On the Si Ma Tai section of the Great Wall hike I met up with Matt and a lady from Germany who is studying Chinese Medicine in WuHan. Matt was into photography. He is a quiet poetic fellow. The German girl was chatty and had to have the last word in everything. This drove Matt nuts, he wanted her to shut up. We kept a friendly distance, far enough to not have her in our ears close enough to watch over her since she was the last one in our group trailing far behind. I later found her vandalizing the Great Wall by happily carving her initials on the stones. Like a bandit, when she noticed I was watching her, she mischievously ran like a raccoon whom had just been caught stealing food.
On the trail, locals thought I was a tour guide since I was translating for both of them. So they didn’t approach me with their sales. I went along with it and played the part. I might was well have been a tour guide.
On the ride back the bus was filled with conversations on travel stories. I met lots of people traveling a week, three months, six months all over Asia, Russia, etc.... People spoke of it like a common thing they did, traveling whenever they have enough money and have it stretch as long as it can. I heard more stories on different parts of Asia, they all sounded fun to visit one day.
When I returned to the Hostel, I met Aki a Japanese new comer to the room just arrived from travels in Thailand. He had a broken strap on his sandal. We went looking for permanent glue at a nearby shop. He decided to take care of gluing then and there. He did glue his sandal strap back on. He also ended up gluing his fingers together in the process. Since I landed in Beijing without a tour book or map, I borrowed Aki’s map of China, he said he’s give it to me but it was in Japanese and he needed it for his China trip. I think I will go to a book store and buy one.
Pollution is terrible here in my opinion. It rained on the drive back into Beijing. The streets smelled like a big old clogged sewage. The combination of the rain and the air created a smell of raising the dead.
I also wondered what is in the lifestyle, the food, the air, that people have so much to spit to hack it out everywhere. This is something I doubt I will get used to.
