Wednesday, September 05, 2012

THIS IS THE END OF THE LINE!

It took three days to get from Dali to Hangzhou on the train.  Fortunately for me I met Momo.  Momo is a student from near Shanghai who did some educational volunteer work for rural people in Yunnan province.  We shared the same compartment on the train.  Momo's English is excellent so we had a lot of good conversations.  Unfortunately for her she had to translate for me any time I needed help.

Momo introduced me to Linlin.  Linlin has a very funny story.  A few months back she had quit her job in Shanghai to go travelling.  She hadn't told her folks about her plans.  She is pretending as if life carries on as normal with her folks, meanwhile she is traipsing around third world Myanmar.  The kicker is her younger brother is moving to Shanghai to study.  And so the whole family will be in Shanghai.  Linlin was forced to return to Shanghai to put up appearances that she is still working.  Listening to her story I can fully understand why she has done what she did.

After being on the road for so long it feels weird coming to an end!






1 comment:

Viga said...

Hi,Dex~ I am Viga. I hope you enjoy the train journey in China, like other foreigners I know. When I was a junior student, I also went to Yunnan as a volunteer, living in a poor mountainous area and teaching kids in a very simple and crude school. I arrived there after 30 hours bus from Kunming. 2am I stood on the empty street waiting for other volunteers to pick up me. That street was the only street in that place. On the one side of it was the big mountain and the other side was Langcang River(another name is Mekong River). On that trip, I found the lifestyles which were far away from the modern civilization. Yes, they exist in China. In short, too memorable experience.