The second leg of our trip took us into a more rural area of China, Jung Shuo. We where not fully immersed in the country as there is a main city vain that lay ten minutes away from our accommodations. As near as the city was I could still here the birds and the bugs during the twilight hours. My room was a dream room. My bathroom had a window that looked over my plush pillow covered bed, out onto my balcony and into the sub tropical jungle of China. As I sat on my temporary thrown for the first time, I couldn’t help but think how relaxing it would be to use the bath tub and look out onto the beautiful view. We had two nights so it could totally be possible.
Upon arrival to our hotel our guide took us on a stroll through the small anex that we would call home for the next two nights. The people of this community still practice agriculture. Every house has a beautiful, integrated garden. Beans and squash grew up bamboo tripods or covered slopes to hold earth. Eggplants and peppers where planted in neat rows amongst peanuts being used as ground cover. I saw a plant that nearly resembled edible hibiscus and another few trees that looked like a relative of the kekui nut. Lemon grass and other fragrant herbs where front door and perimeter decorations and bug repellents, and every house had at least one lychee tree. Outside the housing area lay communal wet land growing fields full of rice, taro, water chestnuts and other root plants I don’t know. All of this lay at the base of the majestic, spired mountains that one would normally see depicted in Asian art.
Our first day in Jung Shuo was fun filled with rafting and our second day was just as eventful. The second day started with a cooking class. We learned to make Gung pow chicken, dumplings and eggplant.
After lunch we headed for the mud caves, which are material for movies. To get to the caves we had to ride in a hand drawn boat through a low hanging tunnel. I might be mistaken but it would seem that Walt Disney got some inspiration for the Pirates of the Caribbean ride from this particular cave. After docking in the cave we proceeded into the mountain. We where completely immersed in this underground labyrinth. At times the passageway opened up into an area with high vaulted ceilings which then ascended into crawl spaces in which you had to doge, duck, dip, dive, and doge stalactites and stalagmites. We crossed through underground streams and slipped our way into the final cave, “The Mud cave.”
What proceeded was one of the most filthy mud fights I have ever been apart of. I can only recall I few times I have been so dirty. I took it upon myself to make sure people felt comfortable and acquainted with their surroundings by rubbing their backs with hand fills of soft mud. The sensation of walking from the center of the pit to the outside of the pit was very unique. I could feel the increased viscosity of the mud, the thickening of the liquid as I moved! Right about at peak fun is when it happened.
One of my students took a mud clobber to the face, more specifically to the eyes. I took calm action rinsing the eyes out but It became apparent after about five minutes of rinsing and increased pain, panic and screaming, that we had a more serious situation on our hands. Getting all the mud we physically could out of the eyes we began the slow and daunting journey back out the way we came. Thank goodness for all my training through the Chasm of Doooom and the SEA with Boojum. This was a real blind trust activity, the poor thing couldn’t open their eyes! On the way out we only encountered one slip up and it wasn’t a slip. My student accidentally grabbed on to the jerry rigged electrical wire that was helping to light our way and electrocuted both of us! I was pissed at whoever thought it was a good idea to place wires as railing level in a cave! Ah yes and the same way out meant not only getting back through the labyrinth passage ways but also taking the boat back out. Finally we emerged and rushed to the med center. In which time it started to POUR.
I am so grateful that one of my chaperones speaks fluent Mandarin. We had a communication relay going between the Dr., the chaperone and myself. Alas the clouds parted and the lightning stopped, this is no figure of speech. The students pain subsided and eyes became open and clear and the sky opened and we left the med center with ice cream and a rainbow: quite literally.
The student could not use the shower because their eyes could not get wet. Inevitably my tub got used, not by me, to wash hair and keep eyes dry.
The Limber Lotus 