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Day 18 of the China Trip with the Travelers

Article imageThis is the seventeenth and final article in a series of articles and images from NDH correspondent, David Sand, on the road in China with John-Roger, John Morton and 106 traveling peacemakers.

August 31 –last report

The perfect anticlimax to mark the winding down of the China trip. Maybe half of the group shows up for the last day’s morning tour, which includes some of the sights on the outskirts of Hong Kong. A lot of people decide to sleep late or shop or they’re simply unable to lift themselves out of the luxury-bog of their rooms.

We take buses out of town for a short boat trip to see a small village of fishing boats, home of people who live their entire lives on the water. We ride through some beautiful island countryside, hills sweeping down to the ocean.

Then we arrive at the aptly-named Repulse Bay, a beachfront area with a garish temple complex that looks sort of like a BuddhaLand amusement park located alongside a MacDonalds and a Kentucky Fried Chicken.

And last but not least we stop for an hour at a tourist-trap shopping area called Stanley Park, where people unload their last Hong Kong dollars on trinkets and clothing that they probably could have paid much less for on the mainland. Your humble correspondent had been warned about the itinerary, but decided to go along out of a combination of a sense of duty and an inability (after two weeks of being led blindly and unquestioningly by expert tour guides who took care of his every need) to do anything on his own initiative. Then he saw that John-Roger and John Morton were on the bus and figured he probably made the responsible decision.

To me, our job here is to bring the Light, and what’s going on outwardly is an amusing show that’s placed here for our enjoyment while the real work goes on. I see it as a kind of seeding or tithing, where I put my body on the line without any thought of return, and then it’s returned to me many-fold. And as the trip unravels and the outer situations become funnier and more absurd, the inner sense of Light and love grows and grows.

The general feeling of people on the trip is that we’re ready to leave China, we’ve done what we came to do, and we’re out of here. I return to my room to find that they’ve placed an information sheet called “Typhoon Safety” on my desk, and watch storm clouds roll into the harbor. Bags out in the hall by 8:00am tomorrow, on the buses for the airport by 9:45, can’t think of anyplace that’s as appealing and attractive as my hotel room. Love ya, Asia, it’s been real.

What’s the last image that I should leave you with to sum up the China trip? I can’t take pictures of the warmth and humor of the Chinese people (although I tried to do this with the pics of the children), of their diligence and sense of service, of their peacefulness and poise. I’ll leave you with three pictures: First, the lights on beautiful Hong Kong harbor outside my room.

Second, Chinese kids skateboarding near our hotel.

And third, a shot of our motorcycle-rickshaw ride leaving the schoolchildren near Guilin, where I actually downloaded digital photos into my laptop as we bumped along the dusty dirt road through poor country villages (you can see the laptop screen in the foreground).

And now flashes of lightning are illuminating the harbor fog outside my room as if to warn us that our little bubble of Traveler-protection is moving on, and it’s time to follow it someplace else.

EDITOR’S NOTE: You, the readers, are invited to email us at NDH.org with your experience of participating in the daily China Trip updates online. You can include any feedback that you would like, such as your favorite moment in this online series or thanks and appreciation for our reporter, David Sand. Feedback will be passed on to David and highlights will be posted on this web site. Click here to email your comments to webeditor@ndh.org

Click here to read eNDH Readers’ Comments on the virtual China Trip

Click here to view Children of China Special Feature

Click here to view Day 17 of the China Trip

Click here to view Day 16 of the China Trip

Click here to view Day 15 of the China Trip

Click here to view Day 14 of the China Trip

Click here to view Day 13 of the China Trip

Click here to view Day 12 of the China Trip

Click here to view Day 11 of the China Trip

Click here to view Day 10 of the China Trip

Click here to view Day 9 of the China Trip

Click here to view Day 8 of the China Trip

Click here to view Day 7 of the China Trip

Click here to view Day 6 of the China Trip

Click here to view Day 5 of the China Trip

Click here to view Day 4 of the China Trip

Click here to view Day 3 of the China Trip

Click here to view Days 1 & 2 of the China Trip

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