Beer with Mao...

Robyn says, "Crap, I did something really stupid."

It's 8am, and the heat wave seems to have broken. It is probably only 90 now, freezing compared to the past couple of days. We have planned to once again rent bikes and head out from Yangshou and into the countryside.

"I took a sleeping pill instead of my allergy pill," she explains.

We decide that biking - over unpaved, rocky roads miles and miles and miles through the rice fields and tiny villages - is not the best idea. What better to wake her up than sign up for a tubing trip, we think. Water will help.

Four hours later, we are standing at the top of a small mountain with no less than 600 Chinese tourists. We are all wearing yellow "helmets," orange life jackets, and wet sweat bands on our knees and elbows, meant I think to be protective pads. Beneath us is a pool of water that leads into a small creek. It is about two three feet across, the water can't be more than 8 inches deep, and rocks jut out everywhere. We look like ants. Swarming, yellow-helmeted ants. A man is barking through a megaphone at us, everyone is funneled into a narrow passage way to get on small inflatable rafts. We wait half an hour. The smell of humid bodies is overwhelming. Eventually, about 100 people are put in 50 boats and are just waiting. There is a gate that blocks the entrance to the creek. The gate does not open. In the boats, everyone takes off their helmets and pours hatfuls of water on each other gleefully. We are still with the 500 more in line. A half hour goes by. My sweat sock elbow pads itch. The sky turns a deep gray.

We look at each other, see a bus heading down the mountain, and run out of line, peeling off the silly clothing as we go. We jump on and mime that we want to be taken back to the base. The driver looks confused, but we get to the bottom. There is no bus back to Yangshou for two hours. We walk through the village and find a bar. Peanut shells cover the floor, men scream at each other as they play cards. We point to large bottles of beer. Thankfully, it's cold. We drink one, two. Chairman Mao watches us from a poster on the wall. As the rain beats down, we laugh, thankful that we are not on the river.

Two hours later, soaked people with rainbow-colored bruises on their legs emerge from the water. We giggle. We get on the bus and wait for half and hour, watching a stand-up comedy routine in which a fat man and an overly-made-up woman meow at each other. Hilarity ensues. Finally, the bus starts. I watch karaoke videos all the way back to town. Robyn passes out.