On on to Beijing

As that lonesome train pulled away from the station in Kunming on the night of April 15, I took my place in the six-bunk compartment that was occupied by a group of Chinese geriatrics (that means old people). I laid down for the night and was disturbed by strange dreams throughout. In one of them I became lucid and flew into the sky, but soon lost control and fell softly back to earth.

There's not too much to say about being on a train for forty hours without anyone with whom you share a common language. I finished reading Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad, which I have been working on nearly since I disembarked in Malaysia, and started reading some Carl Jung, because sometimes I am comforted by the way he tries to rationalize the human spirit. I wrote endlessly in my journal and even wrote postcards to some of you people. I listened to music that reminded me of isolation and transportation, like Radiohead, Sufjan Stevens' Age of Adz, and anything from Iceland. I ate nothing except for a bag of warm milk that one of the old women insisted that I take, because I seemed to have no appetite. And then I spent another night on the train.


In the morning on April 17, I awoke to the passing agricultural flatlands of Northeastern China, having left behind the majestic Karst formations and subtropical foliage of the South. By 11:00 that morning the train abruptly entered an urban zone and we soon pulled into the Beijing western railway station. I managed to meet a Polish-German couple and with the use of their guidebook and a decent amount of non-verbal communication, we were able to navagate two metro lines and a long walk to find a good hostel, that was booked completely. Instead I checked into a subpar, windlowless room in a hotel with a staff that enjoyed talking about me in Chinese and laughing (or maybe I'm just being overly self-conscious). Thus began an underwhelming two-and-a-half day stint in this nation's capital.

Beijing is, from the accounts I have heard from other travelers, an interesting and fun-filled city. And I do not doubt that. I even saw some of it myself. But I hardly think that the two days I spent there were time enough to really get to know this city or find the right places to enjoy myself. I'll give you a briefish recap of those two days and try to spare you the more boring details.


Upon arriving and settling into my room, I set about looking for Mr. Shi's restaurant based on a business card I had from there, given to me by Sasha. Eventually I was able to find my way there and ate an outrageous amount of fried dumplings (jow-dza!), which filled my completely empty stomach more than sufficiently. That night I did next to nothing.


My first full day here, I slept in a bit and then went in search for the travel office where I could pick up my train ticket to Mongolia. Navigating the metro and the huge (nearly unwalkable) city blocks of Beijing, I found the office, and with my task for the day being complete, I got back on the metro for Tian'aman Square, the center of the city. Once there, I navigated the throngs of tour groups and scam artists and entered the huge walls of the forbidden city, the capital of the nation during much of the dynastic period. I took lots of pictures and tried to be impressed by the architecture and history.


After that, I hung out in the concrete desert that is Tian'aman Square for a brief time, hoping to find the spot where that guy stood in front of the army tanks in the 1980's, but for some reason there was no monument to mark the spot, so I gave up looking for it and left. I went back to Mr. Shi's for some more jow-dza, boiled, not fried this time, and then passed the evening uneventfully in a non-social sort of way.


My final day I had a list of tasks to accomplish, including catching up on this here blog, buying a camera memory card and a jacket for Mongolia and Siberia (I got a sweet US Army jacket), emailing friends and family, changing currency (finally got rid of the HK$'s that have been weighing me down), researching a place to stay in Ulan Batar, and taking a shower. I'm proud to say I accomplished everything on my list, nearly at least. After a good day's work, I got some more jow-dza (I'm not always this monotonous with my food choices), and then passed another uneventful evening, observing a Chinese bar scene.


I awoke at sunrise the next morning and made my way to the metro station, through the quiet Beijing streets of morn, and to the Beijing main railway station for my departure from China.

China, I can't say I knew you well, though as for your southern pearl of Yunnan, I feel I gave it a fair shake. I know one day I will come back and see more of this land, but it may be years yet (although my visa will allow me one more entry before January 28, 2011). In China I saw true beauty, in the land, in the people, natives and foreigners alike. I saw true charity and some disgusting habits, but it is a time in my life I will not soon forget.


And now, lady's and gentleman, begins the grueling portion of my journey, in which I am unlikely to spend more than two days in any one place; meanwhile I travel endless days and nights by rail, from the capital of China, through the desolate expanses of Mongolia and Siberia and the great civilizations of Europe, the airs of the Atlantic and the barren ashes of Iceland, and finally, once again, land on the eastern shores of my native country, the land of the free, and travel the vast plains and deserts and mountains by bus and train and arrive rapturously in Flagstaff on the night of June 14.

I am more than halfway through my trip by time standards, but I have 2/3 of the Earth's longitude to cross yet. The days of warmth and comfort and bargain prices are over, but I remain myself, however changed by my experiences in South Asia. I feel like this is the end of one thing and the beginning of another, and if I let myself to it, I could keep writing pretentious things for hours (I'm in the mood), but I'll save it for my diary; it's time to explore the capital of Mongolia before I leave for yet another country.

Yunnan Catch-up Part 3: The Road to Goodbye

The friendships that one makes on the road are some of the most intense relationships that I can fathom. They often form in an instant and are snuffed out within a matter of days or even hours. Such is the case when you cross paths with truly like-minded people whose journeys coincide with yours for only a short time, and in nearly all cases you never expect to see them again. It is for that reason that having to say farewell to someone you've only known for a week can be one of the most painful goodbyes you will ever have to face. At the same time, the experience really teaches you to live in the moment.

Upon arriving back to Lijiang on April 9, our group of four checked back into Mama Naxi's to be sheltered from the Saturday night tourist fest outside on the streets. Sasha and I went out after midnight, at first looking for a bar but then finding it cheaper to enjoy a bottle of sour Chinese red wine and explore the now nearly deserted town. We observed a sort of Chinese-hippy drum and music circle and then explored the maze of alleys of the ancient city. After say 1:00 in the morning, the tourist vibe of the town fades nearly completely and all that you are left with is the bare cobblestone streets with streams running alongside them, and the seemingly imperial-era architecture. It was more magical than disneyland on steroids.



The next day more stuff happened, like exploring the nature park with Sasha and eating dumplings (jow-dza?!). That night we went to a bar run by a sloppy, bearded Irish guy and it was a truly life-changing experience. Not knowing what I was doing the next day (I was still mulling over going to Shangri-La), I decided on a bit of a whim to head back down south towards Kunming and on to the Yuanyang rice terraces with Sasha, and in turn, Mary as well. So upon break of the morning on April 11, I got in a taxi with Sasha and Nadya to the Lijiang train station and hoped to the sweet lord Buddha that they would still have a ticket available so I could join my friends. They did and we boarded the train towards the capital of the province, Kunming.

And now I feel like I'm just giving a dry recap of my mundane travel activities without any artisic flourishes that any decent writer should employ. I just got off a train from Beijing to Ulan Batar, Mongolia, and for hours was reading Henry Miller's account of his travels in Greece. I was hoping I could try to emulate his powerful prose, but instead I am at the end of my patience as this girl on the computer next to me shouts at inanimate objects because Skype isn't working, and I'm not in such an artisic mood. I'll end this tangent but my feelings remain.

So we were on the train, I and my two friends from other ends of the earth. We passed the time as people do by talking and drinking beer until the sad moment when Nadya had to disembark in Dali to follow her diverging path. It was an emotional moment. The train continued on and Sasha and I continued doing what people do, you know, talking and drinking beer, and sometime that afternoon arrived in the city of Kunming. We navigated the train station exit and then the city bus routes and evenutally even found our way to the Cloudland Hostel whereupon, almost immediately, we were reunited with our good friend Mary, our Irish mother, to whom we had said our fare-thee-wells two days prior in Lijiang.

The night was mellow after the tiring journey (perhaps from too many daytime beers), and aside from a dinner with a miserable vegetarian australian and some other wonderful things, was not noteworthy.

The next morning was another long travel day beautifully-spent with Sasha and Mary. We arrived into the region of the Yuanyang rice terraces just in time to catch the tail-end of the water festival, where the locals throw water (via buckets or supersoakers) on each other and any unfortunate passing tourists. We were protected from the onslaught by the windows of a bus, and later a van.


We got off the bus in a mountain town called Xiejie or something to that effect, which in the fading light of evening and the parting mists of a passing rainstorm, turned all shades of orange and red and the beauty was astounding. We demanded that our taxi driver pull off to allow us to enjoy our beautiful sun setting over the terraced hills, because you know how we love our sunsets.


We arrived into a small village that started with a "D" as darkness set in and were led through a labyrinth to a lovely hillside guesthouse looking east over the terraces. After that we took care of our basic needs, finding shelter in the form of a room, sustenance in a family-style dinner, and joy in the form of Dali Beer and Bai-ja (a sort of rice-moonshine). Sasha and I enjoyed the quiet solitude in rocking chairs as the fog rolled back in, promising to ruin our sunrise view.


Nonetheless, we woke up before sunrise to try and see the sun breaking over the eastern mountain range, but it was totally foggy (I believe this is where it would be appropriate to use the simile, "it was like pea soup"). We ambled between the borders of the terraces and found a spot where the fog was particularly beautiful over our immediate surroundings and took some pictures. After then it was back to bed until 11:00 when our hired driver came to drive the four of us, including Mary and another American woman with whom we had met up, around the region in search of sublime views and interesting experiences.


Our driver for the day was hilaroius and spoke not a word of English, which only added to the humor. Along the way we saw lots and lots of hills carved out into snaking levels of rice terraces, as well as tea plantations being tended by local women with children on their backs. We saw some small villages where women wore bright tails of textiles like peacocks and pigs were butchered up in the streets. We were taught how to eat rice the proper way and drink bland noodle water from a bowl. And we even tried to see another sunset; the sun itself was obscured, but the time spent was not wasted, as I was in good company.

don't worry, this beautiful device is used for smoking tobacco

We drove back to that village that starts with a "D", our lives nearly ended by an oncoming truck on a mountain road, and then we spent another night (refer to my entry on the prior night for details). Again we awoke early, this time to catch a bus back to Kunming, but were treated to a decent sunrise. I took some pictures to show you. Here is one of them:


And then there was another long and tiring bus trip back to Kunming. This was not noteworthy.

That night, upon arriving back to the Cloudland Hostel, Sasha and I were determined to have a good night out, Chinese-style, knowing that tomorrow we would have to part ways. We wandered the city for ages in search for a restaurant or a bar, as if in a desert looking for an oasis (ok, there's a sort of metaphor, or is that another simile?). We chanced upon an unassuming bar and entered to order our beers and drink them the good old American way: out of the bottle. But our plans were upset, perhaps for the better, when a group of Chinese youngsters insisted that we join them at their table to drink in true Chinese fashion.

Let me tell you some things about drinking in China, so you may perhaps better understand the progression of this night. In China, one does not drink beer from the bottle, but rather pours their beer into large shot glasses from a communal bottle (of which there is an endless supply). Upon filling your glass, the Chinese guy across from you will undoubtedly raise his glass to yours and demand that you clink them together. Once this part of the ritual is done, and perhaps a one-word toast is said, the glass must be immediately drained into the respective mouths of the involved parties. This is repeated until the foreigners surrender and leave the bar. And by no means will the foreigner have to pay for the beer.

So we stayed at that bar for a while until we'd had quite enough, then walked back down towards home, getting some street food along the way, and then happening upon another joint that seemed to be inviting us in. This place was a true Chinese nightclub, with maybe hundreds of small round tables around which young people were standing. Needless to say, we were the only white people in the bar and drew some attention. We spent the next indeterminate number of hours roaming from table to table until a group invited us over and repeated the whole beer drinking process. When the scene got boring, we moved on to our next hosts.

I describe these things not to brag about my shenanigans (maybe a little bit), but more to describe a chapter of life in China as experienced by a foreigner; think of me as an anthropologist and not a drunkard. It was a memorable experience, to the extent that I can remember it. We miraculously made our way the last two blocks back to the hostel.

The next day I was set to leave on a two-day train to Beijing to start the next chapter of my spirit wandering (but not until 9:00 pm). The day was a bit dreary and was spent arguing with waitresses over whether french fries were ordered or not, and going to post offices. This was the saddest day of my journey. Perhaps I have not described all my newly-made friendships in detail, nor do I feel like this is the place to do it, but I'll just say that when you meet a truly special person and spend endless days with them, there is bound to be considerable pain in the parting. And there certainly was.

So thusly, in the city of Kunming, we said our goodbyes, and I watched as my friend walked away. Then I gave 20 Yuan to a guy on a motorcycle and he drove me and my bags to the train station. Then began the train of tears which, 40 hours later, would bring me into Beijing, a small town in the northeast of China.

And fyi, as of early this morning, I am in the land of Chingis (aka Ghengis) Khan, in its capital city of Ulan Batar. I have seen the Gobi (check).