So a couple weeks ago, my party bus boyfriend, Brandon told me about a camping trip that he was planning through his pub crawl company (the same party bus that I went on before). He invited me to go and I was dying to experience camping in China. The Courtney’s and I went back and forth about what to do because we had a long weekend for Labour Day Holiday, but ultimately, both Courtney’s decided that they did not want to go camping. At first, I was really disappointed because I figured that it wasn’t a good idea for me to go without them (I didn’t really know anyone going) and it probably wasn’t safe to go alone, but in the end I decided to go anyway. I found out that about 5 people that I knew were going and I figured that I would have a blast and get to know some new people! I am so happy that I ended up going because I had a blast!
Ok, so before I tell you about the actual camping part, there are two important things that you should know about – the people and the plan…
The People – There ended up being 17 people total (I think) and it was quite an interesting group of people. First there was the group that I knew – Brandon, Chris, Colin, Mallory and Kevin. I know all of them through softball. Mallory is a 40 year old a guy who totally creeps me out. He is fun, but when he is drunk, he starts getting really weird! Kevin is also 40 but really awesome! He is a retired army vet and acted like my big brother the whole weekend. Brandon, Colin and Chris are all my age and are just fun and hilarious. Then there was Chris’s girlfriend, Amanda. She was the bitch of the trip – every trip has one! I never saw her smile, she was always complaining and bitching about something, and she was constantly fighting with Chris about anything and everything! Then there were a couple other single guys – Zac, Jim, Dante, and Austin. They were all about my age, most of them were teachers and they were a lot of fun! Then there were two other couples – Matt and Shantel and Sara and her husband (I can’t remember his name). Matt and Shantel were both cool and come to find out, they actually lived near me too. The other couple – the married couple were kind of weird. Sara was one of those know-it-all people and was constantly correcting people. No matter what anyone said, she has some kind of input that usually started with “well actually….” That got really annoying, really fast! Her husband on the other hand never talked – big surprise. The two of them were usually off doing their own thing and typically did not want to stay with the group.
Then there was a single Chinese girl, Yinney, who was really quiet and usually kept to herself, although she was really nice! Then there was another older guy that was in his 40s that was very strange! I can’t think of his name either, but he was one of those awkward people that would walk into a middle of a conversation and stand oddly, or make weird comments. Any time that he talked to me, he would always begin and end the statement with my name. Maybe I should have done the same because then I would remember his name. At the end of the trip, he passed around his phone and said, “Alright peeps, I need everyone’s digits because I am going to have a party.” Then finally, we had a Chinese tour guide named Jerry and a Chinese bus driver. I think that is everyone. So all in all, it was a pretty good group of people and we all got along really well – minus Amanda who was never happy – and for the kind of trip we had, everyone needed to be easy going and open minded!
The Plan – when Brandon told me about the trip, and sent out the itinerary to everyone, it painted quite the picture. The plan was to go camping for 3 days, 2 nights in the Anhui Province at Mt. Qiyunshan (about 5 hours outside of the city). It was an all expense paid trip – only 780 RMB that included transportation to and from on a bus, all of our food for the 3 days, admission into the national park, all of our tents, sleeping bags, and flashlights and 6 kegs of beer. I was told that we would have access to electricity, bathrooms and showers and that our camp would be completely set up for us. We would camp, hike and go rafting.
The Reality – ok, so I wouldn’t say that we were lied to, but I would say that I painted a very different picture in my mind of what it was going to be like and what actually happened. So I met everyone at Jing’an Temple around 1:30 Saturday morning. We had stuff piled on the sidewalk as we waited for the bus. Brandon packed tubs full of games, sports equipment and enough entertainment for the weekend. Another tub was full of snacks, food & goodies, and a cooler full of more food. We drank slushies spiked with vodka as we waited. When the bus finally arrived, we piled all of our stuff on and underneath – including the keg-orator and 6 kegs of beer that we had purchased – and headed out of the city. We did not even make it 5 minutes before the bus was pulled over and given a ticket for 200 RMB for making an illegal U turn (seriously, I didn’t even know there were real laws).
And then we were off! As we began drinking and getting to know one another, the 5 hour trip turned into about 8! Naturally, we had to make several potty stops and each time, people would buy more to drink and more munchy snacks. On the bus ride alone, we went through a 7-liter bottle of Chinese rice wine, a couple fifths of vodka and countless 40s. Once we were out of the city, the countryside was beautiful! There were mountains and streams everywhere and it was calm. The air was not as thick and there were not as many people. Toward the end of the trip, we kept asking how much longer and Jerry would always respond just twenty or thirty minutes. We were getting antsy!
So anyway, nearly the entire drive, all we saw was mountains and open fields and farms and whatnot. Then as we got closer to our destination, we drove into a city. We were all kind of confused, you know, because we kind of pictured camping in the middle of nowhere. Can you imagine our surprise when the bus drove into a university campus and took us to a restaurant for dinner? We were told that it was just a stop for us to eat and that our camp would be set up for us while we were eating dinner. So we ate a delicious Chinese meal (I can say that I have never had Chinese food while camping before).
Afterwards, we loaded back into our bus headed for our camp site just twenty or thirty minutes down the road – which turned into an hour. Again, our bus was driving up into the mountains through the forest, down a dirt road until it turned into a small Chinese village. It was an old, poor village – like the houses were just made of bricks and did not even have doors or running water. That was when our bus pulled off to the side and Jerry announced that this was where we were going to be camping. As we got off the bus, we were all shocked! It was dark outside, so we really had no idea where we were, but our bus was parked next to an old house, and our “camp site” was next to a little stream on a bed of rocks. Across the stream was a row of houses and continued all down the bank. It was like we were dropped off in the middle of a village and we were camping in someone’s backyard. Turned out, it was Jerry’s home town, and that night he stayed at his family’s house just a couple houses down the street.
There was not a bathroom or a shower, but we plugged the keg-orator into the house next door. And the people that Brandon paid to set up our camp site had never seen a tent before, so nothing was set up when we arrived. Not that it was a big deal to set up ten two-man tents, but while we set up shop, the helpers were standing around our fire, trying to drink our beer. That night we made the most of it. We had a fire going, and we all sat around drinking, (most of them smoking also), roasting hotdogs, singing along to Zac playing guitar and listening to Mouth (Mallory) tell stories (so I have always called him Mouth because he is the loudest person that I have ever met and it caught on and now everyone calls him mouth). The sky was so much clearer than in the city, and I could almost make out some stars even! It was almost like being back home. I am sure we woke up the whole village and I am sure they thought we were some crazy people.
In a drunken stupor, Mouth caught a frog and a crab from the stream, roasted them over the fire, then ate them! GROSS! It wasn’t until the next morning that we discovered the stream was full of garbage! In fact, it wasn’t until the next morning that we discovered exactly where we were. We were in the middle of a village, camped next to a house and some guy’s workshop where he was making bricks, and our tents were pitched in the middle of a farm field and cabbage patch next to the stream where the people dropped their garbage into. The bathroom that Jerry promised was a couple houses down the street in someone’s house.
It is funny because Chinese people have no idea what camping is… anywhere we went people were looking at us like we were nuts. They had never seen a tent before and people crowded around us like animals at the zoo doing flips. For what it was worth, Jerry did a pretty good job planning the trip with whatever idea he had of camping.
Well anyways, that morning, we woke up, packed up camp and headed into town for breakfast at a local Chinese restaurant, then to our mountain destination just twenty or thirty minutes away…
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