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.