The Dentist at work was spell binding, as much because of his ancient technology with his foot driven compressor, as with our unbridled curiosity at his array of tools. They were the same implements that I carry in my sculpting kit box, including porpoise-nose and blunt-nose pliers, a wire cutter, small gauge wrench and a bag needle! When the pain was too much to watch, there was plenty else to divert the eyes. Women carrying huge loads on their backs, often towering above their bent heights deftly navigated their way through the chaos, like a tug in a large port. One wizened older woman had feet so small that they must have been bound when she was young, making it quite precarious in the way she held her balance.

The men seemed to sit around haggling and arguing over whatever, chewing and spitting with nonchalance. Nearby, three others had lugged an enormous pig carcass onto a bench, along with six pigs heads. With a lot of loud and fierce negotiations, the carcass was then very swiftly carved up with a long knife and pieces thrown onto someone's shoulders and carried away. The entire process couldn't have taken more than two minutes in total. Wholesale to Retail. No middleman distribution to worry about. The pigs' heads walked away in a basket on a back, grinning, with their ears flapping over wide staring eyes in time with their porters' gait.

Amongst the non-stop gossip in the Barbers corner, antique electric clippers found white margins on a brown neck. More than one newly shorn victim then headed to the nearby lady selling sweets, made their purchase then hunkered down to very noisily slurp up a bowl of gelatinous taro in coconut milk. Not once did I see a cigarette fall from their bottom lip, nor did the stubs splutter and need to be relit!

From Dali, we caught the morning bus north, bound for Lijiang. Our travel buddies were a Canadian couple called Tom and Pickle, which after a shot of sherry became Pom and Tickle, an Aussie called Lisa and a Scottish Horticulturalist called Des. It was a fun if not perpetually foggy ride, which didn't seem to have any influence at all over the speed at which the bus was driven. Visibility is an option I guess. I couldn't work out if it was best to not see how close to the edge (or other vehicles) we were, or if I would have felt more secure in the 'skill' at which we avoided going over the edge. At the top of the middle pass we promptly stopped. The Driver had to refill the bladder on the roof, which fed water through a plastic hose dangling on the outside of the bus, dripping it directly onto the brake pads. So this was the cooling mechanism that determined to a large part our collective safety. I wondered if General Motors has heard of this new marketing angle?!

Lijiang's highlight is its old town, made of cobblestones, Venetian style canals and the indelible character of the Nak'hi women. Their culture is matriarchal, with a rather curious social practice of men visiting the women at night, but then returning home in the morning to work on their mother's farms. If a child results from the relationship then the father is to pay a financial amount to help in the raising of the child, but the child stays with the mother. The women also inherit the land, and there didn't seem to be any pressure on the women to marry. You could feel the identity of these women, just through the confidence and proprietary manner in which they held themselves. The men walked behind.

We all checked into the same accommodation inn that was a converted traditional home, complete with its double story stone and wooden buildings, latticed screens for windows, and a sunny and pretty courtyard. That night we happened upon a festival where children and women were lighting candles in elaborate paper lanterns and floating them down the canal in the central square. Our pre-concert dinner included dishes of home-cooked spicy bean curd, steamed bread and dragon claw fern, so named because the fronds curl up to look like a claw once it is cooked. A short walk later (after much rubbishing of each other over a few beers - like, what sort of career path does a Scottish Horticulturist expect in the Australian Nullabor desert?) we headed off to the nights entertainment.

Dr Yuan tells his story very matter-of-factly. He was jailed for 21 years during the suppression of the 100 Flowers Movement. Once he was released he initiated the drive to retain and perpetuate the music of the Nak'hi culture. A significant number of the artists in the orchestra were over 80 years of age and had buried their musical instruments during the Cultural Revolution to ensure that the instruments would survive. The musicians that have died during the tenure of the orchestra are commemorated in portrait photos strung along the back of the stage. The effect was a rather somber testimony to human spirit, and at times, human tyranny. The musical compositions remain unchanged and some had been written as early as 700 A.D. to as recently as 300 years ago, featuring court and temple music arrangements. The coolest thing though is the fact that the group tours, and was getting ready for some gigs in Denmark and Norway later this year. Who said the Rolling Stones were too old!!!

We sat on wooden benches sipping tea in the dimly lit, intimate circular theatre. The orchestra took their seats on the stage, slowly and deliberately, with their traditional costumes denoting their age and rank. It was quite fun watching them nod off in between sets, toothless mouths open and heads bobbing, although they never missed a cue! There were four younger women as well, who sang and performed solo to showcase their respective talents. The singing of one woman in particular was riveting, and very close in style to the Tuva throat singing of Outer Mongolia, where they are able to produce more than two notes at once. (Try and develop that skill in the shower!)

The beauty and power of the performance was that it really wasn't amplified, and instead relied on the 'feeling' and talents of the orchestra members. The Chinese audience talked incessantly through the performance, answering cell phones and fidgeting with electronic games, as if in defiance of the performance. When the kid in front of me did a projectile barf, he inadvertently cleared the bench in front of him, which was impressive in itself. Used food proved to be quite the weapon.

The following morning we were up before dawn, having said goodbye to everyone but Des the night before, in anticipation of our "travel day". Again we met up with other foreigners, this time from Australia and Israel. Des warned us that he liked to 'cut things fine', which he did, as we never did see him on the bus as expected. Still, the bus lurched off, with all of us grateful that we didn't have to get out and push the damned thing to make it go. The drive was expected to take almost twelve hours, and it did. Unfortunately for us, the bus was again designed for Asians, with the seating so tight that neither Ron, Amy, John, nor myself could sit in the seats straight. Instead we sat angled, negotiating with our partners for the appropriate amount of extra room needed, which was quite a deal as we also had crammed our backpacks into our leg spaces because they wouldn't fit under the seats.

At one point on the journey we were so high up that we drove for some time between two layers of cloud. The ingenuity employed by the farmers to cultivate rice at that altitude and incline was astonishing, as was the descent and the ferocity and sheer cubic volume of the Yangtze river that we crossed. At the lunch stop the guys scampered off for the obligatory you know what. The report back was that 'whatever it is in the hole, it moves...perpetually'! Well, that was enough to convince Amy and myself that we could wait!! So we demolished numerous bowls of rice and beans, skipped the water bottle, then trundled back onto the bus to continue the agony. Bladders and Busses...sounds like a bad C&W song.

China is still a predominantly fossil burning country when it comes to power generation. Having shadowed the Yangtze for some hours, we came into a valley that was in a brownout. The pollution from the open cut mines running into the rivers edge, and the belching smoke stacks made the entire area seem squalid and like a scene from the last century in pre-industrial somewhere else. We were all horrified at what we saw, along with the total environmental decimation and fouled air. The three hour drive through the filth made the experience of sitting on a bus of Chinese chain smokers for an entire day seem like heaven.

Finally we arrived, on time, at the destination town. There was a two-hour wait before the next train left heading north, and in our wisdom we decided that 'we would do it!'. Amy was designated the ticket person, mainly because she spoke some Mandarin. After successfully acquiring seven slips of paper, we headed for the station, blatantly pushing our way through, swinging backpacks freely to deter anyone else getting in front of us. None of us could read the tickets, although a tout persistently tried to sell us 'Sleepers' for the journey. Yeah Right!!

With phrase book in hand, we gamely tried to find our seats. The way it all works (a relative term) in China is there are different levels of comfort for travel, with the most luxurious being a soft sleeper, then hard sleeper, or soft seat, then the lowest category which is hard seat. Alas, we didn't have a seat allocation of any kind, and had been sold standing tickets only, which having just done a marathon bus journey, was going to be a bit of a challenge over the next twelve hours! By this time, Ron was looking and feeling a bit ill, so health and comfort became the priority.

We tried to upgrade our tickets, only to be told 'mayo', which we think means 'not available', but with tone and attitude, can be interpreted in a number of less helpful but far more creative ways. Finally, the conductors literally pushed us onto the train, along with thousands of other travelers, and we headed off. Standing up.

Not long into the journey the Israeli couple found us, and so together we set up camp in the section that joins the two carriages, next to the hot water boiler. You know, the wobbly bit where you can see the tracks passing by underneath. I asked Ron to hand over my back-pack as I staked out some territory to try and sit down in, only to have him reply, 'be careful, there is some slimy stuff hanging off the bottom of it'. Ooops. I had forgotten about the wonderfully hygienic habit they practice nationally, of spitting and hawking anywhere with total indiscretion.

At the next stop the four of us resolved to get off, go find a hotel somewhere and catch the next days train, with seats available. We disembarked from the train and tried to leave the station, only to be told to get back on. We pleaded a number of horrible insurmountable circumstances short of an impending apocalypse, but they simply wouldn't let us leave the station. So, rather wearily we boarded again, only to happen upon an opportunity to bribe the staff in the Restaurant car, and consequently, have a seat each!

We played cards for three hours, ate Styrofoam noodles that we had carried with us, and slept with our heads on our folded arms resting on the tabletops. At one point, I also got to practice my spitting skills, when being helped by a wonderfully polite and considerate women trying her best to assist us in every way possible. The specimen looked quite good sitting there next to her foot, and to add impact, I then blew my nose on her leg for effect. All very nonchalantly of course, just like the locals. When in Rome...

At 6:30am, after dozing through a second hand smoke hell, the four of us left the station successfully, and each headed for our intended buses. Twenty-four hours had passed and neither of us were in our most glamorous mode. Still, what was one more bus ride at this point right?! Normally, it would not have been an issue, but the heavy rain and lack of viable road surface made it interesting to say the least. Finally, oh so happily and finally, we reached the objective, a town called Leshan. Hotel - bathroom - wash - sleep.

Leshan is close to another town called Emishan, which is an important pilgrimage point for Buddhists. Our plan was to avoid the crowds and enjoy the quieter Leshan, which was also the location for some of the scenic shots from the film, King of Masks. A quick nap restored balance, patience and the illusion that we might find each other mildly attractive at some future point. We hit the streets in search of sustenance.

Mr. Yang is mentioned in the Lonely Planet Guide, and after some intelligence work with the map, we actually found his rather non-descript restaurant. And were we surprised!

The food was incredibly good, the best we had had to date, consumed with a total lack of manners (by our standards at least) on scrubbed tables, complete with watchful surveillance by the resident cat. My caffeine addiction was satisfied, and after writing down very precise instructions given by Mr. Yang, we headed off to see the sights.

First stop via a ferry ride was the Grand Buddha, said to be the largest sitting Buddha in the world. Given that he is seventy-seven meters high sitting down, and his ears alone are seven meters long, then I could believe it. He is carved out of a cliff face that is at the junction of three rivers meeting midstream. Very auspicious indeed. He also 'starred' in the King of Masks, so we were being total tourists in our mission! The local tourists amused themselves with fake perspective shots of poking their fingers into his ears or nose, or sitting in regal Confucian costumes between his legs. The tackiness was cool and typical all at once. Must get the photo to prove that they have done the sight.

We spent some time wandering through the monastery on the preceding island to the statue, savoring the quiet confines and languid incense. There was one hall that had hundreds of carved figures in residence, all of which had very different and well-defined characters. Just being amongst monks, both live and carved, was reward enough in itself after the 'up close and personal' interactions we had experienced with the Chinese public at large. Returning to the main shopping area we wandered back to Mr. Yang's restaurant to fulfill the promise of helping out with his English classes.

His students were certainly well versed in American Pop Culture, and all agreed that Michael Jordan should not have retired. From these conversations we learnt that they were all 'only' children, and could not marry legally until the girls were at least twenty-three and the guys were twenty-six. The one child policy is enforced for the Han Chinese mainly through tax incentives and financial support, so that if you do chose to have a second child, you lose those substantial benefits. The exceptions to that policy are registered minorities populations, who are able to have two children per family unit. There is still a very strong preference for male children, and some statistics already indicate a serious in balance of 114 Males to every 100 Females.

In many ways, seeing the 'one child' policy at close quarters was quite startling and made me think of what I take for granted, that of whether I chose to have children or not, not how many I have. It is one thing to understand it intellectually, and a very different emotional feeling when you are close to it all. We had heard talk of 'The Little Emperor' phenomena that was creating a nation of spoilt, indulgent, individualistic children, and lately we had seen plenty of evidence of the syndrome to support it too. Could they possible be raising kids with American attitudes? Thankfully, Mr. Yang's students were amiable and modest, keen to practice their English and knowledge of MTV on us.

After finding bed bugs and serious growth that could qualify for logging operations in the bathroom of our hotel, we tried to forget it all over porridge and pancakes the following morning. Mr. Yang took us on a tour through a local village that included a stop with the Calligrapher who translated then wrote our life wishes onto rice paper that can be made into a scroll. We then met up with two of Mr. Yang's students, and headed off to the nearby local market.

In Hong Kong, Oliver had treated us to a meal of duck that included some eggs that neither Ron nor I could put a culinary finger on. We found them again on this morning, only to discover that the process involved soaking them in horse urine and then coating the shells in a lime mixture before burying them for some days. This, in turn changes the inner contents into something that looks like industrial strength aspic, while the lime eats away the shells. I think the menu name might be something like "1000 year old eggs" which is quite different from the "120 day old eggs" that Ron had been offered in Vietnam. In Vietnam, the age identification process is important because it denotes the age of the chick inside. You are supposed to each the chick fetus. Another marketing ploy to promote 'stamina'.

Moving right along here...and now determining to become true vegans, we left the market via the back gate, only to stumble through the tar and feather service where you can get your chicken disemboweled, de-feathered, beheaded and basically ready for the cooking pot. Styrofoam noodles were sounding better and better all the time. That is, until we visited the noodle factory, and witnessed the supply chain in action.

They can only work when the weather is sunny and fine as the noodles are made from flour and water in a rudimentary machine, then strung, cut and hung by hand to dry au-naturelle. Everyone still hawks and spits, and the men work naked from the waist up, no doubt to ensure that their sweat dries before it drips.

Lunch was a home cooked meal at one of our student-guides' Grandmothers 300 year-old home. Simply wonderful food, and very vegetarian. Amy's English was good, and we spent an enjoyable time talking about "Lady-boys" and how they don't really exist in China (it must be another 'western' disease), but they do exist in Thailand! The power of television in action!! Homosexuality is regarded as a western disease in China, and it is not something that the Chinese admit to. Ron chatted with Mary, gently enquiring about the burning of the US Embassy in Chengdu by the university students after the Kosovo Bombing of the Chinese Embassy. Mary recited a party line that 'given today's technology, it is not possible to make such a mistake'. That conversation was probably the one and only time that I ever admitted outright that you can't trust mapmakers.... and that they are always making mistakes! Ouch!!! (I crossed my fingers behind my back so that the Great Gods of Cartography would not hear me!) It didn't change her opinion at all.

We finished the afternoon off with a relaxed sojourn in a tea-shop where Ron and I sampled Jasmine Tea, Green Tea, and numerous other refreshing brews. We have become fans of Chinese Green Tea, along with Jasmine, and have taken to drinking copious quantities at times. The late afternoon bus ride up to Chengdu gave us another opportunity to test the Seating Theory for Asian Bus Travel. We were too close to the front and could see way too much to be comfortable. It was quite a relief to actually arrive and disembark, where ever it was, with both of us not even sure that we were even in Chengdu! A group of four others also lagged a bit in the bus park, one of who was in a wheel chair. And then, to our relief and utter astonishment, he spoke to us in English! It seems we were all trying to get to the same hotel.

But I will leave that adventure for the next trip report.

Zen