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.