Travelling with humour 2

The Obsessive Compulsive Traveller

"Obsessive-Compulsive Traveller " is almost an oxymoron, (because frankly, if your afraid of getting a bit dirty or don't cope with the unexpected, what are you doing travelling anyway?)and travelling through outback China certainly is not for the 'Felix Ungers' of this world.(Reference to the 1960's American sitcom in which two divorced men share a house- one a completely messy scruffy sports journalist, and the other a completely compulsive-obsessive clean freak!) so it became apparent on my last trip that one of my travel companions would have preferred that the people spitting on the side walk as they passed, covering one nostril to blow the other airway clear and coughing their lungs out in confined quarters was almost too much for her. Being a doctor did not help the situation, as visoins of microbials floating through the air, of tubuculoid lungs and globs of yellow phlegm flled her nights!! Once we knew of her aversion to all things germ, it became qute uncanny to observe the number of times from that point on that fate wold place her next to the cougher in the crowd, or it would be her that just missed the flying spitoon, or copped the near death experience of being sneezed upon! But even ths traveller could not top the business man I knew from a previous trip who was terrified of using any public toilets, and had even excused himself from a high level meeting under the guise of an important and urgent matter back in his home country- only to rush from the building, catch the nearest cab and run into his hotel apartment to use his own western styled toilet!! I bet he wasn't the first, nor the last!!!

The Antique Collector

I breifly touched on this story in one of my Kanga stories, so bare with me as i recount a fuller version, cause it's so funny, i love to tell this story!! Our frined the lawyer was recovering nicely from his burns and was ready to do some shopping with us all, once we hit civilisaton again. Civilsation this time came in the form of the wonderful main streets of Kanding, amongst which we browsed for a few hours. My friend, an avid ebay antique collector of Chinese antiques, was itchng to find some worthwhile purchases. so it was with restrained glee that he entered a little knick knack shop to find a few items secreted away on a shelf at the back of the store- but alas, just as he prepared for the bid, Mr Gu, our intrepid bus driver, came meandering up the street calling us all to hop in the bus. Incredibly, Kanding actually had limited hours street parking!! So Gu wanted to collect us foreign bodies and make sure we knew where his next parking spot would be. So we all jumped in the bus and drove-..........just around the corner, as it turns out! Anyway, my friend and one of our group who spoke fluent Mandarin, swflty descended back to the little, dark knick knack shop to ensure that precious cargo did not disppear. After some mandatory bidding, the pair emerged, triuphant, resplendent with antique cloth embroidery and scrolls in tow. It was an excited group of traveller that made our way to the hotel for a hot spring swim and later for drinks in the hotel cafe. There each 'treasure' was carefully unwrapped and scanned by the learned eyes of our cultural guide. Our guide is herself a reknowned artist and collector of Chinese cultural relics and knows her stuff. In her best but restrained voice, she started to unravel the mysteries of antique fakes- which in retrospect seem so obvious now, but at the time had our friend in momentary 'antique heaven'. We had a good chuckle that evening imagining the lucky knick knack shopkeeper, his wife, his son, their children and the neighbours as he flashed his yuan around for all to see, and later, trying to decide how best to invest the days winfall- some schooling for the grandchildren or a trip to Chengdu perhaps!!