The summer of 2003 flew by and finally culminated in a trip to Chang Bai Shan – a large mountain located along the North Korean border with a volcanic lake at the top. Tamara, Cristin and I had decided to have a girl trip to end the summer. We asked a Chinese friend of ours, Jack, to be our guide and interpreter.
We decided to spend three days there and against better advice from other teachers, we chose to travel by bus. It was probably the worst decision we had made all summer. We started off on our 12 hour journey with high spirits. It was our first time out of the city and we were getting our first look at the countryside. It was like taking a step back in time. Imagine green lush rice paddies, farmers tilling the wet soil with water bison, long rows of corn and giant sunflowers. It was breathtakingly beautiful and it looked like something straight out of a book. I was astonished to see how unspoiled the land was, especially after being in the dirty and polluted cities of North East China. Farmsteads were small, low, worn down and in desperate need of repair. Flocks of poultry, pigs and other barnyard animals roamed freely on the roads. There was no electricity and most of the people were dressed in handsewn clothing or second hand clothing. We passed a creek where women were washing their clothes by hand. Obviously, these people had endured hardships that I couldn’t begin to fathom, yet they looked so at peace. There was none of the hustle-bustle rat-race of city life. Chores weren’t hurried, people took their time and moved slowly through the paces of life. It was enchanting to see and I almost wished to have such a simple existence for myself. We stopped for a short lunch break in a small village. The villagers had never seen foreigners before and the three of us were instantly surrounded by curious faces, a few suspicious stares and quite a few wandering hands. We inhaled a quick lunch of boiled pork dumplings, most of which I wore on my chest after a rather embarrassing slip with my chopsticks. After that, we decided to walk through the village. We stopped to look at a lady making tea eggs and she gave us one to try. We took some pictures with her and promised to stop by on our way back to drop some off for her. (We did stop on our way back to Changchun. She was thrilled to have the pictures and insisted on fortifying us on our journey home with more of her tea eggs.)
Our uncomfortable ride intensified as we progressed on our trip towards Chang Bai Shan as the bus seemed to have some seriously ill shock absorbers. We spent most of the journey trying to hold ourselves down as the bus climbed and bumped treacherously across bridges and over narrow mountainous roadways. Twelve hours later, we were bruised and aching and we still had to locate accommodations for the night. Luckily, Jack sprang to our rescue and located a cheap hotel room for us in the small city of Bei He, which is at the base of the mountain. Our room had four dorm style beds with a slab of wood to sleep on with a quilt thrown on top for extra cushioning. We could barely stand the thought of sleeping there for the night and opted to go for massages to waste some time. The massages ended up making everything worse as the young Chinese ladies working on us were pounding so hard that we woke up with bruises the next day. Let me tell you, sleeping that night was not an easy feat after bouncing in a bus for 12 hours and then getting pounded by two Chinese girls for another hour. We managed to get some shut-eye and woke up early the next morning to meet our guide. Our trip was ill-fated right from the beginning and we knew it. Nevertheless, we persevered in the hope that things would start to get better. Ha! Our guide didn’t have a driver’s license and we got stopped at the foot of the mountain. We waited at the side of the rode for an hour for his friend to arrive and drive us up to the summit. Our new driver was a maniac and we almost flew off the side of the narrow road several times before arriving at the top of the mountain. When we arrived, he gave us 20 minutes to look around. We couldn’t see a thing because the mist and fog were so bad, so we snapped a few pictures and headed resolutely back to our car and driver. Alas, both had disappeared with all of our gear as we had stupidly left it in the trunk of the car. The day was getting worse. We had to wait for another hour before we could secure a ride back down the mountain. When we finally found someone to take us down, we were crammed like sardines in a can. We wandered around dejectedly for a few hours looking for our driver and as luck would have it, we finally found him and he had our stuff. We still had some time left, so we decided to take our things and make the hike up the mountain to the volcanic lake. The lake was spectacular and well worth the hike. Our driver actually stuck around this time and he stopped off at a few other scenic spots on the way back to our hotel. We thought he was just being nice after messing up our day so badly. Boy, were we ever wrong. He was busy racking up a bill of seismic proportions. We politely refused to pay the total bill and offered him what he had originally quoted us with a generous ‘tip’ thrown in for good measure. He took off in his car and returned an hour later with three friends and threatened to beat the hell out of us if we didn’t pay up. By that time, we were thoroughly disgusted and although we hated to do it, we paid up. There was nothing else we could do. The next morning we high tailed it out of there and climbed back on the bus from hell. The ride back to Changchun is easily the scariest ride I’ve ever been on. As we came down out of the mountains, there was very little road to be seen between us and a long drop into a deep valley. The roads were marked with piles of sand. Drivers were supposed to stay inside the piles but our driver had a death wish and we were lucky if he hit the middle of the pile. Our faces were glued to the window as we watched the pebbles and dirt from our passage tumble into the depths below. To top it off, the bus stopped every 15 minutes for anyone who was standing on the side of the road. The driver made a hefty amount of cash by picking up peasants and villagers that were headed into the city for a few days to find work. Soon, our bus was packed to the brim. People were sitting in the aisles, on the stairs, on each other. One woman was crammed against the front window. About two hours in, a man threw up and it caused a chain reaction. By the time the driver stopped, people had the windows rolled down and were squeezing out the windows to escape the foul air. We were stopped twice on the way home by the police. Each time, the driver had to pay a fine for overcrowding. He would yell at everyone to get off and they would start walking. As soon as he had dealt with the police, he would drive up the road and pick everyone up again. I have never been more relieved to arrive safely home in my entire life. Our first excursion out of the city had been a horrible one, but one that we would never ever forget!