back in civilation, after a nice few days of rest. on arriving at lugu lake, i (and the busload of chinese tourists i was with) was disappointed to see that it was raining. i settled into my comfortable youth hostel, where beds were only 15 kuai (a bit less than 2 dollars). luckily the rain had let up for a bit, so i explored the surrounding area with three taiwanese people i'd met on the bus and a chinese girl who'd come travelling alone. now, sometimes chinese girls brag about how they can go travelling alone, but they are honestly the most clingy travellers in the world. the two chinese girls travelling alone that i met at the lake had asked if we could travel together within five minutes of conversing. i felt a bit awkward saying no, as it feels like rejecting someone, but honestly i didn't even know their names. the second single traveller was staying in my dorm room, and even after i turned her down as a travel buddy, she invited me to see the lake with her and two other girls the next day. i figured it'd be easier and cheaper than doing it alone, so i agreed.
the next day, through rain and icy wind, we set out. at that point, i really wanted to cancel and sit by the fire all day, but i figured that wouldn't be fair to them as they'd have to pay more for the car they'd rented. it was a nice day, looking at all the minority villages around the lake. my companions for the day were my roommate, who was cantonese and spoke with an accent that was incredibly hard for me to understand, a shanghaiese woman with a german boyfriend who spoke pretty good english, and a beijing girl with whom i didn't converse much, despite our shared place of residence. so off we headed in our bus.
the mosuo, who live in little villages around the lake, are a minority famous for being the only remaining matriarchal society. they have a unique system called a walking marriage, where they spend nights with their lovers, but during the day live in different places. the women, i believe, live in their own houses and raise their kids, and the men live with their parents. i gathered this in chinese though, so it could be wrong. during our journey we met an old mosuo women who told me about a french woman who had come to live with her for three months, and how they had both cried when she left. i noticed she was wearing a new york hat, and in my excitement i told her "your hat is the city where i live!" the other girls i was with straightened it out.
for lunch, the chinese girls were very keen to eat some traditional mosuo food, so they insisted on knocking on random people's doors and asking if they would cook for us. dandan also wanted to do this, and with the same consequences- we ended up being accepted into the house of a han chinese family, and so we did not get to sample the minority's food. it was still interesting to sit in the house of this poor farmer family and chat about their lives. i wish i could connect my camera to the computer, because i'm sure i could illustrate this better with pictures. oh well, maybe when i get home. anyway, we ate a simple meal of potatoes, greens, and pork fat, and then gave them a lot of money.
when we got back to the hostel, i noticed a young american guy, one of the few foreigners i'd seen since arriving at the lake. i sat down to eat with him, and discovered that he'd grown up in philadelphia and went to upenn. i was only struck by it later, but really, what are the odds of going to a remote lake in china and meeting someone who went to college 20 minutes away from you? but when it comes to foreigners, china is a small world. we had a nice talk about our experiences in china. he'd done a year in new york in investment banking, and then got bored out of his mind and decided to take some time to live in dali. the backpacker town of dali, with its stoner expats, is probably about as far from new york investment banking as you can get.
oh! and i noticed he had "one hundred years of solitude," which i've been trying to find for my whole trip. as i was just about to finish my murakami book, i asked if he'd be up for a trade, and he agreed. this was just perfect, and now i'm happily reading my gabriel garcia marquez.
the next day i had to head to a hostel on the other side of the lake, nearer the bus to sichuan, and adam joined me as he was making for a peninsula near where i was going. on the way, we ran into a belgian that adam had met on a bus. he told us that he had been talking to the owners of one of the guesthouses about an hour from our hostel, when the woman had started making sexual advances out of nowhere. he was not a very sexual guy, one of those eternal travellers whose goal is to observe rather than to interact, so we were pretty surprised. he said she hadn't wanted money or anything, so we wondered if this was part of the mosuo custom. certainly, according to lonely planet, many han chinese men think the mosuo village will be a great place to get their own one-night walking marriage, and apparently prostitution is growing in the area. the guesthouse was on our way, so we stopped in for a meal. we were able to ascertain who the woman was, a quiet moderately attractive woman in her mid-thirties. the man, who was sick, had told her that he would come back the next day, so actually we were there to give her this message. we asked the family if they'd seen a european the day before. the woman seemed embarassed, but an older woman who must've been her mother, said yes enthusiastically. we told them he wouldn't be able to make it, and the woman looked sad. i wonder, maybe it was a prostitution thing. anyway, we will never know.
i made it to my hostel, crunching on local dried apples, and checked in for the night. it was freezing, but beautiful. a few hours later, a large dutch tour group checked in. i asked if i could eat with them, and they kindly agreed, so i got a nice free meal and the company of many friendly middle aged dutch people. after that we all went to see a mosuo traditional show. i had been avoiding going to these, as they are quite obviously geared for chinese tourists, but i had nothing else to do. i actually had a great time, dancing with the mosuo and some nice chinese tourists from chengdu and chongqing. they were very nice to me and enthusiastic about my chinese, and took lots of pictures with me. unfortunately, when we reached the singing portion of the evening, i was the first one they made stand in front of the crowd to sing for everyone. i should've had a song ready, as i've been warned about this kind of thing by many travellers, but my mind was blank, i finally sang a verse from "the times they are a-changin" and then was thrown up in the air three times by the mosuo men.
the next morning at 8 i boarded a bus for xichang in southern sichuan, from where i could take a sleeper train to chengdu. i struck up a conversation with the guy sitting next to me, who then proceeded to ask me for my number four or five times. arriving in xichang, i discovered that i could only buy hard seat tickets, and so i resigned myself for a miserably uncomfortable night, after which i would be able to sleep all day in my chengdu hostel. luckily, when i got on the train, i was able to upgrade to a soft sleeper, though this time i had to pay 130 kuai. it was worth it though, as i slept quite well.
i arrived in chengdu at 630, and walked to my hostel as the sun rose. as i waited for them to prepare my bed, a group of foreigners approached me and asked if i'd like to go to leshan with them that day. they were leaving in about 20 minutes, and had rented a van. i figured that if i didn't take this opportunity to see the biggest sitting buddha in the world, i never would. so i dropped my stuff on the bed, and went with them. the buddha was kind of a letdown, but we had a fun day anyway. today i am resting up, as tomorrow i'm going to try to go see a glacier about 8 hours west of here.