Acts of kindness

We arrived in Datong after a train journey which was entertaining enough... as expected. No chickens in cages like you often see in Asia but a few giant rice bags and a lot of food, which seemed to be the main way of passing time for our co-passengers. They were licking their fingers out of pickled eggs, plastic lookalike sausages and pickled meats. I promised myself i would be more adventurous when it comes to food and I would apply my resolution as soon as we're in Datong!

When we hopped into the cab at the train station to go to our hotel, our driver gently advised us to avoid putting our seatbelts on. Not that we had taken the habit to do so in Beijing but for once we were trying! Turns out driving in Datong is closer to Ulaanbaatar style than to Beijing style (I still have to tell you about our Mongolian adventures, next post I promise) but it all went ok. We quickly check in before heading for food. Room is great, for 25$ per night you get a jacuzzi style bath tub, a private sauna and both breakfast and... condoms are included, no complains!

We were after some shaomai which seems to be Datong's specialty, some sort of meat dumplings but we end up eating a very good chicken with chillies... or rather chillies with some chicken in it, my mouth is on fire i love it. Datong is a small town, that is to say on Chinese scale, 1 million inhabitants and it's quite obvious they don't see Westerners very often here given that 9/10 person greets us with a big smile and a "helloooo". It's summer, it's hot and everyone is out partying in the streets from 7 to 77 years-old (possibly up to 127). Kids play with big balloons and tiny electric cars, adults jump ropes :) and the cherry on the cake... there's a massive karaoke going on on one of the main squares... and guess who ends up on stage as Datong's guest stars? Yes... us. Unfortunately they don't have any English song in stock so our performance consist in executing some very sophisticated (hum) dance moves as demonstrated by the MC. This seems to be greatly appreciated by the 999999 Datong inhabitants who are in the audience. So appreciated that a girl wants her picture with me after the "performance" and gives me her sandalwood beads bracelet as a gift.

And this is where I'm getting at with this post. Acts of kindness. Today we went to the Yungang Caves which are the main attraction of the city and that was truly beautiful but you'll see the pictures soon and there's the internet if you want to know more ;) What I found more interesting was our ride back to the hotel in what I call, based on a popular southern France expression a "cake" car. A "cake" where I come from is someone who loves driving unecessarily tuned cars, with a big bass boster in the trunk and listen to Techno music "a bit" too loud, you get the picture. Our "cake" taxi driver turned out to be the best taxi in years, he stopped on the way to get us some refreshing sorbets (the ones everyone is eating all day long and which I was dying to try - they also don't seem to melt which is suspicious, but anyway), he had a big smile on his face all the way and rounded down our fare when we arrived.

Those little things put a big smile on my face every single time... usually after a few seconds of hesitation. That tells me I really need to tear apart my "suspicious individualistic Westerner" shell and just embrace the kindess of this people.

Datong I love you!!! :)

ps: Techno music and "mobile disco mopeds" seem to be THE thing in Datong so I guess that makes them "non cake", it's just part of their culture ;)