Road

I am trying to show my time here in a balanced light and like anywhere on earth, to present my time in China as purely positive would be false. Today I experienced my first real horror in China, though realistically it could have been anywhere in the world and the feeling of shock would have been the same.
On driving back to the train station in Gui Lin to catch a train back to Wuchang, we drove past a car accident. A bike had been knocked over and a man knocked from it. Before today I had never seen a dead person. The horror of the scene, the opened skull and matter bright on the road was enough to leave me speechless and to throw up the contents of my stomach over a squat toilet as soon as we reached the train station. The grim tableau of the accident was made the more horrifying by the sight of a little girl being pulled away from the remains of the man, eyes streaming and mouth open in a scream that I am thankful I could not hear from the bus, the sound of which I don’t think I could of coped with.

I wanted to write this down, not as a warning about China, it could of happened anywhere. And not to shock, but however wonderful my week in Yangshuo was I am sure that this gory tableau will stay with me. I'm doing this blog as much for me as for anyone else, as a diary and record of my trip. To omit from my blog this scene seems dishonest somehow and false. It's something I can't un-see and I think its something that I won't ever be able to forget.