Where In The World Is Evan?

If it’s possible to have a wilder week in Chengdu then I can hardly imagine what it would involve… probably someone’s death.

Once again I got fucked by the train system, and ended up arriving in Chengdu at 4 am on Saturday morning, after spending 53 hours on the train. Unbeknownst to me, however, a great party was just getting better at that very moment at a friend’s apartment across town.

I, however, had more pressing concerns to deal with. After getting stuck in Urumqi for three days, and spending three nights on the train, my tourist visa had expired. The problem being that the PSB isn’t open on the weekend to process a renewal. Thankfully you can’t live in China as long as I have and not learn how to deal with petty bureaucracy. After speaking to a succession of six different officials I finally managed to dodge the 1,000 yuan fine!

The only downside, if you can call it that, is that I was required to spend five days in Chengdu while it was being processed.

Before I’d resolved my visa issue, however, I’d decided that the only thing to do was to go out and get really drunk with a bunch of mates to consol myself. After having a few rounds of drinks at the Shamrock we all headed down to Babi Club to go dancing. Before we’d left, however, I’d stolen a rather fetching hat from a South African friend, Lianca.

Within 90 seconds of getting on the dance floor at Babi I’d pulled a girl–because of this hat. As we danced, all the pot I’d smoked in the car park went to my head and I lost myself in this woman’s arms as we made-out on the dance floor.

I’m sure that most of you (the guys at least) have encountered what I term “ugly blocking friend syndrome”. This occurs when a beautiful girl has a friend who is ugly, and naturally embittered that her friend is getting all the attention. As such she makes it her business to spoil all her friend’s fun.

The only thing more annoying than “ugly blocking friend syndrome” is “arsehole friend syndrome” when one of your friends tries to muscle in on the girl you’re with. After a brief confrontation on the dance floor between Mattieu and I, I decided not to punch his face in, but rather to simply let the matter go. The girl soon rejected his clumsy advances and we returned to dancing.

As the night wore on the girl I was dancing with had to leave, so I continued to enjoy the attention this lucky hat garnered. No less than three different girls approached me wanting to wear the hat and dance.

Some time later I found myself drinking with David and a group of Chinese guys. One of the Chinese men had also taken a fancy to my stolen hat and insisted on wearing it. Seeing him disappear outside the club shortly afterward, with the hat, I set off after him and reclaimed it, only to have him take it back again. As I set off after him a second time David warned me that these were local gangsters we were drinking with so he could gain social contacts. When the guy returned inside he no longer had the hat, and kept insisting that he was drunk and forgot what he did with it. Fucker!!!

Lianca, however, found the whole situation so amusing that she bought both me and herself new hats.

On Monday night, having resolved my visa issue, I went out for one last night on the town with Peter, before he left for two months back to Europe. Before we went out, however, we all met at Peter’s apartment for a pre party joint. This meant seeing Mattieu again, as he was living with Peter. As I sat Mattieu down for a chat about the inappropriateness of his behavior the other night, Jeroen and Peter retreated to the kitchen, trying not to burst out laughing.

One might call what happened later that night ironic, or perhaps hypocritical, as I proceeded to pick up Mattieu’s ex-girlfriend, Betty, while high on ecstasy. I must admit a certain element of perverse pleasure in flaunting the situation in front of him before going home with Betty for what eventuated into a week of sex, drugs and partying.

Essentially Betty abducted me for the remainder of the week… the only times when I wasn’t in her bed, I was eating or partying at a club. On Wednesday night we went dancing and I gave her ecstasy for the first time. This turned out a little badly, as I’d underestimated the extent of the effect the pills I’d been so readily taking would have on a petite Chinese girl with no acquired tolerance. After giving her half a pill I spent the next 30 minutes in the toilet with her vomiting all over my shoes.

As I’d taken mine some time before her, I had to endure this discomfort while peaking from my own high and wanting desperately to go and dance. Of course, once Betty had finished purging she felt fantastic and bolted out onto the dance floor while I sat on the sidelines in somewhat of a mood.

On Friday night, after having spent all of my time with Betty since meeting her on Monday night—with most of it spent in bed—I felt I needed some time away from her. I don’t recall exactly where, but at some stage I met a wet-behind-the-ears American guy and decided to show him what partying in Chengdu is all about. After meeting David at Fashion club we drank our way through a couple of bottles of vodka while dancing with a group of Chinese girls that had arrived with David. Unfortunately the girl who seemed most interested in me was also called Betty, and my life is complicated enough as it is.

On Saturday morning I invited Betty to come to Yunnan with me for a week—Betty worked for the real estate agency that handled Peter’s apartment, but was on extended leave at the time. After buying two train tickets to Kunming we went out to the Shamrock for the giant Halloween party that was on that night.

After taking three pills, I found myself dancing rather intimately with an Italian girl that I’d just met. One thing led to another and before I knew it we were kissing right in front of Betty—about whom I’d completely forgotten. I think most women would take offence at such behavior, but Chinese women certainly do have a flair for the dramatic. As I explained to Betty that it didn’t mean anything, and it was all just the drugs, she looked on disbelievingly. To help prove my point Lianca happened to be walking past so I grabbed her and kissed her passionately in front of Betty. Such is the delusional workings of the mind on ecstasy—I actually thought that this would resolve the situation!

As Betty became more agitated I was thankful to see David walk past—he was also there with his girlfriend but as I later discovered was subtly lining something up with the Italian I’d been kissing, under the pretense of helping me. Seeing an oppurtunity to either resolve the situation or dig myself deeper I grabbed David and stuck my tongue down his throat in a passionate embrace. This certainly did the trick as Betty immediately acknowledged, “Yes, I understand. It’s just the drugs.”

Later in the night we returned to Fabien’s apartment with David and smoked pot until it was time for Betty and I to catch our 1:00 pm train to Kunming.