JINGHONG, China - The bulldozer turned sharply, rotating 90 degrees in two seconds to completely block our way forward. The operator lowered the bucket halfway to increase the meance of the construction vehicle. At the same time, a dump trunk drove behind and cut out off the rear. The highway gang had us trapped.
The bus driver should have known better than to try and shave an hour off the 200 kilometer trip between the Laotian border town of Mengla and the capital of Xishuangbanna, Jinghong. Instead of taking the winding road through minority villages and tropical mountains, he decided to take us over the unfinished four lane highway.
By unfinished, I mean the construction crews still deployed on every mile of this soon-to-be major aetary connecting Laos and Yunnan Province. Workers were still living on the road in old military tents, laundry was still drying on clothes lines hitched up on the shoulder. Mudslide barriers still needed cement to be poured. Some areas were paved, others weren't.
I especially enjoyed the tunnels. By going through mountains instead of around them, tractor trailers will be able to bring trade goods to Northern Laotian towns such as Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng like never before. But the trucks shouldn't leave the dock yet. As of yesterday these tunnels had no tile, no lights and piles of dirt at random intervals. Our bus driver turned on his brights and plowed through, narrowly missing a couple people driving the other way on motorbikes.
Chinese construction safety standards haven't quite reached Western levels. Our bus driver asked construction workers periodically if could enter a tunnel or bridge. "Mei sur," they all said. No problem. Never mind that hundreds of men were deployed along the road, along with heavy equipment or that the road hadn't been through safety inspection. The friendly men and women are pleased to have the 3:15 bus passengers from Mengla to Jinghong serve as test drivers.
Everyone except one pain-in-the-ass supervisor. He wore a straw hat with a red badge around his neck indicating his managerial status. He waved his hands and face furiously as soon as he saw the bus. No, no, no, no. We couldn't pass. The bus driver sent out his ticket collector to negotiate. No success. The bus driver tried again. No change. Then he decided to try and pass anyway, as not going through would mean a ten kilometer detour back to the last connecting path to the old road. That's when the man deployed his heavy machinery and created the standoff.
We won. After a couple minutes the bulldozer backed away and continued clearing a pile of dirt. The man in the straw hat continued to wave his hands, but by then we were headed toward the next tunnel. One hundred meters up the road we came to another dump truck. In passing, our driver asked if we could continue into the tunnel.
The dump truck driver smiled. "Mei shir."
