race through agra....

sean and i hit agra, the formal capital of india during the mughal period, in a day. we saw the amazing taj mahal and the stunning agra fort. both were beautiful, but agra and varanasi are both cities in which we didn't want to linger. thank goodness katie has confirmed our suspicions in her comment of our last post, agra and varanasi were filthy and hectic and, frankly, really unpleasant. the sights in both cities are breathtaking, but the stress level involved to see them is far too high.

we are now in jaipur, an expensive town with a subway sandwich shop. yes, we went. yes, i had a chocolate chip cookie. yes, i am VERY happy. jaipur is the biggest city in eastern rajasthan, the land of the kings, and one of the more touristy states in all of india. from here, we are deciding where we will go next. we want to visit gujarat, western rajasthan, and the punjab. now we are balancing the political situation along the pakistani border and a lot of flodding in gujarat. sean and i are both feeling a little under the weather after our agra marathon, so i think we'll take it easy here for a bit and poke around the old town, known as the pink city, because everything is painted pink.

the taj mahal was amazing. it didn't take very long to visit, there is the one main chamber and two side buildings, all very beautiful. it rained a little while we were there, and at the agra fort, and since all the flooring in marble, we spent a lot of time concentrating on maintaining steady footing. the back of the complex overlooked the yamuna river. from various parts of the city, and from agra fort, we could see the taj mahal with the river flowing alongside it. so striking. all around the area people were trying to sell postcards, and get us into one rickshaw or another, or a horse cart. it was overwhelming, but not as bad as varanasi. the auto rickshaw drivers do a thing where they try to get you to trust them by 'coming clean' with you, and telling you what they make, and where they will get commission, and generously bad-mouthing the other drivers. all of our guys have said they have been in the business for 20 years, and now there are a lot of young guys who don't know what they are doing, and they won't cheat us, etc. etc.... all they want is for us to think they are the only guy in town who will be straight with us and so we'll hire them for a full day tour. our driver in agra went so far as to tell us that all the restaurants around the taj mahal deliberately give food poisoning to the tourists, implying he was the only person who could keep us safe. luckily, we ate twice in agra, and we are just fine.

ugh. i am ready for this cold to go away, i feel really fuzzy.

reportedly, there is a theatre where we can go see a bollywood movie. sean and i hope to do that tonight, we aren't really up for anything more active. compared to agra and varanasi, the weather here is beautiful, blue sky and a nice breeze. it isn't rainy at all, but really sunny. it isn't even that hot. we are really going to have to watch sean for sunburn, though. i'll write more when my head clears.

cobra

sean and i are finishing up our time in varanasi. we have been really busy because we wanted to see the ghats leading down to the ganges river at all times of day. we hear that the morning and the evening are the peak times, when most people gather to bathe in the holy waters of the ganges and sing and pray. now, we are happy to say, we have seen the full spectrum of activity at the ghats.

varanasi is a city of about 2,000,000 people. i am interested to see it in a time that is not monsoon, because now it seems like a very hard place to live. i don't know if my conclusions are accurate, but from what i have observed, it is a poor city. much poorer than anything i saw in the south when duff and i traveled there in january and february. the people don't look happy, no one smiles at me, and their clothes are really worn. the women, especially, look as if they have had very difficult lives. varanasi is a holy city, and has a long history. over the years it has been known also as kashi, and benares. the current name, varanasi, is from the varna, and assi river, with both join the ganges here. i hope i am understanding this correctly, the rickshaw driver who told me had a really thick accent and i realize that i have almost a complete inability to understand english with any accent other than chinese. i have only seen the asi river while here.

the city itself is a mess, the power blacks out frequently. i knew that i had been in asia long enough when it blacked out at dinner the other night, and without even stopping my sentence, reached into my bag and pulled out my book light and set it on the table.

sean and i spent our first day looking for anyone who would exchange chinese money at a fair rate. we haven't found anyone, so i guess i will hold onto my kuai for a while. we also went to surnath, which is held to be the birthplace of buddhism. this is where the buddha gave his first major sermon after attaining enlightenment in the deer park in 528 bc. we visited a variety of temples and stupas, including a chinese temple and a japanese temple. there was also a tibetan temple, but it was closed. on the gate, however, there was a information board, outlining the 'chinese atrocities in tibet.' interestingly, our boatman this morning was talking about the area of the largest countries in the world. he said something to the effect of, well, china is bigger than india, because they got tibet. really it should belong to india. what? i haven't ever heard a case for tibet being a part of india, but only for it to be an independent nation. interesting.

the ghats are amazing. the area is basically a developed riverfront with steps leading down to the water. i am not sure how the river level changes during monsoon, but with two or three exceptions when we had to climb up into the old town, we were able to walk the 3 km stretch of river front. most of the ghats have names, and some have statues, and buildings, palaces, or temples above the flood line (not that they are safe, our boatman pointed out some remarkably high places the water reached in floodtime). we visited all the ghats, but the ones that held the most interest, obviously, were the ones where funerals were taking place.

there are two funeral ghats that we saw. at the largest one, a man who runs hospice care spoke to us. he wanted money for his time and information, and we didn't have a lot to give, so we didn't speak to him that long, but he told us some interesting things. he is involved in running three houses for people who want to come and die near the river. the total capacity is 95 people, and i believe they are at capacity now. he wanted to take us into the houses, but we declined. he told us about the funeral customs, and basically went through a number of the steps with us. we saw the eternal flame, where rushes are lit and carried to the body. we say over 12 pyres while there. the entire area has wood stacked in huge 20 foot piles. i didn't know what it would smell like, but there was no aroma of burning flesh, just wood and incense and smoke. women aren't allowed down to the ghat because in the past, when women weren't allowed to remarry, there were cases of widows throwing themselves on the fires. also, people don't cry, it is bad for the funeral, or the person. people shave their heads and wear white, the hindu color or mourning.

the guide also told us that there are 4 kinds of people who don't get to be cremated. they are: children, pregnant women, people with small pox and other similar diseases, and people who have been bitten by cobras! yikes!! at the time, i digested the information, but by 2:00 in the morning, the cobra had revisited me a number of times in a nightmare. there are goats everywhere, and the long and the short of the dream, is that i had a baby goat in my bed, which attracted a cobra. i was with a bunch of people i didn't know, but in my dream, i ended up squeezing the cobras head with my hand and milking 2 garbage can-fulls of venom from it and then, while i was trying to throw it out the window, it swung around and grazed my arm and my wrist. i woke up, covered in mosquito bites. the mosquitoes here are bad, you can neither see them or hear them and yet i am covered in bites. i spent the rest of the night occasionally checking under the bed for snakes with my book light.

we are heading to agra tonight to see the taj mahal. things are going well, but i will be glad to be out of varanasi. it is expensive here, and difficult to get fair prices. the ghats were at times frustrating because there are so many people trying to sell you things, or get you to go in their boat, there was little opportunity to observe or relax.

sorry for the disjointed and rushed nature of this post. i have been trying to get it out a few different times at the internet and the power keeps cutting out. i am frazzled.

now, if i can only stop speaking chinese to these people!!

my my monsoon!

it is so rainy here! after a brief 45 minute flight, i arrived in varanasi from kathmandu, the holy city for hindus on the ganges river in india. it is monsoon in india, and we'd been observing the effects in nepal and as far away as tibet, but this city is SATURATED. it is hot, it is humid, and i have never been so thankful for a cold shower. amazingly, i have no rain coat. since sean and i are heading west to the desert, i don't know that i'll get one. i don't know that i need one, it is so humid, my clothes are drenched as it is.

the trip from kathmandu went very smoothly. i discovered a hoax, too, that the kathmandu taxi drivers have been playing on unwitting foreigners. they have been turning the meter off in the cabs and tell the tourists it is broken. the guy tried this on me today and i happened to see him switch it off. he told me 400 rupees to the airport and i said i wanted to use the meter. he said it was broken. i countered with, surprising myself, "no, it isn't. i saw you. turn it on and we'll use the meter." he looked at me, and began to reassert his lie, and i conjured a look, a look i didn't know i possessed. the look said something like, "don't try this," or "how stupid do you think i am?" or, perhaps, "i pity you in your dishonesty." i started him down and he popped the meter back on and we were on our way. too bad we didn't figure that one out earlier. the taxi to the airport, metered, was 100 rupees.

our flight was late leaving, and for a while i thought that i was going to be the only white person on the whole plane. not only that, but one of 2 women. oh, i flew cosmic air. who has heard of them? the flight, i guess, was delayed to wait on a huge group of spanish tourists who ran into the terminal. ah ha, more white people and women.

the flight went really well, but we flew in through some huge thunder clouds. china seems a million life times away from here, i felt odd writing that i had even been there on my entry card. the only similarity that i have seen so far is the giant water buffalo, just like the chinese kind, wandering the streets of varanasi with the other cows.

i must get going, i don't want to be out after dark. tomorrow morning starts the great quest for sean. we must meet up, but it will be an adventure.

a monk swats a monkey...with an umbrella

duff and lindsey just left for the airport, and now i have a few hours in kathmandu. the last few days have mostly been spent sorting out travel plans, but we have had some time for fun, too. yesterday morning, duff and i spent 3 hours at the airchina office trying to talk some sense into those people. yet, the chinese argued as the always do: around the issue. yesterday afternoon, and a scary amount of this morning while duff and lindsey were rushing to the airport, was spent trying to get me on a flight to nepal. after serious amounts of research, we decided that the bus and the roads were unsafe, and i would be much better off flying. sadly, the ticket went up in price three times, but the longer i am in this city, the more stories i hear of buses dropping off cliffs, and i am glad i have the ticket. yesterday, the headline in the newspaper was about a bus crash on the road from tibet that killed 23 people (this of the 60-some people on the bus). not encouraging. plus, it is monsoon, and that makes bad roads worse.

so, even though we have been super busy, duff and i found some time for a few neat little experiences. for lunch we found a great little tandoori place with two guys who cooked amazing food. it was the first truly local place we'd gotten to eat, away from all the tourist junk. the food was so amazing, we went back that night to get takeout vegetable briyani to have with the amazing bottle of white wine that duff was so kind to treat us too.

just before sunset, duff and i decided to go to the amazing swayambhunath stupa. the stupa is situated on a hill overlooking kathmandu. from the top, you can see the whole kathmandu valley and the mountains that enclose it. it was so beautiful. we had an awesome cab driver who took us to the top because we wanted to see the sunset from the top and didn't have much time. he was a really talkative guy and duff had a great time talking to him. he talked about nepal's past political trouble (yes, they say it is past, and i believe, largely, the violence is, but on sunday and monday we witnessed many demonstrations. these demonstrations blocked traffic. the one we got closest to was students, probably high school or college age. i am guessing high school, though, because they were wearing uniforms. the were yelling something we couldn't understand and then started to sit down in the street. there was a huge banner in nepali. oh, and about 15 minutes later we saw a parade of monks). according to our driver, there are very many reasons to be unhappy with the government but one that he talked about, since we were driving, was the condition of the roads. duff had read earlier in the day that only 2/3 of the roads in kathmandu are paved. i believe, of the unpaved, 1/6 are gravel, and 1/6 are mud. also, the highways are notoriously bad. the government wasn't doing anything an people we tired of it. in the papers and magazines, roads seem to be a major issue, and after our bus ride from kodari and taxis in kathmandu, i can see why. they are dangerous.

the taxi dropped us almost at the top of the hill, and we got to walk the rest of the way accompanied by monkeys. esp. a lot of moms and babies. the stupa is famous for the large number of monkeys living there, i believe some call it monkey mountain (we have one of those in wuhan, too!) there weren't many other visitors at that time of night, and so i feel like the monkeys were really close. at the top, the stupa was amazing. i will have duff put up pics when he gets home. the stupa has a tall golden spire and on the base, the eyes of buddha are painted. i believe they call them the 'benevolent' or the 'compassionate' eyes of buddha, and they watch over the kathmandu valley. we watched the sun set, lit up by the monsoon clouds, and the pilgrims do their circumambulations. after sun set, monks started around the stupa, in height order. little boys in saffron robes were jostling each other at the end of the line, tossing the ends of their robes at each other and jumping to spin the prayer wheels. eventually, the stray dogs living at the top of the hill started to circumambulate with the monks. it was amazing. the lead monk was carrying an umbrella, and he was gently swatting monkeys out of his path, and away from his head with it. the monkeys were crawling all over the stupa.

duff and i stood, gazing over the kathmandu valley, as the sun set and the city lit up. behind us were monks and dogs circling a stupa with monkeys falling all over the place and in a nearby temple, another group of monks were chanting. it was neat to hear their voices carry. it was one of the most peaceful moments i can remember.

when we decided to go home, we descended the long steps that lead up to the main temple. at the bottom, it was, again, chaos. just on a whim, duff and i stopped into the shop of a woman selling bangles. we asked how much, and she said 2 rupees. since we get 74 rupees to the dollar, we went for it. we picked some out, but i worried my hand was too big. the bracelets are plastic and you must make your hand really small to get them on. the woman broke three trying to get them on and then did some odd massage that felt good and popped my hand a few times and the bracelets slid on (i still popped about 8, throughout the experience). the woman, the little girl helping her, and duff and i were all so excited, we got a little carried away. i am now sporting 24 plastic bangles on my right arm, and 12 on my left. they are red, yellow, navy, peach, teal, purple, and clear, all with a little gold. i can't get them off, so we'll just have to see how long it takes them to break. i think this is how the nepali women do it. the girl in front of me on the bus from kodari broke 2 that i know of from the intense bouncing.

yay, nepal! i will certainly be visiting again when the roads improve.

dropping down the himalayas

kathmandu is an amazing city, and as we are figuring out what exactly is happening with duff and lindsey's flights back to china, we have a few days to explore it.

it took us three days to get here from lhasa, and they were three of the most amazing days of traveling ever. from lhasa, we hired a jeep for two days. on our second day of travel we drove through a pass over 16,500 ft. it was amazing. we were driving most of the day through the qomolangma (the tibetan name for mt. everest) nature preserve, but we saw very little wildlife. the land, in large part, is protected for the nomads who depend on it. there were signs asking drivers to stay on the road, and not take shortcuts through the hairpin turns. twice our driver didn't listen to our requests and drove off the road down hills far to steep to attempt walking. we were polite, but made it clear we'd like him to stay on the road.

at the 16,500 ft. pass, we had an amazing view of the snow capped himalayas. the mountains were mostly hidden by clouds from the indian monsoon. we decided to forego an attempt to reach everest base camp because at this time of year, with the monsoon clouds, there would be very little chance that we could see the mountain. that, we will leave for another trip. at the pass, there were millions of prayer flags set up across the road with stupas and prayer wheels. i read that tibetans hold mountains as holy, but they don't believe in walking on the mountain because it disturbs it. instead, they set up religious spots in view of the holy mountains. at our highest pass, i don't know what mountains we were looking at because of the clouds, but the little we could see was amazing.

at the end of the second day in the jeep we started our descent to the kathmandu valley. the driver was taking us as far as the chinese border town of zhangmu, dram in tibetan. zhangmu's elevation is 7550 ft. so, down from 16,000 we went. we pulled into nyalam to check the tires and allow the driver to jump around and revive himself and then we were off on one of the more startling descents ever. all day the climate had been semi-arid, and the road largely flat. the mountains were brown with animals grazing, we saw little vegetation and almost no green. after nyalam, all we saw was green. we descended the himalayas towards the subcontinent and monsoon. we clung to the side of the mountains, driving on a narrow, very wet road. the steepest mountains i have ever seen dropped down to a rushing stream with milky water (full of silt). had we dropped off the road, we would have looked forward to a drop of 500 ft., 1000 ft., or more. the area was really foggy, we drove into a cloud, and often times we couldn't see the tops of the mountains, the stream, or 20 feet ahead of us. our driver was really careful, and other than one near miss with a big blue truck, i felt really safe. he kept himself awake, and us amused, by listening to a tape of english songs he had. they included a number of songs by bryan adams and rod stewart, and other favorites, such as 'i just called to say i love you' and 'last christmas'. he loved it that we sang along.

after a month in the desert and the arid tibetan plateau, the greenery in the valley was amazing. it looked like the olympic peninsula. waterfalls cascaded down the sides of the mountains and swept across the road. we drove through rivers, waterfalls, and over areas where there had been major landslides. our books tell us that the road between lhasa and kathmandu is called the friendship highway and the chinese built it all the way to nepal's capital city. while this may be true, the road wasn't paved, and on the nepal side, all that remained was the idea of a chinese road, as most of it has disappeared since the 1950s when it was built. for the first time in a month we saw trees, not as part of a desert oasis, or planted by the chinese in lhasa. they were beautiful deep green evergreen trees. there were ferns and huge bamboo, too.

zhangmu is the border town and is built high on the side of a mountain on a series of switchbacks. buildings do not last long in this town. we thought the town would be small, so we let the driver take us to a hotel, he must have switched back about 15 times when we got to the bottom (not of the mountain, but of the town, the mountain dropped down thousands of feet more). about 20 feet from chinese customs, he showed us two hotels at over 300 kuai a room. the most we have spent for a room before this was 150 kuai. as duff was checking out the rooms, lindsey and i waited in the jeep. ten people crowded around us trying to get our attention to change money, hire a jeep to nepal, take their hotel and a million other requests. we had been driving all day, and it was already 5:00, but with the super high hotel price, and the demands of the hawkers, we decided just to go on to nepal.

the border crossing is the first i have ever crossed on foot. last year, when kellee, duff and i were crossing into china from mongolia, we hired a jeep, although we now know it would have been faster to walk. to get to nepal from china, you pass through chinese customs and walk 9 km to the nepalese customs. having sat in a jeep for two days, a walk sounded great, especially since hiring a jeep to take us that far would have been as expensive as getting a hotel in zhangmu. we were some of the last people to pass through chinese customs (now i am out of china for a while, i wonder when i will get to go back), and we started the walk to nepal. it was cool and raining and felt like hiking in washington in the fall. most of the trail was unpaved, and very rocky, but it was mostly downhill through switchbacks. we had a great walk, gradually descending through the clouds towards the friendship bridge that marks the border. we walked from 7550 ft. to 5800 ft. in kodari, the nepalese border town. we needed a visa to enter nepal which we were supposed to be able to get at the border. however, when we got there, the border was closed and no one had the key to the immigration building. one of the agents told us to come buy our visa in the morning and took us to a great riverside hotel for the night. the room was 250 nepalese rupees per night, which is about $3. the room was clean and the food was excellent, and there was no hot water. ah, yes, now we are in the subcontinent. goodbye, hot showers.

in the morning we got our visas and got on a bus heading towards kathmandu. we had to change busses once in another town barabise(?) 90 km from kathmandu. the bus from kodari was the most terrifying of my life. we started out from town, and having not gone 5 feet, hit a child. i have no idea what happened to the kid, or how they resolved it, but we drove on. the road was narrow and mostly washed out, unpaved, rocky, or so muddy we left tracks more than a foot deep. the bus lilted dangerously from side to side. i spent almost the whole ride wondering how i should best brace myself when we fell off the cliff, or if i had time to try and jump out the window. that was more adventure than i needed. luckily, on both busses there were amazing people to watch and great music to keep me calm. if i had asthma, i would have had an attack, i haven't ever been so scared. katie told me that people say the bus ride to india is one of the worst in asia, it can be nothing compared to the terror from the chinese border.

we switched in barabise and it took us 6 hours to do under 90 kilometers. mostly this is because the bus was so overloaded and the roads so bad, but we stopped a lot too. we also experienced a lot of rip off the foreigner. we had to pay 30 kuai baggage fees in addition to our tickets that we know they just made up. it bothered duff, but we were passing through such poor areas that giving away 4 dollars, even under a ruse, didn't matter.

nepal is a beautiful country, and not at all what i expected. it is humid, and cool, and very hilly. houses and shacks cling to the hillside. there is a lot of terracing here as well, and we saw men and women working in the fields growing rice. in china, when i see people bent over in the fields working methodically they never straighten up and stretch. the people we saw yesterday were all stretching. i wonder why, for 2 years, i have never seen that in china? people in the countryside are very poor, children haven't clothing and even the adults looked pretty rough. most houses were made of wood and on the roofs people were drying chilly peppers and corn. higher in the mountains the roads were lined with the scraggliest corn i have ever seen. duff commented that it was tall, but not particularly well-yielding.

on all of the busses that we passed there were boys sitting on the roof with goats and luggage. they offered us a seat of the roof, but we opted to sit inside the bus. when the sun was out, umbrellas popped up to protect the guys on the roof, and when it started to rain, they all scurried under tarps. on our bus, the whole back was taken up by a motocycle owned by a chinese guy who is from beijing but going to school in sweeden. for his holiday, he wanted to bike across nepal, but his motorcycle broke down three km from the border and he had to load it on to various busses to get it kathmandu to get it fixed. luckily, he had already ridden across china and tibet and spent a number of weeks in amdo. we also had a terrified goat back by us, and a chicken stuffed into the upper luggage rack in the front of the bus.

that's all for now. i am off to try and find a bus to varanasi to meet sean and start phase two of my summer trip.

himalaya highway

duff and lindsey and i have left lhasa and are on our way to the neaplese border. we have a wonderful driver and we are caravaning with another car with a tibetan woman who speaks english. we left lhasa a 8:00 this morning and stopped in lhatsa at 6:00. lhatsa is a tibetan truck stop, there are karaoke bars and wildly expensive restuarants lining the largely unpaved main drag. all day we have been surrounded by rain and it finally caught up with us. there isn't much to do here, so dinner tonight will be accompanied by a thunder storm. last year in wuhan we had a thunderstorm every other day, but this year i can only remember one. i miss them a lot.

the scenery today was amazing, and completely different from the country side we saw before. today we traveled in a valley surrounded by tall brown mountains. perhaps it was because it was cloudy, but it seems to be the most desolate part of tibet we have visited. we passed tiny little towns with mud brick houses and hundreds of people working on the road living in tents. the sky and the mountains communicate wonderfully. today the mountains reflected purple, green, red, and yellow light. the drive was spectacular, and the people friendly. as we passed through small towns, duff and i occupied ourselves by waving at the villages. everyone smiled and waved back.

the mountains and bridges are covered in prayer flags, with the prayers set into motion by the wind. we saw a few monastaries set high up in between mountians, and all the homes have branches sticking from all corners with prayer flags tied to them. the doors and entry ways to the homes and buildings are painted beautifully, bright colors with a lot buddhist images and lovely long dragons.

please visit lindsey's blog and leave her some well wishes. she has been sick for the last few days and today she is feeling really icky. she'll be fine by tomorrow, we hope, i think it is a head cold, but i am sure she'd love some comments.

there are two little boys behind me whispering and i think they want this computer. we are looking for indian food.

lhasa pictures

kate and me at the top of the jokhang in lhasa.


front gate of the new palace complex, the norblinka, lhasa


a door


the potala palace, lhasa


morning in front of the jokhang


prayer flags on the roof, lhasa


the outer wall of the norblinka, lhasa


the new palace, built in 1954, on the grounds of the norblinka, lhasa

ta da tibet!

the moment we got into golmud we were approached about a jeep to tibet. we were planning on taking the bus, but as getting to golmud was a 4 day affair, rather than one day, we knew we needed to get there as fast a possible. as we talked, the price went up and up, and we finally agreed to pay almost a third of our monthly salaries, at 1000 yuan per person. ouch. lindsey, duff and i crammed in the back, i was in the middle, what luck, and a really nice chinese woman sat in front. the details of us entering tibet in this way are a little sketchy. there is a tibet permit that foreigners are supposed to need, but we have only heard of this in guidebooks, and none of our chinese friends mentioned anything. plus, with the qinghai-tibet railway opening, the regulations are all up in the air. we got a weird little man to be our driver, and we set off at 4:00 in the afternoon. they told us that we would drive all night and it would take about 16 hours to get into lhasa. i was not crazy about driving all night, i am super wary when it comes to the combination of asia and motor vehicles, but i figured if i stayed awake all night with the driver we'd be fine. plus, the road just climbs the plateau, it wasn't steep or curvy.

only a half an hour out of golmud our jeep broke down. i was convinced we were getting taken. i'd gotten a little suspicious of our driver in town when he ditched his uighur hat immediately after getting out of golmud. cultural thing, i guess, and not religious. still, it seemed a little weird. in the end the break down was actually a bad batch of gas and a fuse problem, but we endured 4 hours of stalls, slow hills, the driver poking under the hood and muttering, and repairs. we did return to golmud, but even after the repair the car didn't work all that well. it was only after we got new gas that we really started to move. not that i know anything about cars, these are all duff's assertions.

most of our drive was in the dark, it might have been boring but there were electrical storms all around us. we saw some of the most amazing lightening. the night was long, with the three of us playing games in the back to stay awake. at one point i was making up excuses to go to the bathroom because we were about to loose the driver to sleep. the woman in front helped a lot keeping him awake. the only time i dozed off all night was when the two of them were singing, quite loudly. sometimes they sang the same song, but most of the time they were both yelling different tunes at the top of their lungs.

after the sun came up, the driver was still pretty tired, and he continued to yip and howl all the way into lhasa. i have a video of him, wildly entertaining. i will put it up if i ever figure out how.

we drove into tibet from the north, through the amdo grasslands. i desperately wanted to stop and ride horses for a few days, but that will be another trip. as the sun was rising we could see snow capped mountains in the clouds. the mountains dropped down to an amazingly green plain, with lots of grazing animals. it was so refreshing after weeks in the desert. many tibetans are nomads and we saw white tents dotting the grasslands surrounded by yaks, sheep, goats, and some seriously large dogs. other people lived in small towns of mud huts. everything was so beautiful, blue sky, green grass....so often china has a reputation as a very polluted place, but after traveling the west, i realize this is largely a problem in the east. people were drinking tap water in xin jiang. there is very little industrial pollution, but where there is industry, like the towns we followed on the southern silk road, the area is destroyed. parts of yunnan, tibet, inner mongolia, qing hai, and heilongjia are truly pristine. sadly, i have no idea how long this will last. any time our jeep driver or the chinese lady in front had a bit of trash, it went out the window. duff's chinese nephew from the train to kashgar thought it was funny to throw trash out the window. everyone else thought so too, we were the only ones not laughing.

along the road were stupas, covered in prayer flags. the prayer flags are stamped with prayers and they are activated by wind. we say so many pilgrims along the road, prostrating themselves. they go from full standing to lying on their stomachs, foreheads to the ground. the motion slides, and the wear paddles on their hands to help with the slide. many also have their knees tied together.

we have a lot more to say about tibet, and the people and amazing spirituality, but we have to climb the steps of the potala palace (winter residence of the dalai lama) tomorrow. i am a little worried about that with the altitude. duff and i were running to get ready for tibet, but i think i have still been mildly effected by the elevation. yesterday we visited the jokhang, the holiest temple in tibetan buddhism, and the norbulinka, the summer residence of the dalai lama. posts to follow, after we get a good night's sleep.

thank you, mrs. duffy, for the wonderful tibet guides!! they have been very helpful.

southern silk road, in pictures

watermelon: a southern silk road traveller's best friend


the bleakness that can be the roadside in western china


the roadside desert in the southern silk road


hussein's camels in yarkand. we were walking by and noticed them in a courtyard, and he let us in to see them and their babies.


people, who our bus picked up in the middle of nowhere, playing cards on the bus to qiemo


crude oil coming out of the ground


kate on a mountain in huatugou, with me taking a picture from just a little higher

the five loves of the uyghurs

hats. the easiest way for us to tell if an area of a city is more han chinese or uyghur is the number of hats. since uyghurs are muslim, every man has his head covered with some kind of hat. they range from baseball hats (rare) to white or decorated skull caps, to 1920s-era newsboy caps. some of them are very detailed and have many colors in the patterns, while others are a simple white.


knives. for sale everywhere and really well decorated, knives are found on the belts of almost every adult male. they are used a lot too, since there is so much bread, fruit and meat that needs cutting. they are mostly handmade and really intricate.


meat. always lamb, but always good. due to the large amount of grassland around the desert areas, there is a large supply of lamb in xinjiang. the lamb is put into bread pockets, diced and mixed with noodles, eaten as kebabs, served on top of rice and hung all over city streets like flags.


watermelon. as i've said before, the desert is very hot. while the locals drink the tapwater, since there aren't too many industrial polutants, we cannot for fear of stomach bugs. since the locals don't drink bottled water, it's a rather pricey commodity. the best way around this problem is to eat your water in the form of one of the millions of melons for sale in every market. often, there will be a crowd of people buying melon by the slice rather than taking it home. thanks to the abundance of knives, we were able to enoy melon in the street and at the hotel.


bread. large flat breads the size of tires, bagels, herb and garlic bread, plain, stuffed with lamb, several inches thick and as big around as a dinner plate. given the lack of bread in the rest of china, western china's abundance of it is amazing and the carts are never lacking for business.

hot pot puddle jump, or where foreigners dare not tread

so, if you read this blog, you know duff, lindsey and i are great lovers of hot pot. sadly, it is not one of the healthiest meals one might consume, so we were all relieved at the thought to be leaving it behind in wuhan. how can you keep lovers of hot pot away from hot pot?! we have eaten hot pot in every city on our trip, except, perhaps, khotan. the restaurants seems to appear everywhere i look, and i make sure lindsey and duff know. at the mere mention of hot pot, we all begin to crave it, and by the time dinner rolls around, there is no question as to where we will go. the hot pot has been very different according to our location, and we have tried many great new dishes. last night, we had lhasa hot pot, by far the best since we left wuhan. i only hope the chinese markets in seattle have the right spices...and nian gao.

our trip to golmud took 4 days longer than we anticipated. what seemed like a really easy route turned out to be a desert with no roads. the guide book didn't mention any busses, and said something to the effect of transportation being spotty. they didn't mention there were no roads at all! after our last post, we took the bus to a town called da cai dan. we had hoped to take a sleeper bus direct to golmud but there were only 2 tickets left. another traveler at the bus station recommended to duff another route which we hoped would put us into golmud a day early. we were pressed for time, and still are, so we took it. we arrived in da cai dan expecting to catch a bus to golmud (200 km away) the same night. wrong. we tried to hire jeeps, but no one would take us. finally, duff and i left lindsey with the bags and went to a hotel to see if they could help. the woman couldn't, no one would go to golmud in the dark, apparently the roads are too bad. that's fine. if no drivers will go, we aren't meant to go, and decide to stay the night in da cai dan. the desk fuwuyuan was very kind, but she wasn't all that great about slowing her chinese down to our comprehension level. all we understand is that we must wait. we assume they are cleaning a room for us. in actuality, the woman called the cops on us! when the psb (public security bureau, chinese police) guy walked in the hotel, we smiled at him and went back to our business... until we realized he was there for us.

there are many areas in china that aren't open to foreigners, and we have been avoiding these quite well. in choosing our route we didn't even think about it. the police man told us that the town was closed to foreigners and we couldn't stay. we explained that we were sorry, and didn't know, and we were trying to leave but there were no busses and we couldn't get anyone to drive us in a jeep. he understood, and after a few phone calls, and passport photocopies, we were allowed to stay for the night. he was so nice, we are so happy he let us stay. the fuwuyan was told to call them as soon as we left the next morning, but we are sure we were monitored. the oddest thing is that we weren't allowed to leave the hotel. they told us that we must stay inside, and if we even left the room there was a flutter of fuwuyuan activity...the foreigners are on the move! we hadn't eaten and so we asked if we could go out for that. there was a very reluctant 'yes'. we put our bags in the room and went back to the front desk to tell the fuwuyuan we wanted hot pot. joy filled and eyes alight, she told us that we don't need to leave the hotel. they have hot pot in the hotel restaurant!! she was so relieved that we didn't need to go out and were hotel hostages for the evening. people in the town were great, and it will be one of the most memorable places we have visited in china. so, accompanied by three excited fuwuyans, we went to dinner.

....and so the hot pot circle continues....

silk stepping stones

***this is duffy, not kate***

the silk road is not a very continuous, well-defined route. it was not 2000 years ago, and it most certainly is not today. desert sands do a good job of hiding many parts of it.

after our unexpected stop in a mining camp last night, we awoke this morning to see what else awaited us on the path to golmud. we knew that a vehicle of some sort would be coming at about 9 am and that it would be heading some amount of kilometers towards golmud. about 9, we started looking around. outside of a nearby brick cabin, two men, one in a skull cap and long beard, were loading huge rocks into a wheel barrel. they then rolled them outside the gate of the compound and sat down in the dust by the road. i asked them where they were going and they replied 'golmud'. after doing a brief dance of joy at my luck, i asked them when the bus would come and they said soon. lindsey and i went and got kate and the packs and went out to the road. sure enough, 5 minutes later, through the piles of dust, a minibus showed up. as soon as it was in sight, the man with the beard began to scream that the bus was coming, and people started to pour out of what we thought were deserted cabins. we, the other men, and their hundreds of pounds of rocks, boarded and were off.

the first sign that this bus was not going to be making the 1000 km trip to Golmud was the fare: a whopping $1.50 per person. an hour and a half later, our suspicions were confirmed when the bus reached Huatugou and stopped for good. there were only 2 tickets left on the bus to golmud that day, and despite our pleas, we were not allowed to fit 3 people in 2 seats, and neither kate, lindsey nor i were up to staying behind solo. so, the hotel search began again. luckily, the selection was better than 'this crumbling cabin or that crumbling cabin.' our hotel choosing method has improved greatly since arriving in western china: we flag down a cab, ask to be taken to a 'san xing bin guan' (3-star guest house) and trust the driver. in western china, all cabs are a flat 5 yuan, so there's no worry about being driven in circles while the meter climbs. this method worked again: we were taken to the 'petroleum guesthouse'. the building serves as offices, a restaurant, and a hotel for the qing hai oil companies. the rooms without tvs and windows that open into the restaurant are even half price. the facilities all work, however, which after last night, makes the hotel feel like a paradise.

after getting situated, kate and i went for some jiaozi and a walk. we found excellent places to have both. the town is a giant grid with mountains to the east. we kept walking east until we left town. next thing we knew, we were in a sandy, hilly area with what looked like tar everywhere. kate quickly identified it as crude oil. the area was filled with patches of crude oil. it was easy to see why an oil company would want to build a town here.

as fun as dodging oil slicks was, we decided to head for higher ground. gradually, we got higher and higher into the hills. normally, the mountains we've seen look like they are close by on a flat plain, but due to an optical illusion they are actually pretty far away. these mountains, however, seemed to come closer and get bigger with amazing speed. before we knew it, we were into a maze of gorges, canyons, and dry river beds. we kept picking our way to the top of one of the high peaks, and looked down over a plain, a lake and an amazingly geometric city. all the apartment complexes were the same, the blocks of stores were the same, and the streets were all perpendicular to each other. the combination of the city and the surroundings were as opposite as possible.

tomorrow, we go to another city on the 9 am bus where, according to a fellow traveler, there are frequent buses to golmud. this should, cross your fingers, put us into golmud about 8 pm tomorrow night, then early start and the bus to tibet.

wish us luck.

roads? where we are going we don't need roads.

we love western china. everything is unexpected, and nothing is easy. everthing is beautiful, the busses have been great. they have also been hard to figure out. i think duff left off in qiemo, where we had a very wonderful break for a few days. when you travel as we are, i find it very helpful to log some serious downtime. to some, it may seem as waste, but traveling here is such a shocking experience. we have to process all the new things we are seeing, sort through what we understand and what we do not, remember all the new words we are learning... we need the down time to really have time to appreciate and ponder what we are experiencing. qiemo was great for that...and laundry.

on this trip we are covering some huge distances (consult your atlas). we moved from qiemo to ruoqiang, on a very uneventful bus. short, but we still weren't able to get same day tickets out of ruoqiang. from ruoqiang, we saw that golmud was 1000 km, with luck, we thought we'd get a sleeper and be there....yesterday. the bus stations ticket agent was wildly engaged in whatever ming dynasty daytime drama (there are very few tv shows set in modern china, most of the tv shows are old china, which is fascinating. i wish we could understand them) was on at the moment and was not interested in answering any of our questions. we gathered that we would get the bus to golmud the next morning and buy tickets on the bus. the next morning, though, there was no bus. we hired a landcruiser for 100 kuai, and thought we'd struck gold. sadly, this was not the case. in the car there were 5 proper seats. there were ten passengers in the car! i have terrible luck with bus seats, always have, probably always will. no one wanted to get in the back seat (which wasn't a seat, not even bolted to the ground, i have no idea wven what to call it), but i was sick of no one taking any initiative, so duff and i hopped in the back. ouch. we left the bus station with 8 people, including a little girl who sat on her dad's lap. a mile from the bus station we picked up two more guys (i assume the bus stations would not have let us leave with so many in the car). i'd had the worst seat on the bus to qiemo (i threw up out the window the whole time) and i wasn't giving my seat up, so one of the new guys climbed into the trunk to sit on another seat not intended to be part of the truck. since duff and my seat wasn't bolted to the ground, there was barely any room in the back, and it made for a pretty uncomfortable ride. the guy in the back wanted everyone to know how unhappy he was and tried to bring the rest of us down with him. he was sitting sideways, directly behind me, with his legs stretched out behind duff. because he was so busy elbowing me in the back, and screaming at us to lean forward and not actually sit in our seat, he wasn't using his arm to brace himself against the back of the seat, and was getting the brunt of all the bumps in his ribs. i have never heard more annoying whining. and from a 30 year old man! finally i couldn't take it anymore, and climbed into the back and practically kicked him into my seat. he immediately pops around and tried to start a conversation with me! never said thanks, though.... needless to say, my bus ride from them on was in no way pleasant. i kept thinking someone would switch seats with me, but no one did. getting seats on busses and trains is very cut-throat here. i haven't ever seen people on wuhan city busses give up their seats to elderly or disabled people, and it always makes a huge fuss when duff or i do. it is one of the more sad aspects of china that i have observed. the head of the guy in front of me and my head were about 3 inches apart, and when he'd fall asleep he would let it flop around and would wake himself up because his head would bump mine. at one point, he put his head back over the seat (which was my lap) and tried to sleep with it there. i asked him not to do this, and the whining started again. my goodness.

the trip was beautiful, and the benefit to being crammed in the trunk was that i had the back window and the side window to view the landscape. there wasn't any road, but i am now quite use to this. we passed through beautiful and deep canyons and flat deserts and saw ranges of snow covered mountains. i even saw a desert nomad with a caravan of three camels. it was a wonderful trip, but all to short, for we never reached golmud.

we stopped in a desolate and dusty town around 4:00 pm. we turned off the main road, and i allowed myself to dream that we were going to drop the rude man in this wretched little town and leave him and continue on our way. no such luck, for we were also dropped in this town. surprise!! and we thought we were going to golmud!! i have never seen such a place in my life. the town was involved in some kind of mining, and it was evident they experience very harsh winters. even in july, the night was cold. the buildings were like bunkers. they were in long rows, none more than one storey. the inside of each building was like a cave. dark, and dank. if there was a window, i have no idea when you may have been able to see through it. everything was covered in a fine gray powder and smelled of coal smoke. there was no running water in the whole town. fortuantley, people were very kind. the woman who ran our "guesthouse" was from wuhan, and the woman who ran the general store has a son in wuhan. we met a lovely woman who took us into her hovel, which doubled as a mahjhong parlor and beerhall and cooked us a wonderful meal. food, i am sure, is very hard to get in that area. we hadn't seen a single green plant from the landcruiser in hours. power must have also been a valuable commodity. as the woman cooked our food, she wouldn't leave the lights on, she'd just switch them on and off as she needed them. the tv did as well, with the power. it was the oldest tv i have ever seen, and was showing a program about chinese soldiers in the korean war.

all the buildings not on main street were demolished. we walked around a bit, but there wasn't much to see and one can only breathe in so much gray dust. we trucked it back to our cave (all the doors had heavy felt hanging over them, the buildings were surprisingly well insulated) and sat on our beds knitting as a trickle of chinese people walked in and out. someone must have been telling them, "there are foreigners in room 12!" and they would say, "no, can't be. there wouldn't every be foreigners here!" and then the first guy would probably tell them to go have a look, and sure enough, there we would be, like a diorama. it was kind of fun, we are always a novelty, but people couldn't believe that we were there. it was pretty unlikely. i can't imagine many other travelers have done that trip.

duff will catch you all up on wherever we are now, hua-tu-something, and the amazaing hike we did today.

arrival in qiemo

***this is duffy writing, not kate***

for those of you following along on the atlas, we have arrived at the next major city along chinese highway 315, qiemo. there is no bus leaving until july 10, so we will be here for a couple of days of relaxing, unwinding, and general recuperation before setting out on the stretch to ruoqiang, then on to golmud, and into tibet. we will be writing postcards, so send us addresses via email. we will also be giving our upper backs a much needed break from carrying packs, and our lower backs a much needed break from bus seats.

the bus ride into town from khotan was some new and different scenery. there were fields of sand until the horizon, portions of the road were washed away, and the sky was hazy all day. there were also many large, marshy areas, and gigantic piles of soil and sand. in many areas, there were pastures with sheep grazing surrounded by enormous sand dunes. the roadsides were deserted, and every so often there would b a group of people beside the road who we would stop to pick up. by the end of the trip the bus was a lot of fun. there were so many people who seemed to be complete strangers when they got on the bus who were laughing and playing cards and singing together by the time we arrived in qiemo. upon arrival at the bus station, there was a large crowd waiting to pick up friends and family members.

qiemo is a very sprawling and short town for china. the buildings are all one or two stories, and the distances are much greater. luckily, all the taxi rides are a flat, 5 yuan fee. we know nothing about the town, as it is not covered by any guide book, except as a stepping stone on the silk road, so we get to be the guide book and decide what to see, where the best places to stay and eat are, what to do, and how to get around. after being in tourist oriented places that are busy and bustling, a little down time is going to be much appreciated.

the southern silk road

greetings from khotan, the largest city we will see in a while. duff, lindsey and i are now traveling the southern silk road. we have hit two towns since kashgar, yarkand and khotan. both have involved beautiful bus rides and great people watching. we have turned back on our loop of xin jiang, kashgar was our furthest point west. it is a good thing we have a strict itinerary we need to keep to because if we didn't the temptation of traveling part of the karkoram highway may have proved too strong. we are skirting the edge of the great taklamakan desert. it is a huge basin surrounded on all sides by mountians. we have now gone through the mountains to the north, west, and south.

we have seen some amazing things during our bus rides. first, the bus speeds up and slows down a lot as it weaves its way between donkey carts and motorcycles that share the road. we have also seen 5 or 6 camel carts. i wonder what the difference is if your family has a donkey, as opposed to a camel. is there more prestige attached to one or the other? do you have a camel if you live further from town? camels in rural areas? donkeys in the suburbs? these are the matters i puzzle these days.

the people on the busses have been neat. there are very few han chinese, perhaps one or two on each 20 person bus. there are lots of filthy but very happy little kids (the dust here is so intense, it would be impossible to keep a child clean). all the men have had hats. two pakistani traders sat in front of us on one bus, and spoke a little english. i have been knitting a little on the busses and this always interests people. yesterday i dropped my ball of yarn while we were going down hill and it wound up under the driver's seat (i was in the second to last row). it took a community effort to get it back to me, i was thoroughly red in the face, but people laughed and were kind. on our way from kashgar, two girls watched me knitting for a long time. they were covered almost completely with only their eyes showing. at one point, one of the girls leans over and says, my name, and doesn't say any more. i decided she is asking my name, so i repeat 'my name is kate'. i ask her hers, but she is too shy to talk, and a second later i discover her english isn't at comprehension level because she turns to her friend and says 'iskate', which with her accent sounds more like 'bisket'.

from the road we have passed dust devils and experienced out first sand storm. it wasn't very severe because all we did was close the windows. our packs, though, on the roof, have dirt caked on them.

check out lindsey's blog, she is posting about yarkand and the mosque we visited our last day in kashgar. i am slacking on posting because i have become obsessed with finding knitting patterns to make us more warm clothes for tibet. this afternoon we are going to see the silk factory in this town and learn more about silk production. first, though we must figure out the busses and how we are getting out of here. the towns here are few and far between and there aren't a lot of busses. it is a good thing our chinese is getting so good. we haven't seen any other tourists in days, this is definately not an area that you could travel in with no chinese.

it is hot here today, but we are glad we aren't in wuhan. we have heard on the news they are having a record breaking heat wave. as if it wasn't hot enough already.

my chinese 'nephew'

***this is duffy writing, not kate***

all of you who have travelled in the same vehicle for any extended period of time know this feeling. you get on to a train, plane, bus or other motorized vehicle and see a small child. your stomach jumps a little and, no matter how much you try to avoid it, you get a little nervous. sitting for 6, 8, or 24 hours can be a trying experience, even for well-travelled adults. many times, it is simply too much for kids and they lose it. for those of you who have taken young children on trips, especially my parents, thank you for your patience and hard work. travelling is an important experience, especially for children, and those willing to make that happen deserve a lot of credit.

our car on the train from urumqi to kashgar there happened to be a boy who was, as he proudly informed me later in the trip, 3 years and 8 months old. about 2 hours into the train ride, kate, lindsey and i were sitting by the windows admiring the desert and the mountains and reading when a small head poked out of the door two compartments down. the boy saw us and his eyes lit up. he jumped into the aisle, did a few kung fu kicks and chops, and jumped back into his compartment. we all chuckled and went back to reading. a few minutes later, he reemerged and walked a few steps closer before chopping and running back to safety. this action repeated itself and each time he came closer and stared at us longer. i decided that this would be a fun way to pass time on the train, so the next time he came out, i did some blocks and chops to counter his. this was wildly funny, and he ran back to his bed to tell his mom. his mom stuck her head into the aisle and told him not to bother me since i was reading. i told her it was fine and the next time he came back out, he had a bag full of dates that he dropped on my table, said 'thank you', and ran back to his mom. the next hour went like this: him bringing food, me talking to him a few words at a time in chinese, and him running back. then the head-butting started.

chinese children love to practice their kung fu moves and powers, and this one was no exception. after seeing that his hits from a distance were not defeating me, he decided that he needed something more drastic. he walked up to my chair, looked me right in the eyes, and said something in chinese. the only words i understood were 'tou', which means head, and 'bi', which means you want to compare two things. while i was trying to figure this out, he bowed slightly, grabbed my head, and started trying to push it with his. now, i don't mean to sound arrogant, but i have a big head, so this was not nearly a fair match, even though he tried pretty hard. i pretended to fall out of my chair, which he thought was wildly funny and this game went on for hours.

around dinner time he was getting very brave. he walked into my compartment and proclaimed that i should come with him. he led me back to his compartment and introduced me to his mom. he gave me some more food, and then started pointing to things out the window. he was asking me what all these things were that he was seeing, and when i would answer in chinese with basic words like 'mountain' or 'river', he would look disappointed and demand his mom tell me to speak english. amazingly, she would tell him the english word. she never tried to speak english with me, but she had an amazing vocabulary. by the end of the evening, he was able to jump up to the window and yell 'hos' whenever we passed a horse. by about 8:00, kate and lindsey were getting hungry for dinner, but every time i left the compartment to make noodles, the child would come and inform me that i needed to come back to his. finally, the people in the compartment moved over so that we could all fit in there and eat together.

one of the funniest parts of the afternoon was when he asked what my name was. i decided to try my chinese name, and i told him 'da fei', and that my surname was 'jian'. this caused him to go running back to his mom screaming 'jian shu fu, jian shu fu', which means 'uncle jian, uncle jian'. i guess it surprised him that a foreigner would have a chinese surname.

the next morning, as soon as a climbed out of my bunk to go put my contacts in, before i even hit the floor, i here this tiny voice yelling 'shu fu, shu fu!' after a few minutes of head butting to prove that we were indeed men and we were in fact very tough, his mom walked by us to go wash up. she told him to go back to the compartment and sit with uncle jian. we spent most of the time having a very intellectual debate about whether it was raining, if we had or had not arrived (i maintained that we hadn't), if the mountains had snow, and if there were monkeys in kashgar (he had gotten the english words for donkey and monkey confused), and of course, head butting. his mom took a while coming back, and eventually, he began to wander out into the hall and yell for her. it seemed like it was going to be a page out of the kids' book 'are you my mother?' when he asked the conductor where his mom was. unfortunately for both him and me, the conductor told him that his mom had already exited the train at the last stop. i have no idea why this should have been funny, but the boy did not think it was either. his lip started to quiver, even after she explained that she was joking. i think it was only by head butting for the next ten minutes that we avoided a major scene on the train.

when we arrived at the station in kashgar, he got ready to exit the train. he could barely stand still because he was going to go see his grandfather and kept yelling 'ye ye' over and over. he was wearing his sunday best, too. a pair of black gym shorts, a red tank top and a blue aloha shirt, topped of with a visor that had an attached pair of mirrored sunglasses that came down from the bill.

the trains in china have been a lot of fun. i've learned to play card games, gotten to talk to a variety of people, watched a man eat a whole chicken that came out of a bag, seen eight hundred and sixty one ways to make tea, and become a connoisseur of instant noodles. this experience was kind of the pinnacle of all of that. i really want to thank amy, kate and my chinese teacher, as well. without her hard work, i know i would have missed out on this and many other unforgettable experiences that have let me really get to know china these last two years.

so, moral of the story, next time you see a little kid while your travelling, don't worry too much. it may turn out to be a lot of fun.

hao bazaar

first of all, thanks for the birthday greetings!! i had a nice calm birthday on the train. lindsey, duff, and i went out for a western breakfast at the fabulously luxurious xin jiang hotel. we needed it. there was coffee and bacon, as well as lots of fruit and cereal. uigur food is largely noodles and mutton. not that this is bad, we love this, but coming from han china, where we eat about 10 heaping plates of vegetables a day, nomad food is a big change. tonight, even, we have stepped back into the chinese district of kashgar to have chinese food. a girl can only eat so much lamb! and....lindsay, i have no idea how you did the chinese, but thanks. shockingly, duff and i could read the message. is this official? i can read basic chinese now? it was fabulously exciting.

today we spent the day at the sunday market in kashgar, one of the most famous markets in all of asia. it was amazing and completely lived up to our expectations. in our daily lives, we normally see only han chinese people, no other foreigners or minorities. today, we saw no han chinese. the diversity of people at the market made my head spin, and since they were pushy and shoved quite hard, my body spun as well.

to get to the market we walked through the old quarter of kashi (kashgar, in chinese). having just arrived, we were shy to use our cameras, but after the market we are more bold. we'll go back tomorrow and fill up a memory card or two. the old town seemed like it must have been in the middle ages. we saw carpenters and blacksmiths. we saw an old man pounding out donkey shoes (we have only seen 2 horses, but everyone has a beautiful long eared donkey with a soft grey nose). since i suspect we will go back tomorrow, i will leave the description until then.

we got to the market early, and so we weren't totally sure we were in the thick of it. we crossed a little river and passed piles of animal parts on the sidewalk. carts drove by piled high with fresh, and i mean fresh, skins from goats and sheep. there were goat heads, and lots and lots of feet. i guess hoves... but not the rest of the animal, we say them further in. the market sold everything. millions of food vendors vied for the attentions of buyers with sellers of knives, rat poision, brooms, wodden pitchforks, fabric, paper, beauty products, carpets, utensils (metal blacksmited spoons...), hair adornments....it goes on and on. at the end of one road there were people selling dogs and cats, but in no way did it compare to the pet markets of yunnan. then, after purchasing a cat, the people carried the sweltering cats around in bags. food was everywhere, especially piles of all kinds of melons. i have no idea how central asian people get their vegetable allowance, but the eat melons. we had a slice of some of the best watermelon! there are lots of peaches and cherries, apricots and nectarines. we saw piles of huge red peppers, as long as my forearm. in wuhan we have tiny little red peppers. there were sheep carcasses hanging everywhere, and men hacking at them with knives. hacking. we stuffed ourselves with the lamb and onion puffs, which duff claims are so good because they dip the meat and onion mixture in blood before they wrap it in the bread shell and toss it in the oven. there are bbq stands every ten feet with lamb kabobs and congealed blood. we had rice for lunch, like pilau. it had strips of some yellow vegetable and a hunk of lamb the size of my fist so tender it could be cut with a spoon. the street vendors also sold milk, which the had in a huge basin with a giant block of ice. they ladled the milk over the ice to keep it cool. we also had amazing yogurt with bagels. we stick out a little from the other foreign tourists. we hunkered down on the curb under a tree and used the bread to scoop curd into our mouths. not that we think this is odd at all, but we drew a crowd.

we didn't buy much, other than food, we mostly walked around and gaped. prices were high, and didn't lower quite enough in spite of our proclimations that we are teaches from wuhan. throwing in that we live in wuhan always works to get a few more kuai of discount. it is widely know for being a rather shoddy city. we bought three pillows that fit just under your neck that we hope will bring us 36 hours of relative comfort on the bus from golmud to tibet. duff and i each got a knife. mine is little itty bitty and will be great for slicing apples and the like in india.

things we will take away from the kashgar sunday market: everyone in their traditional clothing, and all the styles. the scarves and headcoverings, robes and birkas, caps, beards, really elabroate eye makeup, high heels, men with green eyes and sharp knives, a little girl riding a sheep, smiling old women, the watermelon seller who chased a yellowjacket away from me, the crouched women selling curd out of big pots, the nut and dried fruit sellers, three men holding up a giant bad of cheese, goat heads, the heat, the variety, the crowds, the smells.....pictures will come.

the ruins of jiao he and other news

last time duff and i sat down, he was intending to write about the ruins we saw in turpan, but got a little distracted. i will cover that today. we are in kashgar, after a 24 hour train ride from urumqi. i am 24, having turned yesterday. wow. traveling in xin jiang, by train or by bus, has been pure pleasure. we have had such an amazing set of beautiful rides! the desert is variable and dramatic. amazing to me are the many oases that we pass. we will be in the middle of what seems like endless flats of gravel and sand, occasionally piled up by the wind with mountains in the background, and then we will roll by farms and a town, looking as green and fresh as ohio. there are tall, thin trees between all the fields for windbreaks. all the houses are adobe, and they have courtyards with lofts and beds inside the front gate. there are so many beds outside, with people napping, elderly people relaxing in the shade, and children squatting on them playing cards. sometimes, further out of town, we have seen herds of sheep and goats in the houses, and black and white spotted dairy cows. we have seen some long haired yaks, too. in most of china we see the water buffalo, and it has been amazing to see dairy cows grazing in green pastures beneath snowy mountains. the light here is amazing. it hits the mountains, bounces off the clouds, shines off the mineral desposits and irrigation channels...xin jiang is perhaps the most beautiful place i have seen in china. we will take busses from kashgar all along the southern silk road, and i am really looking forward to it. we will also take the bus from golmud in qinghai province, into tibet, even though the qinghai tibet rail line opened TODAY. we watched a little of the coverage on the english language news station, cctv-9. the train runs from golmud to amdo, the tibetan grasslands where i desperately want to stop. they have coverage about what effect this will have on tibet, and han china, and the environment and endangered species. mostly they talked about what an amazing engineering feat building this train was, and how the world told china they couldn't do it. at one point the announcer said something like, and now china has the biggest buildings, the tallest dam, the highest railroad, and men in space. ha, china. there is no chance that we will be able to get tickets on the train, which has showers (!) and oxygen bars in the luxurious sleeper cars, but i will gleefully climb on the bus so i can see all the scenery up close.

tomorrow we will get an early start and attend the legendary kashgar sunday market. the city is riming for it already, i can tell. we walked around a lot today, and ended up buying a lot of fruit. we'll hit the sack early after eating our fruit and sampling some of the local wine so we can get an early start tomorrow.

and now for the ruins in jiao he:

after duff and i escaped the creepy, over-aggressive tour guide, and decided to leave for urumqi the same day, we decided we would spend the day riding bikes and trying to see some of the sites of turpan. sadly, we were a little confused, as was our guide book (why can't rough guide get its maps and directions right?!) and so we ended up only seeing the ruins of jiao he. we rode bikes we rented to the site, along a road 11 km outside of turpan. the bicycle ride was amazing, we passed donkey carts (which pull flat boards, and 15 people or so pile on and are pulled by one donkey, and there are no seats, the sit on an oriental rug. some are covered, some aren't), farm fields, irrigation canals, bakerys, markets, fruit hawkers, and so much more. when we got to the ruins we were spinning in the 42 degrees C heat. i have spent more money on water this trip, and it is triple the price it is in wuhan!! the ruins are on a plateau, described as leaf shaped. on either side there is a small river, and small, small scale farming. the plateau is 2 kilometers long and a city began there around the 2nd century b.c. the buildings were all adobe and have since crumbled but we can see the outlines and the foundations of some. the temples are still very distinct. there are 3 temples that i can clearly remember, and they were all at the north end of the plateau. you could still see some very worn buddha statues. the city had narrow streets, and we ducked behind the ruins of one building to eat a cucumber in the shade. we peeled it, how very chinese of us. the city apparently reached its peak from 640-840 ad, but was abandoned in 1400 after a war. this was shortly after islam was introduced to the region. it wasn't clear whether the buddhist jiao he converted or if that was the religious conflict was the cause of the city's decline. interestingly, a lot of money has been donated by the japanese to preserve jiao he. we have seen many historical and cultural sites in xin jiang where a majority of the funding is from the japanese. i am interested in this effect on chinese and japanese relations. i think the japanese are giving money where ver and whenever possible to improve their image. oh, and did i mention this is a unesco site?

in urumqi we saw an amazing museum (the best i have been to in china, aside from the shanghai museum of art) that outlined the many minority groups in xin jiang. they covered uighurs, kazakhs, tajiks, russians, tartars, kyrgyks, hui, manchus, mongols, tibetans, and i am sure i am forgetting someone. the exhibit was put together beautifully, detailing the history, housing, festivals, culture, and dress of each group. katie would have gone nuts for the costumes. at the museum we also saw some mummies, eerily preserved in burial sites along the southern silk road. with the climate, and so little rainfall, the mummies are estimated to be 4000 years old. they had painting on their faces, and they still had their hair...i have never seen such amazingly preserved bodies.

okay, time to go outside again and experience amazing kashgar. we have become slightly addicted to these little pastries filled with lamb (kellee, like the ones we had last year in mongolia, at that stand where we waited for the camping gear) and onions. we must find more. i haven't time to proof read, or check spelling and typos, sorry. the keyboards in these net bars are completely destroyed by kids playing computer games and they are really hard to type on.