Are We There Yet?

Got back to Beijing last night after a week of play in the provinces of Gansu and Qinghai with Adam, Michelle, and Chris.  It was a wonderful trip and because of an abundance of hours I can spare, as well as for the sake of my own memories, I have decided to write about every day of the trip in separate entries.  So if you're interested in reading about our misadventures for a week or reading about what the rest of China is like, then enjoy!

 

Are We There Yet?

 

We left Beijing on the night of October 1st, one of the peak days of Golden Week.   We agreed to meet at Beijing West Train Station.  As usual, Adam and gang are late.  With 20 minutes left before our train was suppose to depart, I started getting a bit nervous.  Finally, with 15 minutes left, the three Brits mosies out of their cab and proceeds to walk right past me.  After I called their names, they finally noticed that the girl who looked like she was 12 was actually me.

 

We sped our way to the platform, and finally made it on the train.  As soon as we made it inside our car, all hopes of upgrading our hard seats to sleepers went out the window.  The train was packed!  There were heaps of people up and down the aisle - some sitting and a whole lot standing.  Not surprisingly, we were the only foreigners in our carriage.  With our 3 plastic bags worth of food (thanks, Michelle), we settled into our 21 hour overnight train ride. 

 

When one finds oneself in a situation like ours, one must become creative in hopes of entertaining oneself.  In our case, we were very creative.  We first started a count-down system via Chris's leg.  Every half hour and an hour allowed us to color in one grid on his thigh, which eventually grew to look like a huge black void.  We also explored our artistic capabilities by drawing portraits of each other.  I'm sad to say that my AP Art teacher would've been very disappointed to see how much my artistic skills have disintegrated.

 

Eventually, as sleep set in, we all struggled to get comfortable.  I sat next to Adam, which meant that although I had a pillow, I had to twist my body every which way in order to find a comfortable position in order to utilize the pillow to maximum capacity.  There were also several near disasters when Adam almost drooled on me.  Fortunately, I was quick enough to realize and jump out of the way of his saliva.

 

Morning came and we found ourselves facing a cloudy, & drizzly day.  During the night, the landscape changed from the metropolis of  Beijing to lush mountains with fertile brown dirt and a winding Yellow River, one of the greatest rivers in China.  We were all very amazed at the scenery, especially when we passed areas of pretty serious flooding (we learned a few days later that where we passed through suffered very serious flooding damages).

 

After 21 hours, we finally arrived in Lanzhou, Gansu.  Gansu Provinces is located in Western China, south of Xingjiang (Eastern Turkestan) and Inner Mongolia, and east of Tibet & Qinghai Province.  Besides encompassing what used to belong to the former kingdom of Tibet, Gansu was also an important point along the Silk Road.  You can still see the influence of the legendary route in many places in Gansu today, Lanzhou being no exception.  Being China's geographical center, it is also one of the most polluted cities in China - I personally found it quite drab (but I also contribute a large amount of that feeling to the poor weather).  However, what was very interesting about Lanzhou was the significant Muslim-Chinese population.  Mostly decedents of people who came in from the West via Silk Road and native people who looks more like me, it was fascinating to see their influence in the city and culture.  There were quite a few mosques in town & Muslim butchered lined the street.  The men were more keen on wearing their Islamic hats and women more keen on wearing headscarves.  Their physical features are also, for the most part, different from Han Chinese (the majority - ie, people who looks like me).  Because of their Turkic or Persian ancestors, they now have sharper and more Caucasian features - sharper bridges, deeper set eyes, paler skin, etc.

 

After stepping off the train, we immediately hopped on a cab to take us to Lanzhou Bus Station.  Upon arrival, we proceeded to be mobbed by a horde of solicitors, all trying to get us to purchase their tickets.  Thankfully, we were semi-rescued by 2 Chinese tourists - Ken and Lisa - who also came from our train from Beijing and heading to the same place.  After 15 minutes of confusing bargaining and soliciting, we finally agreed to go with one guy who offered us tickets to Xiahe for 40rmb.  Deal. 

 

The bus ride to Xiahe would take another 6 hours.  The ride started out on very comfortable, tarmac road.  But as we travelled deeper into the mountain, and after Chris made a very smart comment, the bus veered off the nice road and headed for a bumpier, pot hole ridden dirt lane.  For 4 hours, we bumped along the road, gaining sharply in altitude as we head to Xiahe.  We all handled the ride fine, save Michelle, who showed us all, once again, what she had for lunch. 

 

Around 10:30pm, and after switching from our Greyhound styled coach into a smaller mini-van, the four of us, Ken & Lisa, and two other Chinese tourists finally in Xiahe.  Thus began our Mary and Joseph esc campaign around Xiahe to find accommodation for the night.  Because it was the hight of Golden Week, and because we arrived so late, every guesthouse in downtown Xiahe was all booked.  Half an hour of fruitless searching, we were all growing ever more exhausted at this game of finding the needle in the haystack.  Sleeping in the mini-van for the night was looking more and more like a serious option.  We tried our luck at one last place, a hotel 2kms out of town.  Success!  They had rooms for 8 people!

 

Exhausted and freezing (it was very, very cold outside), we lumbered into our rooms - Michelle and I were in one, and the boys were in a room next door.  After a midnight meal of pot noodles, which Michelle and I swore we won't eat but did anyway, we all collapsed in our bed for a well deserved night's rest after more than 24 hours of straight traveling.