Me in a mini skirt and boob tube??

Posted by Mark on Nov 30, 11:09 PM

Things are going well… relatively. Yesterday went pretty much as planned. The wall was tricky in places, especially in one location where it entered a valley. Here the wall basically went down in graduations of up to 2m. Think of stairs made for a 40m tall giant. I basically had to climb down using gaps in the stone work as foot and hand holds. At the end of the giants staircase I was confronted with thick brush, thorns and vines. At one point I was completely tangled and spent five minutes just trying to break free.

Once in the valley I was confronted by steep rock faces. I could see the wall running up the mountain – it looked spectacular. Although I would normally have tackled a section like this in full health, I would have been pushing it in my current state. Instead I followed the road that ran through the valley for about 2km before detouring parallel to the wall. It turned out to be a fortunate decision for one hapless creature.

As I passed a section of road lined with old concrete blocks, a massive dog was perched on one of the mounds. At first I thought he was waiting for a bit of Aussie meat but as I came closer I was surprised at how non-threatening he was. He was simply looking at me then looking down at the blocks.

As I passed the dog started barking. I was surprised by the bark since it sounded more like it belonged to a small terrier then this big brute. Looking back at the dog I hear the bark again but the dogs mouth isn’t moving. Damn… a ventriloquist dog! That’s a first for me.

As it turned out however, this was not the case. Instead the dog was being a Lassie hero and was standing over and seemingly pointing with his snout the location of a small dog, about the size of a rabbit, that had become stuck underneath the blocks.

It was a cute little thing with small beady eyes. I reached down to try and pull him out but as soon as my fingers got close to the scruff of his neck he growled viciously. I tried a number of times but got the same result. I gave up and left him there. The last thing I needed was a dog bite to contend with. I only walked 20m before I stopped, turned around and went back to the helpless little pooch.

Surveying the scene I developed a construction plan. Basically I would dig him out. Not so easy given the size and weight of the concrete blocks. I would also have to be careful to avoid collapsing the blocks on top of the dog.

As I commenced my concrete block relocation program a man walked past, took one look at me then quickly moved on. I could have used his help but my customary language improvisation would have resulted in me doing something like barking, pointing at the ground and doing a digging motion. After visualising this in my mind I decided to give it a miss.

In the end I got the dog free. He didn’t seem too grateful though and just wandered off. But knowing that you’ve done right is reward enough. I don’t suppose I really wanted him to shower me with love by licking me to death or deciding that by some Chinese dog custom he was indebted to follow me everywhere I went until he could reciprocate.

Today was basically an easy day. In this area the wall appears to vanish in places only to reappear, normally heading up a steep mountain and then terminating at a cliff like decent. So… bitumen pounding again. At least it gave me the chance to make up a bit of distance.

One thing that I have noticed in the province I’m now in (Hebei) is that hitching a ride is much more difficult. In the past I simply stuck out my thumb and normally the first vehicle that came past would stop. I don’t think I could have gotten a ride quicker if I was a gorgeous girl leaning over the bonnet of a broken down vehicle, wearing a mini skirt and halter top barely able to contain a pair of double ‘D’ breasts.

Here it has taken me up to an hour to get a ride so getting back to town at the end of the day has been tricky. Don’t worry… I’m not about to don a mini skirt and boob tube to try and improve my chances, so you can get that image out of your head right now. In any case it’s not a pretty one. Well for most people anyway.