China: Day Five- Xichang to JinYang

I think I went expecting it to be like India, only with chopsticks and everyone being Chinese. It really wasn’t like India. But it was a very different experience than our one in India.

I was surprised by the fact that it was so much cleaner and less chaotic. The driving was also very "normal." On this day, China turned into India...

We boarded the bus in front of our hotel at 8:30am and headed into the mountains.

But first we had to drive out of Xichang into the countryside...

peaches were in season

We also had a couple of hitchhikers: a mother and a couple of boys who were done with school in Xichang and needed a ride back home to Jin Yang. Since they knew our official "minder" it wasn't any problem. 

I wonder what this sign means???

Before long we started heading up and my ears started to pop. We climbed through and then above the clouds. Eventually we made it to nearly 10,000 feet. 

The roads got pretty crazy! Think Denali National Park in India: steep, curvy, winding, and full of people, cars, trucks, tractors, and animals.

Eventually we had to make a bathroom stop. 

Squattie potties were fine with me but this one was really difficult. When the bus stopped and people started walking into a back alley I really questioned how badly I had to go. Unfortunately I really had to go. To get to the “toilet” we had to walk by this clinic.  

note the patients' IV bags hanging on the wall over their chairs

Then we got to the bathroom.  

this is about 4 feet away from the clinic

The only good thing was that you don’t have to touch anything in a bathroom like this. 

The countryside quickly grew poorer and poorer as we entered a very impoverished part of Sichuan province, the home of the Yi people.

Lunch was at a very simple restaurant in a banquet room upstairs. But there was no shortage of food! It also had a squatty pottie. As it was Chrissy's first, Sue and I gave her a lesson /demonstration in the hallway and we were caught by Liz and Dorothy. I'm just glad it wasn't the guys coming down the stairs... LOL

our "minder" on the left (he always had a smile)

Joel, Liz and I

There was lots more to see once we were back on the road. Since everyone was feeling fairly carsick (thank goodness I remembered my Dramamine) the break was nice...

people stopping to collect spring water from a roadside waterfall