Can you believe I’m updating again? I’m sure you’re starting to get sick of me. But you’ll all be complaining again once I’m in Central Asia on a mountain somewhere staying in a ger with no electricity.

I’ve updated the gallery. Now, NW China is up to Urumqi! The Urumqi, Food and Design galleries will probably be added to but I’m putting up what I have so far. Now you can get an idea of the landscapes I’ve been traveling through for the past week or so.

Today was hot and my hat came in useful. I took a bus up to the Xinjiang Museum which had loads of costumes, jewelry and musical instruments from each minority in the region. I did some drawing and walked back almost the entire way to the hotel, stopping for a coke in a park and to get my first batch of cartwheel photos developed.

The actual cartwheel photos often don’t live up to my expectations but these were pretty good. Not too much stomach (the key is to tuck your shirt into your underwear!) and not obviously over x-rayed. I’m slowly amassing more things to ship home even though I just sent a package from Hohhot.

I will admit that I had KFC for lunch and also bought overpriced cola flavored gummy worms. Even though it’s 11:45 pm I haven’t had dinner yet but I may pick up some ramen on the way across the train station plaza to my hotel. My cold feels better today and I’ve been drinking the medicine/tea the pharmacist gave me. When I tried to take a shower this morning there was no hot water (but I have an electric tea kettle in the room for my ramen) so I really hope there’s some tonight so I can finally get clean.

Just before coming to the internet place I bought my train ticket to Kashgar (Kashi on the ticket but called “Kashker” by the Chinese). First I went to my hotel room and emptied all of my pockets and left my bag. Pickpockets are horrible at Chinese train stations. I wrote down the date and Chinese name for Kashgar on a piece of paper to give to the clerk.

At 9:45 the station was much more empty than usual but there was still a group of 20 people pushing in a crowd to stick their hands in first for a ticket (instead of standing in line). I waited a bit and finally got to the front and asked what time the train to Kashker was. She told me “no” and pointed for me to leave. So I checked the schedule on the wall, compared Chinese city names/characters and figured out there was a train that left around 4pm.

With that train number written down I pushed my way in and slipped the paper to the clerk. She pointed to the next window—I guess she was returns only. Finally I pushed my way through my third line, holding my pockets, and the woman was very nice and explained that the train was at 12pm. I picked the other train on the schedule because I have to pick up my passport and visa at 1pm and can’t leave before then. She spoke English, surprisingly, and told me in not so many words that the train I wanted was from Kashgar to Urumqi so it wouldn’t work.

I had to buy a ticket for the train on the 3rd instead, meaning I will be here one more night than I thought. All middle beds were sold out (already!) so I had to buy a lower bunk. They’re slightly more expensive but I’ve been enjoying them on this trip. my last time in China I bought upper beds but I don’t want to have to take off my shoes so much. I’ve since realized that the train is 24 hours and will have a lot of lounging/non-sleeping time which means I will have to share my bed with the other passengers as a bench a lot of the time. That doesn’t thrill me so much but at least I have a ticket. It’s already Sunday here, I hope everyone’s enjoying their weekend and keeping cool.

Yesterday I woke up in my clean hotel room, ate some cereal and prepared to go to the Kyrgyz Consulate. I had looked up vague directions on Lonely Planet’s Thorntree message board and went down to the front desk. I asked where the street was, they didn’t know. I asked where the big hotel nearby was, they didn’t know. I asked which bus to take, they didn’t know. Finally I had to break down and take a taxi to the Hua Ling Benguan which the taxi driver knew.

The bus is only 1 Y and the taxi cost 13 Y but the extra money was worth the lack of frustration. Once inside I was greeted in English and was escorted outside by a very nice woman who showed me the path to the consulate. The problem is that there is no evidence in Kyrgyz web sites that it exists and all guidebooks say it doesn’t. But it does exist and many people had confirmed this to me before I left. Inside, the officers spoke English and offered me a visa in 3 days for $112 or 5 days for $56. After a long look at my calendar I decided to take the cheaper, longer visa application because I had time.

Most people are in a real hurry to get out of Urumqi but I am still sick and could use the time to work on my photos. Also, if I did the quick visa process I would get my visa on a Friday afternoon and have to leave for Kashgar right away to see the Sunday market and catch the Monday bus to Osh, Kyrgyzstan. What’s the point of hurrying to get to Kashgar when I’m sick and will have no time to relax? So I will need to pick up my visa on August 2nd. As for the week in-between (It’s taking even longer because of the weekend), I may just stay here in Urumqi watching DVDs and walking around or I may go out to “Heavely Lake” for a few days. I have to sit down, figure out bus schedules and decide if I’m heading by train directly to Kashgar or if I will stop in Kuqa along the way.

After applying for my visa I headed off to the East side of town where David had marked a massage place on my map. I found it without much trouble, and paid 45 yuan (10 more than he said he pays, but they wouldn’t budge) for 90 minutes. That’s under $6! It was the hardest massage I’ve ever had and he really got into my back muscles. All of the Chinese massages I’ve had are fully clothed with a sheet used over the area being worked on. Fingers, elbows and fists were used and at some points he was just punching my legs. My back must have been pretty bad because at the end he had me turn over again to work on my back for a bit, which is not typical. After carrying my heavy bag around, especially for as long as I did the day before, the massage was not a luxory, it was a neccesity. In fact, I think I will try to get back there again at least once because I’m sure more work could be done on my back before I face the long bus rides in Central Asia.

I spent two nights in Turpan, one day three of us hired a taxi from 7am until 7pm to take us around all of the sites. The highest my thermometer read was 104 and my French taxi partner was very disapointed. He thought it would be a lot hotter. My eyes began to water and feel strange in the afternoon and I think the heat was getting to them.

The cough I acquired in Dunhuang was still with me in Turpan but, even worse, my stomach started acting up. I spent most of our day of touring visiting toilets and had the distinction of going to the bathroom under a bridge across from the famous flaming mountains. In China you never know what causes your stomach problems. I’m convinced that just breathing the air here is slowly killing me so I’m not sure what the shower water is doing.

The bus from Turpan to Urumqi was an uneventful 2.75 hours on a beautifully paved road. We passed through a field of modern windmills that was quite impressive and saw a range of jagged, snowcapped mountains. Anglela, the Taiwanese girl I’ve been traveling with for the past few towns, and I took a local bus to the hotel we wanted to stay at but were turned away. Later, when she asked to book a room in a week she was told no again so we decided we weren’t wanted. She booked a tour to the far North of the region while I waited and tried to figure out the Chinese city map I had found. We called around to the hotels in the guidebook and many were full or wouldn’t take foreigners, including her. The tour agency told us that there weren’t many hotels taking foreigners and we might have to sneak me in somewhere.

Two Germans arrived and told us about their great hotel find near the railway station. We called and then took a bus across town. Wen we arrived we called again because we couldn’t find it and were told to stay put and look out for the “militatry-looking man.” Soon a man drove up in military uniform and told us that we couldn’t stay there, it wasn’t approved for foreigners. On the phone the man had asked where Angela was from and she said “here” because they always try to figure her out. In fact, I’ve noticed that she gets stared at more than I do on the street because she has fancy “quick dry” clothes and a strange hat but looks Chinese. Most people think she’s Japanese for some reason.

Many touts stand outside the railway and bus stations trying to get people to stay at their hotels, which is how the Germans found their place. In all my time in China I have never heard of foreigners not being allowed. It used to be a policy here but it was stopped a while ago. Apparently, because the military was involved, it is still an issue in Urumqi if not the entire Xinjiang Province. We found another hotel in the guidebook that said it took foreigners and flagged down a taxi. She just laughed and pointed “it’s right behind you.” Inside I let Anglea do the talking and they told her they had dorms with no access to showers at all or doubles. The doubles were 120 yuan and they could go no lower. I looked at them with my red, sweaty face and puppy dog eyes and said “eee bye kwai?” Then looked at each other and agreed I could pay 100. Angela finally admitted that she can not bargain in China and they take advantage of her Chinese. All together it took us four hours to find a hotel after arriving in Urumqi.

The hotel is literally right next to the train station so the train horns are loud but the hotel has key cards, big TVs and nice decoration. In fact, it’s the nicest hotel room I’ve had on my trip so far. Angela was leaving the next morning for the North so it only cost 50 yuan to share for the first night. We set out on bus #10 from the station to find a place that had food, banks, a supermarket and internet. We got off in front of a great supermarket with a KFC and a Bank of China. Unfortunately she needed to exchange traveler’s checks which can only be done at one large Bank of China in the center of town.

When we got to the center and took care of the banking we looked for a resturaunt. I wanted noodles and Angela suggested KFC. Never one to turn down fast food I agreed but the KFC we were told about was actually a Best Food Burger which is a Chinese chain. Apparently they use KFC to describe any fast food resturaunt here. She decided to take the bus back and we had our KFC while being watched by all of the customers. The woman next to us was talking about us and thought Angela was Korean and I was Russian. I get called Russian quite a lot in China, which is understandable given how close it is.

I headed off down the street to find an internet place so I could find out where I could pick up a visa. When you’re looking for an internet place they’re really hard to find. I found a small street with few cars and locals playing pool outside and selling fruit on the sidewalk. When I asked for directions a man told me to keep walking straight and then left so I did. Finally, when I was ready to turn around I saw three boys who looked around 18 so I showed them the character for internet that I had written down. One started to tell me and then looked over and said “Let’s go!” So he got to practice his English (I was only the second foreigner he’d ever seen) and I got an escort to the internet place. Everyone who meets me like this asks for me email. I suspect that they will be too shy to use it but someday I might get a ramdom email from someone in China that talked to me for five minutes somewhere during my trip.

The supermarket was huge and had diet coke so I stocked up. The women working there liked to follow me around suggesting things and I just shook my head, having no idea what they were saying. At one point I was considering which cereal to get and when one woman saw me, started talking, pointing and gave me a box of porridge. I shook my head, said “boo yow” and walked away with a Nestle variety pack. I guess she didn’t approve of my decision. When looking at facial cleaners another woman kept shoving whiteners at me and I had to walk away.

I ended up at the hotel with plenty of Western snacks, a full stomach and an address for the new location of the Kyrgyz Consulate. Figuring out where it was and how to get there would be a task for the next day.

Last night I took a 10:30pm night sleeper train from Dunhuang (actually a station 2 hours from Dunhuang) to Turpan (actually a station 1 hour from Turpan) and arrived in town this morning around 9am. I’ve been traveling with a girl from Taiwan and a guy from Paris for the past few days. There’s only a few foreign tourists around (but loads of Chinese, of course) and we’re all going the same route to Urumqi. It’s interesting traveling with a native Mandarin speaker, even though she gets charged foreigner prices, which demonstrates the Chinese way of thinking.

More and more men with pillbox Muslim hats have been popping up in the past few cities but in Turpan you can actually see the transformation from Han Chinese to Middle East culture. The people are more mixed and have more varied features and women are starting to wear head scarves.

I’m told it’s around 40 degrees (104 F for all my fellow Americans) and everyone’s complaining. It doesn’t feel that hot, especially becase there’s no humidity. Many of the streets are lines with trees through irrigation and some streets have trelises built over them forming a tunnel of grape vines. I am in need of a good rest and will have to break down and start drinking tea because my throat is really sore and I have a cough. Your body really starts rebelling when you tavel hard for too long. My time in Urumqi will include visa applications so I will have some rest time there as well.

I’ve added two new galleries of photos: Erlianhot and Hohhot here. In an attempt to be less confusing I named this gallery “NW China” to keep it seperate from “China” which was the gallery from my trip to China in 2004. If you haven’t looked at that I suggest spending some time as it covers 6 weeks across China to some more interesting places than Hohhot.

For those sticklers out there Erlianhot is actually the Mongolian border town and these photos were taken just after having our passports stamped out of Mongolia and into China. However, I think Erlianhot is more well-known, at least to me, than whatever the Chinese border town is.

I have photos from Jiayuguan (although it was raining) and Dunhuang waiting to be sorted on my computer so hang tight for those. I promise to write a long story about my Mongolian Gobi trip as well, I just haven’t had time to sit down with my computer for a few hours and I think most people want me to keep things in real time as much as possible.

Tonight I have a sleeper train around 10pm to Turpan. The train line doesn’t run into Dunhuang so I have a few hour bus ride to the closest train station and then the overnight trip. I hope some of you out there are learning about geography by following along with me. All you have to do is a Google search of these places to find out about them and their location. Turpan is also sometimes called Turfan and the Chinese here call it something that sounds like Tulufan. It’s a few hours SE of Urumqi, which is the capital of the Xinjiang Province in teh far Northwest of China.

Lanzhou is one of those towns that everyone ends up passing through on their to and from the West of China. During Phase 1 I arrived in Lanzhou one morning on a night train from Xi’an. I walked out of the station and into a cab to the bus station on my way to Xiahe, a small Tibetan town six hours away by bus. On the way back from Xiahe I immediately caught a train South to Chengdu, never spending any time in Lanzhou.

This time I had no choice, I arrived on an eight hour day train from Yinchuan and the night train’s to Jiayuguan were sold out. I decided that waiting one night in Lanzhou was better than taking another night bus so I set out to find a hotel. The first hotel I tried had no rooms, so I went to another near the train station. Most hotels in the region have a sign board listing the prices for each room type, sometimes with (misleading) photos. The sign posted said 46 yuan for a single room, which is what I asked for. They looked at me and said something ridiculous, like 190 yuan. I pointed to the sign again and the woman in charge at the desk shoot her hand and said 190. Completely covered in sweat, probably bright red, I turned and stepped into the lobby, set down my bag and took out my map of Lanzhou and compass.

I knew they had rooms but they just didn’t want to give one to me. A woman paid 30 yuan for a room while I was standing there, well below the inflated price I was willing to pay. After a few minutes another woman approached me and motioned for me to come back. I got my 46 yuan single room and was soon unpacking onto my cement floor and looking for the shared bathrooms. Sometimes in China you just have to wait a few minutes for them to come around.

It was still mid-afternoon and I decided to walk around and try to see what this city looked like. It’s quite strange, as it’s squeezed into a canyon on both sides with the Yellow River running through it. Walking toward what was marked as a square on my map I kept my eye out for internet shops and good places to eat. Just a few blocks from my hotel I found a movie theater showing Superman Returns but the girl at the desk told me it was dubbed in Chinese. Although I would rather see it in the theater I ended up buying a copy in a shop near the theater. It turned out to be videotaped from a theater and scratched, so key scenes from the movie were left out. The square turned out to be a large are with nice plants and manicured grass and the required KFC. I don’t understand why KFC is so popular in China, it seems to outnumber McDonalds 4-1.

As I was walking down one of the large boulevards among the tall office buildings I noticed a girl, about 18-years old, walking very slowly in front of me. I took notice, slowed my pace and watched her out of the corner of my eye. As I passed her she matched my pace so I slowed down. She slowed down. I stopped next to a sign next to a mirrored building and watched the reflection. She continued on and moved off the sidewalk and into the bike path—good, she was giving up, I thought. When I started walking again she wandered back and was soon slightly in front of me again so I slowed down. She had been watching in the mirrored buildings and as soon as I was out of her sight she quickly turned around and looked at me. I made eye contact and raised my eyebrows. She pretended not to notice and walked toward the other side of the sidewalk. When she got behind me again I quickened my pace to a very quick walk. This went on for blocks and finally, after waiting quite a while next to a building with my arms crossed she continued across a busy intersection, expecting me to follow. I reached the crossroads, let her go ahead and did not cross. She stood across the road watching me while people walked around her and finally crossed again so that she was diagonally across from me on the intersection. Only then did I take a quick left down a smaller street, finally losing her. I am used to being looked at in China, even watched. But this was something different, she was planning to pickpocket me and wouldn’t give up. I kept my eye out for that yellow shirt for the rest of the day, convinced that she would find me again.

I had to check out in the next morning so I had almost the entire day to kill before my train left for Jiayuguan at 6:30. I headed toward the river to get a better glimpse of the city layout. On the way I passed an electronics mall with a large Cannon sign out front so I went inside. My Canon S60 has had a streak across some part of the sensor or lens since I got it back from being repaired in May. It didn’t take long for the sales girl to see the problem but both she and the the sales boy who spoke a little English next door were convinced it was the LCD. Since I have downloaded the photos to a program and looked at them in Photoshop I know the problem is internal. Lanzhou is probably the most developed city I will travel through in China and my best hope to get it fixed. After taking out my phrasebook to find the word for repair I heard “Beijing” in the reply and deduced that no one could help me in Lanzhou.

When I got to the Yellow River I saw a great park lining the bank filled with walkways, rose gardens and small cafes. I also came upon a sports park with ping pong tables, basketball courts and exercise machines. Asian cities have a few of these metal exercise contraptions in most parks, usually being used by older people. They are not weight bearing, but seem to work on flexibility and motion. This park didn’t have the usually 3-5 machines, they had about 50! Even better, I saw a metal sign posted with illustrated instructions on how to do all of the instructions.

I decided to visit the shopping district and see what the locals were buying. There were a lot of teenage clothing shops and snack stalls. After seeing most of the city and all of the main intersections in the shopping district I decided there was no McDonalds. That was actually one of the reasons I gave myself to be happy about stopping in Lanzhou, there would be one last McDonalds stop before the Wild West of no fast food. You see, it’s not that I don’t like Chinese food, but once I head West and enter Central Asia I know that I won’t be getting as much Western food. I was trying to stock up. So, KFC for dinner it was. The air conditioning was a blessing and my shirt started to dry while I ate my chicken legs. As I finished another Westerner sat in front of me, I was shocked! Another Westerner in Lanzhou, I hadn’t seen one in a few days. It turned out to be two guys from Canada and we sat down together to tell travel stories. They had just arrived on the train from Tibet (somehow the got out of paying the foreigner surcharge so it was only 800 Y) and were incredibly excited for some KFC after a month of mutton.

While we sat talking three young girls were obviously listening and giggling in the seats next to us. One got up the nerve to say hello and eventually attached herself to one of the Canadians, teaching him Chinese phrases. After 10 minutes the entire second floor of KFC was pointedly staring at us and we really felt the need to leave. That’s when the pictures started. The girls mothers came by and each posed with us in a group and individually, sometimes just smiling, other times holding the peace sign in front of their faces. If anyone hadn’t been looking before they were now so we got out of there as quickly as we could. The girls walked out with us and the little instigator gave one of the Canadians a sticker photo of her and the other two girls. We parted ways and I headed for my train, full and left with a good feeling from the city where no one wants to stay.

After a brief stop in Jiayuguan I’ve made it to Dunhaung! It’s been a long journey to get from Mongolia to the Xinjiang Province incluing 3 trains and 2 buses. After two good nights of sleep (on a bed!) I’m feeling a bit better. Dunhuang is also a very laid back place which has also helped to raise my spirits.

So, for those of you keeping track I arrived in Hohhot from Mongolia on a direct 26 hour train. It was quite nice and the hard sleepers were a lot like Chinese soft sleepers—only four beds and a door. My compartment had a 19-year old German couple and an Israeli girl closer to my age. They were both going to Beijing and couldn’t get tickets on the direct train from Ulaan Baatar so they got off either at the border at another Chinese town before Hohhot. It was a very relaxing train ride and we were even given a strange sealed package of food. That was included in our ticket price but the tea we were served continously was not.

After all of the Westerns left the train a 13-year old Monglian girl name Anu (Ahnoo) came by my compartment. She saw my sketchbook and asked me to draw her. She had only been taking English lessons for one year but we were able to communnicate and we showed each other pictures—most of hers were photos of her in different trees or her friends at school. When we entered the Hohhot area we crosesd over a bridge an fireworks exploded over the river. This was her first time in China, visiting her brother, and she proudly showed me her new passport which was only valid for one year.

When leaving a Chinese train station someone almost always checks that you have a ticket (keep them handy!) so you’re in a massive pushing crowd of people, some with huge boxes of sacks of potatoes on their heads, all trying to squeeze out through one turnstile. The entire block where the hotels were in my guidebook was torn down so I walked around a bit. One woman told me she would take me to the hotel I was looking for but she had me climb 6 flights of stairs with all of my stuff just to show me a scummy Chinese hotel. I left and went into one of the smaller hotels facing the station. After some bargaining they gave me a 40 yuan room of my own with a TV but no bathroom. The bathrooms were so foul that I had to cover my face when using them and the showers had obviously been used as bathrooms as well judging by the smell.

My plans for Hohhot were to get money at the ATM and eat McDonalds—That’s it. In my research I was told that no other ATMS in Xinjiang would work for international cards (That was proved wrong when someone got money from a Bank of China ATM in Dunhuang). I also spent every day going to the train station, standing in line for about 30 minutes and asking for a ticket to Jiayuguan. Each time they told me no, but to come back later. Eventually I had to get help from the Chinese tour agency in my hotel and they told me there were no sleepers or seats for the next five days. I was pretty upset but ended up buying a sleeper bus to Yinchuan (there were no seats or buses to Jiayuguan or even Lanzhou) which was only 1/3 of the way to where I wanted to go.

You can understand why I was upset, I was told that because the summer is holiday time and it’s so busy I would probably only be able to get buses the entire way to Jiayuguan. And because it’ so far I would have to stop in Yinchuan and Lanzhou–two stops I hadn’t planned on taking. I only brought photocopied pages of the places I planned to go to in China so I knew nothing of Yinchuan. Luckily, I had anticipated the possibility that I wouldn’t catch the through train from Hohhot to Jiayuguan and would have to stop in Lanzhou so I had a map, but what about Yinchuan? I’d never even heard of Yinchuan.

In-between all of my train and bus ticket checking I walked around Hohhot, spending time in the square watching cute little dogs play in the fountains and eating lunch at McDonalds. When I was standing in line for an ATM a Mary Kay saleswoman came up to me and gave me her card. She pointed to my freckles and I laughed. She wanted to whiten me! I declined but was approached again, twice, by other people the next day.

Hohhot also has nice shady park with lakes for paddleboats and hammock sellers. I saw to children getting their portraits drawn and I decided to get it done just to see how he would interpret Western features. The Chinese kids were made to have pinker skin and wider eyes so I figured he would give me a huge nose. In the end he did a really accurate job. He made mine 3/4 view instead of head on, made me more pink and did not put one freckle or mole on my face. I thought that was funny because my face is covered in freckles right now.

I also went to one of the old temples that has been restored. Chinese tourists usually pay the same as foreighners and prices are high for an average Chinese salary. I’ve been told this keeps the sites better preserved, because if it was affordable too many Chinese would come. Inside the temple I met a 20-something guy who had majored in English in college. He was just practicing with me and had surprisingly good pronounciation. It started to rain and I sat in a courtyard drawing the architecture. Soon I was surrounded by women and children admiring my work and asking to see the rest of the book. They were very nice and even spoke a little English. Outside the temple is an old style Chinese neighborhood. Well, there was one before the government bulldozed all but one street. If you are traveling in China do not get your hopes up of seeing a traditional Hutong anymore, they are quickly disapearing.

My sleeper bus to Yinchuan left the main bus terminal at 6pm but stopped at another terminal to get cargo so we didn’t leave the city until around 6:45. When I first got on it was literally like a sauna and my face was dripping with sweat even while I was sitting still. Once we started going the air conditioning kicked in and we were all a lot happier. Sleeper buses in China are the same width as regular buses which means that three rows or bunk beds are squished into a very small space. The aisles are not wide enough to walk straight down and the beds are only 2″ wider than my hips. I am 5′5″ tall and the bed is about my length. I didn’t manage to sleep much with the frequent bathroom breaks (when the lights are turned on) but at least I got to Yinchuan.

Luckily, the bus arrived an hour earliuer than I expected and I jumped in a taxi to the train station which was about 15 minutes away. I had the Chinees travel agent write, in Chinese, “I want to buy a train ticket to Jiayuguan but if there are no seats to Jiayuguan I want to buy a ticket to Lanzhou.” This was great because I gave it to the taxi driver so he knew to take me to whatever train station was appropriate and I also gave it to the lady at the window to buy the ticket. Although I know enough Chinese to ask for a ticket I was worried with all the trouble I had in Hohhot. It turned out the train to Jiayuguan was not running that morning like I was told so I took the 8 hour train to Lanzhou instead where I ran into more train trouble.

I wrote a very long and insightful post about my ride from Hohhot to Yinchuan to Lanzhou but then the computer jerks here shut down my computer. They work on a pre-payment system but I have no idea what messages popping up on my screen in Chinese are so I lost it all. I did copy it to my clipboard, of course, but the entire computer shuts down when your time is up so it’s not saved. I would try to access the controls but all of Windows is in Chinese and they have disabled the English language version. What gets me is I went up to the desk to ask why all these things were popping up on my screen and she just shrugged and shooed me off.

So, unfortunately fo you, I am in an especially foul mood and will no longer repeat all of the nice things I said about Lanzhou. Or the three midgets I saw in Hohhot. Or the dog riding in a bicycle basket.

I made it to Yinchuan by bus early, without any sleep, and got on the magical K43 train. Unfortunately, everyone in Hohhot was wrong because today it’s running to Lanzhou, not Jiayuguan like I was told. So I took a seat for 8 hours to Lanzhou and tried to buy a ticket for the night train to Jiayuguan but all of the night trains were sold out. I managed to get a ticket for tomorrow night’s train and resigned myself to a day and a half in Lanzhou. Back during Phase 1 I passed through here twice on my way to Xiahe and then to Chengdu but I never really stopped.

On the good side, I finally found a shop in China that carries Diet Coke (aka Coke Light) but on the bad side I was only given a standard hotel room (half the price of the one I was offered) after I refused to pay and then sat in the lobby with my compass and photocopied map of Lanzhou trying to figure out which way to walk. I also found a theater playing Superman but it’s only in Chinese so I was forced to buy the DVD for less than $2 to watch on my laptop.

I looked for the showers on my floor and only found sinks so I am still filthy and sweaty but I blend in to China quite well in that way. It’s getting pretty late so I am on my way back to the mean hotel to find a shower, watch Superman and drink a Diet Coke.

I thought I was prepared for China, I’ve been here before. But I don’t think you can ever really be prepared for China outside of the big East coast cities. I arrived in Hohhot (the capital of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region) around 10:30pm on the 15th. The train was a few hours late and most of the Westerners got off at the border or another town to make their way to Beijing. The Ulaan Baatar > Beijing trains are totally booked out so people try to find their way through the slower trains, like the one to Hohhot.

For the last few hours on the train my compartment was empty and a 13 year old Mongolian girl came in to keep me company. When she say my sketchbook she asked me to draw her and insisted on a profile. We looked at my sketchbook and I showed her my photos from home. Through my past travels I’ve learned that people really want to see photos of your life back home. In the past I’ve brought a postcard of Chicago but this time I also brought along photos of my family, house, sister’s dog and Halloween. The photo of me in a pumpkin costume when I was about 6 has been a really big hit. Most people recognize the word “Halloween” as well.

I bought some souvenirs in Mongolia, including a bright green del (traditional outfit) which have really been weighing me down so I stumbled out of the train station into the dark lookign for a hotel. Well, the entire block where two of the hotels listed in my guidebook was torn down. A woman promised to take me to the correct hotel but after she made me climb 6 flights of stairs with about 40 lbs on my back I was pretty pissed when it was jsut some random, typically scummy Chinese hotel.

Covered in sweat I walked back to the main street and took a room in a Chinese hotel. It was nice to have a single room with a TV but the only thing I’ve managed to watch is Square Bob Spongepants, since everything is in Chinese. The next morning I found out that the train I wanted, the K43 from Beijing ran to Jingyuan every other day and I was going to have to stick around a few days. I needed to get all of my ATM use out of the way anyway since there might not be international ATMs out west so I didn’t mind staying an extra day, besides there’s two McDonalds here.

Unfortunately every day I went to the train station I was told there was no tickets and to come back later. “May yo” is not a term I like to hear at the moment (it means “don’t have”). Finally I talked to a man selling tours in the hotel and he sent someone to the train station with me. May yo. Not just that, there was no hard sleepers, no hard seats, no soft sleepers… nothing for five days! I could not get out of Hohhot by train until the 22nd.

We talked about my options, which included working at his toursit office for a week (I declined) and he decided that I had to take a bus. I didn’t want to take a bus, but even worse, when we looking into it there were no bus tickets! There is no bus from Hohhot to Jingyuan and apparently not to Lanzhou either. My only option was to take a bus from Hohhot to Yinchuan and then change to a bus to Lanzhou and then change to another bus to Jingyuan. I was really upset, only having photocopied pages of a guidebook and no map of Yinchuan. So I sat in my room stewing for a few minutes and then went down to buy my ticket. The office was closed.

Finally, this morning I got up early and braved the long lines of pushing Chinese to buy my bus ticket. So I’m leaving tonight to Yinchuan, a 12 hour sleeper bus journey. I will try to get on a train to Jingyuan or Lanzhou from ther since it’s faster and more comfortable but it might not happen. I will miss the K43 by about 30 minutes and I’m not sure there will be any tickets for other trains. I am told that most people will get off around Yinchuan and seats on the trains shold open up. Mostly the Chinese people just laugh and say “sorry, sorry, it is very busy time.”

The last time I was in China was a holiday and I got stuck in Beijing for 10 days without a train ticket. At least I had plenty to do, Hohhot is a pretty boring place. I have sat in a few parks, walked around town looking for an internet place and visited one Buddhist temple. The temple wasn’t anything special, especially if you’ve seen as many temples as I have. I sat down and drew some of the architecture and was surrounded by about 15 people—some children and some adults. They looked at my drawings and a few of them knew some basic English. One little girl with pigtails kept crying “so pretty!” and gave some of her candy. Guidebooks talk about the old quarter with interesting architecture and alleyways but they have bulldozed all but one street, which they kept for the tourists.

The McDonalds here serves more of less the same thing except for pineapple pies and corn in a cup. A supersized double cheeseburger meal costs 17.5 yuan, about half the price of the US.

Today the sun is actually out for the first time since I’ve arrived in China. I won’t be able to take a shower or change clothes before I get on the bus and I’m not sure how many days I will be traveling in these shorts and t-shirt, maybe three. I just started reading “A People’s History of The United States” so that should keep me occupied for a while. I’m not looking forward to this coming week and can only think about getting to Central Asia as quickly as possible.

The Naadam Festival is the biggest festival of the year. It’s most well known for the unique form of wrestling but also showcases horse racing, archery, anklebone shooting and various dancing and celebration. Because this year is the 800th anniversary of the founding of the Mongolian state Naadam included more ceremonies and celebrations than normal. A new mausoleum has been being built in front of the parliament building. Like most public projects, it fell behind schedule and was not completed for Naadam as planned. However, the crews worked day and night and got it to a point where you could imagine what it was going to look like. One day before Naadam officially started the large Chinggis Khan statue in the middle of the new building was unveiled. It was also the first time I saw the Mongolian horsemen in red and blue old-fashioned uniforms ride in formation. They have what I would call a theme song, which sounds very similar to the storm troopers march in the original Star Wars. The line forms two by two and a number of the soldiers ride in with tall white banners made of hair. They walk with straight, even legs and place the banners in a place of importance.

Opening ceremony and a little wrestling
I was in Mongolia three weeks before Naadam and asked to buy tickets to the ceremonies well in advance. I was told that they weren’t really sold and that it was best to go the day of and buy a ticket from a scalper. Victoria and I hurried to the stadium on the South side of the city two hours before the ceremony was due to open. From what we were told we thought we would be surrounded by a swarm of people selling tickets but we only saw three people selling tickets at all. One girl came up to us and tried to sell a single day’s ticket for 30,000T (almost $30) when the face value was 4,000T. The only foreigners we saw had either bought their tickets ahead of time somehow (for 4,000T) or had surrendered to paying 30,000 for the opening ceremony ticket. We started to get worried when we had circled the entire stadium with no reasonable offers. Finally two girls came up to use and sold us each an entire set of tickets (three days) for 30,000T.

We stood in line, were wanded with metal detectors and found a seat in our assigned section of the bleachers. Each section was enclosed by bars which I only saw as a fire hazard. This was even more scary because as more and more people came into our section it was clear that it had been oversold. The police were saving the first bench, which we sat behind. I walked around as much as I could, taking photos of the performers warming up. It turned out the seats were being saved for three white men and their handlers. The man in charge of them went out to buy them hats which made them even more silly. The police began directing people to move over to let people in. My hip were touching people on both sides and that’s my definition of way too close, I certainly wasn’t going to sit on anyone’s lap. When anyone tried to get me to move I just shook my head and shrugged my shoulders.

Eventually the situation got so bad all of the performers were watching the section and the policy had to physically block the enterance so no one else could push in. People we standing shoulder to shoulder in the aisles but the handler in front of us wouldn’t let anyone stand in front of the three foreigners. This was kind of nice for us because when anyone stood there he made them move. When two women tried to get past him he shouted and pulled at their clothes. One woman got past and when her friend tried to pass the handler grabbed her and threw her to the ground. She got up fighting and yelling but the man managed to get rid of her. A few minutes later a man began to climb up the bleachers in the middle of our section but only got about four rows up before the people below him grabbed his coat and pulled him back to the ground. At this point I was not only glad we got there early but was worried that the entire section might erupt into a mob scene.

Finally, the ceremony began with the storm trooper theme song, the presentation of the hairy flags and the national anthem. The crowd attempted to sing the anthem, aided by sheets with the lyrics that had been distributed to everyone at the entrance. I had to stand out of respect but I spent the entire song worrying that as soon as it ended I would try to sit down and find a Mongolian in my spot like a giant game of musical chairs. I couldn’t understand any of the announcements but there was a lot of talk of Chinggis Khan, who united all of the Mongolian territories (and went on to conquer a lot of the rest of the world too). Chinggis Khan is also known as Ghenghis Khan, which may have been confusing to you too. Actually, there never was a Ghengis, it’s just a name made by Westerners for some reason.

There were many groups of performers from noble people in gorgeous gowns, warriors in leather to children in bright costumes. Each had a different part in the ceremony. A large ger on wheels road around the stadium, which carried a man dressed as Chinggis. Men on horses rode across the field performing acrobatic trick riding that was quite impressive. Some warriors had a dance where they prertended to fight and many children had coordinated dance numbers with massive numbers of participants. A large section of card holders were located in the opposite stands, flipping cards to make interesting designs. The Naadam gallery has a lot of photographs of the ceremonies and competition which might help to paint a better picture of just how colorful and event it was.

The entire spectacle lasted around two hours and was well worth the effort to squeeze into. Halfway through the three foreigners in the front decided to leave and pushed through the crowd toward the exit. Naturally, as soon as they got up the locals rushed for their seats (these guys were big so you could fit a lot more Mongolians in that space). The gates were still sealed because people with tickets were trying to push in so the foreigners couldn’t exit. They came back to their seats, demanding to have them back. It was all pretty funny to watch until one of the women with them decided to sit next to me. Only, there was literally no room next to me! The man next to me encouraged her and tried to get me to move, to where I wasn’t sure. I was able to produce an extra inch or two by contorting my body into an unnatural position, but she wasn’t a small woman. I wasn’t willing to give up my seat so she just sat on me!

As soon as the performance ended everyone dashed to the exits, not even bothering to stay for any of the first round wrestling. I certainly wanted to see the wrestling that Mongolia is so famous for but it was soon evident that it wasn’t going to be close to anything like what I saw at the small Naadam in Bayongol. The wrestlers were too far away to see much, even when using my 200mm lens as a binocular. Rain was coming in so I left for the day, happy to have seen the opening ceremony and to have heard the storm trooper music again.

Archery and ankle bone shooting
Day two didn’t have a lot going on, only the continuation of the competitions. I decided not to go to the horse racing because it was a few hours outside of town and I didn’t feel like standing around for hours waiting to see a few horses come in from a distance and pass a line. I did want to see archery, just to see how the competition worked so I headed down to the stadium by myself. Althoguh I knew archery had been going on the day before I hadn’t seen it anywhere near the stadium. It turned out to be in a field near a small area of cement stands where no ticket was needed. The archers wore traditional dels in bright colors and shinny fabric. Each shooter had a different hat, some with long tails in the back signifying that they were previous year’s winners.

Women stood about twenty feet closer to the targets than men, but the men continued to shoot from behind them which seemed like a dangerous arrangement to me. I suppose that the best archers in the country probably won’t slip and shoot another archer in the back. A group of men and women stood down the line around the target, which looked like a pile of stacked bean bags. the archers didn’t shoot in straight lines, they aimed high into the air so their arrow followed a large arc to hit the targets below. When a target was hit the group of people at the end raised their hands, danced around and made a lot of noise. While I was sitting in the stands watching the men it was pointed out to me that Prince Andrew of England was sitting next to the judges and I noticed a large amount of professional looking cameras pointed his way. He just looked like an English guy in a dark suit on a hot day to me.

During the archery I heard strange sounds from a tent next to the stands. Upon investigation I discovered that inside the tent was the ankle bone competition. It’s not traditionally part of Naadam but has been recently added as a sport. Two groups of shooters were competing at one time, each surrounded by a group of spectators standing around them in a circle. At one end four shooters sat on small stools pointing what was shaped like a wooden incense holder which they flicked a piece of carved bone off of using their thumb and middle finger. Directly across from them, about 10 feet away, was a table with a few more bones standing in front of a backboard which they aimed for. I still don’t understand the rules but the goal is to knock down some of the bones on that table. Men sat on stools along the sides of the circle, chanting and tossing pieces of the game up and down before handing it back to the competitors. The entire time shooting was going on the chanting continued, which was the source of the strange noise that had brought me to the tent.

Closing ceremony, trapped in the stadium again
The final day consisted of the last few rounds of wrestling in the stadium, archery finals in the hidden field and the presentation of various prizes throughout the day. I wanted to see the wrestling final, as it was a very big deal and I was promised that once the little wrestlers were out of the way the competition would get more interesting. Unfortunately, that wasn’t true and by round 9 I was starting to fall asleep. The bigger wrestlers rested a lot and spent a lot of their time sizing up their opponents. Most of the matches were won when I turned my head or when they passed behind an umbrella or judges table blocking my view. The crowds gradually filled up as it got closer to the final and soon everyone was pushing for space again. The police blocked the doors again and Victoria and I were locked inside the stadium in the sun without food or drinks from 10am until 4:30pm. In-between rounds of wrestling the small horse riders (some looked to be about 5 years old) and the archers were awarded large boxes and sometimes medals. I would like to know what was in the boxes, as some were too big for the little riders to carry themselves. After each award the winners walked around the stadium waving to the crowd. The largest cheers were saved for the horse trainers and final winners of wrestling.

When we finally got down to the wrestling finals the second to last match took what seemed like half an hour. When the wrestlers were locked in a grip or it seemed like one might give the crowd gasped out in unison. The final match only lasted about 7 minutes and by then we ready to leave. Although people tried to leave we had to wait for more awards, the carrying of the winner on the shoulders of a crowd and finally for the storm trooper music and the removal of the hairy flags.

Although the actual events themselves aren’t terribly exciting, it was nice to see the costumes, ceremonies and a little bit of each sport. The opening ceremony was the best event by far, even with being sat on. I would suggest that someone going to Naadam to see it in Ulaan Baatar but to also see a local Naadam somewhere else beforehand so they can actually watch the wrestling and get closer to the action. Many people completely avoid UB during this time because they say it’s too busy. I didn’t find it too busy at all, having seen the city weeks before when no tourists were around. In fact, I was a little sad that it wasn’t more busy and full of tourists given that it was the 800th anniversary and the famous Naadam Festival was going on. Some Mongolians working around the festivities asked me if people knew about Mongolia and I said that I think that people are becoming more aware of it as a tourist destination but it is still a bit off the beaten track. Many of them are learning English and there’s a good amount of tourist infrastructure in place just waiting for all of the tourists to come.