A Night at the Halfway House
By the time our hike led us to the Halfway House in the Tiger Leaping Gorge we were all very tired. We had not been hiking for the entire six or seven since we started our hike, but still we were tired. So even though it was still pretty early and we had a few hours of daylight left we decided to call it a day and stay at the Halfway House for the night. Plus, we would all get to meet the mysterious Franky who ran the halfway house. Apparently he was to some degree a Chinese medicine man, according the Lonely Planet China Travel guide.
The first step of the night was to get our room. We had a couple choices. Some were better than others, but all we needed were beds. Since they had a 4 person room that was clean we decided to take it. By clean, they meant that no one had used the room in a very long time. This worked out for the better because they switched out all the sheets for us. Still, after the sheet change we were not staying in the Grand Hotel or anything. My bed consisted of a piece of plywood stretched between two bench like pieces of furniture. I felt that if I was any bigger I would break my bed.
After getting settled into our rooms it was time to go down to one of the porches and enjoy the view of the gorge. The Halfway House is located on one side of the gorge and has a beautiful view of the other side of the gorge. It also allowed for some picturesque views of the sun coming over the mountain the next morning.
After a couple hours some other hikers started showing up. A couple of them were some french travelers we had met along the trail, so it was nice to see them again. As the night wore on a few more international travelers showed up. Before dinner our party consisted of the four of us students from Beijing, a couple young guys form northern Europe (I think Norway), the French couple, and a man from Australia accompanied by an Israeli woman. The last two had met on the trail and decided to hike together. It was a great mixture of people because of the age difference and the experiences of everyone. The four of us from Beijing automatically became the experts on China because most of the others were only vacationing in China. The French couple were about halwfway through a 10 month vacation around the world, so they were able to share all sorts of great stories with us. The two Norwegian guys were young and generally fun to be around, so even though they did not have a vast amount of travel stories to share they still had lots of stories about Europe to tell us. The last two people, I think, were the most interesting of the group. The lady from Israel did not speak much because she spent most her evening rolling joints out of the pot she had picked along the path. The man from Australia, Gavin, was hilarious.
The first thing he wanted was to eat some chicken. He didn't want his chicken cut up into small chunks like the usual Chinese style of preparing chicken for dishes, but he wanted to eat half a roasted chicken. Being that we spoke Chinese we became his ambassadors and had to convince the people who ran the Halfway House to roast a chicken. This was not too hard, we only had to ask. Being a farm owner from Australia Gavin was a sort of connoisseur of chicken, so he wanted a fresh chicken. Luckily the Halfway House is a combination of this families home, farm and place to stay for the night, so they had plenty of chickens running around. After a couple minutes Gavin had caught his chicken and it was ready to be killed. This was one of the less appealing moments of the night, but I guess it is the only was to get a fresh chicken.
Once the whole chicken situation was worked out we started ordering food. There were about nine of us ordering food on our porch, but there were also plenty of other staying the night as well. It was great because certain people would order food and it would be quite a while before someone elses food would show up or the server would come back. In either case we would remind him of the food we wanted and he would say, 'oh, right, yes, coming right up'. We all understood that there were only about six people cooking food and serving the twenty or so guests, so we usually laughed when he would say this. After three or four hours of ordering food and eating we had gotten what we wanted and it was time for bed.
That night was a great night. It was great to have a number of people from so many different places get together and hang out for the evening. I definitely will not forget all of Gavin's stories about traveling through Africa and eating river water soup every meal, every day on a three day boat ride. I will not forget another comment he made while people were discussing how unfortunate it is that many of the mom and pop bread or cheese stores in many places are disappearing. Here is what he said "You can't get shit in Burkina-Fhaso, but you get some fucking good baguettes!".
Right before bed I poked my head into the kitchen to see what was going on. There was not so much food being cooked, but there were plenty of people huddled around the wood burning stove chatting. Even though we were in South China, it got pretty cold at night and a sit by the stove was very nice. We spent about an hour chatting with the staff, including the man serving our food who promised to us multiple times that they had not forgotten what we ordered. The best story of the night came from Franky. After he gave us some of the history of the Gorge and how he explained that Tina's was not the best place to stay. I am not sure how much of this was because he was in competition with her establishment. I had heard stories about the surly australian woman who came from Australia to live in the gorge and get away from everyone. She ended up marrying a Chinese man and at some point she developed a slight attitude problem with certain types of guests.
After the conversation and a group photo we all headed to bed.
The first step of the night was to get our room. We had a couple choices. Some were better than others, but all we needed were beds. Since they had a 4 person room that was clean we decided to take it. By clean, they meant that no one had used the room in a very long time. This worked out for the better because they switched out all the sheets for us. Still, after the sheet change we were not staying in the Grand Hotel or anything. My bed consisted of a piece of plywood stretched between two bench like pieces of furniture. I felt that if I was any bigger I would break my bed.
After getting settled into our rooms it was time to go down to one of the porches and enjoy the view of the gorge. The Halfway House is located on one side of the gorge and has a beautiful view of the other side of the gorge. It also allowed for some picturesque views of the sun coming over the mountain the next morning.
After a couple hours some other hikers started showing up. A couple of them were some french travelers we had met along the trail, so it was nice to see them again. As the night wore on a few more international travelers showed up. Before dinner our party consisted of the four of us students from Beijing, a couple young guys form northern Europe (I think Norway), the French couple, and a man from Australia accompanied by an Israeli woman. The last two had met on the trail and decided to hike together. It was a great mixture of people because of the age difference and the experiences of everyone. The four of us from Beijing automatically became the experts on China because most of the others were only vacationing in China. The French couple were about halwfway through a 10 month vacation around the world, so they were able to share all sorts of great stories with us. The two Norwegian guys were young and generally fun to be around, so even though they did not have a vast amount of travel stories to share they still had lots of stories about Europe to tell us. The last two people, I think, were the most interesting of the group. The lady from Israel did not speak much because she spent most her evening rolling joints out of the pot she had picked along the path. The man from Australia, Gavin, was hilarious.
The first thing he wanted was to eat some chicken. He didn't want his chicken cut up into small chunks like the usual Chinese style of preparing chicken for dishes, but he wanted to eat half a roasted chicken. Being that we spoke Chinese we became his ambassadors and had to convince the people who ran the Halfway House to roast a chicken. This was not too hard, we only had to ask. Being a farm owner from Australia Gavin was a sort of connoisseur of chicken, so he wanted a fresh chicken. Luckily the Halfway House is a combination of this families home, farm and place to stay for the night, so they had plenty of chickens running around. After a couple minutes Gavin had caught his chicken and it was ready to be killed. This was one of the less appealing moments of the night, but I guess it is the only was to get a fresh chicken.
Once the whole chicken situation was worked out we started ordering food. There were about nine of us ordering food on our porch, but there were also plenty of other staying the night as well. It was great because certain people would order food and it would be quite a while before someone elses food would show up or the server would come back. In either case we would remind him of the food we wanted and he would say, 'oh, right, yes, coming right up'. We all understood that there were only about six people cooking food and serving the twenty or so guests, so we usually laughed when he would say this. After three or four hours of ordering food and eating we had gotten what we wanted and it was time for bed.
That night was a great night. It was great to have a number of people from so many different places get together and hang out for the evening. I definitely will not forget all of Gavin's stories about traveling through Africa and eating river water soup every meal, every day on a three day boat ride. I will not forget another comment he made while people were discussing how unfortunate it is that many of the mom and pop bread or cheese stores in many places are disappearing. Here is what he said "You can't get shit in Burkina-Fhaso, but you get some fucking good baguettes!".
Right before bed I poked my head into the kitchen to see what was going on. There was not so much food being cooked, but there were plenty of people huddled around the wood burning stove chatting. Even though we were in South China, it got pretty cold at night and a sit by the stove was very nice. We spent about an hour chatting with the staff, including the man serving our food who promised to us multiple times that they had not forgotten what we ordered. The best story of the night came from Franky. After he gave us some of the history of the Gorge and how he explained that Tina's was not the best place to stay. I am not sure how much of this was because he was in competition with her establishment. I had heard stories about the surly australian woman who came from Australia to live in the gorge and get away from everyone. She ended up marrying a Chinese man and at some point she developed a slight attitude problem with certain types of guests.
After the conversation and a group photo we all headed to bed.
posted by Jon Keto at
11:51 PM
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