out of Xi'an

We left Xi'an with a little stone of regret in our hearts. Our last day we asked a man hunched over his cigarette if he'd take us on his motorcycle ricksha to the temple of the Eight Immortals just past the eastern gate of the city.

He grunted at us and when we asked how much, he pulled out a big stak of bills and flipped through till he found a five. He pointed and held up four fingers and said "si."

The bike sputtered to life when he pulled up hard on the strin (like a lawnmower, Sky pointed out) and we were off, headlong into the chaotic stream of Chinese street traffic sitting in a handmade box held together by rusty bars that swayed perilously from side to side with each bump and shudder of the carriage. He kept smoking and it blew back in our faces along with the car and bus exhaust. We saw he had a crutch wedged into his seat just by his left hand.

We passed the city walls and men sitting in the dirty street doing nothing, spitting. We swerved around pedestrians in the tree-lined bike lanes that ran parallel to the street, and he said, "Ey, hey Ey!!" in his brusque way instead of using a horn.

He didn't stop for anything or anyone, not oncoming buses or bicycle rickshas carrying huge towers of bags, although they were pedaled slowly by skinny old men who strained their whole bodies with every awful downward push. Their bags were piled three times higher than they were tall, lashed down with plastic string to their little carts.

Our driver cursed and cut them off so close we could've pushed them over with our elbows.

He drove us onto the curb and over the sidewalk where some women had spread a sheet with sandals woven out of straw and other colorful things. People were moving everywhere all the time. Past the blue tarps where they were digging up the roads we got into a maze of funky alleyways tumbling over with people and their garbage, projects, animals, kids.

It was like taking a tour through a dream of China. We met so many eyes and lost them again just as fast. The sky and the buildings were concrete grey. An old man sat by a wall with its bricks exposed. He was dressed in white with a long white beard pointing at his belly and a fat white topknot on the crown of his head. His face was classic... he looked like Lao Zi before he got on his water buffalo.

The barrel ovens were on full blast with flames shooting out of their bottoms and wooden steamers on top. Men with hard hats and women with babies gave us long glances.

We sputtered along until he jerked the carriage over and stopped, his arm flung out to show us we'd arrived.

"Should we give him a tip?" we wondered. "Yeah, of course!! How about 6 yuan?"

We pulled out the extra yuan from our wallets and passed it up to him saying our thank yous with smiling faces. It was such a fun ride and we were in a pleasant mood.

He shook the money at us and was saying something gruffly, but we said, "no, really, keep the change. It's for you," as we climbed down out of the carriage.

He kept talking loudly as he clambered down off his seat and took up his crutch, and he followed us quickly on his one leg, and grabbed Sky's backpack and yelled that we owed him 15 more.

Sky was bewildered and gave him a ten and he yelled for five, and a crowd had already gathered and stood laughing and pointing. I said to them "does anyone speak English? A little English?" And the one-legged ricksha man bared his stumpy brown teeth and growled at us for more money.

I got angry and threw my hands at him saying, "NO NO NO NO NO!!!! NO NO NO!! You said it was 4! We gave you 15!!! That's twice as much as a real taxi! Fuck off! We won't pay you a dime! Go away!"

If i would've been more present of mind i would've taken back our ten and left him with five, but i was so mad he kept standing there yelling at us i didn't know what to do.

Finally we pulled away from him and went into the temple. We could hear him bellowing as we bought our tickets. Someone was arguing with him and he was yelling back like a wounded animal, like we'd mistreated him terribly.

The temple was beautiful.