Waking up Lost: Hiking in the Rice Terraces of Yuanyang, Part 5
Ert speaks into the dark: “Eleven and a half hours until daylight.”
(Continued from previous post)
I smell like a dead sheep. There’s straw in my hair, and Jon is asleep across my lap. We’re on a bus back to Jianshui, and we’re exhausted.
We went to bed on the mattress of straw, Ert, Jon, me, Rick, Eileen. We could hear the pound of rain on the roof- nothing makes you appreciate a roof like hard rain you have finally stopped hiking in.
This story is the continuation of a series that begins here.
All was dark and quiet. Then suddenly, a rustling sound.
“Gah!” Rick sat up. So did Jon. By necessity, we all sat up; there wasn’t enough space to not move in unison.
“Did you feel something run across your feet?”
Jon was already searching with his headlamp. He and Ert quickly identified the mouse. They left a headlamp on, but there was nothing much to be done.
Around midnight, I felt dripping on my feet. The roof was good, but the rain was torrential. I got up to find a plastic sheet from a pile we’d seen in the corner. I discovered that the other room was partially flooded with water flowing under the uphill wall. I was instantly more grateful for the dryness of our sleep room. I moved some of our backpacks up onto our shoes so they wouldn’t soak, dried the plastic burlap of our bed, and went back to bed with the plastic sheet over our feet to catch the drips.
Mice chittered frequently through the night, scurrying sometimes by our heads, sometimes through the plastic sheet at our feet, in and out of a hole in the wall next to Ert.
We all huddled close, usually having to spoon all in the same direction to fit on the mattress. Sometimes for hours at a time, we slept.
Morning came subtly. It wasn’t raining very much, but the clouds were low and white. Not much light filtered into our shed through the deep and narrow windows. We dressed slowly, reluctant to put our wet clothes back on.
It’s strange to wake up still lost, but lost in the morning is infinitey more hopeful than lost at night. We made a plan. Leaving, we tucked 100 kuai- fifteen dollars, or a week’s income to a farmer- as thanks and payment for the lock.
We decided that seeking a trail to the north and east was still our most promising hope. In the morning light, the path on the rim of the rice paddies was not too frightening. Roosters crowed from the direction I’d seen light the night before– proof of a village? We set off in the same direction we had turned back from in the dark.
The trail was not clear, but we forged to the north and east, spotting another roofless stone building. Jon reached it first and called back the news: two trails here, one uphill and one down.
Ert and Jon explored downhill; I checked uphill. My path quickly led to a river, swollen and brown, waterfalling steeply over rocks. There was no bridge, but there was a distinct trail heading northeast on the far side. I judged that we could, and should, cross, but that it would be scary.
We reconvened at the junction. Jon’s and Ert’s path petered out into rice paddies. So, lacking options, the whole group came to look at the river.
My chosen crossing point was intimidating. A full evening and night of torrential rain made what might have been a small ford to regular users of the trail into something of a Rubicon. Eileen wasn’t sure if she’d be able to balance in the rushing water. Jon didn’t want to commit ourselves to crossing the river because we might have to come back if the trail didn’t pan out.
My feet were already wet, so I decided to see how bad the crossing was. I stepped in. The water’s pull was strong but manageable, even with my pack; I was careful to hold rocks and step no more than ankle deep. I made it across. The rest of the group found a similar crossing upstream. We set off down the trail on the other side.
We walked for another hour or so, the trail sometimes clear and sometimes overgrown. Then suddenly, around a bend, I saw buildings and heard roosters crow. A town. We emerged from the path onto flagstones.
It was early yet, but villagers were up and about. Five bedraggled white people, soaked through in still-falling rain, emerging from the fields: quite a sight in a Hani village.
Ert asked the name of the town from an old man out for a stroll: Panlong Jai. Amazingly, we’d found the exact tiny village we had been looking for.
We hiked the last mile or so up a flooded cobbled road to Longshuba. Longshuba was another small farming village: barefoot villagers, mud alleyways — but not without resources. Ert asked around, and a car and willing driver were found. For a few hundred kuai, we were driven the long road to the bus station in Xinjie.
It was still raining, so we huddled into the open-walled bus station. Eileen and I changed into dry clothes right there, uncaring of the stares from all around. Rick found bowls of hot rice with vegetables and liver; Jon put on a dry shirt. Ert arranged for a bus.
So we’re on the way back to Jianshui, glad to be back among other humans. Beds, showers, and dry shoes are just a four-hour bus ride away.
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