Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
I set off positively towards the center of town, trying the stores that I had not tried before.
After an hour or so, I began to lose hope; no one was able to help or even knew what it
was that I wanted. I finally came upon a little general dealer in a very old wooden shanty
of a shop on the edge of town. I had trudged along the hot and dusty road on someone's
suggestion. I was irritable, hot, and bothered, and my hopes were sinking rapidly as was
my energy level. I walked into the little store and blinked in the dark interior. The windows
were painted a dingy white on the inside, to keep out the heat I presumed. When I could
focus after the bright sunlight, I saw with lifting spirits that this was the place I was most
likely to find my spring. The junk that adorned the rickety shelves and scattered about the
worn wooden floor made me smile. Old coils of used ropes hung about; lanterns, paraffin
cans, and oil funnels instead of canned foods and women's latest silk stockings were the
order of the day.
There was even a musty, old smell that instantly energized me, and I smiled openly to the
toothless, old Chinese man who had materialized from the dank interior. He had sickly yel-
low skin and wispy lengths of faded grey hair that fell about his matted, stringy beard. He
was wearing faded, old shorts and a moth-eaten vest. I grinned warmly, “Good morning,
how are you?” I started out brightly. He grinned toothily back and silently bowed a greet-
ing.
“Do you speak English?” I asked hopefully. He smiled wanly and shook his head.
“I look for engine spring,” I said, fishing out the broken part from my backpack and placing
it on the grimy counter. It rolled towards him, and he picked it up with a shaky, old hand,
his fingers tobacco-stained and nails grimy.
He looked at it closely; his watery, old eyes flickered with recognition. “Spring from motor
in boat,” I coaxed, motioning my hand as a boat on the water. He smiled and sagely nod-
ded his old head. He took the spring and walked back into the cave behind his counter. He
beckoned me to follow. In the gloom of this foul smelling pit, I could just make out the old
carcasses of ancient outboard engines piled against the walls and a couple of rusty lumps of
decaying metal that may have once been marine engines a long time ago. He flicked on a
naked overhead bulb and went over to a grease-blackened workbench and rummaged nois-
ily through a wooden crate. I went over and looked in. There were several of these wooden
crates, and he invited me to look through the others. I gladly hauled one over and started
sifting through rusty old nuts and bolts and I don't know what else. All I did know was that
I was going to leave this old man and his store with some valve springs, that, I was sure of.
After some scrabbling and muttering, the old man straightened up with a smile and bran-
dished a spring under my nose. He muttered something unintelligible, and I smiled broadly
back at him. It was a spring, and it was the right size! I smiled warmly back at him, nodding
