Lost on Planet China - J. Maarten Troost [93]
That night after dinner, we passed a bar with a big dog slumbering at the entrance. “Tell me that doesn’t look just like Osso,” Jack said.
Osso was Jack’s dog, his very big dog, the sort of dog who greets guests by barreling at them, chest level, to see whether the guest is to be played with. But the guest, of course, doesn’t know this dog is being playful. All the guest knows is that there is a very large dog, a Rhodesian Ridgeback, about to knock him over.
“Have you ever seen a Rhodesian Ridgeback in China?”
“It’s probably the local delicacy.”
“Let’s go in.”
I looked up at the sign. The Elephant Bar. Inside, the air was redolent with a smoky haze familiar to anyone who’d attended a Berkeley sit-in in the summer of 1969. We took a seat at the bar and spoke to James, one of the dreadlocked owners, who explained that they’d rescued the dog from dog fighting. As we talked, a couple of Colombians walked in. “Shots?” they offered. It was a little early to set such a blistering pace. “It’s on us.”
Okay, then.
Soon the bar began to fill up. There was an Englishman in a straw hat who had spent the previous night sleeping there. Two brothers. Australians. Dutch. For a time, this was the crossroads of the world. The bar began to fill up with a crowd of convivial, determined drinkers. There were beers, shots. And then joints were lit up, and while we declined a proffered toke, it wasn’t because we were trying to maintain a pretense of sobriety. No, with the first shots it was established that tonight we would get cheerfully hammered. But there was no need to actually smoke weed. In the sweet, fragrant haze, my eyes watered, I had a curious case of the munchies, and I couldn’t stop laughing.
I turned to James, who was English. “So can I ask you something?” I said between chuckles. “How long have you guys been here?”
“We opened about three years ago. We had a place in Thailand, but Thailand became just…” He waved his hand languorously.
“And business is good?”
“Business is good.”
“Has it always been like this?” I went on. “I mean, there’s tons of Westerners here. Why are we here? What is drawing us to this town in Yunnan Province?”
“It’s because of Lonely Planet, man. A couple of years ago, they made a reference to the local herb. You’ve probably noticed the friendly locals selling weed. It grows wild up in the hills. So the writer mentioned it and voilà.”
It is astonishing, the power of Lonely Planet. One offhand comment by a freelance writer and suddenly a small town in Yunnan Province had become the Mecca of the hippie trail.
Just then James’s attention was diverted by the arrival of a fierce-looking Chinese man in a suit. It is, of course, very difficult for a stoned man in long dreads to convey tension, but that is exactly what he exuded. They conversed with the aid of a waitress translating, and pointed frequently to the dog, which slumbered happily on a couch.
Afterward, I asked what that was about.
“He’s one of the local mobsters. His boss’s dog is missing, and since it looked a lot like ours, he came over to take a closer look.”
“Is the mafia powerful here?”
“They control everything, man.” He shook his head.
“Don’t mess with the mobsters in Dali.”
We were not in Dali to mess with mobsters. We were here, it now seemed clear, to get positively lit. Not for a moment was there an empty glass before us. Not in this bar. This was a place for drinking, where the moment a glass was drained, another was placed before us. I was liking it here, this merry place where everyone was funny and quick-witted and where you could settle back and enjoy the secondhand cannabis. No, Officer, I’d say should I encounter one. I didn’t