The Angry Pangolin

Terraced rice paddies in Yuanyang, Yunnan

The bus got in at 4am. 4am is not a great time of day to pull into a small town. “You can just sleep on the bus until morning,” the ticket lady had told me. This turns out to be a theory, not a fact. In a cruel mockery of technology, the windows on the bus do not open. “Can you keep the door open?” I asked. “No,” the driver said simply.  I lay there in the dark, trying not to breath, weighing my options. The guy behind me’s stinky feet are a few inches from my head, and the musk of sour vomit from the girl who had been puking into a plastic bag all night still lingers in the air. Wandering around aimlessly in the dark with a backpack on would be preferable to this, so I zipped up my bag and got off the bus, unaware of the terrible mistake I was about to make. (more…)

Most people seem to operate under the assumption that the Three Gorges was a better place to visit before the dam was built. Turns out they’re absolutely right. But I have a sort of sick curiosity. I wanted to see the destruction, the watery grave hiding a hundred towns and countless roads, KFCs, and dead river dolphins beneath its silent, glassy green sheen. (more…)

I won’t stop moping about the midgets, so to cheer me up Yuyan finds some other little town outside of Wuhan we can go visit for a day. We rent a car and driver to pick us up at 8am one morning. One of Yuyans friends, a local photographer, had told us about a picturesque little village near Mulan Mountain – where the Disney superhero was supposedly born – so we’re going to check it out. One of our other dormmates, Yingya, decides to come along too. (more…)

We step into the streets of Shiqu, and at first glance, it’s about as unremarkable as small towns come. Wide, dirty streets overrun by stray dogs the size of motorcycles. Streets lined with dingy noodle stalls and fabric stores. Monks work on their motorcycles with grease covered hands outside of autobody shops. Our holy man, who has finally stopped chanting, gives each of us a Draxi Delei and a handshake, and then starts walking off, white gunnysack slung over his shoulder.

As we’re walking around looking for a place to sleep, a girl in a white Adidas hoodie and blue plastic earrings comes bounding up to us. “What are you looking for?” She asks us in English with a faint Indian accent. “Maybe I can help you.” This is how we met Yang Ga. (more…)