“Can I Go Home Now?” 

Dali

Yunnan Province

China

May 30, 2014

Dear Fellow Travelers,

Traveling in China can be so frustrating!   I think I’ll go home.

After a four and a half hour bus ride from Kunming to Dali New Town, and after a taxi driver refused to take me to my hotel near the Old City,  and  after a thirty minute bone-shaking, jaw-jarring, teeth-shattering ride in the Chinese answer to the Thai Tuk Tuk,

and after waiting more than half an hour for someone from the hotel to pick me up because the Tuk Tuk driver dropped me off at the wrong gate of the city, and after taking a taxi from the South Gate of the Old City to the West Gate,

and  after checking in at the Jade Emu Guest House that looked like a good hotel on the Internet but was just a notch above a youth hostel, and after all of the above being transacted with a variety of people with whom Icannot communicate,

I ask you, “Can I go home now?”