There is a Rainbow Gathering here in California on Shasta Mountain sometimes. I do not know if it is annual or what but I used to live on the road to it and the traffic heading up to the mountain was quite the interesting parade.
Your story reminds me a lot of that movie Biloxi Blues I think it was called. Had Mattew Brodrick in it. At least you didn’t have to go through the shots and then get sent home.
I got the shots and then got sent home after three months of staring at walls. That was quite the experience, lemme tell ya!
Where is that? I can’t find any clues of its location within California online, although an official-looking website says it’s in “Upstate California”. 
I’ve lived in this state for almost 10 years and have never heard those two words next to each other before, and have no idea what they mean when combined.
Go to Google Maps at
then search for:
Mt. Shasta, California
Wow! That’s way up there, almost in Oregon. I’m on the other side.
I’d like to say “took me long enough,” but actually, my mother tracked down the notebook while I was out tonight. It’s quite warped, and it still has a blue sticker reading “Marley!” on the cover. The spine has all but peeled off on both sides, I had to Scotch Tape it back on years ago. I had forgotten, by the way, that when I kept this journal I was going through a “damn The Man, I’m ignoring the margins!” phase. Doesn’t make it easier to re-read. I didn’t say much about this swim, unfortunately, but here’s what I have.
September 10, 2000
18:45 CST
“…I drew a round of applause for my otter-like swim over the last section of the trip: I had my camera (ruined due to water anway), pen and journal held up in my right hand while I thrashed along with my legs and left hand. I clambered up the rocks and tried to remain clean during a dodecadirectional muck fight. I took my shirt off before it started because the swimming had made it so wet and heavy (it was already extremely dirty). I didn’t get hit much, just once lightly on each shoulder, and I didn’t really nail anyone either. I was mostly trying to stay clean and protect this journal.”
Ken Burns I’m not.
1985 - first trip to China when the country was kinda opened up to independant (non tour) travellers.
First tried to hitch a ride with Tibetan truck drivers to Lhasa. 4 days by long distance west of Chengdu, Sichuan (a city open to foreigners and the last big civilized city) my truck driver buddies had left without me. My buddy got severe altitude sickness since we were around 3,800 M or 12k feet. Did 2 days backtrack by bus and then had the police telling us to go back to Chengdu since it was illegal for foreigners to be out that way in Western Sichuan.
Well, found out I could buy bus tickets sorta south through the Tibetan country so away we went. 2 days by bus with a brief stop in one of the highest inhabited cities in the world (Litang at 4700 meters or nearly 16k feet). Stuck in a town called Xiangcheng for a few days waiting for the next bus. Police took exception to our presence but was cool as long as we left town. Another day’s bus ride to Derong, which was the end of the road - literally. It was a deadend although it was shown on maps as going through to Yunnan province. Actually road was under construction but was probably in year 1 of a 5 year project.
This was the first time I earned the distiction of being the first foreigner ever to visit. Remember in 1985 it was a 5 day bus ride to get to somewhere that had never had foreigners before. Crowds of tibetans came by to get a look.
Police were on us like white on rice. We were going to have to go back 5 days by bus to Chengdu. But one tiny problem - there was no bus for 10 days. Neither did we want to take a 5 day bus ride back the way we came. First, we demanded and were allowed to visit a tibetan monastary 10 km outside of town way up a mountain and build inside of a large cave. We were only allowed to go by being escorted by a policeman and a doctor (paranoid we would croak on the trail). Both the cop and the quack were waaaaaaaay out of shape, and I took perverse pleasure in walking them into the ground. Actually, nice guys stuck with the job of baby sitting foreigners.
Some Tibetans that befriended us then hooked us up with some doctors going out to their remote posting. We joined the bus and drove for about two hours to one of the upper reaches of the Yangzi River. The doctors asked if we were willing to do something to cross the river. My Chinese is pretty dang good but I didn’t know what the hell they were talking about until I saw the cable going about 50 meters across the river. Said no problemo, but I didn’t want to be first. So, a few minutes later I sat on a t-bar pulley sliding from one bank to the other of this big ass river. i got photo’s of it too.
So, now we have to hike two hours up the mountain to a Tibetan village. IT was something out of the land that time forgot. We hung out in the monastary where the youngish head monk spoke fluent Chinese (very rare) as well as a couple of hundred words of English. the power in the village was split between the police and the monastary. After 2 days of being promised horses and a guide, the police basically said we were going to have to go back the way we came.
Local tibetans said “no problem - walk that way for 2 days, and you’ll get to Benzilan in Yunnan Province. The police don’t talk between the provinces so you’ll be fine.”
So, we hike for a long day. Mountain trail that followed the contour of the ridges. Up and fucking down for a whole day. We’d meet people on the trail and start speaking in Chinese. It was bizarre. The Tibetans usually had maybe 50 words of Chinese. So we’d chat for a few minutes and then off on our respective merry ways.
Found a village near dark. Bought some barley bread, refilled the water bottles, and then camped in a field near the village. The village came to see us that evening, and the kids got so much brush the bonfire was shooting 20 feet high. Good thing because it was very cold. That night as we watched the full moon rise slowly illuminating the mountains, realized it was Thanksgiving.
Next day I’m getting mighty fucking tired of going up and down the ridges. Decided to decend to the road that was being built. Well, in hindsight not such a bright idea. First, hit a small creek feeding into the big river. There were 2x6 planks across the gap and probably a 10 meter drop down into the very steep sided creek that went into the very big upper reach of the Yangzi river. Well, I just walk across those planks - in the middle figure out that the planks were bouncing up and down about 6 inches with each step. Also the planks were not much longer than the gap and it was quite disconcerting to see the boards bounce down and look like they were going to just pop of the lip and tumble down in the water.
Well, got across that and didn’t even have to change my shorts. Which honestly, at that point didn’t matter since I hadn’t bathed for a few weeks and the shorts were one of 2 grotty pairs. My buddy was pretty freaked getting across and he outweighs me by about 60 pounds. He took an alternate route across a log and some little local guy put on his pack and floated across those planks like a tightrope walker.
These guys said something about “blasting” but I didn’t really get it.
So after crossing the creek we walk a few minutes and things seem wrong on this road that is being built. It was dusty and rocks all over. So, we start walking fast, have to climb over jumbles of rocks, and literally about 100 meters past that spot the mountain exploded. Shock wave rocked us, ears were ringing, rocky schrapnel fell on top of us and a dust cloud went over everything. Blasting, new road, dust, duh. I’ll never know if the blasters checked and saw some idiots going over the road/trail or they just blasted away.
Kept walking and at one point passed the telephone wires just hanging in the wind. Knew the police couldn’t have called ahead of us. A few hours later, got to the village on the Sichuan province side, caught the boat ferry guy to the Yunnan side of the Yangzi river and a town called Benzilan.
Police picked us up about 2 hours later. “This area is restricted to foreigners, you must go back to the provincial capital of Kunming.” Kunming just so happend to be where we were headed and took about 2 weeks to get there.
The above was a very brief description of what happened. There’s another story in there i’m not sure I will share as it is quite strange.
Oh, please do share. If you can’t tell a strange story on the Dope, where can you tell it?
Spill, China Guy.
Marley23 thanks for sticking to the search. I’m glad the story you told originally held so much more detail and I’m hoping you’ll put that notebook someplace where you’ll know it’s safe.
China Guy Yours is yet another great story and graphically told. The mountains, the narrow passes, the bouncing on the boards crossing, all very visual. And I third the sentiment- spill.
To those who have already contributed I’d add that this is not restricted to a single selection. If there is more than one scene worthy of inclusion in the Movie of Your Life, feel free to add it on. I myself am considering which one may be worthy, and suitable to the thread.
So come on, give.
By suitable I mean no Penthouse Letters type stuff
No problem. I’m glad that I realized that that was a cool and significant experience, even if I didn’t figure it out the day it happened. I’ll have to ask where that notebook turned up; I took a lot of care to bring it home when I moved back to New York. When I couldn’t find it, I worried that it was damaged and thrown away after our basement flooded last year. (Wouldn’t that have been something.) I won’t lose track of it again.
Ok, when we hiked to the village and it was thanksgiving, it was a strange welcome. First off, we had run out of water several hours earlier. I mean there was the raging upper reaches of the Yangzi river below us but literally a cliff face to get down to it. So we are real thirsty when we hit this village of maybe 20 big stone houses.
First villager reluctantly allowed us to get some water out of the trough. There were people in the mountain village but no one was friendly or wanted to talk. It was approaching dusk so did ask the one elderly guy out on the path where we could camp. He pointed to an empty field.
This is quite wierd. Normally, villagers are very friendly and will usually offer a place to sleep. It’s also a big deal because the homes are guarded by fierce Tibetan mastifs and once certainly doesn’t want to get chewed on while camping.
Whatever, it was too late to go on anyway. So we went and layed out our sleeping bags under the stars and started a small fire. In the twilight, and old Tibetan monk in his robes came up and sat down with us. We offered him some peanut brittle, which was the only food we had. he spoke almost no Chinese but did recognize the word “america” (many tibetans do). He didn’t know the word for Dalai Lama but did know it when I said the Tibetan name. Basically, we just kinda sat around the fire and smiled a lot. I really like the monks, and the elderly guys are great. So, after a while the monk patted my knee, stood up, and walked off in the dark.
Then pretty soon a posse from the village came to see us. I think it was most of the men and most of the kids. I don’t remember women but there were diffinately girls. One guy spoke a little Chinese. We had a chat about who we were, where we’re from, how old we are, where are we going, do we know who the dalai lama is, etc. One of the elders said something and all the kids ran off to collect brush/firewood and built up a big old honking bonfire. That thing was massive. Also gave us some of the baked Tibetan barley bread, a little yak butter and yak cheese. Wanted to sell us a natural crystal for almost nothing and I’ve regretted not buying it ever since.
Everything thing is cool. Everyone is really friendly and happy. We were the biggest event to happen in the village in a decade.
I asked where the monastary was. Answer was pretty far - about a day’s hike. So asked where the old monk was…and things got pretty quiet. Now I’m not 100% sure about this as while my Chinese is pretty dang good, i was speaking to people that had maximum 500 words of Chinese in their vocabulary since being Tibetans they speak Tibetan.
As near as I could make out from the guy that spoke maybe 500 words of Chinese, the old monk had been killed (not hurt but killed - this point was clear) when the PLA army came through the area IIRC in 1956. Ever since then his “spirit” watches over the village. Once he checked us out and decided we were cool, then he walked off into the darkness and soon after the villagers came out to welcome us.
I didn’t dream it, had a witness, and still am not sure what really happened. Those days are 20 years behind me, but I’d still like to redo that short trek and take about a week exploring the area.
Wow, China Guy, that’s a great story! Thanks for sharing it.
Yes China Guy, I heartily agree. Great story! I am so glad you reconsidered telling it to us. I hope you have printed this and the other part and will keep them is a safe place.
Again, thanks.
If you’re okay with the monk, you’re okay by me! 