The Fine Art of Peeing in a Ditch

The one thing I absolutely loathe about China is the lack of proper toilets. Those hole-in-the-ground-you-have-to-pee-by-squatting apparatuses make me cringe every time. I'm a girl -- how am I expected to pee that way?! So when we decided to trek westward for fall break, towards rural Yunnan and Sichuan, I had to put on a brave face and come to terms with the fact that I'd be using nothing but "squatties."

Five hours into a bumpy bus ride and two bottles of water later, I was bursting with thoughts of shiny automatic-flush toilets and marble sinks. Alas, what greeted me at the makeshift rest stop was an outhouse made out of mud, and three little children asking for a 50 cents fee for using their "bathroom."

I hurriedly deposited the coins in their eagerly awaiting palms before standing in line behind my fellow travelers. I held my breath in anticipation of the stench that will inevitably waft up my nostrils. When it was my turn to step behind the tiny cloth drape that doubled as the door, I realized why there was a such a long line to begin with; there were 3 ditches lined up next to one another, with the teeniest of mud walls to separate each one. We being Westerners have an innate sense of privacy that non-Western people don't recognize. The shame of seeing each other with our pants down forced us to go in one at a time, while the locals watched us curiously and asked each other in Chinese "How come they can't see that there are 3 stalls in there?!"

As I squatted down, I realized that these ditches were more advanced than I thought. They were carefully dug, so that it slanted down towards the holes in the outhouse wall. Where everything will inevitably end up...I didn't want to walk around the area to find out.

But the silver lining of this experience? I realized that peeing outdoors in the open air is TEN TIMES better than peeing indoors with bad plumbing. Oh, and about 2 hours after that bathroom incident, we had the chance to see this:

2,685 meters above sea level

If you're ever craving a rush, drive up the mountains in Yunnan Province in China. There are no barriers on this road. It's just you, your car and the treacherous fall down that awaits if you steer the wheel even one degree in the wrong direction. In order to reach your destination, you will spend hours twisting and turning through the cliffs. Every few feet it will feel as if your car is going to go straight off. It's incredibly exciting, albeit in a I-can't-believe-I-survived-that-turn-oh my god-I'm-going-to-die kind of way.

So what else would a bunch of 20-year-old college students do? One chilly day in October, we crammed into a bus and set off for Lugu Lake. To alleviate the fear of our bus flying off the cliff, we sang Disney songs most of the way. And then it started to rain...and we heard the wheels squealing against the road...we saw our lives flashing before our eyes...

But miraculously, we made it to the top in one piece. And what did we see?

(Lugu Lake panoramic taken by Nancy Wu)

2,685 meters above sea level lies this beauty, nestled in between the mountains that border Yunnan and Sichuan Provinces. Your first glimpse of this lake will take your breath away, literally. You have to inhale and pinch yourself a few times to make sure you're not dreaming. The surrounding area is hazy, as if you're in the clouds. The water ripples softly in the daylight, a blue so clear you can see yourself in it...

You will start to believe that there might be someone up there working magic after all.