Anna was clearly interested in Galen, which made my asking for a ride easy. She had wanted me to ask.

While we were weaving our way through the Buddhist caves at Maijishan, we were approached by three young women. This was nothing unusual; we had already twice been asked to take pictures with people since we had arrived at the caves. When this group of three approached us, I was in the middle of making a video. I quickly waved them over, just to get the photo over with, so that we could continue with getting another video started.

We never got that other video.

Anna, clearly the alpha of the group, began instructing us to follow her through the caves. At first, we were amused at this twenty-two year old fitness instructor telling us what to do, so we obeyed her, giving up on the other video I had wanted to film. For a while, she was entertaining in a spazzy way, though, for me, it wore off quickly. Yet, we continued to follow her.

I talked more with the two girls who I had thought were her friends only to learn that they were not really her friends but two high schoolers who had just met her. Like us, Anna had shanghaied them into being her friends.These two ‘friends’ left us when Anna decided she was too frightened to go any higher up. We stayed behind with her for a few minutes until Galen was able to convince her to go up the stairs. It was clear she was enjoying flirting with Galen, and I was enjoying watching it, even though I translated almost nothing for the two of them. Watching two people who do not speak a mutual language flirt together is as fun as watching giraffes struggling to swim.

I was starting to get annoyed with Anna, but Galen continued to find her amusing and I kept playing along since she had a car and a driver. I thought we would be able to get a free ride and I did not want to be accused of being a poor wingman.

We did get that free ride. Although it was only kind-of hitching, we were able to get her to get her driver to take us on an hour-long ride. Galen found her interesting enough. And in the end, everything came together.

Don’t miss a single video from our adventure. Click the red Youtube button below to subscribe!