Bad Hair Day and Losing Your Way

Hiya...Ok, so we made it out of Beijing but not before getting into a cultural snafoo..Ivan went to get his hair cut (which looks good by the way- $3) and while I was waiting, the girl asked me if I wanted a massage by gesturing and I thought "hey, why not" so I sit down and she starts rubbing my head and the next thing I know she's putting gunk (read the same consistency as dish soap) in my hair and making little duck tails and stuff and rubbing the crap out of my scalp and this after I had just done my hair a 1/2 hour ago. After she rinses it out I realize that she has stripped all the natural oils out of my hair and then they want to dry it - I said no thanks - I am still in recovery! And I paid 2 bucks for it - sigh.

We took the train from Beijing to a city called Datong on our way to seeing the Terracotta Warriors in Xian and stayed the night here. Yesterday we hired a car and driver for the day - approx. $50 CAD and saw a monastery hanging off the side of cliffs - amazing. We climbed up to it and around it and both of us got the crap scared out of us because it was so high and precarious - wee little wooden hand rails encasing a platform - West Edmonton Mall rides got nuthin' on this.

Right now there is a Chinese guy hocking and spitting on the floor across from me in this internet cafe and it is filled with cigarette smoke, flies and urine smell - fun ya?

Anyways, then we went to some temples in Datong - Nine Dragon Wall ( like it sounds) and a Buddhist temple thing (by the way - it all costs $$$$$ and China is gonna KILL US) and then to the most amazing thing we have seen yet. There are some caves called Yungang Caves and they have been here since 640 A.D. and they are about 2kms long and filled with buddhas and carvings up to 17 metres high - awesome.

Today we are on the train again (thank goodness for the local travel service guy who speaks some little English, they are few and far between) to a place called Pingyao - an old, old Chinese town (more temples - I'm sure we are going to be templed out soon). The train ride is from 4:30pm to 7:00am tomorrow and we could only get one soft-sleeper and one hard-sleeper - but will try and persuade the train leader to upgrade us - we shall see.

The day started off great - NOT - Ivan decided to go for a little walk which turned into a not so little walk so much as a panic attack - he got lost and I was worried that he wasn't coming back and he was worried cuz he walked right by the hotel and didn't recognize it and anyways - he's here beside me with a tether on.

Ok dudes and dudettes, we really, really wish we could post some more photos for you but the only way we were able to do that was because our buddy from Brazil could access a proxy server to help us out on his lap top but it's virtually impossible to post blogs or photos from China as the gov. has a firewall to rival none and doesn't let anything out or in that isn't gov. friendly. In fact while we are here, we are sending this via email to Ivan's son John who posts it for us from home. Ya gotta love home - omygod - 18 months - we must be insane!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, one more thing - food - arrghh - we essentially point to things on the menu or try to find a picture of the food or point to other people's food or point to the book we brought and generally end up with at least one thing we can eat (fingers come in handy here). The food in this region is rather greasy but as we move further south, we hear (from a buddy on the train from Shanghai) that the food gets better. Hey Ricky, howzabout a steak - FEDEX. Alright, that's all for today except to say that I think we are starting off in the most difficult country and that we can only hope things get easier as we go...

Thanks to everyone who posts to the blog - we can't sign into our own blog from here but the messages are linked to my email so we do get to read them and keep them coming - it's sanity in a world of Wu's and Wangs.