An Account of Sorts

So Kyle and I spent two weeks out west. We flew to Urumqi, and then to Kashgar. From there we took buses and trains, back east, hitting Kuche (known for it's Buddhist cave paintings), Bai Yang Gao (a series of valleys south of Urumqi), Jiayuguan (the last fort on the Great Wall), and Ta'er Si (the biggest lamasery outside of Tibet, and official home of the Dali and Panchen Lamas). We had two run-ins with Lanzhou, the worst city in the world, and I ended the trip by spending 30 hours on a train getting home from there.

Urumqi was nice, if a little boring. We saw the sites, hung out and slept in parks, and started getting used to our diet of noodles and mutton. We spent a couple days there, maybe one more than necessary, and moved on to Kashgar. Kashgar has been in the news recently as the site of the deadliest "terrorist" attack in Xinjiang. Given that these attacks have all targeted government employee's, specifically paramilitary police and militia men, I'm not sure the term really applies, but then again I'm sure it's more complicated than that. Kashgar is also known for it's Sunday Market, where anything can be bought, and where 10,000 vendors from all over central Asia meet up. It lived up to the reputation, and we spent a solid morning wandering around.

Kashgar is a funny place. As far into western China as you can get, very few people spoke Chinese. They didn't speak too much english either, so that left us with sign language and a smattering of the two, to get by. It was frustrating not being able to talk to anyone. That's one the best things about traveling domestically for me, but we dealt, and enjoyed the city. There was virtually nothing Chinese about Kashgar. The architecture favored the arabesque, and the downtown area was dominated by the enormous Id Kah Mosque. On the streets, men sat on carpets and drank tea and ate skewers. Women wore a collection of clothing, from full on Burkas to more modest headscarves. The Uighers that made up the population alternately looked Sicilian, Iranian, or just plain different. But it was a pleasant city, and spending two days there, we began to feel at home.

Leaving Kashgar, we began our journey back east, taking a night bus to Kuche. From there we rented a taxi and went out to see some of the oldest Buddhist cave paintings in China. Some of them were 1700 years old, which placed the pretty close to the birth of Buddhism as a regional religion. We couldn't take pictures, but were fascinated by the color scheme, red-brown, light blue, and light green, and the very unchinese nature of the frescos. We spent the day in the company of a Singaporean girl, fairly badass in her solo itinerary, yet also incredibly annoying. I was glad to be traveling with Kyle instead.

Outside of Urumqi are two tourist areas, Tianchi and Baiyanggao. Tianchi is by far the more established one, a beautiful lake with friendly Kazaks to stay with, which Baiyanggao is slightly less developed. We chose the later, but still found it full of Chinese tourists clip clopping around on rented horses. Trying to get away, we talked to a man who made his living taking pictures of people dressed up in silly costumes, standing in front of what was admittedly a spectacular waterfall. I asked if there was anyone living in the next valley over. He said no, but when I pressed him he said that if we followed the stream for two hours we should find some friendly wood cutters who spoke Chinese. It was only early afternoon, so we decided to give it a try. If necessary, we'd hike back out and find somewhere to sleep in a yurt by the road.

The valley was one of the most beautiful places I've ever hiked. It was steep on both sides, and a deep green in the center. The water that had carved it was less than a hand deep in most places, and sparkled in the sun. It was absolutely breathtaking. More than once, we thought we'd come to the end of the line, only to find that the valley continued around the bend, or over the waterfall. Each time this happened, I was almost knocked down with the landscape. There was a path of sorts, and we kept to that, figuring that paths lead to people. And indeed, we did find people. They explained that friends had just ridden up, and they had no room to house us for the night, but suggested we go 20 minutes up a side canyon, where we met another family, of three siblings. The youngest is about to start majoring in Chinese at the University of Urumqi. Her older sister wasn’t that friendly, but not distinctly unfriendly either, and their older brother was cautiously friendly, but very welcoming once we’d established that we were going to spend the night.

There was lots of sitting inside wondered what was going to happen, but we worked out that we’d sleep in their spare shed-tent. The gave us blankets though, which probably saved out lived. The family had living in the tent before, but decided it was too cold, so they built a log cabin, all axe hewn and chinked with moss. I want one when I grow up. The older brother, “Baligk” was enormous, meaty hands, huge arms covered in scars, but no facial hair and a very young face. Kyle and I couldn’t tell if he was the sisters’ dad or older brother at first. When done with work and inside the cabin, he sprawled on the platform and took off his shoes and said in one breath, “im sleepy, when’s dinner?” Very much the host, he was always urging us to eat or drink. We brought out cards before dinner and played Go Fish, and that loosened everybody up and made us all friends. Dinner was lamb and noodles, delicious except for the large chunks of gristle, and bizarre lumpy yogurt, which wasn’t so bad when you got used to it. They live in the valley 2 months out of the year and in town the rest. They have 5 horses, 20 cows (3 dairy) and more than 100 sheep, so they’re not hurting, or at least, it doesn’t seem like it. In the morning we took a group picture, and I’m going to mail it to them in a day or two.

We didn’t pay, and didn’t really have any gifts (because we thought we’d be paying) but shared out dates and left a bottle of vodka by our bed in the shed, and we were invited back. Maybe the mail thing will work out and we’ll keep in touch, I think I’d like that a lot.

The rest of the trip was just sort of normal after the night with the Kazak family. We stopped in Jiayuguan to see the last fort on the great wall. We were hassled by cops at a truck stop, we went to the Kumbum monestary at Ta’er Si.

Before the monastery, we arrived in lanzhou, and found it to be the worst city in the world. Nothing worked. Our plans collapsed, the trains ran late, and I burned my finger on some beef noodle soup so badly that It just healed fully yesterday. We got out of lanzhou as quickly as possible, and headed for the monastery in Qinghai province. It was interesting, and I had a good talk with a young monk there, but I think we were both pretty tired at this point. Back to Lanzhou, were I still couldn’t get a visa, and then on the longest trainride of my life, 30 hours to Beijing when it could have been done in 20 if we’d taken another line.

We couldn’t even get tickets for seats on that train, and so I stayed up all night talking to drunk migrant workers and a tank driver from shanxi province. We’d been able to upgrade to one bed, so kyle took that, and we switched in the morning, and I slept until after two.

Throughout the trip I changed my boxers and one sock, so by the time I got back to Beijing, I smelled fairly distinct, a mixture of dirt, sweat, and manure. I’m sorry the second half of the trip was a bit glossed over, but it felt like that a bit at the time too. Maybe my conversation with the monk will show up in another post sometime. Until then-
Martin.

Published

I know I still need to write about my trip out west, but while you're waiting for the harrowing account of our journey, please check out pictures from said trip available HERE and read an article of mine that was just published in Urbane Magazine. To do that, click HERE, and then download the features section as a pdf. Look for something about the trip in the next couple days, and a full report of my new job sometime next week. In closing I'd just like to share that somehow, possibly as a result of the antics described in my last post, my year long multi-entry visa has been canceled. It is truly the gift that keeps on giving.
That's all for now-
Martin