August 17, 2005

Note: new pictures have been posted to the Snapshots page!

Today we left early in the morning to go visit the areas where both Hannah and Anna Leah, the Beardon's daughter, were abandoned. The trip takes about three hours by bus. That doesn't necessarily mean that he area is 180 miles away, just that it takes that long to get there because of the roads. The road is not in the best of condition, and much of the way it undulates up and down in a way that will encourage car sickness in even he most seasoned traveler. Thankfully our bus was large enough that the feelings of carsickness could be offset by getting up and moving around a bit if necessary.

Our bus driver had to overcome quite a few obstacles in the streets along the way, including pedestrians, handcarts, bicyclists, motorbikes, dogs, cows, water buffaloes, cars, and other large transport vehicles. By far the most dangerous of the obstacles were the other vehicles, because right-of-way out here is determined by the size of the vehicle and the power of its horn. It also seems common for drivers to sound their horns when they are overtaking other vehicles, just so they stay in their lane and don't swerve over. Lines for traffic lanes have been painted on the roads, but they seem to be just taken as suggestions since most drivers go wherever they want to go in order to get to their destination. It isn't unusual to see drivers make u-turns in the middle of roads or to see vehicles backing up to get back to missed turns. The other drivers just sound their horns and deal with it as it happens.

On the way to Liupanshui the bus driver made a couple of stops for us. The first was to take pictures of a lake and bridges, the second was a rest stop. I've posted a picture of the lake and bridges on the snapshots page; however, I wan't brave enough to take pictures of the rest stop area. Most toilets in this area are squat toilets. There's no raised porcelain bowl - only a hole in the floor to squat over to do your business, and you have to remember to bring your own paper with you! I have only needed to use one once, Abigail has had to use one three times, and Victoria is fortunate enough to not have used one at all yet. She hopes to keep it this way. :)

One of the most interesting comments Jophy made on this leg of the trip concerned cell phone coverage. Many of us have noticed how good the coverage is, even allowing people to have conversations while in elevators. Jophy stated that she counts on getting five bars of coverage no matter where she goes in the country and pulled out her phone to show us how good her reception was, even in the remote mountainous area we were currently traveling through. Coverage that good is unheard of in the U.S.

After a few near misses with various types of traffic, we arrived at Luipanshui. The first spot we stopped was an area near the orphanage where Hannah and the other girls were cared for. The director of the facility could not get permission from the government officials to allow us to go to the orphanage, so we had to be content with seeing the road leading to it. We were all glad that the director gave us some pictures of the girls during their stay, and the Willinghams managed to get a full set of pictures from the orphanage by sending a disposable camera weeks in advance of our coming. The trip to the area of the orphanage was pretty interesting since the bus was originally unable to go down the street. It was partially blocked by street vendors and their wares, then was completely blocked by a freight truck after we managed to get past the entrance. A police officer saw the traffic problem and forced the freight truck to back down the street until we could get past. It was pretty interesting to watch. We took some pictures and video, then went to find Hannah's abandonment spot. It was a rather dismal area near the rear entrance of the temporary city jail. We're just glad that Hannah was handed to someone for safekeeping rather than being left in the street to be found. There seems to be a good bit of traffic passing by the area so it's possible that she would have been found quickly, but we're still grateful for the way her mother chose to leave her. This was definitely a bittersweet birthday for Hannah.

Jophi had the driver take us to the nicest restaurant in the town after we left that spot. To our standards it may not have appeared that nice, but considering it's the poorest town in the poorest province in the country, I was surprised at how many dinig rooms the restaurant had and how many dishes were offered to us. As noted above, the bathroom facilities were pretty spartan and a few of us decided against using them. I'm proud to say that Abigail overcame her apprehension and used them before we left. We then went in search of Anna Leah's abandonment spot in another city. It took us about an hour to get there, and the spot was an intersection leading to the new highway. The area seems to be growing, with a new brick bus station and other signs of progress. Again we all got off the bus, took pictures and video, and then loaded up again to head to Huangguoshu Falls.

Huangguoshu Falls is one of the largest waterfalls in China, and the area has been declared a national park. Though it is very tourist oriented, once we passed the gates we found ourselves in a beautiful shady spot with examples of both native and non-native plants. We had to go down two escalators to get to the base of the falls, and we were told that the second escalator was the longest in China. At the bottom we had to walk up and down a few flights of stairs to get to the falls, but I have to say that the falls are impressive. We had the opportunity to walk around the falls and through some other impressive scenery, but Hannah was already getting worn out and decided that she would not go any farther. While the rest of the group toured the trails we stayed behind, drank some water and enjoyed the view. After a few minutes Abigail and I decided to walk across the rope bridge while Victoria and Hannah rested in the shade. We waved to them from the other side, then I noticed that they were attracting a small group around them. Abigail and I headed back to find Victoria talking to a news crew. Once we were all seated they began to ask us questions about what brought us to the Falls. We told them about our adoption and that the rest of our group was elsewhere in the park. A short while later we met up with our group and Victoria and I found out that the rest of them had been briefly interviewed as well. All of us ran into the news crew as we were leaving the park and the cameraman offered to get us a copy of the footage if we could provide the necessary tape. Fortunately, the type of tape he needed was the type that our camera uses and I happened to have brought a spare tape with me. The cameraman met up with our bus about halfway home and dupicated the tape on the spot for us. We came up with a plan to have the tape copied onto DVDs for the group, and we hope to have the copies waiting for us by the time we get home.

The rest of the ride back to Guizhou was pretty uneventful except for the usual near misses on the roads and the occasional rough spots that we needed to ride out. After getting back I realized that it would have been a good idea to have had my GPS with me to record a track log of the trip, but it was too late by then. We all agreed that we would grab a quick meal in the hotel restaurant before going to bed early that night. By the time we got back, we had spent over 12 hours sightseeing, which was more than enough for all of us.

Until tomorrow...