Wild Boars, Water Buffalo and the Chinese Government Pt.I

Disclaimer: some parts will be omitted for security lol.

Ask me about it in person one day (: 

We’ve told this story many a time but it’s time the internet hears it too.

Grab some popcorn and a blanket.

Our journey begins after leaving Taiwan.

20 of us in need of our visas to get into China. This is a process that doesn’t happen overnight in general but with 20 people, it’s a feat. So we fly to Hong Kong to apply for them before heading into the big country.

Hong Kong wasn’t exactly in our $12 a day budget for food, lodging and transportation so improvisations were necessary.

We make our first appearance at the visa office and quickly learn that there would be difficulty. Our passport photos weren’t clear enough, or we didn’t look like our passport photos or our ears weren’t visible, etc. you name it we had to figure it out ASAP. We had a small window to apply for visas and get to our next location.

We settle for the evening, come up with a contingency plan and march onward. Our next location is none other than a perfectly FREE campsite.

We have to catch taxis then take a ferry to the “island” the campsite is on.

Our only other route out of the site is to hike to the nearest little development where the bus stop is at and ride into the closest town, which takes about an hour. Just so you have an idea of where we are at.

We arrive at the campsite to find an almost full campground – apparently camping is a popular springtime activity on the weekends only. Imagine a giant circle and the perimeter is forest preceded by some trees that drop into a little ravine.  

If you’re entering from the bottom of the circle, two of the three teams went to the bottom right section closest to the path on the way to the bathroom. 

My team wanted to spread out so we took the top left section of the circle. 

We set up camp, breaking out our tents for the first time and starting to feel the excitement build about the next few days spent in nature and around our new friends for the weekend around us. 

We can see the other teams are set up and we don’t pay any mind to how long we’re taking, just settling in when we hear some animal noises in the distance. We hear multiple “mooooooo”s and look around at some short and stubby cows (actually water buffalo) slowly making their way into the camp. 

It’s amusing and sort of charming.

Within minutes we hear screams and the whole camp shifts their attention to one of the buffalo walking INSIDE one of the tents in the center with the inhabitants fumbling about not sure how to remove it. Eventually he grabs some food and moseys out of the tent. Everyone kind of laughs it off and now understands how to guard their own belongings. 

We look over to see one of the buffalo nearby, not afraid of people whatsoever so we name it and keep a close watch as we pray cautionary prayers for safe measure. To no avail – the buffalo had already set her (Daisy was her name) eyes on a packet of ramen and had pounced before we even had time to prepare for the attack. She nabbed one small packet and gnawed it, plastic and all. 

We left on good terms but realized it was time to take some precautionary measures with what food we did have with us. Luckily we didn’t have much as we had planned on making a trek into town to buy the bulk of our food. 

We resume setting up camp and start to consider what our day would look like. 

We look over at our counterparts across the campgrounds to see them NOW being terrorized by the buffalo – two girls have hopped on top of the stone picnic tables and one of our men has grabbed a large stick and is attempting to herd the buffalo away. Again, to no avail.

We all laughed and relished the fact that it wasn’t us who was being heckled.

Laughter subsides and the excitement resumes at our living situation. We look over at the top of the circle and realize no one has pitched a tent in that section – it’s mainly sandy looking dirt and no patches of green like the rest of the camp. 

As our attention is directed over to this section, two large wild boars emerge from the brush and head straight for the first tent in their line of sight and waste no time grabbing the tent and running back from where they came from as two middle school students in gym uniforms look on helplessly and start to yell. 

We all hesitate to act, the whole camp is just watching and finally one of the men of my team races towards the boars to play a game of tug of war with the tent until two other men join in to help. They drop the tent and one of the other girls on my team and I race over to grab it quickly and set it back up to try and help.

The men chase the boars and return back to their original sites.

We return to marvel at what happened and express our concerns and realize it’s been 20 minutes since our first arrival and this was setting the tone for what was to come.