2006-07-16

limbo

Let's see if third time's the charm, shall we, as my previous computer decided to go toast on me...
 
I'm back to feeling normal, human, again, after the oddity that was Yangshuo's Vegas-feel, after being sick, after cursing cramps like a drunken sailor (more on this in another post, I promise - I swore like I've never sworn before, believe me), after heat exhaustion and after the surreal experience that was Monkey Island (yeah, it was EXACTLY as surreal as the game might have led me to believe. More so, perhaps, because it was *real*. Very thoroughly weird.)
 
But, still, though I'm back to feeling like myself, we're into a different sort of limbo here, today. We'd been out of the cab all of 15 seconds before Garrett's camera was stolen out of his backpack -- a couple of girls spotted it happen, but not enough to get a helpful witness description or anything, and they helped us call the police, though they were very nervous about the whole thing, being not locals themselves. Everything seemed a little jitters, a little hush hush, a little nervewracking and backhanded. Nothing proper about it.
 
Language difficulties of mine aside, the police officer was as helpful as he could be. He drove us down to the police station (so, now I get to say I've ridden in a chinese police car), and there, We filed a report, one written by my hand, in English, and one document detailling our 'interview' with the officer -- who was even nice enough to put out his cigarette. He kept saying how he felt bad about how this reflected on his country, for us to visit and have such things happen.
 
Playing translator, though tiresome at times, is a practical thing to be able to do, even though I'm not necessarily great at it.... Anyway...
 
More paperwork, this time for insurance claims should we need it, and some sorting out of how to contact us, email being not always the most familiar thing to everyone here -- call out the younger officer, he'll know what this is.
 
And then he took us out to lunch. Offered to buy Garrett a beer (to drown his sorrows, indeed). And then he decided to take us to dinner, at 7:30pm. I've tried every means I know to say that this is hardly necessary, that this is too nice, that we don't want to trouble him at all. But he seems to not take no for an answer. Politesse is difficult at times, almost more so than language.
 
So, I think we're going to dinner with a police officer tonight. It won't make up for the lost camera, nay the lost photos, irreplacable items that they are... but it is still a story to tell, and so I will tell it. I will tell many stories, you might just have to wait until I get home to hear all of them.
 
Tomorrow, we leave the sea behind for the mountains, and though the sea was pretty, and the salt air fine, I admit, I'll be glad to be somewhere new.

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