.....and up into the hills, toward the mountains. The bus-driver was pretty crazy, passing on curves and passing multiple trucks in a row. I couldn't look out the front windowof the bus, but Kevin and Andi had no choice, as they had the front seats! We rode the bus for 6+ hours, toward Tibet.
****Then, the bus pulled over to the side of the road, some armed police officers boarded the bus, and said, "There are four foreigners. Four foreigners, get off the bus!" Kevin, Andi, Chris, and I gathered up our stuff, and followed the directions given. Our back-packs were unloaded from the baggage compartment, underneath the seating. Qing got off the bus, too, and amid a lot of crying and sadness at the turn of events, Qing and Melody were encouraged to continue on their way, while "Four Foreigners" joined the group of other road-side foreigners who had been waiting there for up to five hours. In small groups, passengers from Israel, Italy, Wales, England, America, New Zealand, and the Czech Republic had been taken off other buses. All Chinese people had been sent on. A bus-load of Japanese tourists was stopped and sent back, while we observed. When the new "foreigner bus" was full, we were counted (4 times), cash was paid to the driver, and we were sent back down the hills, to the east.
Chris got photos of the "incident", but one of the officers came up, took the camera (thats cord was still wrapped around Chris's wrist), and made sure that all photos taken were deleted. (Then he gave the camera back.)
So, waving "good-bye" to Qing, at 7 pm, our new bus driver went careening down the hill, passing on curves, and croaking up and spitting out big loogies every ten minutes, all the way, for the 6 hour trip back to Chengdu. We were dropped off in the middle of the city at 1:30 am, not near any transportation opportunities, to fend for ourselves. We got a taxi to the North Train Station, where hundreds of men, women, teen-agers, and children were sleeping (some, on newspapers) all over the loogie -covered parking lot and sidewalks.....sometimes little naked children.....a sea of humanity.
We stood in a long line of people at 2 am, and managed to buy tickets for an 8 am train, back to Chongqing. We went to a nearby KFC, which only served soda pop and rice-with-fungus soup. Played some cards. We tried to put our heads down to rest, but a KFC guard came through every-once-in-awhile with a megaphone recording , telling people to "wake up and get out." As there were 30 people sleeping on tables in there, at any given time, heads came up for a couple of minutes, and then went back down.
Finally, at 8 am, we got on the train, to find that, though we had paid full price, there were no seats available. ("Standing room only") We four sat on the rubber mat in front of the train door, leaning on, lying on, and sitting on our backpacks.
Why were we turned back? This is the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, and the Chinese officials do not want foreigners talking to Tibetan people, creating "international incidents." Apparently, they have widened the zone of forbidden territory to include Tibetan regions of western China. We have read recent news articles about crackdowns in Tibet and in western Sichuan. We can only hope that the Tibetan people know of the world's continued concern over human rights violations and the future of their people, religion, and culture. "Seven Years in Tibet" is a good movie to increase awareness of the recent history and struggle in Tibet.
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The "Ba" people reminded us of the Native North Americans:
