For National Holiday, Kelly and I took our first big trip to southwest China. I will begin by telling a certain segment of the trip, and then popcorning over to Kelly to fill in the gaps.
After one day in Kunming, we took an overnight bus to Lijiang to hike Tiger Leaping Gorge (look it up - it is AMAZING!). After as good of a sleep that you can get on an overnight sleeper, we arrived circa 7am to a rainy town, and no idea where to go next. We started hailing cabs, but none would take us to our destination. Finally we thought one cab would drive us, but after about 10 minutes of inefficient conversation, he kindly rejected us, and we hopped out of the cab frustrated. About 30 seconds later, I realized I had left my clutch in the cab. I swear time stopped and it was one of those slow motion, "NOOOOOOOOOOOO" moments. In my small defense, I didn't have my contacts in yet, it was the exact same color as the seat, I had a TON of stuff in my hands, and frankly, my mind was focused on, "OK, it's raining and cold. Where should we go now? Who should we call? How are we going to convey to the next cab driver where to go?" In my clutch was: my passport and visa, Chinese and American debit cards, apartment key, subway card, camera, cash and of course, my favorite chapstick. Basically, all that is valuable to me. I had packed them all together in this clutch with my reasoning being: "OK, they're all together, so I always know where they are. And they're in my hand, so they can't get stolen." BACKFIRE. Anyway, Kelly and I immediately start chasing after cabs, swinging their back door open, and then angrily slamming it shut (may have been some curse words involved). After about 30 cabs, we knew it was a lost cause and called it quits. I then tried reporting the loss to the bus station...well of course no one spoke English. I awoke a sleeping policeman, and well, of course he didn't speak English. I went to the police station, and of course they were closed. I called the US Embassy, and of course they were closed, too. And hold on...I called "911" and of course, no one answered! I called/texted about 15 people back in Beijing, and as it's 7:30am, no one answered. At this point (keep in mind it's still cold and rainy, just like a terrible, cliche horror movie), I'm like WHAT am I supposed to do right now!? So finally we decide to just go to a hostel (even though you need a passport to book a room). We arrive, and thank God that this hostel was filled with the nicest, most helpful people ever. First of all, the travelers that we met made me feel significantly less retarded, as they all had stories of doing similar things. Then, one of the hostel workers ended up taking me to two police stations to file the report and get documents I would need, so that I could fly home passport-less. Luckily I started getting phone calls back and was able to get my Chinese debit card canceled, and I was able to use the hostel Internet to email my dad to cancel my American card. At this point, we decided it was OK to laugh about it and to just go on and have a fun trip. I mean, how many people get the deluxe tour of Lijiang with three police station visits? POPCORN......KELLY!
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