I was up until the early hours, writing + listening to the radio. The night was also disturbed by one of the worst storms I’ve ever experienced, thunder so loud, so near + so violent that it rocked the building, + rain pouring over all as if tipped from a celestial bucket. I needed to go to the toilet during the night, tho’ perhaps I would have attempted to exercise more control over my body had I known what was in store. The journey to the toilet required just 10 yds of walking out in the open. In those 10 yds out (+ the same back), I was wetted more thoroughly than if I’d stood under the shower.
Val woke me in the morning with a nice hot cup of coffee, but it was only when I tried to get up that I discovered how stiff + sore I was, especially in the calves; Val wasn’t much better off. We noticed especially when we first climbed down the stairs – every step was agony. We walked first to the hotel, hoping to find breakfast – ideally, Western breakfast – but no go. The place seemed very disorganised, + being on several sites, took a good bit of walking round. So we resorted to egg sandwich followed by that old stager, sponge. It’s been such a relief, to Val as much as me, to find something along that line that I can enjoy.
The rain was still falling steadily all morning, tho’ with none of the ferocity of last night, but we decided to move on to Leshan sometime during the afternoon, if there were a bus. There were. One of my better ideas, tho’ Val was the actual constructor, was to make a small cardboard clock with moveable hands, like a teaching aid in a nursery school (or do they use digital ones now?) The people we’ve met love it, + it’s a far more accurate way or receiving information.
We had some noodles for lunch before going out to the bus stn in good time. It was a good job too – getting on the bus was a hell of a struggle, worse even than usual. I appreciate that no nation queues in quite the way the British do, but the shoving, clawing + scrambling that the Chinese indulge in every time a bus pulls in is carrying things too far the other way – it’s worse here than in any other country I’ve been in. Still, when necessary, I can mix it with the best, + I muscled my way aboard, fairly high-up in the field. Crazy, when everyone is supposed to have numbered seats – my first task was to throw someone out of ours.
The journey was reasonably short, + then, for once, we found the hotel at the other end with no trouble at all. We were given a splendid room, with TV + all, tho’ the hotel itself was decidedly seedy, for a cheap price. We ate in a local restaurant, deciding to supplement the fare we were offered with a duck from the stall outside – quite acceptable, obviously. We asked them merely to remove the head + feet from the fowl, + not cube it up, reckoning it would be easier for us to eat it Henty VIII style. And no-one would mind your throwing your bones on the floor. The duck made it quite an expensive meal in all, but it wasn’t a huge success. Blander + blander, the food becomes.
We returned to tackle the chore of washing our clothes, nearly all of them grubbied by having climbed the mountain.
Very much suffering because of our exertions, but really a small price to pay. I had forgotten about the clock, and my guess is that, despite the enthusiasm with which I describe it here, it was not quite as game-changing as we would have liked.
