Plans change—but I’ll get to that in a bit. Saturday night in Kashgar (after my last post), I went out to Intizar, a traditional Uighur restaurant for dinner and then went for a walk through the night market and by the Eid Kah mosque. The market was packed and was serving up all sorts of foods in all sorts of ways (many of which I’d love to try, but fear they might take too much of a toll on my stomach). The main square outside the Eid Kah mosque was an interesting sight. Lit by orange-ish floodlights, hundreds of kids (of all ages) were running through the square in all different directions with inflatable balls (being sold by child street vendors), hitting them up into the air, kicking them, chasing them, and all-in-all having a great time.
On Sunday, I got up slowly and (after buying my bus ticket to Hotan for that night) headed to the Sunday Market. I’d heard great things about the Sunday Market in Kashgar, and honestly I was a bit disappointed. It was really just another market, like anywhere else—despite Uighur shops selling knives, hats, silks, scarves, etc. I haggled a bit, and then went for a walk and to take care of some errands. (My headphones had broken, and I’d finished the one book I’d taken with me—the headphones were easy to solve… I still haven’t found another book to read.) In any case, I had seen most of the sights I had wanted to see in Kashgar, and I was a bit tired, so after some walking and light food, I headed back to Indy’s for a while for some coffee and to check up on some of the details for the rest of my trip. I had already checked out of my hotel, but had left my pack with reception, so I headed back to the Qini Bagh hotel for a little. In the outdoor café/bar there, I saw a guy who I’d seen twice at Indy’s. I went up and introduced myself, and he invited me to sit to eat dinner with him. So, we drank some beer, ate some food, and talked for a while. He was an incoming senior at Arizona State, majoring in Russian Studies. He’d received the NSEP fellowship to study in Kyrgyzstan, for a program starting a week later, and had decided that it was cheaper to fly into Beijing and travel through China to Kyrgyzstan than to fly directly into Kyrgyzstan. We talked for a while, and he told me that he really didn’t want to do this program. When I asked why, he told me that he had just got engaged, and would rather be at home with his fiancée.
I departed and made my way to the bus station for the overnight bus to Hotan. The situation with this bus pissed me off a bit, but it was typical Chinese style. I had gone the day before to buy the ticket and they asked if I wanted a sleeper bus, to which I replied that I did. Then, they said that I had to come back in the morning. But when I came back in the morning (and I was there first thing in the morning), they told me that sleeper tickets had to be purchased the day before. In any case, I ended up with seat 1, which was a seat by itself, making me a little bit more comfortable. Unfortunately, our 9:30 pm Beijing time departure turned out to be an 11:30 pm departure (waiting for more passengers), and then we trolled around town for another half an hour picking up more people! I was getting impatient. Keeping in mind that I hadn’t showered in a few days, I honestly think that I was the best smelling person on the bus. One guy had his shoes and socks off, with his dirty, yellowed feet up on the seat in front of him. Finally, though, we left. I drowned out the annoying Uighur music-videos that they show loudly on the buses with my own music and my new headphones, talked with a couple Uighur guys, who continually offered me cigarettes even though I told them I didn’t smoke, thanked God for the window, and then got a very uncomfortable and piecemeal sleep, waking up as we entered Hotan at around 7:00am Beijing time. I oriented myself and found a hotel (a very bad but cheap hotel). My room had no AC, no shower, a squatter toilet, seemed to double as the storage closet, and was right next to the kitchen. Still, it was a room.
I had been in contact with my friend Corey, from Beijing, who was coming the other direction on the Southern Silk Road, and it turned out that we were both in Hotan the same day, so I told him to call me when he woke up, which he did. We walked around for a bit, and I bought my ticket to the next town on the Silk Road, and then found the PSB office. I had read that some of the towns in Qinghai province were closed to foreigners (maybe because of the prisons in Qinghai), including the one that I needed to cross into to get through the mountains. The only way to enter is to get a special permit. So, I found the Aliens Entry and Exit Administration in the PSB (Public Security Bureau/Police) office near the main square of the town, and asked them. They looked confused, and then very smugly informed me that I did need a permit, but (despite what I had read) they were not the proper office to give such a permit, and that permits to enter Qinghai were only available from the PSB AEEA office in Korla on the north side of the Taklaman desert and a nice 17 hours away by bus. I explained my situation to them, and for some reason they thought that I had wanted to go on foot. So, I clarified, that I would be taking buses and cars, and they said that I still needed the permit. I asked them what would happen if I went without getting the permit, and they said that if the PSB there found me, they would send me back. As you can imagine, I was really pissed off, and then I sat down to reevaluate my plans.
It seemed then that passing through the mountains into Qinghai would be impossible, and that going all the way north to Korla to get the permit, and then coming back would be overly circuitous. Besides, I would wager that when I got to Korla, they’d tell me to go somewhere else. So, I decided instead to take the Cross-Desert Highway up through the Taklamakan Desert back to Urumqi, from where I will head into Gansu province from the north, first visiting Jiayuguan, the figurative and historical gate between western and eastern China, going to the famous Jiayuguan Fort and the Overhanging Great Wall, then visiting Zhangye to see the world’s largest sleeping Buddha and to go hiking a bit in the mountains, visiting Xining to take a trip to Qinghai Lake, where hundreds of thousands of migratory birds, including many rare species from the Indian Ocean should be summering right when I’ll be there, on to Lanzhou to relax by the Yellow River for a day, overnight to Xi’an to see the Terracotta Warriors, and then back to Beijing, one day ahead of schedule. So, I think all-in-all the change is a positive one.
Corey and I found a restaurant, drank some beers, and talked for a while to escape the heat. We decided to try to find an internet café, which we did. Upon entering, however, they told us that foreigners weren’t allowed to use internet cafes in Hotan. I complained, told them that everywhere else in Xinjiang we were allowed, was a little rude, and then offered to bribe them. They said that it wasn’t an issue of money, but that the PSB had told them that all customers must have a Chinese registration ID. We tried another, and got an even ruder response. So, I asked at a hotel, and they weren’t able to help us either. This policy has to be one of the stupidest policies I’ve encountered on my trip thus far. I’m wondering, though, if it’s just an oversight that they don’t accept passports as a sufficient form of ID, or if they purposefully don’t want foreigners accessing the Internet. After walking around a bit more, Corey headed to the bus station for his bus to Kashgar, while I headed back out on my own to explore a bit more. I sat in the lobby of a nicer hotel for a while, and talked to a Chinese man who claimed to be a travel agent and said that I should go into Qinghai anyway, and that there would be plenty of opportunities to avoid the PSB. I told him I’d rather not take my chances, and that my trip would still be good. Then I found a large market, and just kept walking for a while, getting lots of stares. On my way back to the “hotel”, a Uighur man rode his bike up to me and started speaking English. He seemed nice enough, so I talked to him. He told me that he had studied English on his own from books (he was fairly good), and that he had had trouble finding a job so he was working in the “tree market” (which I took to mean ‘lumber yard’). I said that with such good English, he should be a tour guide. Then, he proceeded to tell me the story of how he had been a tour guide in 2006, but he had been guiding some Germans, who had gotten in trouble for something or another, and he was questioned for his correlation with them, and had been told after trial that he could no longer operate as a tour guide in Hotan. I asked if he had a family, thinking maybe he could move, but he told me he did; that he had a new baby. He asked me if there were Uighurs in America, and I told him that there probably are, but that there are people from all over the world in America, so it’s hard to say for sure; also, that because in America there are so many different types of people, people really don’t stick out like I do here. Then I pointed out to him that everyone was staring at me. He said, “yes, but everyone thinks you’re a Muslim like us because of your beard.” (I haven’t shaved since before I left Beijing.) I wished him luck with his job, and went on my way back to my room.
In the morning, I headed right over to the bus station, and found my bus bound for the desert. Since it is a 20 hour ride to Urumqi from Hotan, it was a sleeper bus. I opted for a bottom bunk, and got ‘1 bottom’, assuming that would be a window. Of course, when I got on the bus, I found that the drivers (there are 3, who take shifts) had designated the first window bunks as beds #0, so #1 was a middle bunk, with no air vents. I complained to the driver, said that I had specifically asked for a window, and that I wanted to trade. He told me all of the bottom bunks were full, but that I could switch into 0 top if I wanted, which I did only slightly reluctantly. I figured top with a window and air vents is better than middle bottom without either. Then I asked him quietly if he could keep the bad Uighur music videos off. He agreed. To my annoyance once more, the drivers had a list of phone numbers that people had provided when they had purchased their tickets. There were a few people missing, and rather than just leaving as any means of public transportation would anywhere else in the world, the driver called each person individually and drove around town to pick them up.
The road across the desert was completed in 1995, and it is truly an impressive feat, cutting directly across the one of the largest sand deserts in the world. “Takla Makan” apparently means ‘go in and you’ll never come out.’ So, I bought a lot of water and some food I would only eat if I had to before hopping on the bus. They keep the desert from swallowing up the road by running very long thick black hoses in rows next to it on both sides, irrigating series of reeds and bushes, whose roots hold the sand in place. Every half mile or so there is a well building, painted bright blue with a red roof. A few hours in we hit a very smile oil outpost, with a gas station, a small hotel, a restaurant, and some small shops (there are now regular buses on this route, as well as many trucks).
In the night, the sand blew across the road like a thick fog, and I wondered how the driver could see where to go. But we made it out okay, laughing at the name “Taklamakan”. After a few early stops, we made it to Urumqi on schedule. Still too early for anything to be open (remembering that Xinjiang time is two hours behind), I headed right to the train station to get my ticket to Jiayuguan and to store my bag for the day. Then, I looked for the nicest hotel I could find, hoping for a western toilet inside, which I found without too much trouble. Walking towards the city center, I found myself on a tree-lined street with kids in uniform heading to school. One Han Chinese boy, walked beside me as I crossed the street, and started talking to me. Since his school was a few blocks away, I walked with him all the way, talking about what he had studied in class, and about China and America, and then found a place for breakfast.
After that, I walked through a very large but typical Chinese park. Chinese parks in the morning are always very interesting. There are large groups of elderly people doing Taiji, ballroom dancing, line dancing, using outdoor gym equipment, practicing with swords, playing with Chinese yo-yos, sitting and talking, using large brushes and buckets of water to do temporary calligraphy on the sidewalks, playing musical instruments, singing, and so on. It really is quite an experience to walk through and talk to people.
Then, I went back to the spot where my camera had been stolen the week before (being especially careful), and scouted the market once more, questioning a few vendors. Unfortunately, it was nowhere to be found. So, I went out for some lunch, and to try to get on the Internet. I found a café (not list in Lonely Planet) called the Texas Café, with Texas décor, music from Texas, English books, Tex-Mex food, and free wireless Internet access (the real reason I came). Still, the food and beer were good, and a nice break from Uighur cuisine. I’ve thus far spent almost 70 hours on buses on this trip (even more if you count cars), but it’s been worth it. I’m seeing things I’d otherwise never get to see. I’m sometimes taking lots of photos, and sometimes just taking things in and enjoying them. I really wanted to go to the Tibetan town of Xiahe in Gansu province to visit the monastery and the grasslands there, and had heard from a backpacker a few weeks ago that there hadn’t been any problems getting there. Another backpacker told me the other day, however, that when he had gotten off the bus in Xiahe, the PSB had immediately picked him up and forced him to go back to Lanzhou. I did some research on the Internet (in Urumqi), and found that Xiahe is indeed closed to foreigners for the time being. So that’s out of the question. I’m not sure about the Internet situation (or my free time situation) in the next few places I’ll be, but worst comes to worst, I should be in Lanzhou on Monday with some free time and access to the Internet. Only 12 days till my flight back to the States—Happy? Sad?... maybe a little of both.
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