Sunday, July 22, 2001

Diverging Paths (19 July)

Golmud is the fastest way out of Tibet, aside from flying. Juliette and I stepped off the bus after 28 hours, back in China two hours earlier than expected. Two hours earlier than we wanted, really; both of us were already making plans to go back someday. Dreaming, I should say -- if nothing else, traveling teaches the whimsical nature of plans.

The Golmud Public Security Bureau was, as usual, vasellating unpredictably between friend and enemy. Bad cop: they wouldn't allow me to go to Dunhuang, an 85 quai bus ride, without buying a travel permit for an additional 75 quai. Good cop: they were happy to give us each visa extensions for one month (Germans pay 100 quai, Americans have to pay 125 for being capitalist devils) but (bad cop) it took hours because they don't really know how to work their computers. ("Please sit down. Don't make me nervous!")

Formalities complete, the moment of truth came quickly. Juliette prepared to board a train headed east to Xining, and I began my mission to retrieve our bag from Kashgar -- in the far west of the Far East, you might say. We made plans and contingency plans and emergency backup plans, and I loaded her down with the tent, the stove, and my sleeping bag so I'd have room for the stuff I was picking up. And suddenly I was traveling alone again, as was she. After two months traveling together, I wasn't sure what I was used to anymore. It's not so long in normal time, but the adventures we'd been through made those two months seem to stretch into a lifetime.

Even so, I wasn't surprised to find out that I could in fact still travel alone, even in China. More or less.

I had the company of Pascal and Monique as far as Dunhuang on an overnight bus trip, then I was really on my own for another two hour bus to Liuyuan to catch a train. I hadn't bought a train ticket yet in China, and managed to avoid it even now -- some Japanese and British travelers, all of whom had been studying in China and spoke fluent Chinese, purchased my ticket for me. Unfortunately there were no actual seats available for the eight hour trip; the ticket merely allowed me to board the train, then left me homeless. As I had felt so many times since coming to China, once again I was thankful for my experiences in India. The prospect of sitting on the floor between train cars seemed like nothing to me -- the floor was clean (I had to get up every so often when the conductor came with his mop), the Chinese family I shared the floor with was friendly, and if I ever got too hot I could go hang out in the air conditioned car for as long as I wanted. Decadance!

Apparently even these comforts weren't good enough for me, though -- Letian, a young Chinese guy with a seatless ticket like mine, invited me to share a couple of seats he and his friend had found. What good fortune! They both spoke pretty good English, and were engineering post-grads on their summer holiday, traveling cheap. It was fun to talk with them, one of the first times I'd been able to actually converse with Chinese people since I'd arrived in China. I met everyone nearby -- a lot of them spoke a little English but were too shy to use it. One man, a young doctor in the army, tried his hardest to teach me Chinese, but I'm afraid I was a poor student -- I couldn't even remember how to say the simplest things like "eyes" and "glasses" -- the same word, in fact, with a different intonation on the final syllable. They asked me what I normally did while waiting, so I played my mouth harp for them. When I finished, it seemed like the whole train car was applauding. What a nice reception I was having on this train! It was good to see another side of Chinese culture, so much different from the truck driver scene where they mostly just spit everywhere.

Letian and his friend got off at the same stop I did. They helped me buy my next ticket to Kashgar, saving me once again from having to purchase my own train ticket. The train didn't leave until the next afternoon, however, so I was on my own for finding a room in this little train station village near the city of Tulufan.

Traveling in China without a guidebook hadn't been a problem so far -- usually we camped, or if we stayed in a guest house it was either the only one in town, or they were all equivalent. Here, however, I was at a loss -- the only hotel I could find had no dorms, so I'd have to pay for a double room -- too rich for me!

As I wandered around looking for another hotel, Letian came to my rescue. "Don't ask for 'binguan,'" he admonished. "That means expensive hotel. Ask for 'lushe,' that means cheap hotel."

I thanked him and said goodbye again -- they were on their way into Tulufan. I found the 'lushe' I'd been looking for, but again they wouldn't rent just one bed. I think I must have been saying the wrong thing, because they were getting very irritated with me. Finally I gave up, nearly resigned to sleeping outside the train station (if it were India, I'd sleep in the train station, alongside hundreds of Indian familes, but China is different.)

Again, Letian magically appeared. "We sleep here tonight. No more buses to Tulufan until tomorrow, taxi too expensive."

Woo-hoo, I had roommates! They instantly found us a cheap room, with air conditioning and a television. The tv wasn't much of an attraction for me, since it only had one channel in Chinese, and I don't even like television when it has eighty channels in English, but the air conditioning turned out to be a boon; Tulufan is the second lowest place in the world and is hot as hell.

So traveling alone without a guidebook turned out not so bad after all, at least this time. I wonder what will happen when there's no Letian to save me?