China, prt2

A slightly edited version of an exrtact from an email to my darling sister.

"Ill tell you the storie of how we first discovered Rickshaw, in all its glory.

Me and a bunch of Swedes were chilling in the hostel bar one night. As the night drew on, most of them went to bed, and it was only Eric, the lone Swede, and Sara (pronounced Saurah) who is one of the four beautiful Swedes (the ones that convinced me and Tom and Mik to go on a wild mission to mongolia, where we all stayed in a awsome Yurt and me and Tom and Mik spiked the massive 4litre bottle of tea with a good bag and a half of weed. It was awsome.).
We decided to go on a last trip to McDonalds (which is in the same block as the Hostel, much to my bodies dismay - i end up eating there every other day at least, late at night when food becomes gold (it is 24 hours. We allways have a hugh rush at about 4 am because thats when they start to change over to breakfast, and breakfast there is shit.)).
When we got there, and had our sickeningly shitty (and worryingly delicious) meal, Eric suggested that we go out. Now. We knew that if we went back inside we would never make it out (it was about 2am), so we thought yeah, lets go. Jumped in a taxi to Sanlitun, and headed straight for the glory of Pure Girl.

Now, let me just slightly forgive the other Swedes, and indeed other peoples, who had gone to bed; it was a Monday night, and they were leaving for Mongolia the next afternoon.

And there worries were proved justified when we got to Sanlitun and found it deserted. Thankfully Pure Girl is open whatever is happening, so we went there and settled into a rythm of buying 3 kamikazies and 3 G&Ts per round for a totall of 60 kuai (about 4 pounds). After getting thouroughly wasted we ivited the only other people in the bar - three random chinese - for a few games of spoons.

Now the crazy love triangle going on there would take a whole essay to dissolve, so i will just put it simply; there was one boy. And i dont knw how old he was, but he was clearly a boy. He may have been in his mid-twenties and he would still be a boy.
He was in love with the girl, who was... while not quite beautiful still very attractive, but more importantly she was cool. Really cool. Allmost chic.

She was with the other guy, much younger than her, and clearly something of a toyboy, but still very cool in his own right. So yeah, they joined us and we changed to 6 kamikasies (changing at one point to 6 flaming lambo's, which was good) and 6 tequila sunrises. The boy didnt drink though, he just sat in the corner and moped. He went out in the first round of every game.
So, dutiful as ever, i drank his drinks, which got my highly tolerant body an express ticket to drunkenness. Was good.

We played some awsome games of spoons (the bar didnt actually have spoons, so we played it with lighters, but you get the idea), then they left. The bar closed five minutes later, and us three left as well, holding hands and skipping drunkenly along the road singing "Rickshaw, Rickshaw" etc. Rickshaw is 24 hours, you see.

Here i will interupt the somewhat eratic flow to inform you of somethin that i missed; Eric pulled Sara. This juicy fact may become something of interest in my further tales, if i can ever be bothered to write them.
Which made it all the more interesting later in the night when Eric was in the toilet and i had to rescue Sara from falling down the stairs by lifting her into my arms, carrying her to the sofa, and gently laying her down before coaxing her into taking a sip of water, heheh.

But yeah, we were skipping along, holding hands (a detail which will again become of interest later, if i tell that story), and eventually arrived at Rickshaw. We settled in, all alone in the bar, and had a few more shots and some gentle pints, to slow down the intake a little.

Now, again, i must stop for a moment to apologies; i just realised that this was the second time i had been to Rickshaw. Which makes the next part of the story redundant, so i will skip it and just recount it along with the full tale, if i ever get around to telling it.
Eventually we stumbled out after a few mini adventures and got in a taxi back to the hostel.
Arriving there, Eric bought his ticket to Mongolia (it was only the four fine Swedish girls at first, but they convinced me and Eric and Tom and Mik to come too), and i went to the bar and bought myself a bottle of Bailies to welcome a new day.

Now, i dont normally go that far - have an insane night out then go back and down myself a quick bottle all alone in a bar, but i was leaving later that day so i thought i might as well wipe myself out and sleep for the whole train journey.

And anyway, i wasnt all alone in the bar; about halfway through the bottle Eric joined me, and soon after an awsome Russian guy came. This Russian geezer is absolutly amazing, and he is going to take me out on a wild trip into the vast Russian areas of the city soon, but thats yet another story. The argument he had with Eric is yet another. So, around 11AM i finished my bottle (we got back around 9) and started calling Tom and Mik arranging the train to Mongolia.

7 hours later me and Mik were chomping down 2 or three grammes of hash each, and the train left Beijing.This was followed by the best stoned time of my life, then an amazing trip into the grasslands, which included spiking some Swedes, stealing a motorbike and resuing Tom from a Mongolian, meeting a guy called Hash, running away from bulls, crashing motorbikes on lake-beaches several thousand feet above sea-level, and several degrees below zero. It also includes the aquisition of a Mongolian police-baton, a mannequin, and three baby terrapins, but that, as i have grown so fond of saying, is another story."

So yeah, thats the latest installation in my wannabe travel journal. Hope you enjoed it. Hopefully il get round to telling some of the other storys as well.