Day 43: February 15, 2013 Bryan's Wedding

            Today was another early morning with a 7:00 wake up so we could get our stuff together and get breakfast before the bus took off. We signed up for a Chinese tour because it was cheaper and it was definitely the right call because our tour guide, Joe, spoke perfect English anyway. It was about a 2.5-hour ride until we got to the minority village where Bryan and I signed up to go to a show with these women with really long hair.

Woman with hair over 2 meters long!

     The women did some traditional dance and singing and then asked for 6 male volunteers, one of which had to be foreign. After a little encouragement, Bryan headed up on stage with no idea what he was getting himself into. The 6 guys were actually going to go through a typical marriage ceremony to the ladies of the village. They each got to pick a wife, and then went behind stage to “make love” where Bryan was actually just forced to buy a bracelet as a wedding present to his wife which he was not very happy about.

     They all came back out and exchanged wedding gifts and then the guys had to sing their wives a song one by one. Without anything else coming to mind, Bryan resorted to Happy Birthday which made our Italian friends and the other white people laugh hysterically. The guys then formed a circle and then the girls formed another around them and did a dance that basically consisted of the guys walking in circles and the girls pinching their butts. Bryan’s face was absolutely priceless and the only thing that came close to topping it was the face he made when he had to drink this wine with his wife that he described as battery acid. They asked if he wanted to stay in the village with his wife for the night and he had to decline. They reminded him that even after he goes back to America, he will always have a wife in China, which was a little concerning for Bryan. Even if he didn’t enjoy it, I had a blast just watching this ridiculousness occur.

     After the show, we met back up with John and Adam and got on a bus to take us halfway up the mountain to a point where we could climb up the rest of the way.  About halfway up, the group stopped for lunch where we ate bamboo chicken and rice, which wasn’t our favorite but it worked. We had 2 adorable puppies surrounding our table that made the meal a little more enjoyable.

     After lunch, we followed the rest of the trail all the way up for an absolutely gorgeous view of the rice terraces or the Dragon's Backbone. The view the entire way up was seriously breathtaking and it was hard not to take hundreds of pictures of the same thing. After getting to the top, we decided we wanted to go on a little adventure and try to find a higher spot to get a view from. We went a while off the beaten path and made our way up through some rice terraces until we had an even better view. We all got pretty muddy, but it was worth it for the great scenery. After we decided we couldn’t make it any higher, we headed back down to meet up with Joe.

     We were exhausted from all of the walking and hiking so the long ride home was perfect for a nap. At the very end of the ride, Bryan started up some conversation with this little Chinese boy who just started yelling all of his English words at him including hamburger, boy, and girl. We taught him a few English words and attempted to make some conversation in Chinese and managed to figure out that his English name was Jerry, that he was 7 years old, and that the other girl on the bus was his little sister. They were both really cute and were sad to say goodbye.

Should have taken these up the mountain!

     We got dropped off downtown and realized that the sun was out for the first time since we had been there which made for a great view of the city. We tried to find a good place to see the sunset but gave up and decided that finding food and a bathroom were more of a priority. We stopped in McDonald’s where John and Bryan couldn’t resist getting something and then walked around until we found this alley with all sorts of food options. John, Adam, and I decided on these omelets filled with rice, or omurice as the menu said, but they ran out of food. We then switched to another place and tried to get these beef and rice bowls that were also sold out. With that, we resorted to some homemade pork dumplings that were really good.

     After dinner we walked around to try and find the 2 lakes that were nearby and after a little wandering eventually found our way. It was a really pretty view at night with the lake and bridges all lit up and shows going on in every direction. We took in the view for a little bit while John and Adam smoked some cigars and then we headed back to the hotel since we were all pretty exhausted. We managed to get one towel between the 4 of us to take showers when we realized that we had had a bathroom in our room the whole time and didn’t even know it. With that, we all took our first showers of the trip which for me was one of the most refreshing I think I have ever had. We decided to have a relaxing night to just hang around the hostel and catch up on some journaling and blogging, which was nice. We even got to bed before midnight, which was much needed after such a long day.