"Beer tastes so much better after a near death experience"

I am going to lose all credibility after those of you back home read this entry, because what I’m about to describe sounds more like “extreme adventure travel” than a city planning business trip. Just keep in mind that Yangshuo was put on our itinerary for the weekend so we could have a relaxing “country” experience in between our city visits.

I can already hear the collective “Yeah, right” coming from friends and family.

Yesterday (Sunday) morning started with breakfast at the café down the street. We convened in the lobby at 9:30 AM and boarded a bus out to the countryside. Even at 9:30 on a Sunday, the streets were packed with bicycles and motorbikes, stores were open and there were people everywhere. Being a passenger here is wild—the streets are jammed with people, motorbikes, and bicycles, and the occasional car/bus driver honks continuously to warn people to move over. The buses feel like they could collapse into a million pieces at any moment. Half the vehicles on the street appear to be powered by lawn mower engines, and they are usually piled high with bamboo, rice, and all kinds of weird cargo.

We drove about 10 minutes down twisting country roads, passing rice paddies, assorted farm animals, and interesting looking houses and apartments, finally arriving at a place called the “Outside Inn.” After getting off the bus, we walked down a path to a building with two open-air classrooms equipped with individual cooking stations (a gas burner, wok, and chopping block) for each member of our group. We split into two groups and took our positions. In the next three hours, we would become gourmet Chinese chefs.

The class was great, and the setting unbeatable. We learned how to make eggplant with oyster sauce, pumpkin blossom stuffed with pork and spring onions, chicken with cashew nuts, beerfish in red and green peppers, and green vegetables with garlic. When we were through, we sat on a veranda and ate our creations, looking out over the rice paddies. It was sublime, and the food wasn’t bad either.

We had a few hours of downtime after lunch. I used the time to get some work done. Really, I did! (There’s that “yeah, right” again)

At 4:00, 11 of us set out for an “unscheduled” itinerary item—a hot air balloon ride through the karsts. I had been pushing the idea, suggesting that as planners we had a natural desire to see the landscape from the air. It was a little pricey, but hey—how often does an opportunity like this come along?

Little did we know what awaited. This was no Napa Valley champagne balloon ride.

We were crammed into two tiny vans and driven out to a rice field at the base of the karsts a few miles from town. The balloons were already inflated, and there were men in orange jumpsuits jumping up and down to keep them on the ground (I guess that's why they call them jumpsuits). The whole operation looked completely “fly-by-night” (no pun intended).

There was no orientation, safety talk, or signing of liability waivers—they just rushed us quickly through the rice paddy, split us into three groups and shouted at us (in Chinese) to climb into the balloon baskets. I ended up in a balloon with Juan, a “driver”, and a “trainee” The four of us could barely fit in the basket—I think it measured 3 feet on each side. You could feel your head being scorched from the hot air flames overhead. In a few chaotic seconds, we were all in our baskets, and one by one began to ascend.

The ascent was pretty terrifying. The basket only was about waist high, and Juan and I were gripping the support poles for dear life. I think we rose about 2,000 feet in 2 minutes, and immediately started drifting toward the karsts. A few minutes later we were up at 3,500 feet, and the landscape below looked like an aerial photo. Rivers snaking everywhere, villages dotting the countryside, and otherworldly forest-covered limestone formations in every direction. It was hazy but sunny, and there was just enough of a breeze to carry us downwind. There was this unnerving beeping noise that would get faster and slower as we rose and fell, and an occasional and deafening ROAR when they released hot air into the balloon.

We paid for an hour, but the total ride was more like 90 minutes. It became pretty clear as we descended that there was no organized landing spot; you just sort of came down where you came down, and then walked to the nearest road to be picked up. However, there weren’t a whole lot of options, since 99 percent of the countryside consists of either flooded rice paddies or vertical limestone rock formations. The other one percent, by the way, consists of high voltage power lines, which was where we headed. What, me worry?

The three balloons landed about a mile apart, and probably 10 miles away from where we started. Juan and I landed on a freeway roadbed still under construction. The moment we touched down, little children from the nearby village ran over and surrounded us, wanting to look at the photos we’d taken on our digital cameras. It was quite a sight. Another balloon landed in the center of a small village in a scene straight out of the Wizard of Oz. The third balloon came down in the forest, after a near miss with the limestone wall.

We were driven back to the hotel (a story in itself) and arrived around 6:30. The hotel had set up a long table out front, and we were seated for our next event—a “meet and greet” with the Yangshuo city planner. It was basically a one-hour Q&A session. We asked a question, Dragon translated, the planner responded, and Dragon translated again. It was hard to know where to begin with the questions, since we don’t have a basic understanding of how planning is done in China. But there were a few moments where we knew we were getting through, like the smile on his face when we asked about "citizen participation."

At 7:30, yet another activity—cormorant fishing. This was probably the silliest and most obviously staged of the Yangshuo activities. We were led down to the waterfront (with flashlights). There, we boarded a flat bed boat and chugged down the river. A man on a bamboo raft floated parallel to the boat, pushing his raft with a bamboo pole. Meanwhile about a dozen cormorants (diving ducks) swam in front of his raft, dipping under the water and coming up with fish in their gullets. Every now and then the boatman would pick up the cormorant, stick his fingers down its throat, and pull the fish out. It was pretty weird, but heck I got a good photo of me with a cormorant on my arm at the end. What was that about bird flu?

A few of us went out for dinner afterwards. We sat at picnic tables on a narrow lane, had an assortment of Chinese dishes at the table, and drank a few beers. Fellow traveler Erin, who had been on the balloon that almost hit the limestone karst, remarked “beer tastes so much better after a near death experience.”

I wonder what the Chinese translation for that is?