White-Knuckled Grip on my Seat

My friend Mel was going to come into the airport in Zhengzhou and I wanted to go meet her at the airport to welcome her back home.  Innocent enough, wouldn't you say?  Her flight came in at 11:30 PM, but that wasn't a problem.  Sias has vans that go back and forth to the airport, I came to Sias in a cheery yellow van.

At 10:45 I found myself gripping my seat next to my friend Neil as we barrelled down the country roads between Xinzheng and Zhengzhou.  It was pitch black and pouring rain and the lightning lit up the sky in increadible patterns that I have only ever seen in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.  It was like something out of an action movie: the right lighting, the right weather, and the right hightened suspense factor represented by the lightning and thunder. 

My top five favorite moves that our driver pulled:

5.  Pulling around slower moving trucks blindly.
4.  Driving on the wrong side of the road with oncoming traffick whizzing by.
3.  Hydroplaning in the small lakes that had formed in the potholes.
2.  Honking at and then swerving around the people that walked three-across down the middle of the road in
     the pitch black.
1.  Backing up on the freeway because he missed a turn in the dark.

This drive took 45 mintues to make is into the city and to find out that Mel's flight had landed in Wuhan because of the bad weather.  So then we drove 45 mintues back, by which time I had come to terms with the fact that we might die on the road and what will happen will happen.  We did pass a pretty big accident involving a dump truck vs a van and the dump truck had won except that it had spilled its load across the freeway.

I've decided that crazy, deathy defying driving is easier to handle in the day time, when you can at least see what you're hurtleling by. 

Mel did make it, finally, at 3.30 AM.  I'm super excited to have her here!!