Where In The World Is Evan?

Once again I’ve allowed the frenetic pace of events to carry me away without recourse to update my blog. I’ve not yet reached the stage of O and J who seem resigned to the temporary abandonment of their blogs, but I must admit that it’s getting increasingly hard to keep writing this drivel. Anyway, I guess I’ll rally my memory with the intention to record, for posterity if nothing else, the events that have taken place since my last post.

From the very moment of my arrival in Chengdu I was overwhelmed by a growing sense of returning home. As my bus pulled away from the airport and entered familiar streets my mood, which had been sullied by the delay of my flight, lightened to the point that I was positively beaming by the time I arrived back at my old hostel. After checking in I headed straight down to Dave’s Oasis, one of my former local hang-outs. After taking a slight detour to add credit to my mobile phone I ran into J, of all people, wandering down the street. I’m not sure who was more surprised to see whom, as neither of us were supposed to be in Chengdu.

After a couple of beers with J and Mark, Sergio showed up with his new woman, Lianca. Whilst the story behind that rather mismatched couple is an amusing one, I’ve had it pointed out to me recently that I’ve developed quite the reputation for being indiscreet—I believe that the acronym ENN is in active use by both J and O.

Quite incidentally my arrival coincided perfectly with the departure from Chengdu of three people that have featured prominently in recent posts.

On Friday night all the usuals got together for few quiet drinks out with J before he returned to the wilderness of remote western China.

After a brief kip on Saturday afternoon I was delighted to hear that the e we’d wanted for the night before was now available. After a few pre-party drinks we all headed down to a local bar to meet my friend.

Saturday night, however, was Lisa’s final night in Chengdu, before returning to Canada. Earlier in the evening Mark had insisted on dropping in to the Shamrock to say goodbye, and it was pressed upon me that I should rise above the pettiness and come along. Just my luck, however, but the e we’d taken was cut with ketamine and rather than the regular one hour wait, it kicked in after 15 minutes. This meant that just as I arrived at the Shamrock, and saw Lisa for the first time since we’d said a tearful goodbye at the train station, my brain dumped all its serotonin into my bloodstream filling me with an overwhelming sense of love for all and sundry—hardly the ideal way to greet an ex with whom your still fucking furious.

I appear to have a clear and demonstrable problem showing self control when eing, however, sticking my tongue down her throat was perhaps a little less rational and considered than normal. But, what’s done it done…

After Lisa left a few of us got involved in breaking up a scuffle at the bar, for which we were rewarded with two rounds of free drinks by the owner.

After spending the rest of the night dancing, O and M took a couple of Polish girls home, and I wandered the streets of Chengdu, watching the sun rise.

As I didn’t feel like eating or sleeping, I spent all of Sunday drinking beer and smoking. When I woke in the afternoon on Monday I realized that it’d been 48 hours since I’d eaten any food. By that time, however, the damage was already done. After all the punishment my body had suffered over the preceding two days it had given in to a rather nasty case of tonsillitis.

After finding myself unable to eat solid food because my throat was almost swollen closed, I thought a few days bed rest would sort me out. My condition, however, steadily worsened to the point that I was too weak to get out of bed. After being taken to the local international hospital by a friend I was told that I needed immediate hospitalisation for at least 3-4 days. Shaking off such reactionary treatment I opted for a prescription involving 13 pills of antibiotics per day, along with some traditional Chinese medicine. After a week I’d recovered enough that I could get up and walk around freely, but my stamina was still quite low.

When you’re lying sick in bed for such a long time your mind tends to wander. After realising that my untimely sickness meant that I’d missed the few job interviews that I’d lined up for my return, my employment prospects looked rather bleak. When I received an email from J, I spontaneously decided to go join him on his travels along the ancient Silk Road, which crosses China’s largest province, Xinjiang.

I bought a train ticket leaving the next day and then went out drinking all night with some friends before arriving at the station for my 9:45 am train.