Pomegranates with the People

As you sit back, relax, and enjoy the service and movies on your nonstop United Airlines flight from San Francisco to Beijing, you can congratulate yourself on arranging to travel the Three Gorges before they are flooded. You will also spend a couple of days in Beijing taking the Huatong tour, seeing Tianamen Square and the Forbidden City (the Western-style toilets are on the right as you enter), seeing the Summer Palace, shopping, and climbing the Great Wall. You will spend another couple of days in Shanghai visiting one of the most incredible cultural museums in the world, attending an acrobatic performance, visiting the traditional gardens, shopping at the outdoor market near the former US embassy, and avoiding the Jazz band at the Peace Hotel that only plays if you pay for a specific song from the stained list provided. The next logical stop on the itinerary is Xi’an and the Terra Cotta Warriors located about one-half hour away from the very polluted city.
Before you leave the United States or as soon as you arrive in the PRC, contact Clarence Guo. Everyone will take you to the Qin tomb, the amazing Terra Warriors, and to the Eight Immortals Temple. Clarence will offer you more on the same daytrip. In his air-conditioned mini-van, he will drive you into the mountains where you will walk about a quarter mile to visit cave dwellers who will welcome you into their lives. The six-meter deep caves are home to multi-generational families who raise produce and fowl to sell in the city markets. Single light bulbs suspended from the ceiling light the cave homes. Newspapers taped to the walls keep in the heat in the winter and the cool in the summer. Clarence interprets for English speaking visitors who sit on short stools and eat pomegranates while marveling at the unique experience to meet with the cave dwellers. As you leave the rural villagers, you will toss the peelings from your fruit into the animal pen for feed, and marvel that you not only traveled twenty-some jet hours from SFO, but that you traveled centuries in time to meet people who think you are crazy to think that their way of life is intriguing. To contact Clarence Guo, e-mail him at clarenceguo@yahoo.com. The website for his taxi and tour service is http://www.taxitour.com. Mr. Guo—who speaks excellent English so do not hesitate to call his mobile (029 7791323; 0 13519197819)—will arrange transportation, tours, and hotels for you. By the time you call, he may have already opened his cave hotel for you to experience. For another perspective on his service, use the link from his website to the Time and National Geographic magazine stories that refer to Clarence Guo.