Yunnan - Hani People

DAY 4 (Tuesday, February 5th, 2008): Nanuo Village – The Hani People
On the road from Jianshui to Nanuo, we stopped at a nice town called Yuanjiang and we drove over the world’s highest bridge. The bus ride up into the mountains was both frightening and nauseating because of all the sharp turns, bumps, and close-calls with oncoming traffic on the narrow mountain road. Once we arrived in Nanuo, we immediately dropped off our stuff at our appointed guesthouses. We stayed in guesthouses here because the Hani houses are very small, and I mean SMALL, and therefore the families could not accommodate us. The guesthouse I was assigned to was nice – it had three floors, electricity, a TV, and a bathroom INSIDE and on the 3^rd floor!
After dropping off our stuff, we had to meet the entire group to hike the rice terraces – this task only sounds nice. It’s actually quite dangerous considering the terrain we were treading was so rocky, uneven, and unstable – you really have to watch every step or you could easily break your ankle. I think I almost did many times. And you have to walk dangerously fast to keep up with the guides, so we were practically running on this unsafe ground so that we didn’t get lost. I will have to get some pictures from somebody else because I didn’t have the chance to stop and take any, it was that rushed. We hiked until we came to a small village in the middle of nowhere (unless you count mountains and rice terraces) and had a break for tea and some strange fruits. We then ‘hiked’ back a different way up a mountain – it was kind of like déjà vu for me. I kept getting sicker and sicker the more we hiked and the higher we got. It was very physically demanding, and I finally kind of just fell-over into the dirt. The two TBC guys in charge of staying at the back to make sure everybody kept going had already been waiting for me because until this point I had been walking very slowly because my legs felt like lead and it was hard to breathe or to walk. I walked in a weird crooked line, and I suppose it looked like I was drunk, but I fell over and started shaking and shivering and retching. I have this weird blood-sugar thing like hypoglycemia, in which my blood-sugar will without warning plummet and I get really sick like this. Of course this had to happen on the side of a mountain in the middle of nowhere. The two guys had two lollipops so I had those but I was really bad. Luckily a vehicle happened to come up the road and they stopped the driver and asked him in Chinese to send someone to come get me because I was really sick and could not walk any further. In a few minutes a man on a motorcycle came to get me. It was frightening, riding on a motorcycle on a narrow winding mountain road while being that sick. He took me to a small group of TBC kids who were waiting for the bus to come get us, and a nice girl gave me a granola bar. I thought I would be fine after resting for awhile… so the bus finally took us back to the village and we were able to go to the guesthouse and get ready for dinner and the village party. I tried eating an orange because orange juice is really good for low blood-sugar, but I bit into the orange and it tasted like bitter-sour poison. Lauren tried some of it and said it tasted fine to her, but I just brushed that off.
The whole group met and we began the ascent up the steps that scaled the side of a large hill. I made it about 2/3 of the way up before I fully passed-out. I remember feeling sick while I climbed and I remember grabbing onto somebody and falling over. How embarrassing. I remember somebody grabbing my purse from me while a bunch of people laid me down on the steps. I remember Peg asking what happened but I couldn’t talk… that’s happened before and it’s not cool. Some Hani people came down to see what was going on and one of the ladies kept asking if she could carry me the rest of the way up. Let’s be honest here, no tiny little Chinese lady could ever carry me. After that people kept talking at me but everything was spinning. I must have looked REAL great - I remember shaking, shivering, babbling nonsense sounds, and dry-heaving and people forcing things into my mouth. Everything tasted awful, even, gasp, chocolate. Nothing tasted sweet at all, even the highly potent sugar water they gave me. They said there was a ton of sugar in it, but it tasted like salty corn water to me…I remember slowly feeling a bit better and regaining my speech, which lord knows I hate not having. I hate getting that much attention, it’s embarrassing, but there I was in the Hani village with my own entourage of TBC staff and Hani villagers. They eventually got me up and with one person on each side of me, including front and back, they made me walk down all the stairs again. Peg made me stay in the TBC staff guesthouse, which of course was the nicest one of all. They put me into a bed and left to get food. Peg made me drink Coke, which I hate, but it didn’t taste like Coke normally does so it was okay. I basically sat there for a couple hours with Peg and Jia and ate candy and crackers and we talked. Jia has a Master’s in anthropology and she used to work for National Geographic, so naturally I loved talking to her. Some Hani lady brought me rice and this spicy meat that was just like beef jerky – it was really good. Then everybody left and I tried to sleep but it was really cold there and I woke up shaking a lot and feeling sick like before, so I shoved a Snickers into my mouth and lay down until I felt better.
The next morning was my birthday…wonderful. The sunrise was awesome though, because being so high up in the mountains, we were above the clouds and it was one of the most beautiful sights you could ever imagine.I found out that I was lucky to not have been at the Hani party at the top of the hill. Apparently once you reached the top, there were people waiting there who tipped your head back and poured bijou into your mouth, whether you wanted it or not. Bijou is like sake, but apparently a lot more potent and a lot more foul tasting. I hear the food was even worse than the Yi village as well.
We boarded the bus and I got about halfway down the mountain road before I started dry-heaving. They made me sit in the front seat and eat stuff, but I felt like puking. When the bus stopped for everyone to take a little break on the side of the road, I just got out and found a spot to kneel and attempt to puke. No luck. Somehow I managed to fall asleep and we stopped again in Yuanjiang for breakfast. They let me stay on the bus to rest, and I ended up going on an adventure with the bus driver; we drove all over town looking for the stranded Bus #2. We then had to wait around in Yuanjiang for a few hours, and I was fine with that – the fresh air was a nice change from the bus. After that I was okay, well, not sick anymore, anyways.