The day started off ridiculously early (5am), as we had to catch a bus going to Xining (Qinghai Province) at 6am. It was freezing outside and there was not even a crack of light in the horizon. We got ready, made it out, & luckily, there was a tractor taxi outside. We took that on a freezing 5 minutes ride through town to the bus station. At one point, we all looked up and saw a beautifully clear night sky, filled with hundreds of stars. I haven't seen such a clear night sky since Everest Base Camp.
Our bus ride will turn out to be one of the most memoriable rides on our whole trip. Besides us being the only foreigners on the bus, the bus was filled with characters - from monks to tourists to chuba clad Tibetans. We started our bus trip in the freezing dark night. From the window, I can only see dark forms passing me and the mist my breath made on the windows. Once light broke, I began to see the rolling grassland and the surrounding mountains. Breathtaking! The scenery on this long, long bus ride was simply amazing! From green grassland, we drove high into the sky, into jagged snow covered granite mountains and red sandstone cliffs (thanks, Chris, for explaining why it's red). Definately one of the most scenic drives I've taken in a while (well, since Tibet), it was too much of a shame to even sleep on the bus, for you might miss more of the amazing views.
Along with the ever changing scenery, the demography of the land is also slowly changing. The further northwest we move, the more Muslims there were. In fact, during lunch, we stopped at a small town where most of the population, it seemed, were Muslims. In fact, the further we drove, it seemed that we were not in China, but rather, in some Central Asian country.
In the afternoon, we finally arrived in Xining, capital of Qinghai province. According to Wikipedia, Xining "used to be a chief commercial hub on the caravan route to Tibet (Tibet lies just west of Qinghai). The population of Xining proved to be an interesting mix of Tibetans, Muslims, and Han Chinese.
Our first mission on arriving in Xining was to book bus tickets to Jiayuguan for the next evening (notice a pattern here? All work of Adam's see-as-many-places-in-as-short-a-time-as-possible around China). We had the help of a random guy whose help was cited by the authors of Lonely Planet. He subsequently suggested to us a hotel that was around the bus station, which we took.
Upon checking into the hotel, the first impression that hit me was how much it reminded me of the first hotel we checked out in Chengde early in the summer. We didn't take it because the situation was pretty dire. Needless to say, the situation at this hotel was also pretty bloody dire. The sheets were more or less clean, but both rooms had gathered a list of problems with the bathroom - anything from no water, to flush to toilet to toilet just not working, to cannot get the shower to work, to no hot water, and so on. Finally, after almost driven to insanity by the ever increasing list of bathroom breakdowns, we decided to channel our energy through other means - ie, explore Xining.
First priorities first: food! After not having a proper meal since yesterday's dinner (causing poor Michelle to devour a whole bag of stale prawn cracker on the bus, which still left her hungry), we stopped at some shaddy looking restuarant first for some dumplings and noodles. I was truely amazed at how much the 3 Brits can eat - a whole big plate of noodles and 120 dumplings! Damn!
After lunch/dinner, we decided to check out the largest mosque in town, which also happened to be one of the largest ones around northwest China (not including Xingjiang, I pressumed). The entrance fee was 10 kuai, and what that entailed was basically freedom to wander around the grounds of the mosque, but not the actuall mosque itself. However, I did take a peak in and it looked interesting from what I could see - imagine pretty traditional Chinese style and architecture, only facing Mecca and with some Islamic touches. Interesting. Needless to say, even though the mosque was nice, the 10 kuai entrance fee for a walk around the mosque was quite steep. We felt we needed to redeem ourselves, so our next stop was Xining's People's Park.
We arrived at the back door of the park, which doubled as a semi-pet market. There were stalls upon stalls selling everything from guppies to turtles of all sizes and types, to kittens and puppies who were still too young to be taken away from their mother.
We worked our way through the market and finally, arrived inside the park. Think Disneyland gone awrye. That's probably how you would describe People's Park. Probably the kitchest of all kitch parks, the park must've been a mad brainchild of some Chinese in love with all things stinking of cheese. From giant plastic butterflies to "bouncy beds", this park had it all. We were endlessly amazed at how cheesy one park can be (granted, it contributed to our entertainment for the afternoon). To amuse ourselves even further, we decided to rent a row boat to wade around the park's lake. Of course, instead of a regular row boat, this one was two regular row boats pasted together - so it was really a four persons effort to row the boat! Once again, being the only foreigners in the park (and me, the translator/tour guide), we were the target of endless attention. Especially when we did something stupid - like row around in a circle for the first 10 minutes. This attention also manefested into being targets to the hordes of duck boats around, including a group of 3 Tibetan men whom I swear, had it in their heads to get us. Another time, our boat was slammed so hard that I was knocked off balance & sent my camera smashing into the metal frame of my boat. I was less than impressed.
Wondering around the park left us well hungry (well, mainly me, who didn't eat so much during meal #1). Our next destination was the city's daily night market. In many cities in China, daily night markets flourish as a place for cheap and good eats (not always very clean, but oil kills everything, right?). The night market in Xining, I felt, can easily rival the main night market street in Beijing for better quality eats. Up and down the streets, on both sides, were dozens of little stands selling loads of interesting food (with a very Muslim influence, of course) - lamb kebabs (my favorite!), naan, huge pieces of boiled mutton, and a type boiled-fried kebabs a la Sichuan hotpot style, to name a few. Our dinner # 2 consisted of a few of these things - kebabs, beer, and deep fried dumplings (I swear, the Brits can never get enough of dumplings! They're not even that good!). I thought one of the best part was dessert - a kebab of assorted fruits dipped in carmalized sugar & then chilled so what results is a layer of crispy, sugary coating. Yum!
Filled to the brims, we wondered around the night market before deciding that Adam needed a haircut. He decided upon a place in an alley that offered haircuts for 10 kuai. Half an hour later, Adam looked more clean cut, but I think it's all safe to say we were all very surprized at the amount of hair that fell off. After that, what we really needed (to help alieve the stress of traveling, of course), was some good old fashioned foot message. A few weeks ago, I got my first foot message at Bodhi's in Beijing. That was an extremely lovely experience, so I was looking forward to a second round in Xining. The place we eventually decided on definately lacked the elegant, tasteful air of Bodhi's, but the actual message itself was more or less the same, even the same type of messages & procedures. It was 80 minutes of chilled out bliss, except for the masseus. I think Adam's was very surprised when she saw how hairy Adam was, to say the least. Haha! :)
After the lovely message, we went back to the hotel & found that most of the bathroom problems have been solved - to at least some degree. Good enough for us. For the moment being, bed was calling...
