When I got up in the morning, there was no running water. I learned right then and there that in this part of the world, water usage is conserved by water access time control. I wasn’t awake enough to be upset by this inconvenience. I let it be apart of my adventure along with moldy mildew showers.
Zhaos decided to move to another room with double beds and I continue to stay in the 7 bed dorm room. I was glad to not be in the same room with them because they are a bit intense. But how nice that we just met on the airport shuttle and they just included me as a part of their trip and took cared of me. Never mind of last night’s emotional episode by Dr. Zhao.
After the retrieval of their bag and moving to a double room, we tried to arrange a hire car to take us to De Ching to look at the Mei Li Snow Mountain. We saw a posting by the hostel front door bulletin for a hired car on his return trip back home to De Ching. Dr. Zhao called him and made arrangements. The driver said he would be right over so the Zhaos went and bought buns and boiled eggs for breakfast. I was a vegetarian and couldn’t eat what they bought. When the driver showed up with his "mien bao che" literally means bread car because it is shaped like a tiny loaf of bread that is often used to ship bread around in Asia, he went for breakfast first. I followed since now I had time to eat. Otherwise Zhaos wouldn’t let me eat because they didn’t want the driver to wait.
I waited for my noodles and the there was a lot of nervous activity from the Zhaos. Since they were more on the careful, intense nervous side, I didn’t think much of it. Dr. Zhao kept rushing me and I ate as fast as I could but any faster would make me throw it all up. He then pulled me to the room and Mrs. Zhao was very unhappy at this point as the driver waited outside. Dr. Zhao explained the situation to me. He said he saw the driver pop pills and asked him what they were for. The driver with bulging bloodshot red eyes from drinking and smoking too much said they were for hang-over because he drank last night. The driver was kind but a scary sight visually. Mrs. Zhao was not comfortable to be driven by a driver who is medicated for the mountain curvy roads. The driver was unhappy that he had been turned down over a few drinks that got him drunk last night but he’s sober and ready to go in the morning with medication he insisted. He didn’t see why anyone would be upset over it and felt extremely insulted by lack of trust in his professional skills. The driver looked like he was about to cry but he did physically look better after his medication kicked in.
It wasn’t good enough for Mrs. Zhao, she did not want to get into a car driven by someone with a massive hangover and when Mrs. Zhao is unhappy, Dr. Zhao is unhappy too. Dr. Zhao had already agreed to hire him and he didn’t want trouble from the driver. They both wanted me to go and tell the guy we didn’t want to hire him anymore. They didn’t want to be the bad guy so they gave me the job. I didn’t want to do it. I was not involved with the communication from the beginning and I won’t get involved now. So the driver was brought into the room by Dr. Zhao against my wishes, and I had to clean up the mess. I ended up telling the driver that it would be cheaper for us to take the bus and we have decided to save money and take the bus. The driver was more satisfied with my explanation and said this made more sense than getting upset over a few drinks that happened last night.
Dr. Zhao decided he would pay for half of the agreed amount as compensation to turn him away. He made me pay for half of the half of the compensation that I didn’t even agree on or was even a part of the discussion. If you do the math, it should have been 1/3 not half since there was three of us, even so I didn’t agree to it. It was all getting very interesting for me, ah…so much activity in 12 hours, so much drama and all I got out of it were 2 hours of Tibetan Folk dancing and a few veggie kabobs. We haven’t even begun the day officially yet and yet so much drama already.
