Incahuasi

On my second day in Lunahuana, I went white water rafting and toured Incahuasi, the ruins of an Incan military camp and prison, which was established in 1438 by the Inca Pachacutec. I was a little hesitant to go White Water rafting because the water levels were so low, but Fernando was passionate. He said the river is powerful and even if it is low the energy will still be the same. His enthusiasm sold me on the plan and he coordinated the trip.

Just as promised, the river delivered and the rafting was invigorating. I was glad I had done quite a bit of rafting in the United States, because the introductory briefing would have been a complete loss to me, if I had not already heard it before in English. After the brief, the guide wanted to place me in the front lead position of the raft. In my worst Spanish, I tried to explain to the guide that I would probably fare better in the second position, since I wouldn’t understand the commands he would shout from the back of the boat.

We got it figured out and by the time we finished the trip, I had learned the only two commands our guide used… ‘All Forward’ and ‘Stop’ ('Todos Avanzar' y 'Alto'). When we got back into town, the group helped carry the rafts back up to the shop in the middle of town. However, we were delayed by a large religious procession with a band and a group carrying a statue of a saint. The Spaniards brought Catholicism with them from Europe and it remains very strong throughout Peru, though slightly spiced with local traditions of worshiping the earth and elements. Although I assumed this parade was for a significant local holiday or event, it is actually a common occurrence, which happens every Sunday in most towns, and some towns even have daily parades.

For my last meal at the Refuge de Santiago, I had the duck with purple corn sauce. Delicious. If I was a food writer, I might have been able to articulate the mouth watering flavors: the sweet flavor of the corn sauce that hinted of a plum sauce, but with a hint of salt, to bring out the flavor of the duck, and how nicely the quinoa complemented it. But alas, I’m not a food writer.

After lunch, I headed to Incahuasi for a few hours of exploring. Incahuasi was the first Incan ruins of my Peruvian tour, and highlighted the conquest and expansion that defined their kingdoms rapid, but brief, expansion to control the majority of the Andes. In Lunahuana they established Incahuasi as a military garrison and prison camp in preparation for their expansion north along the coast.

My host, Fernando, explained that the Huarco Kingdom was the primary obstacle for the Inca, and they had a significant settlement at the base of the valley in the present-day city of Canete. The Inca recognized that they could attack a key fort at the mouth of the valley and establish control of the canal network, which would cripple the Huarco kingdom. It was fascinating to learn about the Inca’s military strategy. I was impressed that this small military city was built with the primary intent of preparing for an attack. It made me wonder what the Huarco people were doing in Canete as this camp began to grow and their pending doom grew clear. Did they make similar preparations to strengthen their defenses? Unfortunately, the current residents of Canete do not let tourist wonder the ruins of the old Huarco fort, so I did not get to see the remains of the other half of the conflict.

At Incahuasi, the main ruins are situated in two adjacent draws, or small canyons, just south of the main road that leads up the Lunahuana valley. However, the main road actually cuts through the ruins and the ruins that remain, on the north side of the road, have been overrun by orchards.

My visit began with a bilingual discussion with the gate keeper, and by bilingual I mean I spoke mostly English, he spoke Spanish, and we sorted the rest out with sign language. The gatekeeper was a short, wiry old cowboy with a somber and leathery face under his cowboy hat, both worn from years working under the desert sun. After establishing the hours, admission, and cost of a guidebook, I paid for each and was given free rein to roam the ruins.

For the majority of my visit I was the only tourist on the site, and the only employee that I saw was the gate keeper, who quickly retired back into his shack after I paid my admission. In the center of the site was the Temple complex with a large courtyard in front of what remained of the Temple of the Sun and Incan Palace building with a back drop of barren and jagged stone hills.

 

Since the canal system of the valley is the only thing that supplies the agricultural area with water, the division from the orchards on the north side of the road and the barren desert ruins on the south is stark. Although the limited rainfall has helped preserve the ruins, little else is preventing them from falling apart, and several sections of the walls look like they could tumble at any moment.

From the temple, I headed east, over a small but steep hill to the prison and markets section of the settlement. The two areas had similar layouts, with buildings built up against the mountain wall and wrapped around a central courtyard area facing out to the modern highway and larger valley below. These ruins were in better condition and you could see some of the classic trapezoidal and triangular ‘windows’/shelves that the Inca built into their walls. Although they look like they were windows that were later sealed off with the outer layer of stones, the openings actually served another purpose. In the earthquake prone region, the Incas established this design to make their buildings more earthquake resistant, and many Incan buildings still survive earthquakes today while more modern structures tumble down around them.

From the prison I returned east, back over the hill and past the temple, to the military side of the camp. The camp once housed the military’s armory, grain warehouses, and barracks. As Napoleon once said, “An Army marches on its stomach;” it seems the Inca’s recognized this as well, because the remains of the warehouses were the largest section of the complex.

The afternoon sun was unforgiving, and I was running out of time in Lunahuana. I returned to the beautiful Refuge, picked up my bags and began my arduous journey to Paracas. Todos avanzar!

Buses in Peru

As I mentioned in my last blog, I spent a lot of time on buses in Peru, and bus travel is the most common mode of transport for Peruvians. This was highlighted to me when I first arrived in Lima and asked my hotel staff how I should get downtown. They provided me with a map that noted bus stops along a main thoroughfare that led to the center of the city.

This would have been expected, but when I got to the bus stop, I found it was actually running on a separate set of lanes down the middle of the highway and had platforms just like you might expect to see on a subway or rail transit system. And like a rail system, the buses also had multiple cars attached with accordion style sections. 

The accordion style buses were part of a formal city transit system, but there are also a multitude of private companies in the game as well, from start ups, like the local combi’s, to major national bus chains. And the quality and variety of service is just as extensive. For instance the combi and ‘mom and pop’ local buses sometimes look as if they’ve been on the road since the early 70’s, or 80’s. They cough and spew smoke like they are burning as much oil as they are gas, and the owners probably pray every day that they break even before they break down.

These local buses are an adventure to ride and the transport comes with entertainment as well. It starts with the door man, each one has his own style, but most sell the routes in the same sing song fashion of an auctioneer. I never knew what they were actually saying, but they say it with such flare, I’m convinced there are a few passengers that hadn’t planned on the destination, but were talked into as the bus pulled up to the curb. At one point I think I saw this happen. A man was standing at a stop and didn’t flinch when our bus pulled up, but our door man broke into his song of stops and rock bottom prices, and just as we were about to pull away, the man jumped up and hopped on like he’d had a change of heart… 'why wait for the bus home when this bus is really going places.'

Now the door man is responsible for more than just selling the route. He also collects fares and issues change, often one handed, while tearing and issuing tickets with one smooth motion of his thumb with the other hand. And, he is rarely stationary, hopping on and off the bus at each stop, wandering up and down the aisle to collect fairs between stops, and hanging out the door as the bus approaches the next stop. I often wonder how they can keep up the momentum and energy all day, everyday.

In addition to the door man, you also get the salesmen, who hop on the bus between stops to sell anything from paper clips to snake oil, like infomercials on wheels. At one stop we pick up a paper clip salesman who has a colored assortment attached to his demonstration piece of paper. He glides his hand down the side of the paper to note the various colors available, then demonstrates the clips uncanny ability to be removed and re-applied. The crowd is unimpressed, and he bails at the next stop to be replaced by the candy man selling individually wrapped candies. It’s a hard crowd and he jumps off with out a sale as well.

Combi’s lack the salesmen, but still have the tag team of driver and doorman. The combi's are also often decorated with lights, trim, and religious ornaments. Since they are smaller, they often are packed much tighter, and compete with other combi’s for passengers and the road. On one trip out of Puno, our driver had been battling another combi for position and every time he took the lead the other driver was laying on his horn, so that he could pass. Horns are very popular here and are used to say, 'Hello.' 'Watch out.' and in this case 'Get the HONK out of the way!'

At one point our driver finally cracked, stopped the car in the middle of the street.  He got out, proceeded to walk back and punch the other driver through his open window.  This was followed by a short verbal argument as other drivers drove by, and Mother Mary looked on from the dashboard. A nun who had been on board with us got off at the next stop. I’m not sure if it was her stop, or she simply didn’t want to be involved in the next case of road rage.

On the other side of the coin you have the major national chains that cater to tourists. These are new fleets of large, plush, air conditioned tour buses. Some have tour guides and make multiple tourist stops between major city destinations, while others are equipped with wi-fi to lure the 21st century traveler. I tried nearly all of them on my visit, and like the movie, Trains, Planes and Automobiles, I'd have to string multiple modes of transport together to get to some places.  Getting to my next stop, Paracas, would require a combi, bus and taxi, but before I left Lunahuana, I was going to do some rafting and tour Incahuasi.

Lunahuana

In pursuit of new ramblings, I recently visited Peru for my mid-tour R&R from Afghanistan. After a jet lagged day in Peru’s capitol, Lima, my road trip began with a bus journey south to Lunahuana. As I travelled out of Lima, I was struck by the dry and barren landscape of southern Peru's coastal desert. It is strange to see such a vast and lifeless desert hugging the vast ocean coast, especially after traveling through so many tropical coastal regions. My first bus took me to Canete a coastal garden city built on the delta of the Lunahuana River as it breaks out of the Andes onto the coastal plain. At the bus stop, I transferred to my first ‘combi,’ a shared taxi van, which are packed with as many passengers as they can carry before racing along their route up the canyon, swapping out passengers along the way.

As I departed the lush delta lands of Canete the valley closed in, and we climbed the winding valley road into what looked to be a barren desert canyon. The view, from the combi window made me wonder if I was going the wrong way, until we broke out on the outskirts of Lunahuana, where an extensive canal system turned the desert into a tiered garden of Eden tucked in among the barren desert walls of the valley. Lunahuana is a lush agricultural valley, which was carved out of the desert landscape over the centuries by pre-Incan societies, and further refined by the Inca as they expanded north. Now it is one of Peru’s wine and pisco regions, and according to my guidebook one of the top spots to chill-lax in the country.

Before I left Lima, the hotel staff had coordinated my arrival at Refugio de Santiago, and they told me to ask for Fernando or Pedro, when I arrived. I met Pedro first, but he spoke limited English, so he quickly introduced me to Fernando. Fernando was very welcoming and showed me to my room, so I could drop off my bags, and then quickly led me out for a tour of the property and gardens. He warned me that I should wear pants, and I was quickly convinced it was sound advice as I developed a twitch swatting gnats away from my legs, arms, and really any exposed skin surface. We stopped among some fruit trees where workers were busy harvesting what looked like a giant snow pea or flattened green bean that was about a foot long. Fernando picked one up, introduced it to me quickly, and then cracked and peeled it open along the pod seem to reveal black seeds covered in what looked like cotton. He handed it to me and said, ‘you eat the cotton,’ so I plucked a chunk of cotton out and tried Guaba for the first time. It had the consistency of a wet cotton ball, but almost melted in your mouth like cotton candy and had a light sweet taste. I don't know how much more Fernando may have been planning to show me, but as I continued to slap at my legs and arms, he turned us around so I could change.

Having learned my lesson, I changed into both pants and a long sleeve shirt. I met back up with Fernando in the courtyard/dining area, and he asked if I'd like to have lunch. Since I had been on the road all morning, I was ready to eat and he brought me a menu. Now this may make some readers cringe, but a famous Peruvian dish is Cuy (pronounced coy), which is more commonly known as Guinea Pig, although the animal is actually native to Peru, not Guinea. When I told my receptionist in Lima that I was going to Refugio de Santiago, she quickly told me their Cuy was the best she had ever eaten in Peru. Armed with this knowledge, the Cuy was on the top of my list; however, as I looked over the menu, I found almost every option sounded very tempting. My stay included three meals, but I found myself planning for at least four before I had even eaten my first. Now in most restaurants around Peru, Cuy is prepared in the 'classic' style, splayed out head and all, with sockets, once filled with doey-eyes, looking up at you from the fried skull. It can be a bit off putting to say the least. However, Fernando explained to me that his kitchen prepares Cuy boneless, so presentation is more appealing and you don't have to pick the meat off the tiny bones, which would make it a bit like eating lobster, which is more work than sustenance.

I ordered the Cuy and started with a glass of Tuna juice. Now before I lose everyone, the Tuna juice is not fish oil, or a blended sushi. It is a cactus juice, commonly known as prickly pear in the English speaking world. Its only similarity to the fish was the pink color of the juice, which was sweet and refreshing. As for the Cuy, it was quite tasty, and to avoid the age old cliché of everything tasting like chicken, I thought it tasted a bit more like very tender, juicy pork. I guess that is why it is called Guinea 'Pig.'

After lunch, I told my host that I was also interested in doing some wine tourism while I was in the area. In planning this trip, I had visions of renting a bike for a leisurely ride through the village and vineyards, stopping at tasting rooms and maybe dining at an onsite restaurant. Unfortunately, it seems Peru's wine country has not caught on to the idea of wine tourism, and the winery my host recommended ‘just down the road’ turned into a two mile hike. I had hoped I might stumble on a few other wineries along the way, but instead, I had a hard time finding the one my host recommended.

There were no signs or ornate gates to mark the estate, but I took the grape vines near the road as my cue that I had arrived. My visit began with a wander around the compound’s buildings, the most prominent of which was a two story complex that looked like a work in progress with rooms in various stages of completion. With no signs of life in the large central building, I continued my search in a smaller building near the road that looked insignificant at first but on closer inspection appeared to the owner’s home.

After several inquiring ‘holas?,’ which I found challenging to say in the form of a question. ‘Hello?’ sounds like a I’m asking if anyone is home, while ‘Hola?’ sounded more like I was questioning whether ‘hola’ was a word at all. Eventually, an older gentleman came out, either to let me know ‘hola’ was indeed a word and I could stop asking, or to see why or how someone could pronounce it so badly.

Before leaving the Refugio, I had asked Fernando how to ask about tastings, and had repeated the phrase, like my mission mantra, as I wandered down the road; but now that I had someone to ask, the word escaped me. I was left playing charades, tipping my hand to mouth like a drunk looking for his next fix. He nodded, and slowly led me to a small room the size of a closet with shelves of Pisco and wine and a few shot glasses.

We began with his Piscos, which went down about as smooth as Tequila. Each one would induce an involuntary wince, and then I’d comment approvingly on the drinks kick, in English of course, so the comments were probably lost on the proprietor. After Piscos, we moved into some of his slightly weaker and pleasantly sweeter dessert style wines. They were quite nice, and I ended up buying a bottle because I felt bad for invading his home, and drinking his wines uninvited. I finished my self guided tour by taking a few pictures of his distillery and vineyard and then began the long walk back to the Refuge.

I met back up with Fernando, and learned he wasn’t just an employee, but was actually the owner of the Refuge. He was an older gentleman but still approached life with a youthful curiosity that helped disguise the years. He had started out as an Industrial Engineer, making industrial pumps for the mining industry of Peru. He made several innovations in slurry pumps, and established his own business, before growing tired of the industry.

Like John Laroche - the orchid enthusiast/activist that inspired a book and then the film Adaptation - Fernando seemed to be a man driven by strong passions, which he only pursued until his interest waned. In 2000, he walked away from engineering and his pump business to dive into a completely new industry: Eco/Gastronomic Tourism. He bought an old republican style country house, and began two years of renovations to create Refugio de Santiago. However, he didn’t open the restaurant until 2005, and spent an additional three years studying his new passions: the hospitality industry, horticulture and the biodiversity of his native land of Peru. He said he wants to become an expert in these fields, and he had established a small library of reference material that he stores behind the bar.

As Fernando notes on his website, he has created an Andean orchard, reflective of a lost paradise. However, one could also argue it is reflective of Peru, which is a microcosm of climates and biodiversity, with 35 different types of corn and thousands of potato varieties native to the region. Fernando has researched both local and introduced plant varieties, and has collected over 450, which he grows in his gardens. As we discussed the various ingredients of the meals I would be eating, he would pull down references from his shelves, and at one point even made corrections to some of the photographs noting the non-native fruits and vegetables pictured in a book about Peru.

His pursuit of gastronomic tourism has been just as intense, and has piqued the attention of food writers in a country known for its innovative fusion cuisine. On my visit, I dined with four ladies visiting from Lima. Several worked in the medical field, but one was a food writer and had heard about Fernando’s refuge. They had come to Lunahuana to escape Lima’s famous fog - which hangs heavy and gray over the city throughout the winter - but stayed at the Refuge for the food.

I found it interesting to dine with a food writer, because everyone seems to lose their own sense of taste and opinion of food, in the presents of a ‘professional.’ Rather than commenting on their own meals they all turned to the expert, awaiting her assessment of the meal, as if her judgment could sway their own taste buds and over rule their assessment of the food, even though each of us brought over thirty years of dining experience to the table. Although her opinion was not going to sway my assessment of dinner, I did find it interesting that the Spanish language has no equivalent to describe a food or flavor as ‘rich,’ which leaves her and other critics with the challenge of finding another description for rich foods.

In my humble opinion, dinner was delicious and the food writer agreed. We capped it off with the dessert wine I had bought earlier in the day before retiring to the courtyard outside our rooms for a bonfire and scary stories about chagas before bed. I had learned about chagas just before my trip, but only knew that it was being called ‘the AIDS of the Americas’ and that it was a blood-born disease carried by an insect in South America. As I itched my bug bites from earlier in the day, I wondered how much longer I had, and counted on my new-found medical friends to give it to me straight. As the darkness encroached and our shadows danced on the walls like monsters, the doctors told me… to stop being a baby, and that I was more likely to contract tuberculosis on the bus journeys during my visit. Turns out TB is a common and often untreated disease in Peru, and it spreads among families and on long bus journeys in Peru. Chagas, on the other hand, is actually a disease of poverty and the bugs that carry the disease-causing parasite, typically live in the thatch roof tops of slums, biting and infecting people as they sleep…. Whew, thank goodness I could sleep soundly knowing I only had 20 more days of bus travel ahead of me.

In a recent survey...

People love statistics, even though I've heard up to 47 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.  It's And now, Google, and their blog site (blogger or blogspot.com), provides all kinds of statistics to their blogosphere.  It's great fun and provides me all kinds of information that is largely useless, but endlessly entertaining with the pie charts and bar graphs.

As a matter of fact, you might just be my 1000th blog viewer.  Congratulations, with that and a lottery ticket, you might just win something.  Seriously though, I now know that in the last month:

52% of my readers accessed my blog using a Windows Operating system

31% used a Mac

10% used an Android

I also know what web-browsers were used.  These are interesting facts, but I'm not sure how they apply to me as a blogger?  I guess I know the Android users are probably reading on the go, so I might be lite commute reading for someone, or killing time waiting in line at the DMV maybe?  Should I change my writing to meet these reading preferences?  Do you think I really considered that? I didn't, and I think these statistics probably help Google more than they help me.

I also have learned that I have International Readership, and I feel that is significant enough to capitalize.  Again for the last month:

53% US

24% Russia

6% each from Australia, UK and Netherlands

And just showing up on the radar are readers from Hong Kong, China, Germany and Latvia

I'm impressed I have such a wide readership, though I suspect it is mostly just my international friends on Facebook that were curious about what I might be blogging about.  The one that stumps me is the 24% readership in Russia. I don't think I know many people in Russia, and I'm curious how they may have stumbled on my blog.  Also, it makes me wonder if the numbers can be skewed by one person visiting the blog multiple times.  I'm sure Google is crunching my statistics as well, which makes me wonder what they make of my international appeal. 

All these statistics remind me of a few lines from Don Henley's song 'Garden of Allah.'  I like the song, and I thought it was a dark commentary on banking and politics of the 80's and it still applied to the political/banking situation of today.  However, in writing this blog, I learned 'The Garden of Allah' was actually a famous apartment complex in Hollywood, at the end of the Sunset Strip (also a Don Henley song). 

Anyway, with regards to crunching numbers Don says:

I will testify for you,

I'm a gun for hire,I'm a saint, I'm a liar
Because there are no facts, there is no truth
Just data to be manipulated.
I can get you any result you like
What's it worth to you?

I'm not sure I have enough stats to 'get you any result you like,' but I'm sure Google's manipulating the data right now to get you the result you will like... on your next search.

Don also mentions a Fitzgerald and Huxley in his song alluding to their writing.  Since I was writing a blog, I was also curious who Fitzgerald and Huxley were, so I did a little more research, and learned F. Scott Fitzgerald lived in the Hollywood apartments for a time in the '30's. According to Wikipedia, he wrote himself a postcard while there: "Dear Scott -- How are you? Have been meaning to come in and see you. I have living [sic] at the Garden of Allah. Yours, Scott Fitzgerald."

More wine Mr Fitzgerald?  Evidently the apartments had many famous guests and tenants like: Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Buster Keaton, Harpo Marx, Humphry Bogart, Ernest Hemingway, George Kaufman and others; and it was known for all the debauchery one might associate with Hollywood.  You can read more about it here:  http://www.waltlockley.com/gardenofallah/gardenofallah.htm

But I digress.  Getting back to my Google statistics, they also let me know which posts have been read the most, or not read at all.  My top three posts are:

1. The Great Wall

2. Free Press in a Counter Insurgency

3. Random Ramblings from Afghanistan

I think posting the links on Facebook has given the second two an edge, although I was surprised my commentary on Free Press was so popular.  Also, of all my posts, I'm not sure why the Great Wall has become number one, but now that I have announced it's popularity I suspect it will remain at the top, trends become self promoting at some point... while others are just promoted by their author.

However, what I would really like to see is some traffic on some of my unread posts.  In particular, these two posts were some of my favorites to write, and yet they have never been read according to my google stats:

Shirt Shopping India Style:
http://randomramblingsofanamericanabroad.blogspot.com/2009/03/shirt-shopping-swindlers.html

Train to Maduri:
http://randomramblingsofanamericanabroad.blogspot.com/2009/03/train-to-madurai.html

So give them some love, I think you will enjoy them.

Run for the border: China to Vietnam

Our adventures continued in Guiyang, which really wasn't a trip stop, but just a transition point from bus back to rail.  We had a few hours before our train departed so we wondered down the road from the train station to get something to eat and buy snacks for the train journey.  The town has grown significantly in the past 10-20 years and has a history a bit like the United States 'Wild West.'  Originally it was occupied by minority tribes and the Chinese only had small garrisons established in the region to protect trade routes.  However, after the Mongol invasions pushed through China and onward into central Asia, China grew more interested in occupying the region and began settling in the area. 

Today it continues to be a major hub/cross roads for transportation and trade, hence my stop, and has also become a significant industrial hub for both raw material mining and production of iron, steel aluminum and further refinement into rail and aerospace parts and technology.  Of course I didn't really know any of this during my stop and probably would not have noted the town at, if the town's folk had not gone out of their way to take note of me and my travel companions.

During our stop at the local grocer, we unwittingly became celebrities.  The store looked like it was some sort of chain location, similar to a Safeway. It even had a similar color theme of red and white, but stores in Japan feel more European in their layout... somewhere between grocer and corner store.  Just inside there was a little deli that served noodles and wonton, so we sat down for a light supper.  Although we seemed to be an enjoyable oddity as the only white patrons, the meal passed pretty uneventfully. 

At the end of the meal, some of the staff built up the courage to ask if they could take pictures with us.  We agreed finding it a bit amusing ourselves, but we had also grown use to the fact that in China the tourist often is the attraction.  However, when we posed for the picture they also added a member of the staff dressed in a customary outfit of the local minority group.  She seemed almost like a store mascot, because we noticed a similar character on some of the advertisement posters around the store as well. 

Then, when we wonder into the store to buy some snacks, the staff was very attentive and followed us through the store like shopping assistants, carrying our shopping baskets for us, offering recommendations on products, and complimenting us on our final selection, whatever it may be.  We proceeded to check out and the entire staff gathered around as if fascinated by what these white people were buying in their grocery store.  As each item was rung up one woman would read off the current total, which was clearly displayed for us on the monitor, and really, since we had no idea what she was saying, I can only assume her commentary was for the larger local audience: 'Five, ninety-five ladies and gentlemen, and the next item is a fine selection of instant noodles. Beep. Seven, twenty-five. Next up, instant coffee.'

Finally, after the items were bagged and and the crowd dissipated, we shook hands with our friendly bagging staff and headed for the doors.  However, our exit was predicted, and the camera-man ran to the exits to film our departure with groceries in hand and a few friendly staff trailing a short distance behind.  So, if you are ever watching grocery store commercials in Guiyang, watch out for me picking out a fine selection of junk food perfect for a train journey to Kunming.  (Below: Even the statues at the train station were kind enough to offer new visitors advice and directions in Guiyang)

I really can't say much about Kunming, it was a short 24 hour stop and we just wondered through downtown and visited a local Green Lake Park.  The park was interesting in that it was a bit more like a Chinese Garden.  Laid out very precisely with artificial lakes, shrubs and tree trimmed and manicured for visual appeal.  We had hoped to lay out on the grass somewhere and enjoy the sun, but the grass was for looking at not walking on.  They had some paddle boats and inflatable clear plastic balls, which you could climb in and run around the lake like a Hamster 'Run-About Ball.' We wanted to try that but I guess they feared our western girth would sink the balls, and we were turned away.

The next morning we departed for Vietnam on a grueling 12 hour bus ride through the mountain passes of the border.  The terrain leaving Kunming was rolling farmland broken up by rich red clay earth and a scattering of white limestone rocks.  Initially the roads were straight and our pace was quick, smooth sailing, but then we began to climb into the mountains and the terrain closed in, the valleys grew steep and narrow and the road began to wind, hugging the contour lines and occasionally switching back on itself.  The scenery was enjoyable but the combative driving in a large bus on narrow roads, with steep banks, began to make some of the crew sick.  Before the final climb, and last pass, we stopped at a 'rest stop' for a breather and final bathroom break.  The setting was picturesque, with a small gazebo sitting on a embankment above a stream that snaked up the valley beyond.  However the facilities were just shy of a slit trench.  A cement stall with an area to squat over a gutter that ran through the three stalls. The strategy was to use the stall on the uphill slope otherwise you had to deal with everything in your section of the trench as well as what ever was flowing past from the other two.

In the late evening we finally arrived at our border crossing point.  The two nations are separated by a river and the two border towns face off across the river like to peacocks displaying their grand plumage to win a mate.  We were welcomed into town by the warm glow of Vegas style display of street lights and neon signs, as the Chinese and Vietnamese boarder towns faced off across a river. However, just beyond the riverfront on both sides of the river reality sets back in, and you left asking yourself, is there really occupants on each side of the boarder staring longingly at the other thinking, 'Man it sure looks like they've got it made over there.'

All the bright lights, and displays of wealth and power, were distant second in the minds of our group, as we were busy trying to look unfazed by the long and nauseating bus journey, so we would not be held up at the boarder crossing on account of being 'ill.'  We kept our distance from the guard points and fanned our friends that were feeling the worst, while our guide had our passports and immigration papers processed.  Fortunately, we didn't raise any alarm and successfully made it through immigration and hiked across a footbridge into Vietnam.  Enjoying the cool evening air before repeating the process successfully with the Vietnamese immigration team.  Then, we boarded a pair of small vans for a final winding hill climb into the town of Sapa, a French Colonial Hill station, minority tribal region, and our first stop in Vietnam.  As long as we survive the journey, which is dependent on our new drivers who have made this run too many times to believe the twisting road calls for any measure of caution, or even concern for oncoming traffic, or livestock in the dead of night...  As my grandfather recalled of his voyage to America, 'Many travelers grew sick. I did not.'