Temple Burnout

I have been hitting the tourist sites hard lately and upon an unforseen turn of events this morning I rashly turned my heels on Xi'an and got the hell out of dodge. Two plus weeks of busy cities and heavly touristed "must-sees" has burned my fuse short. I like seeing great historical and artistic venues and accept the fact that so does everyone else. Marauding crowds are the hidden cost in an admission ticket. Knowing I needed an escape last night I planned a trip to Taibai mountain a couple hours outside Xi'an. It's a 3700 m mountain whose precipice I knew would hit the reset button. I got up early to catch the only bus of the day to the mountain. Despite the beautiful weather I was the only person going on the bus and it thus got cancelled. I quickly found a bus to Hua Shan mountain which promises fantastic scenery. However, it became apparent that that was also the direction floods of tourists were heading. With iPods and cell phones a-blaring, I pulled the plug and got off the bus before it left the station. As if it were divine intervention, the original Taibai bus driver motions for me to get back on the bus and in broken english said he is now going to Taibai - pending a 6.5 hour detour to Famen Temple. Well, it was 'intervention' all right, but I don't know about 'divine'.

Needless to say, I am now in Yuncheng. It was only a couple hours away and my guidebook dedictes all of three sentences to it essentially saying it is an obscure part of 'rural' China that is worth a stop. Well, I got what I wanted. I don't think a tourist has ever purposely stopped here. I am getting the quizzical 'what the hell are you doing here?' looks again. Now, apparently my definition of rural is slightly different than my guidebook's; or rather should I say, completely opposite. It's a busy, dirty city - but there are no bands of tourists with bright-pink matching baseball caps!! After three-attempts to purchase a train ticket for tomorrow (one of the downsides of obscurity I guess) I took to wandering the streets. And I have to say, I was quite pleased. I stumbled upon several blocks of food vendors all with mobile cooking carts, stackable stools and folding tables. They overtook the sidewalks and reduced the four lane road down to a one lane snaking path in what seemed like an effort to feed the whole town. Well, you guessed it - I stuffed my face. It was awesome. Amazingly, with hundreds of stalls, I saw very little of the same thing. My personal favorite: an 18-inch wrap of sorts cooked with egg and filled with cilantro, chives, lettuce, fried crispy thing and somesort of spicy sauce. I topped off my two dinners with ice cream, a haircut, a beer and a basketball size bag of freshly made caramelized popcorn all for under $4.50. This was the escape I needed. Tomorrow, Pingyao.

18th Final Four Appearance.

GO HEELS!