Okay, here we go. I am sitting down to try to recount all of the stories of my trip down to Hainan. I will not be surprised if it takes me a week to tell you all of the outrageous things that happened to my friends and me. These are my tales.
I have to say that we have discovered that women help men stay in line. Without women, a group of men with revert back to a bunch of child-like idiots. I mean that sincerely. Most, if not all of our exploits could have been counteracted by simple common sense. But then, it wouldn't have been a "man-venture"
Let me also say that none of us knew exactly how long we would be there. We didn't really have any idea of where we were going to stay or how we were going to get back. I did a little research into where we were going about an hour before-hand. But it seemed more interesting to just let things happen. Also, we all packed our bags within an hour of leaving the campus to catch our train. That's right, as we were walking out the door, my friends and I were still throwing stuff into our packs. :) This was just the beginning.
So, we set out to the train station, that was pretty routine. We stopped for a snack, because we all forgot to eat first, and boarded the train at about 7 PM to go on our tropical adventure. The first night we just kind of stayed up and talked and joked about miscellaneous things. It was a great time. Then, as with all of the trains, they shut off the lights at 10, so we kind of just rolled over and went to sleep. We all awoke as late as we could the next day. I managed to prolong my waking up until about 11. My friends managed about the same. After coming to, brushing our teeth washing our faces and having a little bit of breakfast, we all came to the realization that we were going to be on this train for the WHOLE day! We laughed awkwardly about it and settled into talking or reading or joking or whatever we wanted to do. Mark and I had the middle bunks in our area while Adam got the top bunk. Chinese people are friendly enough that they don't want you to sit in your bunk all day. Honestly, it's hard to do. There is not enough room in any of the bunks, save for the bottom, to sit straight upright. So, one of the ladies on the bottom bunk gestured to me to have a seat and relax. So I did and we had ourselves a little conversation, in Chinese. She was patient and helpful, though she understood what I was saying. She spoke slowly and deliberately, which was helpful. After a while we brought out the cards and invited the other member of our suite to join us in a card game. We let them teach us a card game, with surprising success, all in Chinese. So we laughed and played and that took up a few more hours. Here we are, on this train, slowly chipping away at the time on our way to paradise. Towards the end of the day, we had become somewhat of friends with our Chinese roommates and we offered them some of our food and they offered some of theirs. We (I) had as in depth conversations as I could manage with them.It wasn't perfect, but it was great practice. Well, the lights went off again that night and we knew that we would wake up at our destination, but we continued to talk for a bit with our new friend. About 11 or so, when we had all pretty much retired for the evening, our friend asked us where we were going to stay in Hainan. We told her calmly that we did not know because we had no plans. She asked again where we were staying and I gave her the same response. She repeated for a third time and I told her that I understood but we had no idea where we would go. She may have thought it was a disconnect up until that point. But you could instantly se her face go from friendly to stupid Americans, to stupid men, to genuine concern all in the flash of an eye. Our friend, whose name we never remembered, proceeded to inform us that our train arrived in Haikou at 3:30AM and not 6:50. So there would not be any busses running.
Our original "plan", if you can call it that, was to get off the train in Haikou and then mill about the city for a bit. When we were tired of that, we would hop onto one of the hourly departure buses to the south of the island, Sanya. Now, the one thing that I had checked and was one hundred percent sure of was our arrival time in our first city, Haikou. Obviously I was wrong! :) So we, my new "friend" and I, spent the next hour figuring out what we should do, changing our tickets, finding a hostel, and panicking a little bit...but in a good way. At half past midnight, we finally figured it out, we thought, and headed to bed.
Next, my friends and I received an awakening by a burly looking man with a billy club and a flash light who effectively said, "pay up or get off". I'm not 100% sure he had the billy club. But at 3:30 in the morning you assume that the burly looking gentleman in the uniform has a billy club...it's just a rule of thumb! So we paid the money and drifted back to sleep until the time that I had ORIGINALLY thought came around. At 7 we got off the train and found ourselves in the middle of a train station in the middle of nowhere. The plus side was that it was SUNNY and BEAUTIFUL! I would have traded anything for that.
So after walking around lost for an hour or so, we got help from this friendly man from Idaho. Yes, that's right a random fellow from Idaho just happened to be walking down the road while we were all incredibly lost. After giving us a heading to make it to our hostel, we asked this stranger what he was doing here. To which, his response was, "living". We asked him to elaborate, and he went on to say, "just living man. That's all". We all nodded in approval and went on our way. We finally made it to our hostel about 3.5 hours after we arrived in the city. No, it should not have taken that long. Yes, we were very lost. No, it didn't matter. You will find that those three responses hold true to my ENTIRE story! So we'll just call them (a) so that I can reference it easily. :p
After making it to the hostel, making some quick friends and realizing that we were ravenously hungry, we ran up to the room to shower and change in preparation to attack the day! Hostel life is not always pretty, it is rarely fancy, and sometimes it's just sad. But, there is one constant redeeming quality about hostel life and that is BREAKFAST! You have no idea how much your day and outlook on life improves once you have had some good ol' fashioned bacon and eggs with toast and coffee. To be honest, if we had the money, we wouldn't even stay in the Ritz if it didn't have breakfast. It's the way of the world.
After breakfast, we agree that we are ready to attack the day and see some beautiful sights. So we go up to the front counter where we meet Jason. *There a couple of VERY important things that you need to know about our friend Jason. Jason is as stupid as can be. Most of our being lost or confused was partially, if not wholly, because of Jason. We spent a lot of time mocking Jason for putting us into some crazy situations and equally as much time making fun of ourselves for continuing to go to him for advice. Anywho, we meet Jason and ask him where we should go. He points us to this beach that he says is BEAUTIFUL on the Northwestern side of the island. So, we all look at each other and agree that it's a good idea. Then we think that we should rent some bikes and have a nice little ride out there instead of paying for a bus or a cab. That way we can see the city and enjoy the day. After buying a map of the city and renting our bikes, we set out. Everything was going great...then for some reason, we couldn't find where we were on the map and just decided to wing it. We took a right and started heading up into the mountains. In retrospect, this was dumb. But, we were guys with bikes and a bunch of time. So we rode and rode. Up and down through people's land and around people's houses. We stopped here and there if something looked cool or if we have to pee. But it was great for a while because we were seeing the part of the island that people don't see. It was the part of the island that people are sometimes afraid to see. It was the real part of paradise. We passed through slums and ghettos and back alleys and farms. Right now, see not (a) because we are good and lost and didn't even realize. But it was okay. Well, my friend's bike hit a screw and got a flat tire. I noticed it just as we were entering another ghetto so we dismounted and started to walk our way through. It was a beautiful day and the locals were sitting outside. We gestured to his flat tire and shrugged our shoulders inquisitively. They all responded by telling us to continue walking for 300 meters and there would be a man who could fix it. 300 meters passed, then 400 and then we came to this gaggle of rick-a-shaw drivers lounging by the corners. When they saw our American faces, they lit up with the prospect of a fare. They were trying to take us wherever we wanted to go even though we had our bikes in tow.
We managed to convey what we were looking for and they solemnly pointed us across the street to this little shanty of a house where a man covered from head to toe in grease was located. We went through our whole charade of flat tire language and asked him if he could fix it. He set to work right away. His fingers danced along the tire like a professional pianist. He patched the tube and replaced it into the tire as if he'd been doing it his whole life, which is possible. When he was finished, we gratefully asked how much. This is where it gets interesting. He holds up one finger and says, "qi kuai" which is seven yuan. We confirmed this with him several times because we were confused by the hand gesture. He nodded affirmatively every time. So Adam hands the man a 10 yuan bill and waits. The grease monkey disappears into his shop and fiddles a bit and then comes out and just looks at us. (by this time we've drawn a crowd of 5-7 people staring at the foreigners) We look back at him, confused...So I take over with my Mandarin skills. Asking him very frankly about the price. "You said 7 kuai?" "Yes, yes." He replied to me. I said, "okay, well...he gave you 10 kuai" "yes, yes" he responded. "Okay, well, you give us 3 kuai then". The man looks at us calmly and with as straight a face as I could ever make and says, "I don't have 3 kuai." My friends and I are looking at each other confused and laughing a little on the inside and what is happening right now. So we ask him again. And the same response, "I don't have 3 kuai." I, then, point to his assistant squatting behind him and ask if HE has 3 kuai. The repairman turns and exchanges glances with the boy and turns back to us and just as calmly as before he says, "He doesn't have 3 kuai." So, the three of us are busting out laughing by this point, along with most of the bystanders, because we know that we are being taken for fools. But we say, " okay man, whatever! You can keep it, we're going home." So we depart.
Finally, we are on our way out of the ghetto and down the mountain. Keep in mind, that this WHOLE time, we have no idea where we are on the map. When we finally arrive at an intersection that we can identify, it turns out that we had gone off the map in the lower south east corner and swung all the way up to the tap and were coming in at a downward angle from the Northeast. We were SO confused and SO lost. But it still didn't matter (a). By this time though, a few hours had passed (4 or 5) and we are still determined to find this beach that Jason has pointed us to. And on we ride.
We finally found the beach, after about 45 more minutes of riding. I convinced the guys to take a walk on the beach with me. We did and we talked about all kinds of things. politics, society, economics, girls, drugs, money, beer, girls, life, philosophy. All kinds of things. We talked about the things that you would think that three intelligent, well-read, funny, world travelers from similar backgrounds would talk about. And it was a blast. We talked and walked until the sun was so low that we could see it's red tint starting to appear from it's descent. We were still a very long way away from where we thought the hostel was and darkness was fast approaching! And here we were in a strange city by ourselves, in the dark. It was just as dumb as it sounds. But we managed to get the hang of riding bikes in traffic and on the streets. Problem was that after 7 hours of being on these bikes, our butts were hurting like crazy and all we wanted to do was get off of them. Using some clever navigating and stopping just before every major turn and intersection, we made it back to the hostel in one piece, 9 hours after we left.
Marcus
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