tafang - the sequel
Long before we make it to Deqin, our three drivers have taken on the glow of comic book heroes in my eyes.
I don’t know how much time passed before we came to the final big slide of the journey. At some point one of the drivers carried a baby down the aisle to the very back of the bus where we'd made our nest on the platform stretching across its width. The mother clambered up, then reached over and took the infant out of his arms. I’m pretty sure that was in the night. The urgent, intermittent calls to leave the bus continued. The baby would just settle into sleep and then start crying when we'd have to get off again.
“Xia che! xia che!" It‘s day time, again - or still. Bing walks in small dragging steps and now cannot stop the pain from showing in his face. I’m always first down off the platform, both from impatience and because its easier to put his sandals when I'm standing and he's still lying down - pretty much the only way I can be of help - and now the young woman hands me the baby before she climbs down.
The slide has been partially cleared and other smaller vehicles have already been over. Everyone wanders in single file through the shadowy gap between the bus and the mountain, to where the road widens and there’s some space to stand. The river rages, dirty and frothy, not too far below. We look back and watch as our ridiculous vehicle lumbers noisily foward, attempting to clear a low, sludgy crest. It almost makes it, then falls back. The driver tries again, but almost immediately, the back wheel slips over the cliff - the bus leans over the water and the driver leaps out. Our collective, high pitched gasp sounds briefly over the roar of the river.
For the next couple of hours there is much discussion and examination accompanied by half hearted digging. Even Bing tries at first to scrape some dirt from behind one of the tyres, but is waved away by a driver with instructions to rest. So, yet again, he wanders a little way up the road, finds a flat stone to recline on, and places his cap over his face, communicating with no one. Trucks and land cruisers have pulled up, but this time there’s no wood around, and so no fire to boil water with. There’s also not the same sense of cohesion. It's hot. It’s been a few hours by now and we’re thirsty. The woman finds some shade behind the wheel of a vehicle and lays her child on a scrap of cardboard.
Eventually a small truck, summoned from the nearest settlement, pulls up. Two wooden posts - the size of baby telegraph poles - are unloaded, along with a flimsy chain and pulley which has been broken and tied together. There are also supplies for sale: small bottles of water, lemonade, chips and other packaged food like spicy tofu and beef gerky. The water goes quickly. I manage to get two bottles of the warm lemonade.
One of the Deguos comments, in English now, that "this is very different to Europe." I have a short choking fit as he continues. "In Europe," he says, "they would have a big crane with eight wheels."
The bases of the posts are buried in shallow holes parallel with the bus's back wheel, between it and the mountain. I spend my time alternately wandering up to look for signs of progress around the bus, then back to Bing, isolated in his pain from the groups around. I’ve left my book on the bus and plan never to do so again. At one point I start to pick up the wrappers and empty drink bottles which have been scattered around in the previous half hour. At first I feel self-conscious as the prissy foreigner, and when I ask about putting the refuse in the back of the truck which supplied it, I’m stiffly refused. But then I find a box and a couple of people even help me.
By now, one end of the chain is hooked to the back window on the mountain side, and the other runs through that window, inside the bus and is hooked to the other window ledge beside my bed. Yet another chain is attached to the back axel and all are somehow looped around the posts. Using the pulley, after about an hour of tiny adjustments, the bus is finally cranked up out of its lean to an upright position so that the back outside wheel is now suspended in mid air, level with the track. Now, the process begins of extending a ledge out by the width of the wheel that will extend over the crest, on which it can rest and then be driven back up onto safe ground.
A bunch of women labourers pull up, hop out the back of a truck, and get to work. A couple of men chip large slabs from the cliff further along the road and load the women with rocks. They carry them low on their backs, harnessed in place by woven cords. I join them, but without their cords must carry the rocks in front using my arms. I carry less than half the weight they do. We must walk about 200 metres up to the bus and squeeze single file over the slippery trail between it and the mountain wall. When we arrive at the back of the bus, men lift the rocks from us and pass them to the three drivers who are perched side by side on the cliff, carefully wedging them into place. The Deguos too, are busy working hard.
Finally everyone stands back, dazed, dirtier, sweatier and thirstier. It feels miraculous, in the dying light, to see the back wheel lowered onto the stone ledge as the bus is tentatively released from its chains before a silent, unmoving audience.
There's is only one participant now - a driver hops up behind the wheel and guns it effortlessly out of the dilemma. With a huge, triumphant smile, he powers past the spectators who have now become a cheering, whistling mob. The seemingly insurmountable task has been accomplished - not with modern machinery- but through patience, good humour, muscle and ingenuity.
We scurry back on the bus waving to the others and drive off into the evening. It's 7:30 pm.
Ten minutes later - I remember clearly checking my watch in disbelief - we hear the 'xia che' call again. It is almost dark. The bus successfully negotiates the narrow patch of track and we're back on the bus again, then ten minutes later off again, then on again. I look at Bing, irritated at not knowing how to help him.
The third time we get off, the bus becomes stuck on another sludgy slope. A truck coming in the opposite direction pulls up and is hooked nose to nose, but despite black smoke and a screaming noise as it tries to reverse, nothing moves. It unhooks and backs up the road to a wider part, manages a precarious u turn then reverses all the way back to the front of the bus. This time it's able to pull it out. We cheer the truck driver.
My bed is at the back outside corner of the bus. There’s mud everywhere from where some one had crawled inside from the other window during the rescue and attached one of the chains to the window ledge beside my bed. The bus is motoring fast through the night. Previously I was laisse faire, but now, every time it sways towards the cliff side on a bend, I shiver. Every time I look out searching for road below and only see the river, I whimper. I‘ve lost my nerve.
At midnight we stop at a few buildings where there's a restaurant. The woman and baby leave us, disappearing into the night. I get out and find a place to go to the toilet. Bing finds a bench and stretches out an inch at a time, into his iconic prone position - an image now indicative for me, of the whole experience. We soon get back on the bus leaving the others to their meals. After being off it for so long, we just want to stay there. I read about small town California by my head torch as Bing tosses and turns.
And then, at 2 am, it’s our turn to leave. We pull into Deqin, a cluster of grey buildings grouped around a long distance bus station - spurned by Lonely Planet and ignored by Chinese and foreign tourists alike in their hurry to get to the mountain viewing point out of town. We warmly shake hands with the drivers, enthusiastically thanking each other. And off it goes, our monster ‘sleeper’ bus, bound for Zhongdian, leaving us under a street lamp. All is still. Bing struggles with his pack for the length of the street and then just gives up, sitting down on the footpath with his feet in the gutter, agreeing without any fuss to wait while I keep looking for a guesthouse; entirely out of character.
The first one I see is open and its corridor lit up, but even though I call out for the service person and bang on room doors, no one will get up. At the second place, which is still in sight of Bing‘s dark, immobile shape, a young girl appears, shows me a big 30 kuai room with two beds, and obligingly hurries off to get a thermos of boiling water. I drop my pack on the floor and walk slowly back along the street to scape up my companion.
And there in Deqin - where many bowls of su you cha (yak butter tea) will be consumed, and many hunks of da bing (bread) dipped into them - I leave us for the time of Bing's convalesence. In the ensuing days he creates a spectacle of himself as he edges each morning from the guesthouse to the cha shop with his red hiking poles swinging and clacking on the pavement, stopping every few metres to squat down for pain relief, and then when he finally arrives, lining up the stools and reclining. Strangers thrust herbs and pills upon him in the street, or grab his arm as they fervently recommend a particular doctor. The woman who cleans the rooms has much advice. Every one thinks he's about to die. And he too, running with all the attention, takes up a refrain of wo hen kuai si le (I will very soon die).
I spend a lot of time in the local internet cafe, trying to disguise the fact that I'm over it.
I don’t know how much time passed before we came to the final big slide of the journey. At some point one of the drivers carried a baby down the aisle to the very back of the bus where we'd made our nest on the platform stretching across its width. The mother clambered up, then reached over and took the infant out of his arms. I’m pretty sure that was in the night. The urgent, intermittent calls to leave the bus continued. The baby would just settle into sleep and then start crying when we'd have to get off again.
“Xia che! xia che!" It‘s day time, again - or still. Bing walks in small dragging steps and now cannot stop the pain from showing in his face. I’m always first down off the platform, both from impatience and because its easier to put his sandals when I'm standing and he's still lying down - pretty much the only way I can be of help - and now the young woman hands me the baby before she climbs down.
The slide has been partially cleared and other smaller vehicles have already been over. Everyone wanders in single file through the shadowy gap between the bus and the mountain, to where the road widens and there’s some space to stand. The river rages, dirty and frothy, not too far below. We look back and watch as our ridiculous vehicle lumbers noisily foward, attempting to clear a low, sludgy crest. It almost makes it, then falls back. The driver tries again, but almost immediately, the back wheel slips over the cliff - the bus leans over the water and the driver leaps out. Our collective, high pitched gasp sounds briefly over the roar of the river.
For the next couple of hours there is much discussion and examination accompanied by half hearted digging. Even Bing tries at first to scrape some dirt from behind one of the tyres, but is waved away by a driver with instructions to rest. So, yet again, he wanders a little way up the road, finds a flat stone to recline on, and places his cap over his face, communicating with no one. Trucks and land cruisers have pulled up, but this time there’s no wood around, and so no fire to boil water with. There’s also not the same sense of cohesion. It's hot. It’s been a few hours by now and we’re thirsty. The woman finds some shade behind the wheel of a vehicle and lays her child on a scrap of cardboard.
Eventually a small truck, summoned from the nearest settlement, pulls up. Two wooden posts - the size of baby telegraph poles - are unloaded, along with a flimsy chain and pulley which has been broken and tied together. There are also supplies for sale: small bottles of water, lemonade, chips and other packaged food like spicy tofu and beef gerky. The water goes quickly. I manage to get two bottles of the warm lemonade.
One of the Deguos comments, in English now, that "this is very different to Europe." I have a short choking fit as he continues. "In Europe," he says, "they would have a big crane with eight wheels."
The bases of the posts are buried in shallow holes parallel with the bus's back wheel, between it and the mountain. I spend my time alternately wandering up to look for signs of progress around the bus, then back to Bing, isolated in his pain from the groups around. I’ve left my book on the bus and plan never to do so again. At one point I start to pick up the wrappers and empty drink bottles which have been scattered around in the previous half hour. At first I feel self-conscious as the prissy foreigner, and when I ask about putting the refuse in the back of the truck which supplied it, I’m stiffly refused. But then I find a box and a couple of people even help me.
By now, one end of the chain is hooked to the back window on the mountain side, and the other runs through that window, inside the bus and is hooked to the other window ledge beside my bed. Yet another chain is attached to the back axel and all are somehow looped around the posts. Using the pulley, after about an hour of tiny adjustments, the bus is finally cranked up out of its lean to an upright position so that the back outside wheel is now suspended in mid air, level with the track. Now, the process begins of extending a ledge out by the width of the wheel that will extend over the crest, on which it can rest and then be driven back up onto safe ground.
A bunch of women labourers pull up, hop out the back of a truck, and get to work. A couple of men chip large slabs from the cliff further along the road and load the women with rocks. They carry them low on their backs, harnessed in place by woven cords. I join them, but without their cords must carry the rocks in front using my arms. I carry less than half the weight they do. We must walk about 200 metres up to the bus and squeeze single file over the slippery trail between it and the mountain wall. When we arrive at the back of the bus, men lift the rocks from us and pass them to the three drivers who are perched side by side on the cliff, carefully wedging them into place. The Deguos too, are busy working hard.
Finally everyone stands back, dazed, dirtier, sweatier and thirstier. It feels miraculous, in the dying light, to see the back wheel lowered onto the stone ledge as the bus is tentatively released from its chains before a silent, unmoving audience.
There's is only one participant now - a driver hops up behind the wheel and guns it effortlessly out of the dilemma. With a huge, triumphant smile, he powers past the spectators who have now become a cheering, whistling mob. The seemingly insurmountable task has been accomplished - not with modern machinery- but through patience, good humour, muscle and ingenuity.
We scurry back on the bus waving to the others and drive off into the evening. It's 7:30 pm.
Ten minutes later - I remember clearly checking my watch in disbelief - we hear the 'xia che' call again. It is almost dark. The bus successfully negotiates the narrow patch of track and we're back on the bus again, then ten minutes later off again, then on again. I look at Bing, irritated at not knowing how to help him.
The third time we get off, the bus becomes stuck on another sludgy slope. A truck coming in the opposite direction pulls up and is hooked nose to nose, but despite black smoke and a screaming noise as it tries to reverse, nothing moves. It unhooks and backs up the road to a wider part, manages a precarious u turn then reverses all the way back to the front of the bus. This time it's able to pull it out. We cheer the truck driver.
My bed is at the back outside corner of the bus. There’s mud everywhere from where some one had crawled inside from the other window during the rescue and attached one of the chains to the window ledge beside my bed. The bus is motoring fast through the night. Previously I was laisse faire, but now, every time it sways towards the cliff side on a bend, I shiver. Every time I look out searching for road below and only see the river, I whimper. I‘ve lost my nerve.
At midnight we stop at a few buildings where there's a restaurant. The woman and baby leave us, disappearing into the night. I get out and find a place to go to the toilet. Bing finds a bench and stretches out an inch at a time, into his iconic prone position - an image now indicative for me, of the whole experience. We soon get back on the bus leaving the others to their meals. After being off it for so long, we just want to stay there. I read about small town California by my head torch as Bing tosses and turns.
And then, at 2 am, it’s our turn to leave. We pull into Deqin, a cluster of grey buildings grouped around a long distance bus station - spurned by Lonely Planet and ignored by Chinese and foreign tourists alike in their hurry to get to the mountain viewing point out of town. We warmly shake hands with the drivers, enthusiastically thanking each other. And off it goes, our monster ‘sleeper’ bus, bound for Zhongdian, leaving us under a street lamp. All is still. Bing struggles with his pack for the length of the street and then just gives up, sitting down on the footpath with his feet in the gutter, agreeing without any fuss to wait while I keep looking for a guesthouse; entirely out of character.
The first one I see is open and its corridor lit up, but even though I call out for the service person and bang on room doors, no one will get up. At the second place, which is still in sight of Bing‘s dark, immobile shape, a young girl appears, shows me a big 30 kuai room with two beds, and obligingly hurries off to get a thermos of boiling water. I drop my pack on the floor and walk slowly back along the street to scape up my companion.
And there in Deqin - where many bowls of su you cha (yak butter tea) will be consumed, and many hunks of da bing (bread) dipped into them - I leave us for the time of Bing's convalesence. In the ensuing days he creates a spectacle of himself as he edges each morning from the guesthouse to the cha shop with his red hiking poles swinging and clacking on the pavement, stopping every few metres to squat down for pain relief, and then when he finally arrives, lining up the stools and reclining. Strangers thrust herbs and pills upon him in the street, or grab his arm as they fervently recommend a particular doctor. The woman who cleans the rooms has much advice. Every one thinks he's about to die. And he too, running with all the attention, takes up a refrain of wo hen kuai si le (I will very soon die).
I spend a lot of time in the local internet cafe, trying to disguise the fact that I'm over it.
posted by jacqueline b at 6:23 PM
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