The Road to Guilin: Wo dei kai wo de motoche chu Guilin

****** Disclaimer- If you have any propensity to worry about me or my safety I emplore you not to read the following description of my ride out to Guilin. Instead assume that I arrived at the head of a procession of gaily dressed penguins playing french horns astride a multi colored unicorn waving colored banners. It will give you much more pleasent thoughts.******

Oh Sleipnir, a lovely machine, not what I originally planned on but it is what luck presented to me and I am not one to turn down what fate puts in front of me. Usually assuming, and so far rightly so that is is the best course of action despite any plans I may have had to the contrary. I spent my first day with her in Xiangguang grooming, getting her ready for the long haul to Guilin. I was planning on making it there in one day staying for a few then heading out to Lijaing, taking my time getting out there. Escaping Xiangguang itself was a bit of a challenge. My plan had been to simply follow the compass, allow the needle to point me the way I needed to go. Guilin is north west so I will head that way. One thing a compass does not point to is what direction the road which actually allows you to pass through the enormous mountains that surround Xiangguang and fill all of Guangdong province. The last attachment I had was severed with a finality I could accept and so it was a very appropriate time to just start driving. Immediatly upon escaping the city. I killed a butterfly. It was crushed, splattered across my speeding face mask. Killed because of my desire to ride freely. I find myself completely at a loss for words to describe the feeling I received pulling off of the highway onto a smaller road. Coming around a bend to look out over a valley filled with small villages and rice paddies ringed all around by mountains which seemed to shoot up out of flat land because of an unquenchable desire to pierce the sky. They rose and fell with such suddeness that an indomintable will can be the only explanation. I stopped to take a pee here. The first of many beatiful bathroom sceneries. It was driving along this road that I also came to understand the danger that lies in having such captivating scenery coupled with chinese roads. Every few meters entire sections of road sometimes the entire road it appears had been subject to a localized and very violent earthquake. I quickly realized that had I infact purchased a sport bike as I had planned so I could wipe along the roads to travel quickly to my destinations, the only place i would have been going was the train station or the hospital.

Under the stars, breathing the night air. Fangshous lights so close. I turn. Where was that spot I saw. Where was that corner to tie my horse and pitch my tent. out of the way where none will see none will bother me. A bridge? Why these stone columns hung with banners. Here seems good. Hide her well. Dress her in leaves, mask her light. Hide myself as well. Every sound a concern. Creeping, was that a door. Stay low. Why so worried? It makes the game more fun. Every sound to wake me. Rise with dawn but not tired. I ride and ride from dawn till dusk. I tell myself not at night i will not go on once the sun is gone, yet still I ride. Where am I going, what is my destination. I didn't know then and I have forgotten now. Guilin I think, so far, why go there now. The road, so smooth and straight, gliding along yet now it is gone. half is missing, who has taken it, why wont they give it back. Ride on I must. The lack of food, the lack of sleep. My mind driven determined. Lights coming at me, so close. Thread the needle. Walk the tight rope. The lights keep coming. Dust, stones, where has the road gone? The lights keep coming, They don't touch me but still I feel everyone. Closer, closer it comes. Horn blaring, eyes, so bright, these ones different than the others. Closer, closer, bearing down. This time they have left no space for me. Off, off the edge, into the darkness. The wheels stop spinning. Who took the road and put it down here. "Mei wenti. Duo xie ni keyi zouba, duo xie. " I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to treat you wrong. I won't do this to you again. I know you're upset, let me get you to some place where you can rest. This is not where I can water you, this is not where we can stop. Too many, to fast, all screaming. Thank we will go on now until we find a spot to rest. Why are you limping, what have I done to hurt you. Just a little farther lights up ahead. Limping in. Barking, barking, why won't you stop? I mean you no harm, please let me be. Barking barking. Let me check you hooves, no stones here. what have I done, I did not mean to hurt you. How can I make you better? Turning, poking prodding cursing. Bending, bending is the key. Ready to go on we must travel. Gallop now. Black figures along the road. No fear, they never seem to worry. Stop to eat. Dan zhao fan. "Guilin zai nali? Nage fangbian. Duoxie." Mud and stone, this is not a road, this is not a thick red line on a map. Have i gone the wrong way, there were no turns, but there was also never a road to be following just a place with no trees. The ghost of a road to be dont drive there run on the rocks, splash in the mud. Bugs only come out at night in china. I know this because that is the only time i feel them hitting against my neck, or maybe they are just able to see me and move otu of the way during the day should i wear brighter colors when i ride at night.

Rules for Driving in China

1. There are no rules to driving in China, do whatever you want to get wherever you want as fast as you want.
2. There are no rules to driving in China, do whatever you want to get wherever you want as fast as you want.
3. Road is a very loose term although what is not actually a road will be consitently called such by maps, signs and people you stop to ask. Example, the road to Juilin from Xiangguang: On a map it is shown as being a a large freeway, all of the fresh new roadsigns indicate it as being such, all of the people you stop to ask puzzles as you ride down what can only be called a road in so much as trees and shrubs would not dare attempt to grow on this broken rubble strewn landscapeconfirm that this is infact the road to Guilin. It appears that everything is very consistent in how forward thinking it is. What I found myself driving along was what will be the nice expressway to Guilin in about a year or two.
4. The Chinese government loves nothing more than to test the reflexes of its drivers by removing 5-10 meter sections of the road along major freeways where the average speed is around 70km/hr, this is in addition to the random barrels and cones which will be inserted seemingly without reason in the middle of similarly high speed roads.
5. The side of the road that you are supposed to be driving on is whatever one most appeals to you at the moment. This rule also applies to highways with dividers, change sides whenever you please.
6. Never slow down or wait before completing a desired turn or maneuver. If you are in a large vehicle simply push smaller ones out of the way. If you are on a small vehicle somehow find a space that you can slide through at whatever speed is necessary.
7. You will find interesting things in the road such as cows, puppies, boulders the size of small huts, an astounding amount of large piles of cow shit, meteor crash sites (very very common)
8. Chinese people are unbelievably brave or they have completely abandoned any attachment to life as shown by the willingness of 6 year old girls to nonchalantly walk through what can only be described as a feeding frenzy of vehicles, or ride on the back of a motorcycle taxi carelessly sipping a juice box as it tears through traffic.
9. Do not, in any case attempt to drive cautiously so as to be safe. This is the best way to get yourself killed as Chinese drivers will quickly become fedup with you and lose any respect you may have been granted from the start for your willingness to even attempt driving in China and will run you off the road as soon as possible to clear the road of what they will only come to see as an obstacle.
10. If you are able to abandon such attachment and concerns you can actually survive driving in China as shown by the multiple generations some drivers have managed to accrue and fit on a motorcycle all at one time.
11. Buses are the most dangerous thing you can possibly imagine. They are always the fastest and without a doubt the most reckless drivers on the road. I have never seen a bus not attempt to pass a vehicle infront of it, despite how fast they are already going, what the road is like or who is coming at them. Whereas in America psychotic criminals are senty to Iraq to fight wars in China I am pretty sure they just give them keys to a bus, the only requirement to become a bus driver as far as I can see is that you have no concern or regard for any life at all including your own.

Sleipnir

i purchased my steel horse today. its name is Sleipnir after odin's eightlegged horse.
Sleipnir means smooth or gliding and is the source of the english word slippery. son of Svadilfari the stallion used by a fire giant in an attempt to trick the gods and steal the moon and their most beautiful goddess, Freya, and mischief making god, Loki,("prevent this giant from besting us or we will torture you eternally" warned Odin) in the form of a pure white mare. half god half divine giant horse.
if you just go to a yamaha dealership buy a bike and then nod and say "hao" alot when they take you around to police and officials it is easy enough to get motorcycle registration and license in china despite the fact that according to chinese law foreigners are not allowed to ride motorcycles. my i-ching is entirely receptive. i was told to be the mare travelling without bound spreading kindness and charity. waking up in mist filled mountains. temples to confucius surrounded by stone animals a patio for dancing with a sword. i thought i was in a quite hamlet only to find a bustling city below. the ferry man was not happy with me returning so late last night and leaving so early this morning. "shi kuai. ni keyi" yes i can pay you one dollar to ferry me across the water. other streams i have seen seemed so dirty no filter strong enough to convince me to touch that water to my body, much less drink it. this was a place to swim and play as boats chugged past. again their trace appears in bold vibrant colors. always they hide from me until i plan to leave. showing their colors only at the end as if to alert me to how many mysteries i leave unsolved each time i pack my bag and go. as if i did not already know this. as if each step out the door was not hard enough already. so much already left behind but still every time i step to that road it seems just as hard. maybe even harder. the first step, although the largest, now seems as if it was the easiest. yet still it is the only one that haunts me. it must be because it is the one i know i will return to and thus will have to face how it has changed while i have gone. it is the only one for which i have a clear picture now and don't know if i will be able to help myself but expect to see it again. i know it is gone already but i also know i will not be able to accept this. i know that when the time comes the shock will inevitably hit me. a feeling of sinking and loss or the uplifting joy of a new horizon, i don't know what to expect. the coins gave me hope on this day i was going to leave to run. "the mare is akin to the earth, traveling the earth without bound, gentle and docile, helpful and faithful. Cultured people are going somewhere; earlier they got lost and strayed from the way later they followed and attained the eternal." everything seems so right. lost i truly was, only hoping that i may bring myself around to find the way. it may be foolish but the coins have given me hope. they always seem to say the words that fit. not just my thoughts painted over them, but words that cannot be ignored. horses and travelling. lost before only full of dreams to find the way. i feel now more confident than before that it may be more than a fools fancy. dancing immortally. i told you all, all that i loved that i will either die here or will have found a way to live forever. me mounting sleipner and heading off i believe is the time when the true test will begin. the same words have come from the mouths off all i have met. "ni dei hen xiaoxi, zhege difang hen anquan, ni chuqu bu shi." you must be very careful it is safe here, but when you go it will not be. my shifu called me crazy, my friends worreid about me before i left and now don't know what to do other than hope and pray i find some way to make it through. i have faith, or rather i have no fear. already driving in china has taught me one thing there are absolutely no rules or rhyme to what people can or will do. i much prefer this method once i came to understand that i need obey no law other than do whatever you must to get where you need to go without dying. wits and reflexes, every breath must go into the feet or it will be your last. i will ride sleipnir i will be carried by the divine mare safely through my journeys. like odin, sword on back upon the 8 legged horse. like cloud, sword and motorcycle travelling a loner. like lu bingdu sword to dispel ignorance astride a black tiger. all these characters one in the same. different faces, differnt names, same spirit. all of them i see a beings worth having as a teacher. as Mr. Woo taught me in china to be a student you emulate the actions of your teacher. then do you come to know first through doing then through understanding why you do. so run i will. sword on back to fight giants and keep the gods in line, to fight for loved ones lost and protect the world from those who may harm it, to chase enlightenment and follow the dao dispersing evil and dispelling ignorance. like lu paint in hand spreading poems and coming to know the others who do the same.

Taking painting into your own hands

For those of you already started or interested in starting to make the walls around you a little more beautiful here is a place that you can get tools to do it with. www.montanaasia.com All you will need to find then is the skills and inspiration. Once i overcome my computer illiteracy i will figure out how to set up a permanent link. Have fun making walls pretty.

Prophetic dreams yet again. Nothing I can do to stop them, no time, no opportunity simply a warning that I understand too late. A dream within a dream of what I most want and wish only to open my eyes twice and watch it slip away. Empty, nothing left to tie me. Final words sent. I go today to see the greatest teachers. Those who can best make one accept such fates. The city of goats Guangzhou is called. Blessed by five who came to give, I know goats only to take. To take and take, but through this give more than one can imagine. A goat will take what you love most until you willingly give, they are the best at teaching you to let go. To them i left the last Iihad. A blue cord braided and given in high mountains of home after cold nights, wanderings and blasting winds. It was to bring me back but now nothing to go back to. I leave it with hope that i had learned well their lesson walking off to find a place where i could sit and empty my mind.
Yes i will give to help your temple, i will give you all i have. Empty my pockets take it and find peace. You want to read my palm, i have no more money to place in yours, i know you to be a charlatan, i have nothing to give so you don't want to offer. i gave to the man with robes without concern for this. i have come to pray but may not enter having given all i had to a monk i have nothing left to buy a ticket. "Buddha will not accept the prayers of those who do not purchase a ticket" there cold stares tell me. So i sit. I take a seat out side the temple, to meditate and see whether my wishes can pass those doors without paying the gatekeepers. The toothless woman scolds me as i sit , eyes half closed, breath calm, lotus legs on the warm stone. "What kind of foreigner has no money? Why would you give it all to a monk?" For the same reason i gave the crackhead my i-pod. Beause they asked and the wind seemed right, seemed to whisper that it was a time to give. Avoid wrath and cupidity today the coins told me. As i sit denied entrance to pray, Buddha deems me worthy. A stranger uncomprehending of why i rest barefoot on those dusty stones hands a ticket to me and the gates are opened.
Awe and wonder, my heart rises up lifted by that serene face of gold. An idol but so much more. I feel so small kneeling asking for the protection of all those i love and all i have yet to love. The golden splendor made me feel small only in knowing how empty all was. The tiny painting, Buddha holding his flower, granting in an instant eternity for those whose eyes are open, brings me almost to tears, tears of joy as a smile lights up my face. Those who walk around whisper and stare at the strange sight of the grinning barefooted foreigner, playing with his beads eyes welling as he stares through the glass. A few seem to understand. I am not there to take pictures i am there to chase a dream. The man with his son approaches me, tentatively handing an orange book to me "Hello, ni hao, I give you." He places it in my hand takes his son and walks away. Give and take. I hope to have it long enough to learn what wisdom he passed me.
I walk out of the temple. The beggar man does not ask of me or even look at me with pleading eyes, but only gives me a smile and nods. I feel nothing given but now so much to take. I walk away and pass a monk. He stares longer than the rest turning as I walk past. A tap on my shoulder as I continue on. Thrusting 10 yuan at me he raises his beaded hand as i grasp it, whispers a prayer and runs off. i can now get my lunch. Give without thought and receive what was never expected.
Give so that you have nothing and you are empty so that all may flow through. Grasp and covet not and you will never cease to be provided for. A puddle, keeping all for itself, will dry if it does not rain often, even a river spreading wide and to many may cease to flow if cut off from its source for too long, but the ocean gives to all by making clouds and thus is always fed as they run back and the ocean has yet to be without water.

Late nights, fine art, the taste of fine wine and cheese, pretty banker girls. The darkness but lights across the water, dog shit, rattling cans and the abrasive smell of propellant. I came to prefer the latter. Unique style, poetry with a picture, they like it. I thought they were being nice, i came to understand they weren't. I may not be very good but my friends are and i came to them as a pupil so that counts for a lot more to me.

Voodoo House- paint in hand for the first time

More ghosts in this house than just the ones brought by the voodoo rituals which earned the place its name. My first time painting, bet you can figure out which one is mine, luckily under the tutelage of an old great, my thanks are endless Dofi.

The first tracks in the concrete

These were some of the first pieces i came upon in Hong Kong. Streets bustling the air heavy with the scent. I knew my prey must be close. Then down a wide alley off the main road littered with sleeping men, shirtless, faces covered with newspaper to keep out the light i saw the bright tracks of my quarry. A gallery tucked away amongst whizzing cars and hurrying people. There is hope for my project indeed. Later i came to know many of the then unseen writers and the man who first saw what this hidden place could be.

The Hong Kong chapter has passed. The words scribbled, the images pulled from my mind to be splashed out in ink shall not be shared with you. Held within the pages of a black book that holds the voice coming from before I was born and after I died has gone now to the one who holds my heart. And there it shall stay for a unicorn to decided what fate lies ahead for both it and me. The pictures captured I will share. The changes, the thoughts, the feelings are not for you and not for me. All I will say is that it was a time of pulling away, of sloughing off old skin. Of the person I was the only ash left clinging a simple band of silver. A sign of strength and courage but most importantly a tie to love and support. To the unstoppable flow of ancestral qi that will always be there flowing deep. The only memory of Hong Kong to be shared shall be the last night.
A brother found. His eyes all i needed to see to know who he was, the dreams he had before he uttered a word. from a place which to me meant nothing but dreams, clouded valleys, crystal lakes, and the notion of heaven on earth which i never thought to go to. We talked and i knew, knew from his eyes he may break her heart, at least he would leave at some point and maybe she wouldn't be able to wait, already she had waited so perhaps she would. we had only met so briefly yet knew our feet should walk together. He bore my sign on his hand. I asked where it was from. "I got that as a child not knowing what it meant." At every turn signs and omens. As if the eyes were not enough. My fate and his would flow together for a while despite the humble meeting.
There I sat later and later into the night. The fire bringing me a joy from warmth that I had not felt since arriving in Hong Kong where I spent my moments trying to escape it. The voices rose up with the sparks and smokes. A haunting beauty. Words I could not understand, words meant to echo in the peaks of Nepal, but a meaning that my heart knew all to well. Long they sang, and we drank and ate. The sun risen, people come for there morning swim in the ocean but still we sang. Till suddenly she stood up. The beautiful girl whose sparkling eyes first drew me towards the path that now led me to such a foreign land, a place i want to and feel i can call home. She stood and began to run. I leapt up after her. Chasing that girl in the blue dress. A blue which joined the early morning sky and the endless ocean as she dove into the gentle lapping waves. Water washing over us, Loving warmth for the first time as I form my last and most lasting vision of Hong Kong. A mermaid, hands trailing in the water as she stares towards the morning sky smiling. Funny that one can so belong in the oceans and the mountains at the same time. If you rise high enough i guess you pierce heaven so that the waters may rain down. My last vision of Hong Kong, a very good one.