Hi, John,

I arrived in Kunming about 48 hours ago. It is quite the place. I just got back from a meal with the president of SWFC, Mr. Li, Zhan Hui, an elder Japanese man, and the two other teachers here. There also was a foreign expert there named Gary from Idaho who studies beetles here. Yunnan is a hotspot for tiger beetles, of which there 145 species, 78 living in Yunnan. The larvae live in tobacco plants and prey on harmful insects to this valuable cash crop. Consequently they receive virtually unlimited funding from the government. There have been two new species they've discovered. He's been here for four years; possibly you've met him. We went out for mushroom hotpot and drank plenty of moutai--especially Yoshizawa-sama. Forgive my tipsy fingers if there are typos. The president happens to speak Japanese (as do I somewhat) and there were quite a number of toasts. I ate click beatles (bamboo worms) and dragonfly larvae. It was an excellent feast.

I am impressed with the college. We had a tour yesterday of the campus and met some students conducting some plant research. There is cooperation going on between SWFC and the Field Museum of Chicago and the Nature Conservancy (Mr. Li is fond of wearing a jacket from that institution). I met the province's foremost authority on GIS (geographic information systems), and an insect expert who had quite a collection of bugs.

People stare a lot at me here. At the same time, I feel like I have a lot of privilege. It's not like being a foreigner in the US, that's for sure. I can pretty much go where I want and do what I want and people are pretty accommodating. Language is a problem however, but that will improve as I learn more Mandarin. It is amazing seeing people practicing taichi in the morning (I'm going to try to join them in the morning), retired people playing "mangjiu" (?) Chinese croquet. One lady said that she is my "nupengyou" which means girlfriend, hehe. That's all I could understand.

There are so many different types of vehicles on the road--electric scooters, bicycles, horsecarts, tractors-like contraptions, three-wheeled bike taxis. General madness and sensual overload, but that's what I was seeking. My apartment is a welcome sanctuary at the end of the day.

This is all in two days. This excludes the Orwellian medical exam which is a chapter in itself, especially the ultrasound organ exam; the paperwork at the PSB; the market (!!!). Exhausting but fascinating. A fellow teacher, also a fellow Iowan, is a funny guy. He sent some of the "hell money" that people burn for their ancestors here in China to his congressman and to Pat Robertson. It actually says "Bank of Hell" on it. Hehehe.

School starts next week. There is a lot of development on and around campus, including new apartments for the faculty where we will be moving in October. Looks good. I'll let you know how that all goes. We should be meeting the English dept. faculty soon.

This is less than 48 hours in Kunming.

Ryan

Dear Zhan Hui and Mr. Li,

I am currently en route to China. Yesterday morning at 4:00, I was supposed to fly from Cedar Rapids to Chicago and then from Chicago directly to Hong Kong, but my first flight out of Cedar Rapids was cancelled because of bad weather. So they put me on another plane to Denver, and from Denver to Los Angeles and from Los Angeles to Hong Kong.

When I arrived in Denver, the flight was delayed by two hours so I missed my connection in Los Angeles. I arrived in LA at 2:00 this morning and stayed at a hotel near the airport, and that is where I am right now. Today they've got me on a new flight from LA to Tokyo and from Tokyo to Hong Kong. I think I should arrive in Hong Kong on Saturday evening.

When I arrive in Hong Kong, I will take the train to Guangzhou and go to the CITS office next to the train station. I'm having problems buying a plane ticket from Guangzhou to Kunming because Dragonair's website doesn't book flights before Aug 31, China Southern's English website is down, and China Southwest Airline's website doesn't even work.

Flying is my preference, but I may have to take the train. I'll call you when I arrive in Guangzhou with more information about my arrival. It seems that every step of this trip is fraught with obstacles, but overcoming obstacles make us greater people.

Even if I have to swim, I will make it to China.

Ryan

P.S., When I was in Denver, I had a eight hour stopover, so I called a friend. He picked me up from the airport so we could go out to eat. We never made it to a restaurant because his car broke down on the highway, and his girlfriend had to give me a ride back to the airport.

Near Macs Inn, Idaho.

I awoke to a cold morning and immediately ventured out, into Mountain Time, through Stinkingwater Pass, the Great Basin, across the state line, into Idaho. Through the encroaching suburbia of Boise, across the scrubland and ubiquitous brown mountains that define southern Idaho's landscape. Upon arrival in the county town of Fairfield (pop. 394), I got directions to Worswick Hot Springs. It was about a 20 mile venture into wildnerness, up and down the V-shaped mountains that give name to the Sawtooth National Forest. With some helpful maps, I finally came upon the springs. And there were real live cowboys there! Border collies, horses, hats and moustaches. I found the source and found it to be much too hot. In frustration, I followed the stream down a little, and there it was. Paradise. Hot bubbling water from the Middle Earth. I drank it, swam in it, absorbed and utterly alone (cowboys were long gone).

I continued down Highway 20 through the Craters of the Moon National Monument, complete wasteland and then into the wasteland of the Idaho National Laboratory where the sun was obscrued by a strange haze. In the middle of the Lab is the world's first nuclear reactor EBR-1 and some machinery destined to create a nuclear powered plane (Kennedy shut it down). I was utterly alone there as well and ate lunch in this ominous environment. I was hungry anyway.

Now I am parked in a gas station parking lot about 15 miles from West Yellowstone, Montana. A sound of a helicopter distracted me for a moment until I saw it lifting off immediately before me, and an ambulance pull away, and a lone car circle the lot after that in awkward loops. It just sat there with its lights on.

27 mi West of Burns, Oregon

A journey of 11,000 miles began today. I left Eugene with a tear in my eye and headed eastward, up through the Cascades where a forest fire impeded my march, made my eyes burn, and the air hazy and smelling of campfires. On through Sisters, Oregon and Brothers, Oregon and into the high desert, scrubland, wide open spaces and Highway 20 unfurling before me, the longest road in America.

This is the way to China. Tonight I am holed up in my car in a rest stop outside Burns, Oregon and the Burns Indian Reservation.

There's a wagon train of long haul semis around me, one carrying bales of hay whose fragrance add character to the starry night. A lonely streetlamp provides what little light I have to scribble this on a notepad. Not much to report on this lonely night, a deep swaying feeling in my soul to suddenly be so far awway from Yuka (and getting farther). Two hundred fifty miles down, 1750 to go.

It was one year ago today that I made a remark about going West. I made it out to Oregon, and in fact, a week ago today, I was on that edge of North America, where Lewis and Clark saw the mighty Columbia River surge into the great Pacific Ocean. With my good friend Jason Walker , we traveled on Highway 101, from Astoria to Newport, Oregon. We camped in Cannon Beach, watched over by the rock from the Goonies. Enough said. Pictures soon, and we'll get into Mt. St. Helen's as we were there too.

It was one year ago today that I said I might take this project worldwide, and now I am. In two weeks I will be on an airplane to Hong Kong. I have my Work Visa and Work Permit, am authorized entry and have a job at Southwest Forestry College. This, too, involves going west, so far west that it becomes East, and then I shall continue going west, always West, across Hong Kong to into the Mainland via Guangzhou and finally Kunming, Yunnan Province, People's Republic of China.

Right now I am in Eugene, Oregon...hobo jungle. Great place, a number of great people I have met, including a good Bhutanese friend named Pema Chhophyd who's been to Amish Iowa and a guitarist Nick Moore from my 7000 inhabitant hometown of Washington, Iowa (who'd guess?!?). He played at Washington Sesquicentennial back in '89. More about that later. If you can't wait, check out Nick & me, along with the great master of drumming Kenny Reed (he once played on Monk's piano) at Papa's Soul Food Kitchen (it's at the bottom of the page if you're following the link) on Friday night 11 August in Eugene. If you can't make it, keep your ears out for the music.

In order to get to China, I'm going to drive my car back to Iowa via the great and historic coast-to-coast US Highway 20. I'll join the road in Corvallis, Oregon (whose Beavers are erstwhile champions of college baseball), cutting through Yellowstone to Sioux City, Iowa (to visit Tommy Bolin's grave and Al Capone's house), and fly out from Cedar Rapids. The driving part will happen next week. The town where the Wright Bros. once had a bicycle shop will be my airbourne departure.

The flying part will take place after a few stops in Omaha & Iowa City to see Andrew Michael Jackson and Nima "The Muslim" Sahbet, Mo-T of Khartoum, and Volkmann, who once stared down a drunken Morroccan on top of a hotel in the Rif Mountains, Chefchaouen, Morrocco.

Many thanks to everyone's support and excitement. As always, Yuka, you're #1! My light, my love, and my important person. Mom & Dad & family. Then the list gets long. I pray to repay my debt of gratitute to these people (and twice as many as what's listed because I'll forget): Adrian of Donegal, Deeznuts, Elodie from the Alps (my hero!), Jet-C, Jim & Chieko, Kenny R., Mark & Mika & Sen, Mathilde, Maxime de bourgeouis Portiers, Dr. Meyer, Nick Moore, Nakazono-sama, Pu Li, Mr. Shufro my mentor, Suresh the Brahmin, SWFC alums who've paved the way: John & Leigh & Zhan Hui, Tomo-chan, Wingert, Yancy, Ziols...there are more of you out there, don't worry.