Zoige to Longmusi

By this time, I was wondering what would happen on our next bus ride for the day. It was only supposed to be 2 hours so I hoped it couldn't be too bad. As luck would have it, we somehow lost our seats and got stuck in the very back of the bus. With so little leg room I was in a permanent yoga twist with my legs turned the opposite direction of my trunk. Since the Chinese seem to do things backwards, it took us forever just to get out of the little town because the bus would stop every 50 meter and honk and wait and pick someone up. Then once it stops, someone with run out and pick something our or a friendly jostling match will break out. It's beyond me why they can't centralize the bus stops a bit more. Leaving town, I watched a motorcycle fly by us--the wife had one arm around her husband and one arm around a pink baby bundle. I marveled at what strong arms she must have. The bus was composed of muslims and tibetans.

The road to Longmusi was also under construction. I thought we are on the plateau so shurely there cannot be much elevation gain. We skirted a mounted, and then climbed and climbed, all the time being able to see hair pin turns below us. I hoped we would level out but then we started to descend the other side of the mountain. As we drove, we could see the great road that would one day be in place, but for now our road was just another glorified logging road. We skirted past antique tractors carrying wagons loaded to the max. Always the road managed to be just wide enough but I didn't see how.

Again we reached another road block on the descent. This time it was a dino diesel that roared but didn't move, eventually it reversed a few feet but not enough for us to squeeze past it or at least I hoped not. Again our bus driver shut the bus down and got out. Everyone else started piling out too. The diesel dino driver and our bus drive exchanged words. Even though they spoke Chinese, I was adept at interpretting their gestures and I knew my bus driver was saying, "Back up, I can't go around you, we'll fall off the edge." Meanwhile another bus had bipassed the switchback and gone up a steep pitch behind us. Our bus driver and the other bus driver exchanged words and again I was able to interpret our bus driver saying, "No we can't go down that gully washer makeshift road--my brakes are shot and overheating." In the backrow the old woman had generously shared with my friend Emily greasy bread that she sweetly ate. I managed to only take a small peice. In exchange for the bread, they wanted all of her water. Apparently a decision had been made as our bus driver had turned the bus on and many of the people in our bus decided to stay outside. I began the hail Mary's as I would have preferred to be outside but was trapped in the backseat with the old ladies. One of which was sleeping on my shoulder. Our bus driver did a quick reverse and I thought maybe he was going to go for the makeshift road--my heart started racing. Then the dino diesel slowly growled forward. Our bus squeezed by as the other bus passengers ran to the bottom of the turn to be picked up. I was told the bus drivers must take a special class and a test that includes 99 questions but when you are in the middle of a narrow road with a cliff on one edge and on a blind corner and you are using horn blasting as your warning mechanism, I didn't have a whole lot of confidence in the licensing process and wondered if the bus drivers also had to pass hearing tests.