese, I gave her the flower. turning around I noticed the name on the tour bus, dragon tours. we’ll get a ride.

we did. sitting in a bus full of chinese tourists just finishing their whirlwind tour I ended up in a conversation with an english speaker who’d asked if I’d lost track of time and laughed when I answered I’d never had track of it to begin with. hu meanwhile chatted with the youngest of the three guides. after dropping off the group they generously took us through some sort of vast dirt pit into the city proper, and told us to go to a certain 5 star hotel where, mentioning their name, we could spend the night for 100 kuai. luxury abounded, the coffee was welcome, but we were unfortunately unsuccessful in taking him out to lunch the next day as thanks.