Five Bestselling Travel Memoirs Box Set

by Twead, Victoria

  With no more light than what was provided by a dimly lit path and the headlamps on our hardhats, we approached the innards of the underworld. Despite having plummeted into the depths of Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, recognized as the longest, most thoroughly mapped cave system discovered in the world, the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, and many other cave systems, I was nonetheless impressed. From the look on Mom’s face, I’d say she was, too.

  “Wow, this is great. I just love caves!” Mom said, for probably the tenth time since we’d heard we were going there. We found only minimal modifications within the cave with only some simple garden lights attached to very, very long extension cords along already existing pathways.

  “This is really great. You can just wander around and go anywhere you want. There are no fenced-off parts or cement walkways. It feels so natural! North America has so many safety regulations that prevent you from doing anything,” Mom said, typically disagreeing with such patronizing precautions.

  “That’s just because they are so paranoid about being sued. I almost don’t blame them. If you can be sued for making hot coffee too hot, then they pretty much have to treat you like a disabled child so they can’t be held liable for anything,” Ammon commented.

  “Yah, it’s a shame, though, because a lot of the time it ruins the natural beauty of it. But,” Mom added, “I am grateful for these helmets, ’cause I’ve been bumping my head everywhere.” With the help of rope ladders we climbed like Gollum up rocky, slippery slopes and crossed over wooden bridges within the caves. Some of the stalagmites rang with music and hummed with the vibration of even a gentle smack. Stalactites hung overhead, dripping with upside-down bats hanging in every crevice. Every now and again, one would release its death-like grip and drop from its perch. The sound of its flicking wings echoed down jagged corridors until the bat nestled itself back into a cozy spot, disappearing completely.

  We discovered our main attraction, the large pool of oozing, brown mud, after a long trek that involved following the underground river, crawling through puddles, and squeezing between bizarre and curious shapes.

  “I can’t believe you’re going to swim in that. How disgusting!” was Ammon’s first comment, “Cowabunga!!!” was Bree’s, and Mom offered a persuasive remark or two as she attempted to convince us to reconsider.

  After Bree’s shallow but graceful dive, I kind of duck-flopped in behind her. On the far rock wall, we climbed to the top of a natural slide where we could once again slip back into the dark pit. It was completely relaxing. I floated weightlessly in what felt like smooth, chocolate icing, swimming as if in an underworld cloud, swiping my hands through the mud beneath my bare belly and feeling the whooshing movement on my tingling skin. Although I knew my friends back home would be having the traditional massages, facials, and saunas along with their mud baths, I was sure this was far more enjoyable. I wouldn’t give up this experience for anything. Oh, if only Terri could have--- I’m going to bring her here one day, I decided, turning a sad thought into something more positive. She will love this!

  Although we’d been to bigger and “better” caves in the United States on family road trips, it somehow didn’t compare to the experience that day. It was very personal and hands on. I almost felt as though I was a little kid again, making up stories to match these adventures. I was an explorer. Every corner and every rock was something newly discovered, and I’d made my first imprint. I wandered aimlessly for what seemed like hours, sneaking around with the monsters on my tail, jumping and hiding in small tunnels. Aside from our guide, we had the place to ourselves. I imagined the lives of the local people during World War II when they’d come to hide from the invading Japanese. Not much would have changed since that time. I crouched down and crept slyly, checking my back as if it were me evading the enemy. Covered from head to toe in dry reddish mud as I was, I blended into the earth and stones, becoming nearly invisible. I picked up a small, crumbly stone and wondered who else had passed by here in this fashion. Whose stories could that rock share? How long would they have gone without food, hiding like serpents in the dark? Days? Weeks? Who had they lost along the way? Given that the cave had only opened up to tourism ten years before, I felt even more like an explorer. I wondered how long it had existed with only the chirping echoes of bats and critters for company. Did the Japanese ever find it? These thoughts continued until my mind hurt from the novelty of considering historical issues. History was always my least favourite class in school. The dry textbooks full of dates just never caught my attention, and I had never before really considered war from a personal perspective. Yet here, I found myself totally captivated by the little bits of information I’d just learned about World War II.

  Making our way further along, we rinsed our new layer of red-chocolate skin in the unusually warm waters of the underground river we’d been following. Bree and I wallowed in it as we dunked, swam, and scrubbed each other’s backs. Crawling on hands and knees upstream, I watched the reddish cloud wash downstream, looking for all the world like blood.

  Traces of crusty mud remained around our jaw lines and in behind our ears to remind us of our adventure. We climbed for a long time towards the top of the cave where we could see a gaping opening into an endless blue sky. We bathed in the clearest, purest light which streamed in on particles of dust as we re-emerged from the wet belly of the earth.

  Chapter 14: Whet Your Appetite

  Small, smothered fires choked desperately beneath brewing stews and meats. My outstretched fingers slid through the ashy smoke as I reached forward to try to clear a visual path. The long and seemingly endless day of activities was wrapping up. All we needed now was FOOD, so we’d gone off to the local market.

  It presented a flurry of hanging lights under awnings strung up with ropes and sticks, and we felt like we had been transported back to some ancient, mythical era. That illusion was heightened by the reactions of the locals, who stared at the sight of our unusual, foreign appearance and attire.

  The frequent, sudden squawks coming from baskets of fighting, pecking chickens at my ankles made me jump. Their flapping wings protruded awkwardly from their cages and stirred up dust and feathers as we passed by. Women seemed to shout from all directions. Bucket after bucket, stained and dented in various places, lined the narrow alleys. Cages upon cages stuffed with big eyed creatures were stacked high and threatened to collapse at any moment. Snakes coiled together in rusted cages. Turtles grown to be sold and made into delicious soups struggled in only inches of water. Long lobster legs wiggled like spiders as they pinched each other in a desperate dance. Fish panicked in shallow tubs, only half covered by the minimal amount of water; one would occasionally spring out and bounce around on its side making a mud puddle under the wood stalls before a nearby granny would get up from her three-legged stool to toss the escapee back into the rubber tub with the rest. This is no pet shop, I reminded myself as I looked helplessly at the twitching noses of white bunnies; this is the grocery store.

  The whacked-out reality of it jangled my nerves. I followed the yearning, upwards stare of a caged dove. There must have been stars out that night, beautiful sparkly stars, but it was hard to see the night sky through the haze of the burning fires’ dense smoke. I watched as a woman examined a sack of four big frogs, put it back down, and then picked up the next one, comparing their relative size. Their springy feet hung awkwardly through the open spaces in the woven orange sacks. I almost expected her to squeeze their bellies to test for ripeness. In the midst of the startling sights around me, I flashed back to the childhood story of Hansel and Gretel, which came to life as the woman progressively pinched their dangling green legs to decide which were the meatiest.

  Catching myself in the middle of a long, drawn-out stare, I surprised myself as much as anyone by saying, “I’m starved. Seriously, these frogs are starting to look good.”

  “And what better way to dress a home-cooked meal than with some rich, pungent spices,” Ammon said jokingly as we ente
red the next section of the market. Sour, sweet, bitter, and salty flavours blurred into one overwhelming waft.

  “Careful what you wish for,” Mom cautioned wisely.

  Merchants, mainly women, sat cross-legged on tarps or on short stools in front of three-foot, burlap sacks. The thick smell of various spices soaked into my moist skin. Big, overflowing bags presented an assortment of dried animal parts and herbs. Threads of crimson saffron were dried and sold by the scoop. Shrivelled mushrooms, sea horses, and other exotic bits and pieces were weighed and wrapped. Even in death, long, tangled tentacles appeared to reach out towards an unknowing sky. The merchants reminded me of Shakespeare’s witches, and I chanted quietly to myself the classic phrase, “Eye of newt, leg of frog.” Add to that one barb of salty sea urchin and these innocent little Chinese women could be Macbeth’s witches.

  Heading back empty-handed in the direction of our accommodations, we ran into Larry, the hotel’s guest recruiter. As nothing in the marketplace had seemed even remotely edible, we were driven by desperation and hunger. We needed to eat, NOW!

  “So Larry, could you recommend a good place for dinner?” Ammon asked coolly, as if he were merely in search of a snack. I twitched in my place. My approach to the situation would have been, Gosh dang it! Where’s the food at! Give it to me. Now!

  “Ah, yes, yes. I know good place. Come with me,” he said brightly, anxious to show off his town and culture, and off we went through yet more alleys and puddles. Darkness had long since fallen, and we’d been awake for days if you count the restless journey on the overnight bus. We were led up the back stairs of a relatively dank, two-story building where we found ourselves in a secluded room with grey walls. A large round table in the room was covered with a white tarp. Larry spoke quickly and efficiently in Mandarin as we wondered what we would be eating.

  The first course came in a steaming pot accompanied by five empty bowls and a big ladle so we could serve ourselves.

  “Oh, soup. Nice,” Bree said, leaning in over the pot. I dug right in to the cloudy, white liquid and found chunks of different vegetables and pieces of boney pork and a few mystery body parts.

  “Mom, this is like pig artery. One of those big fat tubes that goes into your heart!” I said out of the side of my mouth. I searched desperately for a napkin to ditch it in. I’m getting rid of whatever the heck this is. One way or the other, I was sure of that.

  “Don’t think about it, just keep chewing,” she said, keeping a smile on her face and talking through her teeth so as not to draw unwanted attention.

  “You like? Very good!” Larry said, causing Mom to jump and nod overly enthusiastically. I rolled my eyes at her and continued chewing to no avail. The tubular chunk of pig artery was as rubbery as a balloon, and it squirted fatty juices with each bite. Fed up and tired of chewing the unchewable, I swallowed the throat-stretching lump whole because I couldn’t figure out how else to get rid of it. Before I could choke it down, a train of male servers placed four main courses in front of us. It was by now quite apparent that food came in communal dishes rather than as individual dishes.

  Oh my gosh! That was only the starter! I thought, gulping once more to force it all to keep going down.

  “What is it?” Mom asked politely, leaning in over the steaming plates. I was pretty sure I’d rather not know. Having visited the markets, how could I be surprised to see what was served to us? The first dish came with lots of little legs that had once belonged to hopping swamp creatures. The skin was very thin and peeled off in dangly threads of speckled green.

  “Is very nice! This frog. The leg. Leg. You know? And this, rabbit. Last one, duck. Is very nice!” Larry said, nodding his head robustly.

  “Well, there you go, Savannah,” Ammon said smugly, as if he had cooked it himself.

  “Yah, well. Pft! They’re tiny,” I mumbled, feeling a bit short-changed because they were nowhere near as big and meaty as the ones I’d seen outside for sale.

  “After all, if it’s on your plate, it should have some edible parts! Or is this just a garnish?” I whispered to Bree, who was sitting next to me.

  “Well, he certainly found something edible,” she replied, nodding towards Larry who was already busy with his chopsticks.

  “Well, that’s not hard to do when you eat the whole dang thing at once!” I exclaimed, as I continued to watch him from across the table. He was crunching on a frog leg, bone and all, as he picked through the other dishes. To my left, Mom was delicately nibbling on a leg of her own.

  “Think of all the little froggies that had to die for us – don’t waste them,” she said with a pout, as she forced herself to eat more. Every dish was soaked in Szechuan spices, preventing spicy-food haters like Bree and Mom from eating as much as they’d like. The duck meat came still attached to sharp shards of bone. The rabbit was also boney, as if it had simply been hacked at with a butcher’s cleaver instead of precisely cut. I spent a lot more time and effort sifting out cartilage and bone chips with my tongue, similar to the way you might work grape seeds out, than actually swallowing, but Larry seemed to have no such problems.

  “I think you forgot one key word in that request, Ammon! Normal. Normal food!” I said.

  “Well, sweetheart, you ain’t gonna find ‘normal’ here,” he growled at me with his mouth full.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  “Ok seriously, let’s not do that again,” I said as we climbed the five flights of stairs, the very last obstacle before I could finally collapse onto my lumpy mattress on the ground, though even this inadequate bed grew more appealing every day.

  “Yah, that was scary,” Mom puffed as we climbed.

  “Tell me about it. Did you see the price of it?” Ammon shuddered, “We can’t do that again.”

  “How much?” Bree turned to ask.

  “Like, fifteen bucks!!”

  “Seriously? Isn’t that, like, pretty reasonable?” I asked, stopping to massage the kinks out of my thighs.

  “Hell no! We’ve been averaging five bucks a day for all of us!” he retorted.

  “What?! Really??? Wow!!” Bree exclaimed.

  “If we want to make this year last, we really can’t do that anymore,” Mom agreed.

  “I think we should. It was SO delicious,” I teased, thinking that an annihilated food budget would drain our funds and get us home sooner. Furthermore, if what I just saw was the high end of the available food selection, I am scared to death to imagine what a low-budget meal could include. What next? Grass-stuffed intestines?! I didn’t doubt the others would willingly subject themselves to something like that just to stay the full year.

  Chapter 15: Back to School

  The sun and all its servants were well on their way to another successful day. We were up early, but it was late by Chinese standards. The rhythmic thud of hand tools banging on cement framing disturbed our sleep every morning at five. Labourers’ muscular arms swinging repetitively just across the alley were silhouetted behind our window’s drab curtains. The equivalent of a few baseball teams’ worth of players was working on a new, five-story building. At home, the same job would take five men using modern cranes and machinery. Here, where they didn’t have access to contemporary equipment, they counted on manpower to do the job, and the constant pounding never seemed to stop.

  As I was slowly peeking out between heavy lids and wondering for a few moments where the heck I was, the locals had already thrown back their blankets, brushed their teeth, had a cup of tea or two, eaten two dozen dumplings with sauce, and long since biked or carted their way to work. Finally crawling over to the window, I observed the narrow alleyway between the new construction and our hotel. The workers were scattered like ants, crawling and hanging from the elegant scaffolding made of bound bamboo stocks. Once again I was amazed by the strength of these plants, which were clearly used for more than just panda-bear food and making rafts.

  “Yah, bamboo’s one of the strongest plants in the world. Harder than red oak. It’s like natur
e’s form of steel. And it’s one of the fastest growing, too,” Ammon had told us back on the Yulong River.

  “Some varieties grow as much as three feet a day!” Mom had added.

  “You can practically sit and watch them grow,” Ammon agreed.

  Although bamboo was clearly up to the job, I couldn’t even count how many western-style “safety regulations” were being broken. Not a single worker wore a hardhat or safety harness.

  “I’m not going,” I said, turning away from the window.

  “Oh yes you are!” Mom said definitively, leaving me with little choice.

  The night before had ended with a surprise invitation to visit Larry’s high school a few villages away, where he made a living as an English teacher. I had secretly wished that we wouldn’t take him up on his invitation, that we could just make up an excuse not to go. I really wanted to spend my only free day sleeping in, but my resolve crumbled when I heard Larry’s final words, “Is honour, is honour.” It clearly meant a lot to him. By the time morning came, though, I didn’t care as much about Larry anymore.

  “Well, if you don’t want to go, just think of it as volunteer work,” was Mom’s encouragement for the start of the day. Oh joy!!! Just what I need at six o’clock! – Volunteer work! Pft! What I need is my pillow, some earplugs, and some more sleep. So of course, twenty minutes later we met Larry downstairs with nothing more than a few yuan, the clothes on our backs, and the one thing we had to offer: our native tongues. We travelled an hour down the road in a minibus to an even smaller village than Yangshuo. Students on foot and riding bicycles lined the small road.

  “This is my school!” he announced proudly once we’d walked a few blocks and turned the corner where a white, four-story building with bold Chinese writing stood.

  “So when does school start?” Ammon asked, observing the hundreds of kids still pouring in from all directions.