"James and the Giant Peach" or "4 white girls and a crashing balloon

My story of the week comes from a Hot Air Balloon in Yangshuo–Guilin

Picture yourself, a young Chinese child, living in a small farming community between two small town/cities in "inner" china. One day a giant, colorful, floating balloon comes around one of your funny looking mountians–the ones that rise up like pinnacles from an otherwise very flat land. It is odd to see this balloon, but you call hello at the 4 white girls who are hanging over the edge of it. They hollar hello back. They're floating very close to the ground, and the balloon is floating quickly toward the houses in your town.






Picture yourself in a balloon on a siteseeing flight over the mountains between Guilin and Yangshuo. You've already finished using up your camera batteries while floating about 2,000 feet in the air. There were two other hot air balloons up at the same time as you, and you can see one far down below where it has already landed and the crew has begun to fold it up. Your Chinese balloon guide who doesn't speak any english, but doesn say "Hello" everytime he wants to switch spots with someone to move to a different side of the basket seems to be in a holding pattern waiting until the right time to land your balloon in the same location as the other balloon. Slowly your balloon begins to descend toward the ground. You're moving away from the balloon on the ground in an arc around one of the mountains. You figure that you will do a spiral descent (don't worry it's a technical term) around the mountain, and land after a full loop, next to the first balloon on the ground. As you come around the mountain with camera's (that hadn't gone battery dead) at eye. You're getting pretty close to the ground, and you're about to make a pass over a small community with lots of farming fields. Suddenly you hear small voices coming from below: "hello, hello" they call! You think it's a little odd that they're so excited to see a hot air balloon considering there must be tons of tour flights that go up each week. But you hollar hello back at them as you continue your descent. Suddenly there are more and more people hollaring "hello" up at you. You call hello back and wave. The balloon seems to be getting very close to the ground, which is great for better pictures (it was slightly foggy out and the views from up high were a bit mutted), but not so good for clearing the tree that is fast approaching.

Suddenly the four white girls in the giant floating colorful balloon go crashing through a tree. They're headed downward towards the crops of your town... you run in the direction of the balloon, still calling hello!


You crash through a tree. Luckily, you're not in the front of the basket. Laura on the other hand may have come out with some leaves in her mouth. The pilot tells you to bend your knees. Okay the pilot says some words in Madarine and then makes the motion of bending your knees. You know that they told you before you took off, that when you landed you would have to bend the knees, but looking out of the basket you see only cement houses, small ponds, and farm land. You don't think that this looks like the place you're suppose to land. The pilot keeps shooting fire up into the balloon. But the balloon seems to have it's mind set on descending... it's been a long day and it's hungry. You hit down into a rice field... a rather muddy spot to land... but bounce up again.
You see the balloon appear again, rising out of a rice field. It barely clears some of the houses in your town. This is the most exciting thing that's happened in a while so you continue to run after the balloon. The balloon is rising again, but not very quickly. You see it crash through another tree. The four white girls arn't saying Hello anymore. But there does seem to be loud confusion coming from the basket. The balloon starts falling quickly toward the ground, right toward your grandma's field. You run faster to keep up.

You rise up just fast enough to clear the first set of houses. But this whole rising thing just isn't the balloons style. You crash through another tree, and by this time the balloon is determined to make it to the ground. The pilot is once again motioning for you to bend your knees. The balloon hits the ground, bounces a few times, and the basket falls sideways.

You see the balloon hit into the ground. You see four white girls and a Chinese pilot all toppled upon eachother. The four white girls are exclaiming something. Everyone in the village is coming out to see the spectacle. The four whilte girls continue to yell.

The balloon pilot is yelling at you to get out "get out 1 by 1." The people below you are saying they can't move, they're squished. You can't move, you're squished... the pilot continues to say one by one. Finally the ballon basket rights itself and you're able to pull yourself out of the balloon. The 3 or 4 people you were hollaring hello to have multiplied into 40 or more, and there are suddenly 15 children all trying to climb into the balloon. Next to you is an old lady who has one pant leg pulled up, is in a half squat position and is yelling lots of words in Chinese while pointing at you, your ballooon, and then to her crops. Apparently she's not very happy about having a giant Balloon and 4 white girls come plowing through your field and ruin your crops. Suddenly your knowledge of Mandarine is reduced to hello (ni hao) and I'm sorry (duebuche) and the numbers 1-10 that you practice with an eight year old boy who has pulled himslef into the basket next to you.
~~~~This is my story of the week from our Hot Air Balloon Ride over the mountains in Guilin County. Needless to say the kids were really really excited to have a hot air balloon to play on. Apparently the wind (which i couldn't feel) was too strong, and we were landing too quickly. Our crashing point was approximately 9 NINE miles! away from where we were supposed to land, and it took the balloon company 1 local director, and 45 minutes to figure out where we had crashed down, to come get us. Gude times in CHina! The kicker is that I realized as were were about 2,000 feet up in the air–"Hey! We never signed any kind of paper saying that we acknoledged that Hot Air Balloon rides can result in injury and sometimes death." You gotta love China-land. TG we're all perfectly okay, and we left the scene without a scratch, but with a very good story, and some fun video footage.


Along with this, our 5 day vacation in Yangshuo was amazing! It was so refreshing to be out of the city. To see mountains around you and out across the horizon. We rented bikes almost every day as our mode of transportation. One day we went on the Mud Caves tour. After walking around underground through all these caves, you end at a mud hole.... and YES you do get to go play in the mud. And by play, I mean submerge yourself completely. (Jaime Lienskers and Rich, you guys would have loved it!). Next to the mud hold was a "clean water" hole that you could go in to wash off. Needless to say, we were all finding small nuggets of dirt in our scalps for the next few days!


On another day we rented bamboo boats and floated down the Ni Long (?) river. All of us Americans were in our swim suites, jumping off the rafts and swimming, while half the Chinese people we passes had covered themselves in a full outfit of plastic wrap. Apparently they don't swim when they float down a river.

Now it's been back to work for a week. On Monday I get to tackle the task of giving Kindergarteners a test! :( and trying to explain to them that they can't look at eachothers papers, and they can't help eachother.