That time I slept on the floor of a bus.

Yesterday morning we hiking around the mountain with the Buddhist prayer flags all over it, but not really on it because it felt a bit disrespectful. Got some good photos and saw a ton of prairie dogs and yaks. (Come to think of it, I think prairie dogs are the only small non-domesticated animals I've ever seen in China. Weird. No squirrels or equivalent.) Then we packed quickly in anticipated of the 2 PM bus.



We were rejected by the 2 PM bus. They said they would only take 4 of us, and thinking that there was a 3 or 4 o'clock one, we foolishly decided to pass on those seats. The restaurant owner who saved us by finding the hostel assured us there were others and agreed to call us when he saw a bus so we could just chill out.

So, we sat in his cafe drinking tea and eating na'an while having two of us stand sentry outside for HOURS! We went in 20 minute shifts and I'm pretty sure it hailed in all of my shifts. After waiting 4 hours, a sleeper bus came through. We hailed it down, and the lovely restaurant owner convinced him to take us on, despite the fact that they had only one open bed.

Jose took the bed and the rest of us pushed to the back with the intention of sitting on the aisle. A young Tibetan couple saw what was going on and, without hesitation, offered us one of their beds. These are not large beds. Charlie and Ben got in that and the Tibetan couple cozied together on just one of their 100 kuai beds. Gareth, Anna and I took to the floor. For the first few hours it was pretty awful; I couldn't lay down because Anna was behind me, so my back was dying, but more importantly I had to pee so badly so every position was absolutely awful. This bus wasn't stopping either - bathroom breaks by request only. We didn't discover this until waiting patiently for a break for about 2 hours. After the bathroom we rearranged and I was able to lie down. From then on, smooth sailing. Well, smooth as it can be to be lying on the cold, bumpy, miserable floor of a bus. All that aside, it was actually a rather pleasant ride. I taught the guys in the back how to play solitaire.


We finally pulled into lovely Xining around 11 and parted ways with the nice bed loaners. We went to out normal hostel, but after calling and door pounding, no one responded. So sad! So we called up the other HI hostel in town and headed over.

This one had a much better location (2 blocks from the snack street and 3 from the bars) but there was an awkward spread. There were 2 six person dorms, one had 3 people and one only had one person. 5 of us went to one room and Charlie went to the other. We never met the guy in our dorm - he woke up really early - but he did leave us a nice note wishing us good travels. It was so sweet!

Took a shower this morning - glorious! But cold, and the showers weren't very nice. Then we went to the Tibetan market for the morning. Everyone bought a ton of stuff. I stuck to my list, which was good, but I feel a bit guilty about not getting more gifts. I bought a Thanka painting of the Bodhisattva of Compassion, incense and a burner, a banner of the Om sutra and 2 bracelets like mine for the diamond family (if you guys are reading this, surprise ruined, but get excited for mail!). I also got to feel very clever because my Buddhist art history courses finally came in handy and I was able to interpret everyone's paintings.

We had lunch at a Muslim restaurant, and then just went to the hostel to hang out and play around on the internet for the afternoon. We hit up the snack street for train supplies - nuts, fruit, na'an - and then headed for the station. I feel awful for not remembering to tell the boys to keep their knives in their pockets, because they all went through the metal detector in their bags and were confiscated. [Side note to future train travelers in China - keep weapons in your pockets. They will not be detected there. They will find them if they're in your bags].

Last night on the train was uneventful. I agreed to the middle bunk and turns out it is also pretty claustrophobic. It did not help that Gareth found it productive to tell me claustrophobia stories and compare my bunk to a coffin.

Now we're just sitting around, settling in for out day on the train. Gross. Some people are studying, some are reading, and I'm thinking about going back to sleep, but it's so hot and stuffy my coffin will be uncomfortable. It's gonna be a long, hot, stuffy, thirsty and unattractive day.

Primordial Soup

After the hostel yesterday afternoon, we went back to that Tibetan market. It really is the best place in Xining (西宁) to hangout - even if you're not buying anything. I got a necklace, and helped the boys pick out jewlery. Then we had early dinner at a Muslim restaurant and hit up the bus station.

I asked about 5 people how long they thought our ride would be from Xining to the hot springs in Wenquan (温泉). Responses literally ranged from 3 hours to 15 hours. After some initial excitement (on my part) about a night bus, we ended up boarding a regular bus (bummer). Turns out the ride was actually 7 incredibly uneventful hours. I bet the scenery out the window would have been beyond beautiful, but it was dark the hole ride. We watched some horrible Chinese amateur plays for teh first few hours, and then this crazy movie called Chaos. Then I pretty much slept. The bus did have an hour break fro dinner around 9, although no one told the foreigners what was going on so we wasted a good deal of the break wondering where everyone disappeared to and worrying about leaving the bus.

Anyways, around 1:30 AM we pulled into Wenquan. Thank God there was one restaurant still open so we could ask for help finding a place to stay. Turns out there is a truck stop in town were we were able to stay for 25元 per night. 3 beds per room with 2 comforters and heated blankets. Absolutely necessary - it's freezing here! It's been snowing since we arrived, and all is mud and iciness/sleety rain.

Woke up this morning and went to the restaurant that saved us for breakfast. Delicious friend rice, and really really nice guy running it. Asked him where the hot springs were. Should have been more suspect when he told us the springs were free.

We followed his directions 200 meters past the last house in town (the town is approximately 400 meters long) and came upon a giant steaming pile of trash. We though, "oh, maybe the springs are BEHIND this trash pile!" Yet, behind that is just more steaming trash. Not a Turkish bath in sight. Turns out the residents here dump their trash in the hot springs, creating a primordial soup of interesting plastic bits. The water was warm, probably 80 degrees, but a bit stagnant with algae and trash. So, we decided to follow the stream a bit further down to where there was a rock structure that we were hoping might be some sort of outdoor bath.


It was, but for sheep. Of course you need to wash your sheep every day! We came upon a corral of sheep that a few men were desperately trying to herd into a hot spring bath to be bathed - I guess. We joined in the pushing and stick beating until all the sheep were through. Then we decided to wander down river a bit.


We hiked for a ways up into snowy mountains, and then Anna and I turned back while the boys continued their hike. On the way back we figured we'd check out the source of the hot spring and came upon a pool where a couple of little boys were having a bath. Their older brothers were sitting on cinderblocks with their feet dangling in. Anna and I followed suit and pulled up some cinderblocks and sat for a while. The water felt really nice at the time, although my feet haven't really warmed up since that hike.



Then we walked back to town and wandered into what looked like a pretty happening restaurant. It was pretty happening. We asked if we could sit and drink tea with them and pulled up a seat by the stove. Thus part of Qinghai it seems people are just really into chilling out, and they just sit around doing this for hours. So we sat and chatted with them - all Tibetan men, mid 30s, for hours until the boys came back. They especially enjoyed checking out the photos of Sudbury I have on my itouch, and were super excited to see my photo of the Dalai Lama (so glad I downloaded it for this trip, now).

Boys finally came back around 4, too late for an afternoon excursion which was disappointing. We went back to the room and rested/chatted over some Grape Wall wine (yes, it tasted like it sounds), and then went to dinner. Had some of the most amazing soup ever and saw lots of the friends Anna and I made this afternoon (like I said, Wenquan is small).

~L

黑马河

Last night we tried a Xinjiang restaurant, but the guy kept trying to hustle us with all kinds of deals. We ended up at a pretty expensive place, but it wasn't so bad - food was pretty good. Then we picked up a crate of beer and headed home.

We started hanging out in our room, but pretty son were approached by some Chinese guys who were in the process of biking around the lake. They were nice and we talked to them for a while. Got some digits. One was older - 38 and from Shandong, and the other looked about our age and was from outside of Beijing.

I woke up at 6:30 this morning with Charlie to watch the sunrise over the lake. It was really beautiful. And cold. Then we went back to bed. Woke up around 9 to fried rice and zhou for breakfast and then hired a van to drive us to Heimahe (黑马河). A mianbao for 25/person, just a bit more than the (unpredictably arriving/free space) bus. It was a pretty cozy hour and a half.


We had a bit of a saga finding a hotel with a dorm, but did get lucky and ended up at the Jiaotong (交通) truck stop which had a 6 bed room with heated blankets and cable tv (!) for 15/person. The hotel(?) is a bit dingy, but its really quite nice compared to my expectations for this trip. We have also just discovered that Jose and Charlie would clearly make the perfect sitcom-about-first-year-roommates pair.


After lunch at a Tibetan restaurant, we went for a hike. We went high and far, and I was embarrassingly dying a bit. But it was so worth it. The views were amazing amazing. We had to cut through some farms, hop over and/or through a ton of barbed wire fences, and cross rivers with stepping stones. At one point there were no stones and we had to lose out shoes and ford the river. THe water was frigid but so so clear. We drank some and it was delicious. We probably hiked for about 3 hours, I'm really interested to googlemap/mapmyrun the route to see how far and high we went. The altitude was definitely getting to me; I was pretty lightheaded and overly easily exhausted. Of course a gorgeous sunset, and then we went out to dinner. Sichuan thus time - the lamb was getting a little old.




~L

Shanghai Living and Qinghai Tomorrow!

My life here could usually take place anywhere, for the extreme lack of playing the tourist lately. I've settled into a routine of work, class, work, sleep, punctuated by trips to the store or dinner with friends.

Last night one of my professors had our class over for dinner. His apartment was so nice, and his son cooked the most amazing meal. I was told by my language partner the other day that Shanghai women are known for controlling their men - they must be able to cook and clean on command and generally act as "house husbands" - so perhaps by professors son is in training. In a lovely moment of cultural exchange, I taught my language partner how to say whipped.

I joined a gym the other day. It's in a pretty extensive athletic complex - as things tend to come in China. It's very nice, and I'm excited to be active again. I went swimming this morning, which turned into more of a social hour with 80 year old men who also like to swim/chat bright and early on tuesdays than a workout, but that's ok. The pool is one of those annoying 50 meter ones; for some reason those make me so much more tired than a 25 yard even if my workout is the same distance. The locker room was also colossal - I would hate to see how crowded this pool is when all those miles of showers are necessary. In all it was a lovely morning - early workout followed by the cheapest take out coffee (and actual coffee!!) that I've found in China yet, and then an actual omelette from the street food guy (Jake, clever as he is, has been teaching the jidanbing guy to make omelettes, scrambled eggs, and next up french toast. He's even created a separate "American Menu" now).

Last week Isabelle and I went for a wander somewhere in midtown Shanghai. We ended up in the lace district (as mentioned above, things in China seem to come in giant square blocks of goods). After stopping in a shop or two that apparently couldn't sell us anything (maybe they were wholesale only?) we found one with a really nice guy willing to sell us lace and chat about fabrics and his hometown for hours. Final result of this field trip is my modded Fudan t-shirt. Not gonna lie, it came out pretty nice. I'll get a picture up here eventually.

Tomorrow I'm leaving for my National Holiday trip. I'll be going to Qinghai, although no major plans as of yet. We'll use Xining and Lanzhou as jump off points. Qinghai is on the Tibetan Plateau (and is culturally Tibetan) in Western China. It is kind of like the wild west of China - largely unpopulated except by nomadic herding groups. The landscape is mostly high steppe and rolling hills, and the population a mixture of various Tibetan, Uigher, and Muslim minorities. We'll probably spend a few days travelling/camping in the area around Xining - Qinghai Lake (one of the highest saltwater lakes in the world), Takster, Linxia, Tongren, Bingling, Yushu, Nangqian. You can google it if you're interested, I don't want to bore anyone with history or information that I'll likely duplicate in a coming post (or who knows, my plans could easily change and I'll head to different places after all). So yeah, all that's concrete is the 24 hours I'll be spending on a train (oh my favorite form of China travel!) starting bright and early tomorrow morning. Stay tuned for what happens next.

Here's a map of possible destinations. Obviously the dot in Shanghai is my home.

View Qinghai Trip in a larger map


~L