Language Barriers Abound

The Chinese-American language barrier is crazy huge, but the one between Brits, Aussies, and me is also quite large :)
I told our55 year old British woman traveler that I bought a really cute pair of pants with embroidery that tie on at the waist. She just looked flabbergasted at me, asked if they were small or big, and said "Oh that's nice" with an air of "Why did you tell ME that?"
When I remembered: pants in British english are undies. Trousers are our pants! We all got a kick out of that.
My British friend also mentioned that she would look like a "right tit" if she bought this crazy flower hat. Apparently it means Idiot.
I won't even get started on the issues between Chinese English and Engligh-English. IT should be noted that sign language (i.e. running around with toilet paper when you need a bathroom) doesn't work so well here and all you get are blank stares. Regardless, we're loving Yangshou. It's sort of like you are in an oven all the time (read: sweating like crazy) BUT it's goregous, the food is wonderful (farmer's wife cooked weggies for us yesterday - tasty!), and there are lots of little cafes and shops to knock around in. Last night we went on a river cruise at sunset, but on the way there, our sardine can "bus" that very uncomfortably seats 6 westerners (and seems to have the technology level associated with sardine cans) just stopped in the middle of the road! Of course the driver doesn't speak Engrish, so we watch while this man takes a bottle out of the back of the sardine can and starts running with it in this 105 degree weather. He leaves us with the car and the keys. Deepa climbed into the driver's seat and we all got a kick out of that. Turns out he was out of gas! Go figure. It was the highlight of the day.

Today we're going caving and are heading to Hong Kong on an overnight train. I am told I can use my credit card (exciting...I miss it) and that it's air conditioned everywhere!!!!! Kudos Hong Kong! WE're melting, melting, melting.

FYI - I probably won't post until we get to India the 19th. Hurrah for good food!