Loneley Planet

Word on the street, well, up in da mountains is that Tashi's is the next edition of the Bible.

Thought this might warrant a few words.

Without a shadow of doubt, the over-riding thought that enters my head is thanks. No, not to LP, but to all the people I met in Yunnan and told them that I have guesthouse, and would they like to come check it out and and they said, "YES." Seriously, I thank everyone one of you personally, AND more importantly thankful for your adventurous spirit. I'm thankful that you guys realize that traveling is about the people the places and having a little trust in strangers and humanity. I hope you guys go on to have heaps and heaps more adventures.

The guidebooks are there to help, but they're not prescriptive... so chances are, if some guy accosts you in a bus station and says he wants to help you out, chances are he probably does.... and doesn't want to rob you, kill you, or whatever else you can think of.

Which leads me on to all the travel-bible-bashers who were rude to me in the bus station. You'd be really surprised how many there have been over the past three years, considering travellers make themselves out to be free-thinking, tolerant kinda people ..... well .... I guess I'll be seeing ya in my guesthouse now that we're in the Bible, and you're more than welcome.... But it's kinda ironic, don't you think? That I've been trying to help you guys out for years, but you've ignored, blanked, walked away or been plain rude to me, cus you were determined to have you LP prescriptive adventure and Tashi's couldn't possibliy feature in your plans as it was outside of your known world.
Well, now Tashi's is in LP, and you'll be knocking on the door asking for your fix of prescriptive travel adventure....

So, I guess you can tell from this post... it's bitter sweet....

Can I say, just one more time, how thankful I am to the kinda people I met who just rolled with it and came up to the house to check it out and not only stayed but wrote such amazing comments in the guestbook.

Here's a typical scenario I've done dozens of times in Deqin bus station

Me: Hey man, I have a guesthouse here in Deqin, it's the only real Tibetan Guesthouse around, you wanna come check it out?
Traveler: Where is it?
Me: It's on the way to Fei lai Si, on the main road to Tibet. Why don't you come and check it out? If you don't like it, I'll pay for a cab for you to go to another guesthouse....
Traveler: Ok, let's check it out....

SWEET! That's traveling! Gut decision making at it's best...

I've hitch-hiked all over and what I love is that snap decision you need to make before you get in the car. You have less than 30seconds of face time to decide whether the person is going to be beneficial to your trip or not. It's all intuition. Sometimes you can make a bad call, but the more you do it the better you get at it..... this is travelling. Thinking on your feet, looking someone in the eyes and asking yourself, "Are my adventures going to be better for crossing this person's path?"
As oppossed to, "Don't look at me, don't talk to me, leave me alone... I"M TRAVELLING!"

Yah, met plenty of these people in Deqin....

You know, I've approached people in the bus station, who blanked me, then 40 minutes later I've seen them still walking around with their packs, looking like forlorn lost puppies, so I've gone up to them and said;
"Look, I know you don't wanna come to my guesthouse, that's cool! But I do have a house here and know the place pretty well... what do you wanna do? Where do you wanna go? I'll help ya, no charge, just help."

And......

They still blanked me and refused my help ... This has happened more than a few times.

Guys.... this is not adventure. Figuring it out on your own, isn't adventure.

Adventure is the crossing of paths.... If you wanna find adventure but refuse to cross paths with people who are mostly strangers, then you'll always be having a second rate experience....

So, here's shout out to many more people crossing paths... and you don't need a guidebook for that!

I rest my case....