I Grew My Boobs in China (21 page)

“Almost fifteen.”
And no! I’m not in school at all. Do ya have to rub it in?

“Trust me, I’ve been there. High school is really overrated. Kids think it’s so important, but as soon as you’re spit out into the big wide world, it changes. And your friends? They won’t be there forever. After school, everyone goes their own way,” he told me in a practical manner that effectively translated to, “My two cents worth. Take it or leave it – that’s how it is.”

I’d heard this lecture many times from Mom. For some reason, his nonchalant delivery made it seem that much more convincing. He wasn’t saying it to talk me into staying; it made no difference to him either way. He was just a man with an opinion. Annoyed with myself for almost being swayed by his argument, I thought,
Yah, but he’s a weirdo traveller, too. What’s with these guys’ long hair and scruffy beards anyway? He’s just a bum who wants to give up his life to be here. I’m not like him.
I didn’t want to believe any of them, ’cause they just didn’t get how I felt.

“I mean, already you’ve been out how long? A few weeks?” he guessed. “How many of your friends are actually still contacting you? Are they all as connected as you’d hoped and expected them to be?” he asked, truly interested. My brows furrowed and I shrugged. I shook my head uncertainly, not really wanting to answer. I couldn’t help feeling slightly angry and sorry for myself as I was forced to face the unpleasant truth that perhaps I’d been trying to overlook.
He’s right.
My so-called friends, even those I considered my closest friends, had only sent one or two emails, if that. Less than half of them read our family blog. It sometimes felt almost as if I’d never existed, that I had vanished and no one seemed to notice.
Though it hurt to no end, I was in the process of discovering who my true friends were. I began to realize that the people who would always be there for me were those I had usually undervalued and taken for granted, even a few I had only just met. Sandra, our helpful guide through Hong Kong, was a perfect example. Despite our brief, four-day encounter, she often sent me sweet words of support that gave me strength. “Savaaannnii, I am so proud of you.” I could still hear her long, drawn out, “Sandra-ish” accent.

“The opportunity you’ve got here is way better,” he said before I had time to respond.

“Hrmph,” I grunted stubbornly.

Turning his green eyes on me, he said, a bit more forcefully this time, “You’re so lucky. Seriously. I wish
my
parents had taken me travelling when I was younger!” I often got this sort of reaction to the trip from envious travelers I’d met along the way. “Trust me about this,” the anonymous Canadian said firmly. “But hey, I gotta get packing for the trek tomorrow. Good luck, kid.”

“Thanks,” I whispered, burying my face in my palms.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The mystery man staying in our room, Ryan, was yet another scruffy backpacker, this time an American. He had to have been about twenty-five, around Ammon’s age, and he’d been on the road for four months now.
Four months!!!
And he seems to think we’ve done something impressive.

“I cannot imagine travelling with my mom,” Ryan joked, “let alone my whole family!”

“So, how long have you guys been out?” another guest with an accent I didn’t recognize asked. He scooted his chair towards us to get in on the conversation.

Ammon, our leader and the one with the most experience, answered, “Almost two weeks so far.” I could see the mockery his statement evoked in their raised eyebrows. Two weeks wasn’t much to be proud of compared to someone who’d been “out” for four months! I felt I’d already conquered the world, but measured against his travel experience, I was just a pathetic greenhorn.

“But we’re planning to go for about a year,” Ammon quickly added.

“Or two,” Mom jumped in. I don’t know whose eyes grew wider at hearing that, mine or theirs. Two years? I nearly choked.
Since when was it two years?! We haven’t even completed our second week! I’ll be having a word with her later.

The two backpackers didn’t need to say anything. I knew they thought we were insane to think we’d last even two months.
If I could just pick their brains and take their bets, I’m sure they’d wager, “a couple of months, MAX,” just like the rest of my traitorous family at home. No one believes we can do this.
The men slowly nodded in sync.

“Oh, that’s cool! A world-travelling family,” a second man with dirty blond hair and a pointy nose said.
I don’t fit in here. I’m not one of them. I feel so stupid and out of place
.
This isn’t my thing at all, so why do I suddenly feel like I’m competing for something?
The pressure continued with a list of questions we could only answer vaguely. “Have you ever travelled abroad before?” he continued. He was really beginning to get on my nerves.

“I have,” Ammon explained. “I did three month trips in Europe, Southeast Asia, and Venezuela. This is the girls’ first time.”

“What’s your time frame, then?” Ryan asked.
He’s just fishin’ for a good laugh.

“Well, we know for sure that we want to be in Nepal in five months for the trekking season.”

“And what comes after that? Where is the big adventure going to end?” he prompted Ammon to tell him more.

“We’re headed to India from there, and then, who knows?”

“So you only know what you’re doing for the first six months?” the first man butted in. I began to feel we were being interrogated about what seemed a foolish trip, even to me.
How can they take us seriously?

“What’s the route after that?”

“We haven’t planned that far yet.”

“Sounds cool,” Ryan said, the doubt written all over his face belying his words and implying that it was easier said than done.
What do they expect from an unplanned trip? For it to simply unfold into a nice, tidy, year-long itinerary?
Obviously, we look ridiculous,
I thought, angry that Ammon and Mom had put me in such an awkward situation.

I could almost hear the backpackers’ thoughts.
They’re going to kill each other way, way before a year is up,
or
That’s what they think now,
or
Yah, right. When mosquitoes stop drinking blood!
And yet, as I watched Ammon talking, he didn’t look the least bit ashamed. Suddenly feeling insignificant compared to these experienced travellers, I wanted to prove them wrong.
I can’t let them be right. To think they’re assuming we can’t do it!
They think I’m too prissy?
I’ll show them!
I was shocked by my impulse to defend the very trip I hated. In that moment of rage, I wanted to run upstairs, strap my backpack on, and do lots of intense push-ups, but I’d have collapsed in a heap after two of them, so I stayed put with my head held high instead.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Closing the door behind me, I cornered Mom defiantly. “TWO YEARS?! What’s THAT about?”

“Oooh, I don’t know,” she said, backpedalling a bit.

“Two years?!” I repeated coldly.

“Let’s just see what happens.”

“See what happens? You can’t say that. You said a year! ONE year.”

“But who knows what’s going to happen? There’s no huge rush to go home. We already packed it all up.”

“Oh, I KNEW you would do this to me.” Without at least a date to count down to, this trip had become open-ended and could go on forever.

“We’ll just see what happens and see where all this takes us. Maybe we won’t be ready to go home in a year. Right now, though, it’s just one year.” I set my jaw and raised an eyebrow, daring her to continue. “Well, maybe a year and a half.”

Chapter 21

Trekkers

The backpacks would not be trekking the Tiger Leaping Gorge with us. We stored them at Granny’s place, planning to return for them later.
But if there is any justice in the world, they will magically disappear
. Just in case that happened, by some amazing stroke of good fortune, I planned to take some precautions.

“C’mon Savannah, we’re leaving in a few minutes. Get downstairs,” Ammon pushed.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” I said, fiddling aimlessly through our pile of bags in the corner.

“Don’t forget to go pee before we leave,” Mom said.

“Yah, yah, yah,” I waved her away.

I heard a few stairs squeaking and cautiously peeked over my shoulder to make sure they were gone. I reached into my daypack and slid the item out. Oh it was so heavy, so massively huge. “I just can’t take you with me. If only you weren’t so heavy, we could stay together.”

I scanned the room, holding the thick pages to my chest as I searched for the right spot. Stopping in mid-rotation, I knelt down beside a small desk and slipped the drawer open before slamming it shut again.
No!
some book-hungry traveller might think it’s up for grabs.
I walked over to our backpacks which were squeezed between a corner and a bed. A thief would have no use for my treasure, and I simply could not let it be accidentally snatched away. I put it on the floor under the bed, separate from the rest of our things. It had no monetary value, but I had to guard against the possibility that we might be separated before I could finish reading it. Crouching down and slipping
Gone with the Wind
under, I whispered, “Dear Rhett, I’ll be back for you in only three short days,” and secretly kissed him goodbye.

Glaring cynically at my backpack, I casually kicked it on my way out. “I won’t be missing you, you miserable sack of dead weight.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In a few days, we’d be returning to the quiet village to restock on essentials, but right now, the two-hour drive out of Lijiang highlighted an impressive mountain range that towered over us and prompted me to imagine I was immersed in a new level of “Zelda,” carrying “items” and “potions” on my back. Even here, in the nooks and crannies of a deep, rocky gorge, people miraculously managed to cultivate and farm every spare inch. Rice terraces were patched into valleys and balanced precariously over daunting cliff edges.
The spotty green fields blazed brilliantly against the grey stone face of the gorge.
How do they even get up and over there?
I marvelled, as I looked across the narrow gap between towering cliff sides. A few horses were scattered about whenever our trekking trail opened into grassy fields. Men looked up from their work to wave as we passed. It all seemed so mystical.

“This’ll be your second World Heritage Site,” Ammon began.

“A what now?” Bree asked.

“UNESCO,” he said, trying to ring a bell.

She stared blankly. “Oh, you mean the outer space thingy?!”

“No, dork! That’s NASA.”

“So, what is it then?” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Different natural or man-made sites around the world that the World Heritage Committee, elected by their general assembly---”

“You’ve already lost me,” she interrupted, putting her head between her palms and squeezing as she groaned, “Oh, my head.”

“A World Heritage Site is somewhere or something that UNESCO believes has historical or cultural significance to the world,” he tried again, but she had already run away. “It means it’s cool, okay?” he shouted after her.

Though I didn’t quite understand the process Ammon was trying to explain, I did get that this place was special. Looking at all the foreigners around me with their backpacks and hiking boots was proof enough.
There were not a ton of tour buses around, by any means, but it was the largest collection of foreigners we’d seen since Hong Kong. We would pass a few dozen by the end of the trek.
I’ll see this World Heritage Site and I’ll conquer it,
I decided, making it my mission in this still largely involuntary game to collect as many “sites” as I could.

“Legend has it that in order to escape from a hunter, a tiger jumped across the river at the narrowest point, which is still 25m (83ft) wide, and that’s why they call it Tiger Leaping Gorge,” Ammon said, trying something a little more creative that might appeal to Bree.

“They have tigers?!” she exclaimed.

With an exasperated sigh, he clarified, “You’re not going to see a tiger, Bree.”

In that moment, she grabbed me from behind, put her chin on my left shoulder, and directed me where to look. “Is that? Is that THAT guy?!” At this point we were hiking up seemingly endless switchbacks, zigzagging our way slowly and seemingly endlessly up the steep slope.

“Oh my gosh! It’s purple guy,” I said. He was one level above us and was still in the same peculiar outfit we’d first seen him in a few days earlier, hence the name. We never would have recognized him had he not worn his famous purple outfit. We each simultaneously took Mom by one arm, hostage-like, and whispered, “Mom! Look at him! He’s so cute.” We hadn’t had the chance to point him out to her before.

“Yah, he is cute,” she admitted, and we smiled encouragingly, our hands squeezing her tighter, “Oh, you two are so silly!” she said, yanking her arms back. “It’s not happening,” she stated emphatically to try to burst our bubble once and for all.

Not long after, once the trail flattened out and we’d overcome the switchbacks from hell, we again glimpsed the flowing fabric of purple guy’s pants just ahead of us. He was well built and not too short, with very attractive, dark features. There was just a hint of grey hair around the edges, his eyes were warm brown, and most importantly, his nose was not too large.

“Where’s Mom?” I asked stumbling over a small boulder. I followed Bree’s wide-eyed gaze and saw what I hadn’t noticed at first glance; purple guy and Mom had somehow started walking side by side. Purple guy had started a conversation with our Mom! “Oh my gosh, look at her go!” We both leapt behind the nearest small tree. Following as unobtrusively as possible, we snuck from bush to bush. “This is great!” I whispered to Bree, shaking my fists to contain the giddiness I felt. “And she’s laughing, too!” She was blushing when we caught up with her a bit later. We had all learned to live with blushing at the drop of a hat as our own, occasionally embarrassing, family curse, but on its own, it didn’t necessarily mean anything.