|
October
26, 1999
Hey people,
this is Doug with AroundTheWorld1999. Jeff will actually do today's
report which would be Tuesday October 26th, but I would like to make an
amendment to my report from yesterday about the Sky Burial. The reason
why they chop the body up and basically leave it for the vultures to eat,
is the vultures carry the deceased's soul into heaven. I apologize for
not knowing this the first time around, but hopefully I have made up for
it.
I am going
to pass off to Jeff now and he is going to tell you about his exciting
time in Chengdu.
Hello
everybody, I'm back after five days away from the team. It's good to be
back, but I have to say I had a great five-day vacation. I went to
Chengdu, the bustling metropolis, population eight million. I was
basically living large for five days. I stayed in a four-star hotel, by
far the nicest hotel any of us have stayed in so far on the trip,
complete with a hair dryer, and they turned down my bed at night. Deluxe!
Anyway, I
got a chance to go to Leshan and see the giant Buddha. Amazing - carved
into the side of a mountain right where the three tributaries of the
Yangtze River meet. I went to a Buddhist monastery, a Buddhist nun
monastery, I went on a mountain hike, saw some macaque monkeys (one even
jumped on my back - a lot of fun), ate like a king, and stayed in a
mountain hotel, and taught Jian-Ping (who is the person that put this all
together - he was with me the whole time), his side kick Mr. Gau, and
also an interpreter Christine, who is the manager for her travel group in
Chengdu. I taught them "100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall," and
they loved it. They made me sign a solo rendition of the Star Spangled
Banner, which was pretty embarrassing, but basically brought down the
house with it.
Anyway, let
me get on with today's report. Day 20, the 26th of October.
We all
slept in today. Doug and I made it all the way until 9:30, we all went to
breakfast, which was excellent. Alas, the much-craved western food
including scrambled eggs, PB&J on toast, and coffee. I filled the
gang in on some of my deluxe adventures for the past five days. Chanda,
after breakfast decided to work on some pages to eventually upload onto
her Web site. Nick installed a new carburetor on Alaska, imagine that.
Earle installed a new light switch on Hercules, even more odd. And uh,
Todd, Doug and I decided to just screw off all day, and we went on a
stroll through town.
We
immediately noticed that the holy city here is much dirtier than any of
us expected. There's litter everywhere, and we noticed men urinating all
over the place in public. Other than that the city is incredible. The
people, Tibetan and Chinese here, are all very friendly. We gave
on-lookers a smile and a "ta-shi-da-lay," which means hello and
we always, seems to get the same in return. It seems a smile and hello
goes a long way wherever you travel outside the US.
Anyways, we
walked through some bustling alleyways, full-on local's only route, and
we came across some guys playing pool. Doug and Todd challenged two of
the guys to a game, and they happily accepted, indicating that they would
play for money - five Yuan, or about 50 cents US. Doug and Todd looked
like they would get schooled at first, but took the first game with a
nice corner pocket shot by Todd. As on-lookers started to gather, the two
men wanted another game, attracting more attention. I was filming the
game, so that probably added to the excitement. The locals took the
second game, Doug called for the best two out of three, and the
excitement just built from there.
It was a
hard fought battle, and our two heroes pulled it out. The locals wanted
one more game. Apparently they didn't want the Americans getting the best
of them, and they won a fourth and final game.
We strolled
around some more, I bought some cookies and Todd and Doug bought some
boots lined with wool or possibly fake wool, and Todd had a key made for
one of the Land Rovers.
On our way
back to the hotel, Todd peaked into one of the doorways and noticed it
was a bar, so we decided to sit down and enjoy some delicious room
temperature Pabst Blue Ribbon. It's amazing, Pabst Blue Ribbon in Lhasa
Tibet, China. The bar owner was very nice, and she kept filling our tiny
glasses after almost every sip. We invited her to drink with us and she
did. We practiced Tibetan and she and her husband later on practiced
their English. We were loopy after only two beers - Todd and Doug even
had another. The altitude and the altitude sickness pills we've been
taking really enhance the alcohol. We managed to stumble back to the
hotel, go to dinner before sacking out for the night.
Well that
just about does it, and the battery on the satellite phone is running
low. That does it for October 26th 1999. Thanks for tuning in.
|
