Where In The World Is Evan?

In China the first three days of May are one of the most busy public holidays of the year. Unlike the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) this holiday is not of the stay-at-home variety. As such, some fellow teachers and I set off for a week in what we anticipated to be the idyllic mountain community of Songpan (near the northern border of Sichuan province).

As we left my apartment for the taxi ride across town, to to catch our long distance bus, we were five–Olen (USA), Jon (UK), Sergio (ESP), Richard (AUS) and I–but this fortuitous start was not to last. Due to a still unresolved mix up with one of the bus tickets, we found ourselves at the station short one ticket as the bus was ready to leave. This setback saw Richard, who has an infrequent yet volatile temper, storm out of the station cursing my name as Jon and I stood around in bewilderment. Not to be disparaged from our much anticipated holiday, however, we set off forthwith.

Unfortunately, Jon had been getting stuck into some sao cao (street vendor barbeque) the night before and had received a touch of food poisoning. Much to the delight of our Chinese bus companions Jon had his head out the window for the majority of the nine hour trip, intermittently vomiting down the side of the bus. I guess the winding, potholed mountain roads didn’t really help to settle his stomach. The baijiu that Olen and I were conspicuously drinking, and offering to Jon, added to this general sense of merriment, for ourselves as well as the Chinese audience we had acquired.

By the time of our arrival in Songpan, however, all of us, save Olen, were feeling rather ill. As Sergio and Jon settled into bed for an afternoon nap Olen and I smoked some pot and headed out to make arrangements for our five day horse trek (the sole purpose of our presence in Songpan). Having not really considered the ramifications of cleaning my hash-pipe the day before departure I found myself a little too stoned to assist Olen in his negotiations with the trekking operators. Despite this we made a booking to leave on the following day.

Check out the Songpan photo gallery.