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....