Annette Jahnel
My Year of
Beds
Book Two
China to
Germany
Smashwords Edition
COVER DESIGN Alexandra Budd
COVER
PHOTOGRAPHS Annette Jahnel
Edition License
Notes
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While every effort has been made to ensure
that the information contained in this book is meticulously
researched, the book was written in context of 2006–2007 and what
was true then might not be true now. The book is an opinion piece and
is not intended as a reference. The opinions expressed in this
publication are those of the author and do not reflect or represent
the opinions of anyone else.
First edition published in 2011
Publisher AJ Publishing
ISBN 978-0-9870001-4-9
Copyright
© 2011 in text: Annette Jahnel
Copyright © 2011 in photographs:
Annette Jahnel
Interactive
book
‘My Year of Beds’ is an interactive
book.
To allow you to explore the world from your computer, the
location of each bed was recorded with a GPS reading, photographed,
and put onto Google Earth. The bed numbers in the book coincide with
the numbers on My Year of Beds, Google Earth file
You can
access the file by entering my website
http://www.ajahnel.com
Click
to/
Writing /
My Year of Beds/
Google Earth interactive
file.
By clicking on the bed number in the list on the left of
your page, you will be transported to the approximate location of my
bed for the night.
Background,
sources and the business of names
The road trip that this book describes took place from April 2006 to April 2007. While the world has changed tremendously since then, any comments or observations that might seem prophetic were not added as knowledgeable afterthoughts, but were formed as a result of my observations at the time. During my travels, I kept detailed notes that form the basis of this narrative. I also took tens of thousands of photographs, which aided in my descriptions of places and people. As the book was written in isolated places, far from libraries, the historical details, facts and figures were sourced from the Internet. Wikipedia was a great help, and so were the official websites of the towns and countries mentioned in this book.
To change, or not to change, the names of the characters in the book? In the beginning, I attempted to send out e-mails to all the people in the book to get permissions from them, but discovered that if I were to wait for replies, this book would never see the light of day. Therefore, I made an executive decision to keep the names where I do not think I insulted or defamed anyone in my descriptions of them. Where I was less than flattering, the names have been changed or replaced by descriptions, as in the short fat man, and so on. In doing so, I hope to keep off everybody’s toes.
Contents
Chapter
1 - China
Korgass–Dunhuang
Chapter
2 - China Dunhuang–Xian
Chapter
3- China Xian–Hong Kong
Chapter
4 - Taiwan
Chapter
5 - USA California
Chapter
6 - USA Arizona- New Mexico
Chapter
7 - USA California
Chapter
8 - USA Nevada
Chapter
9 - USA Colorado-Wisconsin
Chapter
10 - USA Indian- Michigan
Chapter
11 - Canada
Chapter
12 - USA New York
Chapter
13 - USA Pennsylvania
Chapter
14 - USA Washington –Georgia
Chapter
15 - USA Florida
Chapter
16 - USA Georgia-South Carolina
Chapter
17 - England London
Chapter
18 - England East
Chapter
19 - Scotland
Chapter
20 - England West
Chapter
21 - Wales
Chapter
22 - France
Chapter
23 - Spain
Chapter
24 - Back to the start
Chapter
25 - Epilogue
*****
Sometimes in life you have to move forward
into the unknown without a reliable map. This year has been such a
time in general, and now, as I approach Korgass on the
Kazakhstan–Chinese border, it is such a time in particular.
According to both the Kazak and Russian maps, Korgass is safely
inside Kazakhstan, but the Chinese map is a bit ambiguous as to
whether Korgass is on the Kazakh or Chinese side of the border. To
try to clarify this, I ask the truck and taxi drivers who are
crowding around the Wish Mobile.
‘Korgass ve Kazakhstan?’
Much
head nodding and pointing straight ahead.
Yes, I know Korgass
is straight ahead; what I want to know
is, which country is it
in?
‘Korgass ve China?’
This is not helpful, but hardly
surprising as I am using the wrong language. I try again.
‘Korgass
ve KNtaN?’kitai
Much head nodding and pointing straight ahead. I
surrender to my fate; there are no hotels back where I came from; and
the joy has gone out of camping; so I will try my luck in the great
unknown ahead of me.
Two kilometers later, I know that things
have just gone pear shaped. This is most definitely a border, and on
the other side of the border is China, and I am three days early. In
the hands of the border officials, I am swept forward, and feel
helpless to resist. I obey all orders, hand over my passport, follow
fellow to office one, follow fellow to office two, drive my car over
a chassis check. The customs man riffles through the car, then rolls
open the carpetbag, and, like an African sangoma, quite unexpectedly
throws the bones, great big cow bones.
‘Souvenirs.’
Shrug
I, with sheepish grin. He looks at me silently; I can see the movie
turning in his head – a woman alone in a delivery van, with writing
all over it, carrying cow bones from Kazakhstan to China – he is
not getting involved, and without a word, rolls the whole lot up
again, and puts it back in the Wish Mobile. With a final stamp, a
steel gate swings open, and I am swept into China on a wave of
misunderstanding and incomprehension, three days early with no car
papers and no re-entry visa. The steel gates clang shut behind me.
China
Korgass–Dunhuang
Bed
74
I am swept forward at such speed that my headlights are two hours ahead of my taillights. My hands are in teatime, while my stomach is just digesting lunch. Times stretches … when it snaps back I have lost two hours of my life, and, like Alice falling through a time zone, find myself in Chinaland. There is no no-man’s-land between China and Kazakhstan, just a steel time-gate. In Kazakhstan, it is 14h24, while in China it is 16h24.
In Kazakhstan, border guards slob about in
faded fatigues. In China, border guards wear full dress uniform:
black, white and red. Stiff, smooth-shaven little men salute smartly
from small round podiums. The generals of Chinese border crossings
march at me, four abreast, in uniforms a-jingle with multicolored
medals; they take their borders very seriously here. With a single
stamp of well-boned shoe, the generals create a human barrier in
front of the Wish Mobile. Regal white-gloved hands make it quite
clear that I am to stop. Not to pass begin, not to collect two
hundred dollars, not to enter the Middle Kingdom, but to go straight
back to Kazakhstan.
No can do, mate, I have no re-entry visa
into Kazakhstan.
Perhaps we can phone my Chinese travel
agent?’
Mr Wong is not exactly pleased to hear from me.
‘You
are three days early. What are you doing in China?’
‘Well, it
was like this, you see. I have this Russian map that is quite
convinced that Korgass is in Kazakhstan. Also, I had a little
misunderstanding with all the people that I asked for help along the
way, and, well … I think we must accept that it was preordained
months ago that these three days empty days would be unavoidable.’
I hand the invisible Mr Wong to the top-dog general, and after a long string of ting tong ying yang yo, it is agreed that I may enter China, but the Wish Mobile may not, at least until the papers arrive in three days’ time, at which point my status will be reassessed.
Walking across the bare slab of concrete with my computer and camera bag slung over my shoulder, my entry into China is – as with most things too much anticipated – just a little disappointing.
As I step into China proper, the silence in my mind is shattered and shaken by small people, shouting pushing pushing shouting waving hands shouting qian qian qian. What in blue blazes do they all want? Money notes flap in my face, qian qian. The moneychangers shout and scream qian qian qian. I have no idea what the exchange rate is, but I do need money for the taxi, and I want these people to disintegrate, so exchange 10€ for some Chinese-whatever, probably get totally ripped off, but with the transaction done, the men miraculously vanish.
Standing alone, laden with bags, I take in
the bare concrete slab, the wide road and dirty functional buildings
that vanish into the arrow-straight distance. I want my little Wish
Mobile; I feel like a hermit crab without a shell. A taxi stops in my
view. I heave myself inside with one word,
‘Hotel.’
The
driver understands, and within minutes drops me at a three-star
hotel, which is a revelation. The foyer is air-conditioned, slick,
modern, the staff efficient, and strangely excited to see my
passport. My substitute all-purpose language of charades helps me to
discover that they have a reservation for me in three days’ time.
So, with much smiley head bobbing, I rent the same room, three days
in advance. The room is the most luxurious I have seen in months, and
the sight of the gleaming porcelain in the bathroom releases a sigh
that stops me in my tracks. I gently stroke the smooth surfaces until
I catch my blissful silly grin reflection in the mirror – time
out!
Annette, old thing, you are becoming very strange. Let’s
at least try to make a stab at normal.’
As it is teatime in
China, a cup of tea would be comfortingly normal, but staring at the
little squiggles that inform – those fully literate in Mandarin –
what is on the room service menu, I realise that once again the
all-powerful borderline has stripped me of my hard-won knowledge.
Russian and Cyrillic are meaningless here. There are only two signs I
can read in the room. One tells me to lick the door. Lick the door?
Cannot be, the reflection is playing tricks on me. The sign really
wants me to luck the door. Ever obedient I bow solemnly, and bestow a
blessing on the door; strange security systems in China. The other
sign solves the mystery of the border time trick and advises me that;
‘Hotel has Beijing time; all China time Beijing time.’
This means the perfectly respectable breakfast hours from seven to nine become the most uncivilized breakfast hours from five to seven.
In the dewy morning hour, I stroll across the green manicured lawn, which separates the dining hall from the hotel, and slowly come to a stop. In South Africa, green lawns and swimming pools are as common as discarded plastic grocery bags, and I have never given a lawn a second glance, let alone a thought. But I now realize that the last time I saw a green lawn was in Switzerland, halfway around the planet. For the first time in my life I recognize what a huge luxury it is to have the spare ground to plant grass that is nothing but decorative, and also to have the spare cash and time to tend it.
I mull this over, while practicing my early morning chopstick routine on the piles of crunchy greens that make up a Northwestern Chinese breakfast. I am quietly in my head until I bite into a red chili with an evil temper, and that things bites right back, nearly killing me in a horrible fiery death. My sinuses start squirting; my nose turns into a waterfall; my throat contracts; I lose my breath; my eyes started streaming; my inner ears start tingling; my tongue goes numb; and it takes all my willpower to keep from coughing. Experience has taught me that once you start a chili-cough, it is very difficult to stop, as the cough action just aggravates the problem. I quickly discover why the rice soup and steamed buns are so bland; their dull white morass smothers the fire of the chili. The Chinese men all around stare at me in silent fascination. What a fabulous way to start the 5h30 day.
Stepping into the street, my aim now is to find an Internet café, but I have reached a new level of incomprehension. Before, I was still able to decipher the Internet cafe signs; now, nothing. The streets are jam-packed with tiny stores that fill basements and alleyways. Shops are reached through other shops, and advertising billboards turn every shop front into a brightly colored, incomprehensible graphic. Without actually going into every store, I have no idea what’s what. It would take two lifetimes to find what I need by this means: a change of tactic is required. Returning to the hotel, I get the reception staff to write down all the shops I need in Mandarin. Back in the street, I hail the first three-wheeler tuk-tuk taxi, hand him my destination requests, and so quickly find the Internet café … where I discover that my bank has paid out the remaining money to the travel agent, despite the letters of objection I wrote them in Greece and Kazakhstan, and I believed that my money was under my control. Another delusion shattered. But, water under the bridge, I am in China, they can keep the money, and hopefully I will never have to deal with them again.
After my transglobal communications have been dealt with, I tackle the food issue, and am confronted with a new set of challenges. The dairy problem that has been plaguing me since reaching Bulgaria now vanishes altogether. Instead, I am faced with produce that is so unfamiliar that highly specialized food questions such as is it meat or vegetable, fish or fowl, sweet or spicy, raw or cooked can no longer be addressed, as I am not even sure whether the things in the packets are food. Based purely on a visual assessment, they could be pot scourers or dried pork rinds, fifty-fifty chance. Wandering aimlessly up and down the aisles, I pick up packets, look them over hopelessly, before putting them down again. I can find no starting point to help me decipher what the packages contain, until I find chocolate biscuits: they look the same the world over. Triumphantly I carry my small purchase to the till where I discover, that while chocolate biscuits might look the same the world over, numbers don’t. I have no expectation of understanding the cashier, but the by-now-familiar trick of peering at the till display to find out what the goods cost shows me that even this small measure of comprehension has been removed. Having no way of telling what my biscuits cost, I simply hand the woman a note of unfamiliar money, and hope she gives me the right change.
Back in the sunshine, I stare at the small packet of biscuits and the unfamiliar coins in my hand, and realize that this trip is teaching me the most unexpected things. In my youth, I watched in fascination while illiterate farmhands in Africa did their shopping at small rural stores. They would choose an item and take it to the cashier, where they would hold out their handful of money, from which the cashier took the amount owing. When this transaction was finalized, the farmhands would assess the money they had left, then return to the shop to fetch the next item on their small lists. This continued until they had completed the list or their money ran out. Usually the latter came first. Today I have much in common with those workers, a bit more money perhaps, but probably a lot less comprehension. Even if I had a shopping list, I would not be able to find the produce I wanted in any shop.
Just as I make peace with the fact that I will have to survive on breakfast and chocolate biscuits, at least until my guide arrives, I spy a tiny eating-house. Peering through a doorway protected by a pink plastic-bead fly-curtain, I see a dark kitchen with a large wok and no hygiene. Fortunately, I lost my puritan need for clean some countries ago, so this is less of a concern than the clientele. The place is almost full, so whatever they are cooking in the kitchen, it is not being stored for long, and that suits me just fine. I take a seat on a three-legged stool at a small table, covered with a bright blue and pink plastic tablecloth. Instead of a carton of paper-wrapped straws, a carton of paper-wrapped disposable chopsticks stands on the table, next to a dirty ashtray – unfortunately, in China you can smoke wherever you like – and a bowl of raw unpeeled garlic cloves.
As snack, I am meant to chew a raw garlic clove? This will never become a hit in polite society.
There is no menu, but with the help of my pictionary, the cook and I decide on a big vegetable stir-fry. The greens arrive, perfectly balanced with reds. One bean, one chili is the basic stir-fry recipe here. With some dexterous chopstick chili sorting, I crunch my way through the mountain of greens, returning the mountain of reds to the ear-to-ear grin of the waitress. The fresh and crunchy meal costs me three yuan, about 30€ cents. So I become a restaurant regular, and the cook stops asking what I want. As I step through the pink bead curtain, all eyes turn toward me, smiley heads are bobbed, the cook ducks into his tiny kitchen, and within minutes my food arrives: stir-fry vegetables with chili on the side, a huge bowl of rice, and liters of tea, which is brewed in huge aluminum kettles with the whole green tea leaf. Great big soggy leaves float about in my tea glass, which I blow to the opposite shore before I sip, but before long they once again dock against my upper lip.
After three days of adjusting to my new
circumstances, a soft knock on the door announces the guide’s
arrival. I have been spending time with my Mandarin course, and greet
her with a cheerful
‘Ni hao.’
The guide is more
keen to practice her English:
‘Good morning, pleased to meet
you.’
She is a tiny member of the Uyghur ethnical minority group. Uyghur is a collective name for the ancient tribes that have lived in this area since 300 BCE. China gave this ancient claim a small nod by making this part of China the Xingjian autonomous area of Northwestern China. The Uyghurs look very similar to the Turkic tribes further west, with whom they share a sweeping history, many traditions, and the Islamic faith. Their script and language are similar to Arabic. They are not limited in their population growth by the one-child law, and apparently get preferential treatment in such fields as tertiary education.
My guide is very proud of her Uyghur heritage, and does not have any concept that she might also be Chinese. With her pop eyes and with tremendously long red-brown hair – with which she fiddles constantly –she also does not look the least bit Chinese. However, she is equipped with the Wish Mobile’s release papers, a Chinese driver’s license, a travel permit, and Chinese number plates, which will be the most expensive souvenirs I will get on this trip.
We immediately set out to rescue the Wish Mobile, and I have visions of driving it into China within the hour. But I soon discover that my little helper is a rather ignorant, primitive sort, who is completely out of her depth. Unfortunately she is also someone who, despite, or perhaps because of, her immense ignorance, refuses to listen to or take advice from anybody. In the foyer, she starts bossing the staff about, and the happy smiley bobbing heads become still and sullen. She commandeers a tuk-tuk, gets in, and curtly informs the driver where she wants to go. Should I go along or will she just take things from here? The tuk-tuk stops at a building some kilometers from the border post.
‘Zerrin, my car is at the border post. If I was only arriving today as planned, we would be meeting at the border post. Don’t you think it would be a better idea to go there directly?’
She disagrees, steps out of the tuk-tuk,
informs me I owe the man 3 yuan, and marches into the building, where
she immediately starts a verbal sparring match with the woman behind
the counter.
I try to get a word in edgeways.
‘Zerrin, I am
sure we are not meant to be doing this here.’
She does not feel
this comment is worth acknowledging, and continues her sparring match
with the woman behind the counter, who, in the blizzard of short
sharp words, loses her patience, snatches up my very expensive
envelope, and calmly breaks the customs seal, which is only to be
opened by some high authority. I stare in disbelief as she scans the
document, realizes she has perhaps over-reached herself, staples the
envelope closed again, and sends us to the border post.
The border official looks at the no-longer-sealed envelope with deep suspicion. He is not impressed. After reading through the papers, he starts going on and on about Shanghai. For some reason he does not like the papers; something seems to be missing. Zerrin refuses to translate the proceedings, so I am reduced to coat-stand status, while with a startling degree of insolence and rudeness, Zerrin takes control of my life. The customs officials match her insolence with their own. Strong racial tensions exist between the Han Chinese and the Uyghur, and the release of the Wish Mobile seems to be stuck in the middle of a racial game of tit-for-tat, in which I, who have driven all the way to China and around whom all this is meant to be revolving, play no part, and am completely ignored. My ego gets into one enormous huff.
To rub salt in the wound, the Wish Mobile gets in on the act, and refuses to reveal where it hides its engine number. After half an hour’s fruitless search, the customs official wants to start dismantling the engine. At this point, I make my point vehemently clear. No one is touching any part of the Wish Mobile engine unless he or she is a qualified mechanic, and that is that. Stalemate, but at least I get everybody’s attention, and my ego is appeased for the moment. The customs people take revenge by giving the wench and me the run-around. We bounce from customs house to customs house, from border to town; we stand in queues; ask questions; are sent from pillar to post. As I still have no clue what the problem might be, and Zerrin is not doing any explaining, I am starting to build a head of steam that is getting dangerously close to exploding. I try relaxing – a bit of meditation – but what I really, really want to do is rip someone’s head off. Preferably the wee wench’s, but then she would be so short, she would probably be mistaken for a chihuahua.
We have been at this for nearly ten hours, and closing time is drawing near. Then, with the relentless time slide of the electronic clock, at precisely 19h00 the customs house closes shop for the day. The Wish Mobile will remain in custody for another night. In stony silence, Zerrin and I return to our hotel room.
I am not a billionaire or millionaire. Heck, I don’t even qualify for the hundredthousandaire stakes, and China has already gobbled up more than its fair share of my budget. To economize, I now find myself in a situation where my life is controlled by – and I am sharing a room with – an unbelievably primitive being, who has possibly never seen indoor plumbing in her life.
Swanning into the bathroom first, she leaves behind a swamp: dirty soap-scum water in the basin, more water on the floor than could possibly be used in a single shower session, damp towels draped over the toilet and floor, and a disgusting abundance of that very long hair floating about everywhere. Only the truly brain dead can be this rude. I check my diary. How long do I have to live with this individual. Twelve days … no-o-o, I don’t think I can cope. However, in light of this, it is far too early to be throwing my toys out of the cot. I steel myself, I have come this far, I can do this. Time to set some rules. Rule one, I use the bathroom first from now on. Rule two, I will not get involved with the Chinese bureaucracy, and the next morning I send her on her way to sort out the car, while I practice my Mandarin.
By 11h00 the paperwork is cleared, and all that remains is for the Wish Mobile to get scanned. China likes things super-sized; nothing as mundane as manual car searching here. The Wish Mobile is sent through a huge x-ray machine built for cargo trucks; it hums its way across the car’s surface and – green light – all clear. Just one quick stop to attach the Chinese number plates, stick various official-looking papers onto the windscreen, and China here I come.
China is a busy, busy place. The small towns we pass through are all concerned with the corn harvest, which is spread out onto every available flat spot, including the road. The road is the road, is the pedestrian zone, the corn-drying zone. The road is the market place, the parking place. The road in China is the place. My driving skills quickly include street-spread-corn-avoidance, and suddenly-stopping tuk-tuk dodging.
Despite my fascination at my surroundings, and the mental stimulation of the intense hustle after the long silences of Kazakhstan, Zerrin is a disturbing presence. A brooding dissatisfaction hangs around her that blurs my focus to the outside world, as I try to create a harmonious atmosphere in the car. She cramps my Dictaphone style, and makes me almost apologetic when I stop the car – yet again – to take pictures of something she has probably driven past, but never seen, a thousand times.
When we hit the first bit of the Chinese
expressway, this problem is resolved for me. The road is too good;
the barriers and fences make it impossible to stop; and I am
completely isolated from the landscape. The Chinese road builders
have designed turquoise crash barriers that are exactly at eye level,
reducing the view down to a strip of tar that is vacuumed to hourly
perfection. The only distractions are the tollgates. They follow hard
and fast, and soon I have my first Chinese phrase down pat. At each
tollgate I enquire with a distorted
‘Do shau qian?’
The
reply is usually 10 yuan.
The road to Urumqi leads through flat grey desert, where little people, their mouths and noses protected by bright pink rags, shovel red chilies from giant bags. The hot peppers spread like a bloodstain over the grey sand, where they slowly darken and dry under the desert sun. More and more photo opportunities flash by behind green metal railings. I hunt for off-ramps, but there are none, and there is no place to stop. Irritated, I demand that Zerrin navigate us off the expressway, but according to her, this is the only road through the desert. The map I have of this area confirms this, but at a scale of 1 : 500,000, it is hardly an accurate representation of the facts. Although Zerrin knew that she would be in charge of navigation, she did not think that bringing a detailed map was important.
This oversight backfires as we hit Urumqi, which is her hometown, and, with a population of 2.6 million, a big city serviced by many highways. Following Zerrin’s detailed instructions, we drive backward, forward, left, right, snake up and down on and off ramps, and end up in a grim industrial zone, which I am sure I was never meant to see. Exasperated I pull onto a greasy potholed pavement, next to a row of oily workshops, and demand that she make a call to get directions.
When we manage to find our way to the centre of the city, I realize I have still not quite arrived in China. Urumqi has the Chinese writing, and the odd Chinese-looking person, but it is very much like the central Asian states I have just been through. In common with them, this area has a bloody and conflict-ridden history. During the Qing dynasty an estimated one million Dzungars were exterminated here in an ethnic genocide. Urumqi means ‘beautiful pasture’ in the language of the Dzungars, but, like the Dzungars, the pastures have been obliterated, and up to now, all I have seen is grey desert and concrete.
Regardless, I am excited to be in a big city, and want to get out to get the feel and flavor of it. I want to see the city, the markets, the people. Zerrin, however, has other ideas. On a rattling square blue bus, with wooden slatted seats, we travel not to the market, but to a flashy pseudo Bukhara-style restaurant. From the plush interior of the restaurant I look onto the street below, where I see Uyghur women who are covered in cloth and rags from head to toe; they even wear gloves. Zerrin is dismissive of them, saying that they are just con artists pretending to be destitute widows. The begging bundles of rags probably rented the small children they have with them for show and added sympathy factor.
Then, without asking about my preferences,
Zerrin orders pilov, which she informs me is the Uyghur national
dish. So I chew my way through yet another pile of rice, while
opposite me she makes no secret of the fact that she would rather be
somewhere else. As would I. This is a complete waste of time. I have
only one day in Urumqi, and I do not want to spend it sitting in some
tourist-trap restaurant, eating bad pilov at big prices, so I pull my
inner cow onto centre stage.
‘Zerrin, I did not drive all the
way to China to sit about in a touristified restaurant eating a pile
of rice, and no, I don’t want seconds, I don’t want dessert and I
don’t want tea or coffee, I want out of here. I want to see the
locals in action.’
When paying, I see the reason I have been dragged here, the wee guide quite unashamedly gets her palm greased. It is not the inner cow, but the Milch Kuh that is on centre-stage here. This guide thing is going to take some getting used to.
We stroll across to an inner-city market, where Zerrin could not be less interested. She makes it known by steaming ahead, while I peer into ingenious bread ovens. A small fire is built on the floor of clay ovens that look like giant terracotta pots. The oven is allowed to get hot, and then bun-sized pieces of dough are thrown onto the walls of the oven, where they stick like moth eggs to a leaf. When the buns are crisp and golden, they are removed with long handled tongs. This is a bit of an art, as one slip up would make the lost bun coals for the next batch.
Under the blue glass gleam of modern
high-rises, shashlik grills are constructed right next to shashlik
stands. Welding sparks fly as fans blow the delicious smoke of
grilling shashlik through the narrow streets. As I take my eyes from
the camera viewfinder, I catch the wee guide with her hands on her
hips, rolling her eyes. Will she go as far as tapping her foot? This
guide thing is going sour very fast. Then she mentions she would like
to see her family.
‘Oh yes, absolutely, you must. I wouldn’t
dream of stopping you.’
I reply with some relief.
‘Is it
all right if we meet up again tomorrow?’
‘Absolutely no
problem. Run along. Take your time.’
As she leaves, I heave an involuntary sigh, which turns to a barely contained gag, as a well-dressed woman audibly and visibly spits the contents of her sinuses into the foyer ashtray while we are waiting for the elevator in the hotel. In Urumqi the art of spitting is very well developed. I shudder with disgust every few meters as someone feels the need to expectorate.
In my room, thinking that, as it has been a long and stressful day, a small nap would be in order, I surrender myself to gravity, flop down onto the bed, come to a bone-jarring stop, and nearly bite off my tongue. Recovering from the shock, I rip the sheets off the very comfortable-looking dark-wood bed, and discover that the mattress consists of little more than a yoga mat. There should be a large warning sign:
‘Beware: do not fall onto the bed; it could kill you.’
The air mattress in the car would be useful at this point, but the Wish Mobile is in a parking lot several city blocks away. Visualizing the awkwardness of dragging the fully inflated mattress from the car, through the mass of humanity that crowd the streets, into the foyer, and squashing it into the elevator, I cast about for a less tiresome solution to the bed problem. Discovering several spare eiderdowns and blankets in the cupboards, I manage to fashion a comfortable little nest, which I immediately put to the twenty-minute nap test.
In the early evening, the sparkle lights come on, and the people come out to play ‘shop-till-you-drop’ in the night markets and streets of Urumqi. The hawkers, high-rises, slick boutiques and general slovenliness all remind me of the First-World–Third-World combo I am used to seeing in South African cities. Reflected in glass and chrome, men with wooden push carts sell pomegranate juice squeezed by a machine right out of the Spanish Inquisition; people crowd around, more to see the machine in action than to buy the juice. Vendors roast chestnuts in beds of hot stone under electronic advertising billboards that promote global brands, which are for sale in big halls where hundreds of small electronic stores all share floor space. The result is overwhelming noise and mind-numbing choice.
In a dark side street, I stroll through my first Chinese fresh-produce market. It is crowded with people who push and poke at me, at one another, and at the produce: living ducks, chickens, pigeons, and some other small birds that are kept in makeshift cages. Small women expertly check under wings and poke at breasts; freshness is taken for granted; but the health of the animal must be ensured. With the chicken now in limp resignation of its fate, the deal is struck, and the living bird trussed and stuffed into a shopping basket, then transported home. Alternatively, there is a fast food variety, where the animal is lopped, peeled and chopped in front of the watchful eyes of the customer.
The cold efficiency with which the living bird is reduced to food makes me faintly nauseous: to take a living chicken, chop its head off, rip its feathers out, gut it, roast it, and then eat as Sunday lunch is unthinkable to me. But, give me a nicely packaged supermarket chicken, squeaky clean and wrapped in glossy cling wrap, well, then I am capable of rustling up a large variety of delicious chicken dishes, and eating them with relish. With my Western cellophane-wrapped hypocrisy, I can get away with being a squeamish bunny hugger and eat chicken whose health and living conditions I never think about, and have no way of judging. The scraggily Western battery hen would be quite safe from the butcher’s block in China. Here no one would dream of eating such a sickly looking animal. The health test performed by the clientele must have some advantage for the animals, as it ensures that the animal’s living conditions are kept to an acceptable standard. There is a brutal honesty to this system: the Chinese still know that an animal must die for it to be eaten, and if you cannot cope with the killing bit, you don’t eat meat.
But not eating meat is no problem in China,
as fresh crunchy vegetables are in abundance, even at breakfast.
Every morning a grand buffet of vegetables greets me in the hotel
dining rooms and, as the vegetables are usually accompanied by very
hot chili, I have become a big fan of steamed buns. Chili as a
pick-me-up in the morning beats coffee hands down. The rice soup I
can do without: it tastes like the smell of boiled cotton. This
morning, while I am still slurfing my tea through the usual floating
foliage, the wee guide appears in a very agitated state, and falls
right with the thing topmost on her mind.
‘Have you seen the
envelope?’
‘Which envelope?’
‘The envelope with all the
car papers in it.’
‘Oh, the big brown envelope that you just
left lying about yesterday before waltzing off to see your
family?’
She looks at me indignantly.
‘Yes, have you seen
it?’
‘Certainly, you left it lying about in the car, so I have
put it
into safekeeping with the rest of my very important
papers.’
Zerrin’s face is an odd mix of haughty relief.
‘No!
That is not possible! I must have the papers; they are
my
responsibility.’
‘Sweetie, I think that at the end of the day,
the car and the
trip are my responsibility, and I assure you the
papers are
quite safe.’
Zerrin is turning an interesting
shade of red, and she is starting to get very loud. Will she burst
into tears?
‘No, I must have the papers! I must keep them with
me at all
times!’
Her voice starts cracking, and tears well
in her eyes. Tears I don’t need, so give her the envelope, which
she stuffs into her little cloth handbag. I will have to keep an eye
on that little bag, as the wee one’s concept of safekeeping does
not inspire confidence.
Our destination today is Turpan, and while Zerrin has now acquired a mapbook from her boss, she admits that she has never had to read a map before. I stare at her in a long moment of mystified silence: what is she doing here then? I try deciphering the map, but I meet my match. In Xingjian Province street signs are in two languages: Uyger, which looks like a bunch of curvy flowing squiggles; and Chinese, which looks like a bunch of square squiggles. But the map does show me that the wee one was right; there is only one road that skirts the edge of the northern rim of the Taklamakan desert, and it is simply a join-the-dots line from oasis town to oasis town, so getting lost is highly improbable.
We soon leave the suburbs of Urumqi behind,
and drive deep into the Taklamakan, where the horizon slices the
world into two even parts: top half brilliant blue sky; bottom half
glaring white sand. Hours later a vast wind-farm that stretches to
every horizon tacks movement to the clean graphic. The wind-eaters
tear and claw at the cold wind; they digest the movement; and expel
energy. As the wind-eaters sink into the horizon behind us, the blue
sky turns to dull steel, and the desert to windswept grey gravel. In
the distance, the red ‘O’ of a fuel station rises from the
shimmering shifting horizon and shines like a brilliant beacon in the
monotone grey. Looking for any opportunity to stop, I slow down to
take the off-ramp. This jolts Zerrin out of her coma, and she is not
happy.
‘We shouldn’t get off the highway. It is not safe;
Turpan is not far.’
I am beginning to see the light; Chinese
guides are the perfect little teacher’s pets. In China, only the
fully indoctrinated may become tour guides. The little red book of
propaganda posing as my guide has already informed me how great Mao
was, and how everybody still loves him, because he did such great
things for China. If things are so great, why not show off a little,
but her job is quite clearly to prevent me from seeing any part of
China that is not on the official tourist route. But, what can she
do, it’s my car, and as long as I am driving, we stop when I say
so. I have a little Napoleon moment.
I am in charge; this is my
car, my trip, mine, mine, all mine. HAH, so there.
Leaving the highway, I discover another side of China, one that huddles hidden from view in the grey shadow of the elevated expressway of technology, and China’s latest great leap forward. The fuel station is a tiny building with two pumps: one petrol, one diesel. A small thin man, dressed in a patched jacket that is not keeping him warm, comes out to serve us. Zerrin offers to go inside to pay. I am sure she is just trying to be helpful, but I want to see everything I can possibly see.
The tiny concrete building has a front door, protected by a thick steel gate, and the windows are decorated with heavy steel bars. Inside the space is perhaps 20 meters square, and divided into two rooms: the reception room where I now find myself, and from where I can see a small kitchen; and a sleeping platform, behind a sheet of bulletproof glass. The couple and their little dog live in a tiny world of diesel, wind and grey gravel, from which they can escape only through the flickering television bolted to the wall. The silence underlying the gusts of howling wind, the rare customer, and the babble of the television must be deafening.
The small road leading past the fueling station is heading our way, so despite the wee one’s protests, we remain off the highway, dodging potholes, and small rocks, and occasionally passing through villages that are no more than two strips of ugly, small square buildings plonked straight into the desert. There is no pavement, no tree or blade of grass, just grey gravel, cutting wind, blinding sun and hard blue sky. This is a part of China where climate and ideology have blasted away every soft corner and every unnecessary detail, a side of China that tourists never see.
Hour after hour, the northwestern Taklamakan desert is table-top flat, then, without warning, the Tien Shan Mountains soar out of a vivid green pasture. The pasture is a tiny fleck of life, quickly past, as we plunge into the dark mountains that are the same color as the tar. Triangular signs, warning of falling rocks, leap out like yellow exclamation marks. Here nature’s palette is so subdued that at first glance all looks grey. Then my eyes adjust and I notice tiny tufts of grass, then shades of raw umber, burnt sienna, touches of green, and tiny flecks of crimson. A rockslide reveals the raw sienna belly of the mountain; it leaps out like brilliant flame in this burnt charcoal world. Then, just as abruptly as the mountains rose out of the desert, they sink back into a wasteland of grey gravel. Here there is nothing, no bird, no roadkill, no people, just the new merchants of the Silk Road: giant trucks, their roar lost in the howling wind that sweeps across the silent fields of stone.
Turpan is an oasis of startling green vineyards that fill every available space, and trellised vines that create shaded walkways past houses of mud adobe decorated with delicate filigree work. But Turpan city is not on our sightseeing list; the ancient city of Jiao he is.
Jiao he was already an important city on the Silk Road in 108 BCE, and remained so until Genghis Kahn destroyed it in the 13th century. The city was built from adobe on a small island in the middle of a river, where yellow loess cliffs provide natural protection and a view over the far flat horizon. The river still runs on one side of the ruins, and from the high sand cliffs, I see a man driving his donkey cart along a dusty track in the narrow canyon, where every small patch of soil is planted with crops. In the ruined city, tiled walkways lead past mysterious mud-brick walls and cave-like buildings, where the imprint of long-dead builders’ hands can still be seen in the dull yellow plaster. Square openings in the high crumbling walls frame the deep blue sky, and small round holes reveal where wooden floors once lay.
Jiao he is the wee wench’s tour guiding specialty, but after having conducted tours through here a hundred times before, she is understandably bored with the whole business. She marches ahead, her long pigtail bouncing on her pert little butt. I wonder if it ever gets stuck between her bum cheeks like dresses sometimes do, and my wayward mind spins off to matters unrelated to ancient cities.
One should always remember to pull one’s clothing straight
when one gets up, because the dress or trouser stuck in the
butt is very disturbing for onlookers. I never know which is
more polite: to ignore the unfortunate clothing configuration
and hope it works its way out, or to politely inform the
affected person. But how does one politely say, excuse me,
but your dress is stuck up your butt? I am quite sure though,
that giving hands-on assistance would not be the way to go.
Down brain: I really should take the
head to obedience lessons.
With Zerrin more interested in finding a patch of shade than being a guide, I allow my imagination free rein, and make up my own story of Jiao he. From the high vantage of the city, I imagine a huge dust cloud on the horizon as the caravan slowly approaches. The news spreads quickly through the narrow alleys, cool in the searing midday heat. The people have been waiting for this sign for days as a scout on fast camel had alerted the city elders that guests were on their way. The farmers and artisans hurry their produce to the market; the trade will soon be good there. Stable hands send boys for water and hay. Hours later, the first dusty travelers enter the massive carved wooden gates. They wash their hands and feet before climbing down steep flights of stairs into cool courtyards. The men are offered tea and dried fruit, and while resting against pillows and carpets, share news of faraway Beijing.
Later roast goat is served with nan and vegetables, highly spiced with chili and cumin. To end the evening, the men enjoy a water pipe, while the Sodgina girls of Turpan – who had a certain reputation, which stretched as far as Astana in Kazakhstan – provide entertainment. Throughout the city the eating-houses, markets and water wells are centers of information; after months of solitude there is suddenly much to talk about. Then, before heading west, across the vast gravel wasteland to Urumqi, the caravan chiefs make offerings at the temple built of sand. Today, the temple is enclosed by scaffolding, and two men in white overalls and facemasks spray the adobe wall with silicone glue, as the Chinese government tries to keep it together for another couple of hundred years.
The camel trains along the silk route that connected the faraway here and there must have traveled through many dust storms that would have made worthwhile the facemasks that the tourists who today frequent this place all wear. In the course of my journey I have become an expert tourist spotter, and can determine the origin of the tourists by their tourist suits. The Europeans, especially the Germans, all look as if they are going on safari in the deepest darkest wilderness, with their hiking boots, khaki all-weather gear, and the wristwatch that does everything, including tell the time. The English favor revealing clothing in pastels, while the Koreans dress as if they are going into a quarantine zone. They are covered head to foot against the elements; masks, gloves, hats and long tunics ensure that nothing is to be seen of them at all.
Do they believe that this strange outfit will protect them against the unknown? During my long slow travel, I have learnt something that cannot be discovered when flying from comfort zone to comfort zone. It is in exploring the nowhere places between the scenic spots, in setting aside the comfort zones, that you conquer your fear of the unknown and broaden the horizons of your mind. My thinking has become quite simplistic; if there are humans living there, it follows that I can survive there.
Not a sentiment shared by Zerrin. While exploring the markets of Turpan, I realize how vast the empire of the Turkic/Mongol people once was. From Turkey to Turpan, traces of the same culture are found. There are strong similarities between the crafts and dress of the far-ranging Turkic tribes. The doppilar and pointed slippers are identical to those I saw in Bukhara. The architecture, with its intricate tiles and turquoise mosaics, reminds of Istanbul, Samarqand or Cantui. In Turpan, they make pure wool carpets. The patterns are in harsh bright colors that bite the eye, and remind me of the green and white abomination the carpet dealer in Bukhara tried to force on me. Shashlik is still the takeout of choice, although here they use chili and coriander to spice the meat. The Chinese influence is apparent in the use of the wok and the traditional Chinese medicines, dried herbs, lizards and various ground insects that are for sale, although these remind me more of the ‘muti’ used by African natural healers than anything I saw in Central Asia.
I am pulled from my mental spin around the
world by the wee Zerrin, who, quite unexpectedly, throws a tantrum
and bursts into hysterical tears. I am flummoxed.
‘What is the
problem?’
‘It is 1h30 and I will get deceases if I do not
eatregularly.’
‘Deceases?’
‘I had a kidney replaced
last year and I have blood sugar
problems!’
Whoo, that
sounds serious. Trying to find a quick solution to her blood sugar
problem, I look around at the market. We are surrounded by stalls:
there is fruit; there are nuts; there are meat dishes; and sticky
sweet things for her plummeting blood sugar levels. I am at a loss.
‘There is food everywhere. Why don’t you just buy yourself
something to eat?’
‘Because I am a Muslim, and my faith
demands that my food
must be properly prepared.’
‘But
Turpan is the centre of your culture; surely you can
safely eat
the food here.’
‘I only eat in certain restaurants.’
‘So
you want me to stop what I am doing, so that you can eat
in one
of these particular restaurants?’
There is no logic here, but the tiny hysterical mouse thing is gnashing her little chompers, and creating such a scene that I relent, and while I am taking her to the restaurant of her choice, I have an epiphany: a man moment. In trying to stop her totally irrational behavior, I meekly did what she wanted me to do, while what I really wanted to do is to give her a ‘snotklap’ right there in the market place, but instinctively knew that that sort of thing is only possible in the movies. Slapping one’s Uyghur guide in real life would probably see me in the Chinese clink. From my reaction to her irrational behavior I come to the conclusion that while the average male reaction to the female ‘weep and wail’ might seem chivalrous, in reality he probably thinks she is being a hysterical twit, and wishes she or he were somewhere else.
While Zerrin eats in her chosen restaurant, I have another epiphany: she is a shareholder in the greasy-palm chain of restaurants, and I remain forever the Milch Kuh. But something puzzles me about her, and I wonder aloud what she will do tomorrow when we leave Uyghur territory behind and enter China proper, as I have discovered she will not even drink tea in a Han restaurant. She informs me in a huff that her mommy has given her food for the road. Fascinating – I now move on to wondering where in the Wish Mobile she has stashed ten days worth of food – if I catch one whiff, the wee mousey thing is mince.
But I do realize that it must be difficult to be thrown into a situation where you are suddenly expected to set aside your carefully cultivated social status and eat in a market, when you are quite convinced that only a fancy restaurant is good enough for you. It has been some time since I have had the social maps to know who is meant to be superior to whom, and I have never known which restaurant is cool and which is not. While I am aware that many people live their lives by these society-defined route markers, I am quite happy with my reduced arsenal of measuring tools for people and places. Everybody I meet is a potential ally and not a prejudged enemy. I may be being a bit hard on the wee one, but the last thing I need now is to start judging people and situations based on someone else’s prejudices, and she does seem to have quite a few of those.
Unfortunately, even well fed, the silly girl seems unable to control her sulky mood, and drags that thing around with her all afternoon. On the sightseeing to-do list is the ancient city of Gao Chang, built from the red sand that defines the northern rim of the Tarim basin. The city is a vast ramshackle repetition of Jiao he. As the sun is setting fast, we opt for a quick donkey-cart trot through the ruins, but no matter how fast the donkey trots, the young boys controlling the speed are not satisfied, so they beat the poor beast with unbridled enthusiasm. With no language connection, I have no way of asking them politely to stop this behavior, and Zerrin, having sunk into a silent funk, refuses to speak, or perhaps she is blind to all but her own little problems. To try to solve the donkey’s problems without becoming physical, I hunt about in my head for an appropriate word from my vast Mandarin vocabulary.
Bu – the mandarin for no – seems a good choice.
So I bu up and I bu down, I bu flat and I bu sharp, but no matter how I pronounce that two-letter word it has no effect other than to bring a smirk to Zerrin’s lips. This midget is pushing all the wrong buttons.
On our way back to Turpan I silently make my wish for the world: one universal language. I think the whole Tower of Babel thing teaches us only one lesson: never act when you are caught in a jealous rage, even if you are an all-powerful being. To take from humans the one tool that could make them understand each other is no way to create a peaceful society. The multitude of languages we speak might be an individual source of pride, but on a global scale, they form invisible barriers between us that give power to the unscrupulous, and will always see us beating each other over the head in sheer frustration and misunderstanding.
The sun sets suddenly in the desert, and
on a completely dark road, with no markings or barriers, I nearly
collide with a tuk-tuk that is dragging a small trailer full of
children. The vehicle has no lights, no reflectors, and I see him
only at the last minute. My involuntary
‘That man is crazy’
brings an icy
‘How you dare call my people crazy.’
from
Zerrin.
‘I beg your pardon? I was not making a general judgment
about your people, but about the driver of that tuk-tuk who,
with his lack of lights and totally un-roadworthy vehicle
and
trailer, is endangering everybody on the road including
you.’
‘You think you can come here and insult my people!’
I
am floored; this is one very touchy little person. Why anyone thought
that she would be the best person to guide me through China is beyond
my understanding.
The next morning, the Wish Mobile is surrounded by interested tourists. This is the perfect time to get the first Chinese wish, but the wee Zerrin is nowhere to be found. Eventually she arrives. Are we going somewhere special today? The disgustingly long hair is loose and floating all over the place. The pink lipstick, combined with bright blue eye-shadow, is a rather unfortunate addition to the face. I catch myself staring, then manually pull up my jaw, before asking her to explain to the crowd what the Wish Mobile artwork is all about; perhaps one of the men might like to add his wish. She tells me with dismissive air that she does not think that there is anything to explain about the car, gets in, and waits for me to chauffeur her to her next port of call. I conclude that she is laboring under a misconception. It is time we clarified something.