Claire is a lazy blogger.
Sorry for not getting on this sooner, but the blog about my travels is no minor deal, so its taken me a while to really get a ‘round tuit’. So here goes…
Finally back to the Northern Capital
I had a minute so I thought I would begin to relay my last week's
travels to yall. And when I say travels I mean it, as I was physically
in transit for most of the week. First, an introduction to the
teamsters: the travel buds, Anna, Italian who I know from Beijing, is
an archeologist, studying ancient city layout. Her boyfriend, Noel, an
American who lives in a bumble town called Jing dezhen, where by day
he is a teacher to 551 kids, and by any spare time he is a sculptor
setting up his own factory to produce… sculpture of porcelain.
Most porcelain things made in this country are made there. His best
friend is Austin, who is also American but currently hails from
Bangkok, his home over the past 7 years. He speaks fluent Thai
[naturally]. And Swedish [why not]. And a bit of Burmease [like Burma, the country.] They were ausome travel buds, the guys were really sweet, very brotherly to me, and overly sarcastic, so we had a great time making fun of all the crazy characters we ran into along the road.
Now, a brief intro to my return trip which will hopefully explain my
lack of coherence in this blog. [I guess I wrote this part last week] My day started yesterday, I think it was Friday yesterday, we woke up at 6.30am and took an hour and a half car ride to the nearest train station, where we boarded a train,
called the bumpkin of all bumpkin trains, from Dunhuang to Jia Yu Guan. Let me first try to explain how in the middle of nowhere I was. Dunhuang is 2000 km from Beijing, or for us Americans that's 1243 miles, which is like San Francisco to Denver, or NYC to Lincoln Nebraska. [FYI Denver to NYC is 1780 miles]. Except that there is nothing but wasteland in this friendly province called Gansu. Map of
Gansu province:
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/images/map/gansu/gansu.gif
http://www.landingchina.com/city_guide/Gansu_Province.htm
Ok so now that we have some vague idea of where I was, let me tell you
about the bumpkin train. Its called the bumpkin train for two
reasons: 1. it stops at every shack, farm house, and outhouse between
Urumqi and Xi'an. 2. you can travel on a very uncomfortable hard seat
from Urumqi to Xi'an, which probably takes about 80 hours because of
all the stops, for only $12. I was only on the train for 5 hours fortunately. Some of the faces on this train… Han Chinese, farmers whose skin and hands were so worn… muslims. Krygikastany people that don't even look Chinese. When we got on the train I had more eyeballs on me than ever before. A policeman came by and told people not to stare because it wasn’t polite. I mostly wrote in my journal, and the farmer lady across from me watched me write every word with fascination. The only way we got seats at all was because these seats
were below the loudest train speaker on the bumpkin train. You see in
China when you purchase your train ticket you not only get the train
ride, you also get to experience train music, in this case at
deafening volumes. So I had my loudest music I could find on [Bergler
thanks for that mix! Brittany's my prerogative rocks] and therefore
couldn't concentrate on reading. At one point I engaged in the
classic Chinese hobby of being a gape-er. There was a serious yelling
match going on between the train authority people, who seem to mainly
seek to abuse their power and ma fan [bother] people, and why not
bother the bumpkins. The train folks were going around with their
"scale" a well used people- weighing scale, and making the bumpkins
weigh their giant bumpkin bags. The bumpkins yell back, but
unfortunately they are barely intelligible because they don't speak
clear or standard 'putong hua' or Mandarin Chinese, they speak
bumpkin dialect. So I stand and watch with everyone else until the
train lady tells me to go back to my car. Even then we continue to
watch. I enjoy Chinese hobbies.
We arrive in JiaYuGuan, and see the sights there: the end of the
great wall, and the fort the everything that went through the silk
road must pass through this fort. Finally located some decent Chinese food there, so we ate lunch and dinner at the same place. at 8 pm we boarded another
train, this one a fast train that made no stops in between and was
therefore not filled with bumpkins but with tourists, but we still
had the horrible hard seats which are REALLY HORRIBLE AT 3AM WHEN YOU
ARE SO EXHAUSTED AND THERE IS NO WHERE TO SLEEP. sorry for yelling. I guess I should be glad I am not the guy who is sleeping on the sink.
Really. Arrived in Lanzhou at 6.30 am, had some coffee, drove another
hour to the airport, fly two hours home on the most turbulent ride
that I can remember in a long time, landed and realized that every
10th passengers had vom-med, gross, the Chinese cant really hold
their stuff. Got to Beijing, walked out of the airport for about 45
min, to the old town of Tian Zhu, paid 18 cents to take the
bus home. I am so thrifty.
So that was just the trip home. Let’s see what I wrote about my travels… try to decipher my chicken scratch. Every inch of this country is used for something. Even the mountain tops are terraced and cultivated. The sleeper cars on the train, called ‘hard sleepers’, don’t have cabin doors, so you are just out in the open with everyone. Very communal. Of course it wouldn’t matter anyway cuz I got stuck with the snoring man right next to me anyway. Music is being played on the train pretty much the whole time, except from 10pm to the joyous early hour of 7am. It’s times like these that I swear by earplugs. The only moment of color in the villages that I pass on the train are the doors- colored tiles, red doors, red characters that say ‘prosperity’ ‘longevity’ ‘good fortune’ etc. There are many many satellite dishes in villagers’ courtyards.. for what I don’t know. Every bit of trash is collected, pieced through, and piled up. Recycling is king in this country. The reduced concept hasn’t exactly hit this country yet.
The cell phone necktie. For super convenient access to your lifeblood, the cell phone, can be dangled from your neck, like jewelry. It may also come with an earpiece that connects to the phone so that you can chat it up without the ma fan of actually holding the phone to your ear.
The first thing I notice about not being in Beijing is the ‘you’re the only foreigner this town has ever seen’ syndrome.. which involves shouting at me, ‘foreigner!’ in chinese, pointing, laughing, staring, and a million “HALLO”s. tao yan- hate it. Makes me miss Beijing. Beijing is worlds away from the capital of Gansu province, a horrid little city called Lanzhou. But fortunately I didn’t come to Gansu to hang out in lanzhou, this is just a stopover. I finally meet up with my friends, I take them back to my hotel, where the are five clocks above the front desk with times from around the world. According to the Peace hotel, when it is 4.30 in Beijing its 9:50 in New York, 2:05 in London, and 7:40 in Tokyo. Hmm. The lady at the front desk is possible the meanest Chineser I have ever run into. She claims there are no more rooms, saying, ‘I said it clearly, we have no rooms’ [which sounds really rude in chinese]. Of course when I go ask the lady that opens my room for me about free rooms, she says oh yes there are many, until the meany at the front desk calls her to tell us no. Don’t know why, but we were glad to get the hell out of Lanzhou.
A quote from Red Dust, by Ma Jian: “China is a black hole, I want to dive into it. I don’t know where I am going, I just know I had to leave. Everything I was I carry with me, everything I will be lies waiting on the road ahead.”
An overview of the week: Friday, 20 hour overnight train from Beijing to Lanzhou. Saturday 6 hour bus ride to Xiahe. Monday in Xiahe. Tuesday 6 hour bus back to Lanzhou, PM 10 hour overnight train to Jiayuguan. Wednesday, 10 hour bumpy bus ride to Dunhuang. Thursday in Dunhuang. Friday brings us back to the start of the blog with the 5 hour bumpkin train, then overnight in hardseats back to Lanzhou then plane to Beijing. Whew. So you can see we didn’t spend a whole lot of time not moving. More of the travels later!
Finally back to the Northern Capital
I had a minute so I thought I would begin to relay my last week's
travels to yall. And when I say travels I mean it, as I was physically
in transit for most of the week. First, an introduction to the
teamsters: the travel buds, Anna, Italian who I know from Beijing, is
an archeologist, studying ancient city layout. Her boyfriend, Noel, an
American who lives in a bumble town called Jing dezhen, where by day
he is a teacher to 551 kids, and by any spare time he is a sculptor
setting up his own factory to produce… sculpture of porcelain.
Most porcelain things made in this country are made there. His best
friend is Austin, who is also American but currently hails from
Bangkok, his home over the past 7 years. He speaks fluent Thai
[naturally]. And Swedish [why not]. And a bit of Burmease [like Burma, the country.] They were ausome travel buds, the guys were really sweet, very brotherly to me, and overly sarcastic, so we had a great time making fun of all the crazy characters we ran into along the road.
Now, a brief intro to my return trip which will hopefully explain my
lack of coherence in this blog. [I guess I wrote this part last week] My day started yesterday, I think it was Friday yesterday, we woke up at 6.30am and took an hour and a half car ride to the nearest train station, where we boarded a train,
called the bumpkin of all bumpkin trains, from Dunhuang to Jia Yu Guan. Let me first try to explain how in the middle of nowhere I was. Dunhuang is 2000 km from Beijing, or for us Americans that's 1243 miles, which is like San Francisco to Denver, or NYC to Lincoln Nebraska. [FYI Denver to NYC is 1780 miles]. Except that there is nothing but wasteland in this friendly province called Gansu. Map of
Gansu province:
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/images/map/gansu/gansu.gif
http://www.landingchina.com/city_guide/Gansu_Province.htm
Ok so now that we have some vague idea of where I was, let me tell you
about the bumpkin train. Its called the bumpkin train for two
reasons: 1. it stops at every shack, farm house, and outhouse between
Urumqi and Xi'an. 2. you can travel on a very uncomfortable hard seat
from Urumqi to Xi'an, which probably takes about 80 hours because of
all the stops, for only $12. I was only on the train for 5 hours fortunately. Some of the faces on this train… Han Chinese, farmers whose skin and hands were so worn… muslims. Krygikastany people that don't even look Chinese. When we got on the train I had more eyeballs on me than ever before. A policeman came by and told people not to stare because it wasn’t polite. I mostly wrote in my journal, and the farmer lady across from me watched me write every word with fascination. The only way we got seats at all was because these seats
were below the loudest train speaker on the bumpkin train. You see in
China when you purchase your train ticket you not only get the train
ride, you also get to experience train music, in this case at
deafening volumes. So I had my loudest music I could find on [Bergler
thanks for that mix! Brittany's my prerogative rocks] and therefore
couldn't concentrate on reading. At one point I engaged in the
classic Chinese hobby of being a gape-er. There was a serious yelling
match going on between the train authority people, who seem to mainly
seek to abuse their power and ma fan [bother] people, and why not
bother the bumpkins. The train folks were going around with their
"scale" a well used people- weighing scale, and making the bumpkins
weigh their giant bumpkin bags. The bumpkins yell back, but
unfortunately they are barely intelligible because they don't speak
clear or standard 'putong hua' or Mandarin Chinese, they speak
bumpkin dialect. So I stand and watch with everyone else until the
train lady tells me to go back to my car. Even then we continue to
watch. I enjoy Chinese hobbies.
We arrive in JiaYuGuan, and see the sights there: the end of the
great wall, and the fort the everything that went through the silk
road must pass through this fort. Finally located some decent Chinese food there, so we ate lunch and dinner at the same place. at 8 pm we boarded another
train, this one a fast train that made no stops in between and was
therefore not filled with bumpkins but with tourists, but we still
had the horrible hard seats which are REALLY HORRIBLE AT 3AM WHEN YOU
ARE SO EXHAUSTED AND THERE IS NO WHERE TO SLEEP. sorry for yelling. I guess I should be glad I am not the guy who is sleeping on the sink.
Really. Arrived in Lanzhou at 6.30 am, had some coffee, drove another
hour to the airport, fly two hours home on the most turbulent ride
that I can remember in a long time, landed and realized that every
10th passengers had vom-med, gross, the Chinese cant really hold
their stuff. Got to Beijing, walked out of the airport for about 45
min, to the old town of Tian Zhu, paid 18 cents to take the
bus home. I am so thrifty.
So that was just the trip home. Let’s see what I wrote about my travels… try to decipher my chicken scratch. Every inch of this country is used for something. Even the mountain tops are terraced and cultivated. The sleeper cars on the train, called ‘hard sleepers’, don’t have cabin doors, so you are just out in the open with everyone. Very communal. Of course it wouldn’t matter anyway cuz I got stuck with the snoring man right next to me anyway. Music is being played on the train pretty much the whole time, except from 10pm to the joyous early hour of 7am. It’s times like these that I swear by earplugs. The only moment of color in the villages that I pass on the train are the doors- colored tiles, red doors, red characters that say ‘prosperity’ ‘longevity’ ‘good fortune’ etc. There are many many satellite dishes in villagers’ courtyards.. for what I don’t know. Every bit of trash is collected, pieced through, and piled up. Recycling is king in this country. The reduced concept hasn’t exactly hit this country yet.
The cell phone necktie. For super convenient access to your lifeblood, the cell phone, can be dangled from your neck, like jewelry. It may also come with an earpiece that connects to the phone so that you can chat it up without the ma fan of actually holding the phone to your ear.
The first thing I notice about not being in Beijing is the ‘you’re the only foreigner this town has ever seen’ syndrome.. which involves shouting at me, ‘foreigner!’ in chinese, pointing, laughing, staring, and a million “HALLO”s. tao yan- hate it. Makes me miss Beijing. Beijing is worlds away from the capital of Gansu province, a horrid little city called Lanzhou. But fortunately I didn’t come to Gansu to hang out in lanzhou, this is just a stopover. I finally meet up with my friends, I take them back to my hotel, where the are five clocks above the front desk with times from around the world. According to the Peace hotel, when it is 4.30 in Beijing its 9:50 in New York, 2:05 in London, and 7:40 in Tokyo. Hmm. The lady at the front desk is possible the meanest Chineser I have ever run into. She claims there are no more rooms, saying, ‘I said it clearly, we have no rooms’ [which sounds really rude in chinese]. Of course when I go ask the lady that opens my room for me about free rooms, she says oh yes there are many, until the meany at the front desk calls her to tell us no. Don’t know why, but we were glad to get the hell out of Lanzhou.
A quote from Red Dust, by Ma Jian: “China is a black hole, I want to dive into it. I don’t know where I am going, I just know I had to leave. Everything I was I carry with me, everything I will be lies waiting on the road ahead.”
An overview of the week: Friday, 20 hour overnight train from Beijing to Lanzhou. Saturday 6 hour bus ride to Xiahe. Monday in Xiahe. Tuesday 6 hour bus back to Lanzhou, PM 10 hour overnight train to Jiayuguan. Wednesday, 10 hour bumpy bus ride to Dunhuang. Thursday in Dunhuang. Friday brings us back to the start of the blog with the 5 hour bumpkin train, then overnight in hardseats back to Lanzhou then plane to Beijing. Whew. So you can see we didn’t spend a whole lot of time not moving. More of the travels later!
posted by Claire at 5:33 AM
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