Well, my legs and feet got a break today but my heart got some shock therapy!! Remember I told you about the crazy cab driver in Hunglong careening around the mountians last weekend, well he either has his weekly job as the driver of this bus or his evel twin brother was driving it! I don't think I've ever felt a bus turn on 9 wheels around curves until today! Seriously, you would not believe how crazy this guy was driving. We're traveling along this single lane road around all these curves thru the mountains and even thru lots of tunnels and he's passing people like crazy even around bends when he can't see what's coming around the corner! He just beeps the horn and hopes they stop... and several times we really came within inches of smashing into someone head on! I've used the city bus within Chengdu and that was fine but no more long haul buses for me. Whew... He drove so fast he made the trip in 9 hours instead of the normal 10 which was nice except he left parts of my stomach back along some of those dips and turns! The countryside was really pretty that we drove thru, very mountainous and lots of really deep valleys. I tried to take several photos but they came out so blurry because he was going so fast! I did atach one at one of our rest stops. These places were a hoot. They all entailed a really nasty bathroom facility that they made you pay 1 yuan for (OK, I know that's only about 15 cents, but still!) and then it was mostly just farmers market type stalls set up with fresh fruit and nuts. It was actually pretty good some of the stuff I bought. Each place would also have the obligatory large white Yak (which is like a buffalo; you can see it to the right of the picture) and they'd charge you to take your picture with it. I actually ate a Yak burger when I was in Juizhaiguo and it was very tasty! LOL. The other thing I saw was some of the really poor living conditions for some people along the route. Very sad. There was a section that had suffered an earthquake several years ago and it still has not been repaired. There was lots of damage and it looked like whole towns were affected. Got back to Chengdu late and am just going to kick back tonight and catch up on laundry and emails and stuff. I needed this low key day after all that hiking thru the parks. I didn't have another good pic from the bus trip so I went back into the archives and found another one of my favorites from the Great Wall. I was looking thru one of the windows at one fo the main forts/stations along the way looking out towards the mountains in the distance. Cool stuff. Hope everyone had a great Halloween and a Happy November to all! Jeff PS: It's not true that large Tibetan woman have onions as a staple in their diet, it was more like garlic!! Just kidding, I got lucky and had a young Asian guy next to me that slept the whole time. When he was awake he was impressed by my tablet and so I let him play the "Need for Speed" game where you drive the car. It was sooo funny to watch him play it!
The Wandering Italian 