If I Had Scooter

The truth is, I did have a scooter. I bought it the summer after my junior year in college for $1200 including shipping. It arrived in an enormous crate. I installed the brake pads and speedometer, screwed on the front wheel and even filled the battery with acid before charging it. Three weeks later it was stolen – chained to a fence – from the parking garage of my University in broad daylight. Man those were three great weeks.


Needless to say, the opportunity to cruise the streets on what appeared to be the exact same scooter was all too appealing, especially with the pain in tail bone still lingering from the day before. For $18 Lianne and I got our very own two-wheeled, gas-powered wonder for the entire day! In fact, we did the same thing the following day. While the details of our big adventure are at times mundane, we covered 250 miles in two days and visited a dozen or so surrounding towns and villages. From main highways to dirt roads, ferries to suspension bridges, we cruised the mean streets of Southern China in style.


Once again it felt like we had been thrown back in time. Family farms were chugging along like they seemingly did 100 years ago. Rice was being tended too, Oxen were cooling down in the streams (the sun was shining bright both days) and kids were playing in the fields. It could not have been more fascinating and really got me thinking about the idea of happiness. Many would see the way of life in this part of China as old, boring and depressing but I got none of that from our experiences. Families seemed intact, people warm and friendly. Meanwhile, I have been having existential crisis as a result of overexposure to the world and it’s incredible ups and downs. Who then is necessarily happier, and who are we in the west or in the modern world to a) judge a seemingly simpler way of life b) try and bring our complexity to this way of life and c) assume that our way is better?


They say the more you know the more you want to know, but that just leads to more questions that don’t have answers. Taking the opposite approach, the less you know the less you want to know, leading to fewer questions. Isn’t it questions that leave us feeling uncertain? Well then, fewer questions, you could posit, lead to an abundance of answers and in turn, contentment.


That said, there is still one question that I do need to answer for anyone and everyone. A rolling suitcase in China should cost no more than 100 kuai (roughly $13) even if it does have a “Samsonite” label on it. Post purchasing (and complexity adding) Lianne needed a suitcase, so we hit the shops, ready to bargain as we usually do in Shanghai. Seller gives outrageous price (for a bag like this, 200 kuai). Buyer gives outrageously low price (for a bag like this, 50 kuai). Seller and buyer do big dance, both aware that said bag will be sold for 100 kuai in approximately 4 minutes and 6 to 10 price exchanges. Here in Yanghsuo, however, the sellers have apparently been hit by the crazy stick. Every store we went into the insane girl, assuming we were fools, started at over 700 kuai for the same rolling suitcase! That’s $100. You could get a real one for that in the USA. Needless to say, I HATE being overtly taken advantage of so after giving these thieves a piece of my mind I vowed to let everyone know that a carry-on rolling suitcase purchased in China should not cost more than 100 kuai. Period.

Oh, and don’t buy anything from Nadine in store 23 on West Road in Yangshuo. Not nice. Not nice at all.

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Kyle Taylor

This One Time, On A Pedal Bike In China…

I love bikes. Had one as kid. Went on “bike rides” with the fam. Launched myself over the handle bars and cracked my chin open…In Yangshuo it seemed that bikes were the “way” to see the countryside so Lianne and I bought into it and rented a bike each. At $1.25 for the day it was a fairly good deal. We also hired a guide, mainly because the woman running our hostel convinced us that we needed one. I would later discover that there was really nothing I could not have done without her. Still, at $13 for the day it was, yet again, a fairly good deal.


The weather was still a concern but the woman running the hostel assured us that “maybe it won’t rain all day. Maybe not until the evening. So we set out (with our new umbrellas) on a biking adventure. The first 10 minutes were amazing! No rain, bikes-only paths and landscape like nothing I have ever seen. Then the rain started. And it rained nonstop for the rest of the day. We perfected the one-handed ride while holding an umbrella at a strategic angle so as not to get wet maneuver early on, leading our guide to complement us on our “non-foreigner skills,” telling us we “must be pretty good because usually the foreigners can’t ride with one hand.” Insert girlish giggle here.


Fortunately, biking was only part of the day. Our plan was to ride upstream a solid 40 minutes then float down the river on a bamboo raft before climbing 900 steps to the top of Moon Hill. Our guide Maria would drop us at the raft then take a took took downstream with our bikes. Lianne had to of course stop and purchase a flowered headband, which led her to refer to herself as the “Beautiful Flower Princess of Yanghsuo” for the rest of the day. She is, of course, all of those things.


The first hour of our bamboo journey was spent in complete solitude and, for the first time in China, we welcomed into our lives total silence, interrupted only by the splashing sound of our sampan man’s pole entering the water and pushing off of the river bottom. It was calm. It was peaceful. It was perfect. Then we reached tourist land.


Marked by an onslaught of rainbow beach umbrellas, yelling, screaming and the occasional man taking a swim, the tourist land portion of the journey, while not as quiet, was equally entertaining. Every 100 yards there was a floating 7-Eleven selling water, juice, soda, beer and a collection of meat-on-a-stick options. After each rapid (yes, there was the occasional whitewater) there was a floating internet café where you could pull in and purchase the photo just snapped of you making a ridiculous face you hope that your boat does not split into a dozen pieces.


The rain stopped just as we pulled into our overpriced lunch spot. An hour later we were prepping ourselves to scale Moon Hill. Moments after taking the first of 900 steps it started pouring rain again. Perfect. Around step 427 or so (but who’s counting) Lianne and I were joined by Elsa (at least, that’s what I decided her English name would be). She followed us the rest of the way up the mountain, shouting “watch your step” and “be careful” and “it’s very slippery” the entire way.

We reached the summit and were completely drenched in both rain water and sweat. I plopped my bag down on the ground, only to watch Elsa walk right up to Lianne and start fanning her. Elsa was, of course, not breathing hard at all. We started chatting her up and it turns out old Elsa is REALLY old. At 85 she climbs the 900 steps two and three times a day following tourists with postcards, water and yes, beer.


She pulled from her fanny pack (gotta love the fanny pack) a small journal that was filled with notes from people all the around the World who had visited Moon Hill and met Elsa. We gladly added to the collection and now, feeling rather guilty, asked Elsa if we could buy a water. “10 kuai,” she told us. Now, water usual costs 1.5 kuai so I was little perturbed. I started to try and bargain only to be told, in perfect English, that these waters had a “delivery surcharge,” as they were available ice cold at the top of 900 steps. Riddle with guilt (how can you not feel guilty when an 85 year old woman who climbs 900 steps 3 times a day and has no teeth stands in front of you asking to just spent $1.50 on a water) we bought one. She offered to snap our picture (first person I’ve ever met who knew exactly how to work my camera. I attempted to explain the shutter and she slapped my hands away shouting “I know. I know. I know. Gosh!”) and we started our descent.


Twenty minutes and one ice cold water later we were back on our bikes, umbrellas up and angled to battle the fierce rain. The only issue was, we had been riding all day and my seat was none too comfortable. Two minutes in my butt was asleep and my tail bone was thoroughly bruised, leading to the opening of what can only be described as the second most uncomfortable experience of my life (after that ride down the mountain from the coffee farm in Guaemala). Pedal. Coast. Push butt off seat using right leg. Ease pain. Balance umbrella. Pedal. Coast. Push butt off seat using left leg. Ease pain. Balance umbrella. Repeat. This carried on for the entire hour of our ride back and I was none to happy to hand that two-wheeled horror right over to the rental man, vowing to never again rent a bike in a rain. Or in the sun. Ever.

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Kyle Taylor