A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
OK, if I didn't have six hours to kill before my train I wouldn't be posting quite so much today, but what the hey. It's better than going back to sit at the weird travel agency.

The most interesting part of the rainy drive from Chengdu to catch the boat was at the border to the large special municipal district of Chongqing. After going through the tollagate, all buses were stopped and a masked, lab-coated man with surgical hair covering got on and walked up and down the aisle looking at us and at the luggage, or at least at something over our heads. He never spoke, so we don't know for sure, but there was some speculation that he was checking to see if we had adequate ventilation. In any case, we were all trying like hell not to cough or sneeze in his presence.

Up until this week, the Chinese government has been telling everyone not to worry about SARS, but they're really been kicked in the teeth now. They've closed schools in Beijing, set up border checkpoints, required mandatory checkups for all university students and faculty, cancelled the week-long Labor Day holiday at the beginning of May, and told everyone to stay put and not move around the country. Looks like they're getting a bit more concerned that they were previously willing to let on. Particularly after they were forced to admit this week to massive under-reporting of SARS patients in Beijing -- seems they were shuttling them to military hospitals, which weren't included in the official reports to the WHO. Tsk, tsk.

Apart from the border check, I hadn't really seen any sign that people were concerned about SARS in this area of China until today, unless you count the fact that there were few people traveling on our Three Gorges boat. Here in Yichang, however, which is in a province adjacent to Guangdong province where SARS got started, I'd say about 5% of the people I see are wearing protective masks. It's probably a good thing I'm only going to be here in China another week and a half.

Copyright 2003 Katy Warren


posted by Katy at 8:15 AM