On the move

I've been kind of stressed because I started a post 2 days ago that got erased because we had to speed out of our hotel. It was around 6:45 a.m. and we were waiting in the lobby due to another south east asia false alarm. You know the kind that knocks on your door three times. Only this time there's a phone in the room so we got a call 30 minutes early saying the bus was waiting for us. It was a lie but we bumped down 4 flights of narrow stairs with our big ole' packs and were on the internet when the bus really did show up. We crammed ourselves in the back of the bus and rode 3 hours to the border to try and enter China. We hadn't had any border crossing problems until we reached China. We were detained at the border for a good 45 minutes. They never told us the problem. The guard just said he had to report the case to his supervisor. About the only thing we did find out was that my passport photo was "too black" his words not mine.

You know I have to tell you I'm completely against gawking. We have been stared at, pointed at, laughed at, ignored, pushed, shoved, cursed at and who knows what else behind our backs. We have our good and bad days. We smile and wave and other times just look straight ahead so not to see the responses. I try to put myself in a place where I have stared at someone because they look different or maybe I feel they're out of place. You know it can be really overwhelming and frustrating when you're the focus and that focus is not always for kindness. One guy said he felt like a superstar, like he was really famous or something. People had asked him to take his picture and to be in pictures with him. Well no one has asked for our picture but the night before last night two girls held each other really tight and backed away from me in what looked like sheer terror as I paused to let them pass in front of me. That made me really sad and angry. You would have thought I had just jumped out of a horror film. We notice when people are talking about our skin because they seem to do a wiping motion across their face or arms but I don't know if that means we have superstar status.

Just in case we have to make a fast exit I want you to know that we are in Guangzhou about a 2 hour train ride from Hong Kong. We don't know if we'll be heading to Hong Kong or not. We will probably be out of touch for a few days. Everything is spread out here and it will take us a whole day to get to the next city Yangshuo. Our goal is to reach Xian, that's where the terracotta warriors are located. We will spend a week there before moving on to Beijing.

Last night we were on an overnight train and we ate our dinner on two little window seats pressed against the wall under a tiny table top. We shared longan and oweat as we watched the scenary go by. Beautiful, old and sparse are some of the words I would use to describe the landscape. The stepped agricultural fields were impressive and although bird flu is a huge concern in this region we saw more free range chickens than either of us have ever seen. Does anyone have any suggestions on China? Is there anything that we should look for on our route? Please let us know because right now we don't even have a Lonely Planet guide so we're just kind of on our own.

Joronda