Scattered shadows on a wall, you watch the long light fall some impressions stay and some will fade. Try harder, maybe this is not your year
9 -21 -09
I’m so tired, but there is so much to write about. I need to get this down.
Yesterday and today were very, very long days.
We were on the train the entire day yesterday, nothing to do but sit around. I had originally wanted to go around the cars and talk to people (Chinese people), but they locked us all into our own car I’m guessing to prevent theft etc. The people that were in our car weren’t willing to talk because the stupid students that came along with us had kept them up half the night before by being noisy, and were generally acting like retarded Americans abroad. It’s funny that one of the things that I was looking forward to about this trip was getting away from ‘Provo’, but much to my dismay, I haven’t gotten away from ‘Provo’, rather they have brought a part of Provo here to China to follow me around always.
My entire day yesterday was spent playing with Dr. Honey’s kids. For some reason I’m the only one (besides the parents) who has any patience for putting up with a 5 year old and a 3 year old. I thought it was fun, but it definitely left me tired. I got a lot of sleep on the train- at least during the day.
Come night I was once again trying to sleep with everyone (ages 20-40) in the train acting like 6 year olds at Chuck-E-Cheese’s, and after they finally settled down I was still awoken many times. Apparently a woman who was getting off at a stop at 4 AM ‘lost’ her shoes. They called security down to our car and searched for over an hour, walking up and down the aisles and shining their flashlights all over (and on my face) and looking under beds. My suitcase was under my bed so every time someone pulled it out I had to sit up and make sure that they put it back before they decided that the 22 year old white man on the train didn’t steal the 55 year old woman’s high heels. After over an hour of searching they found her shoes, under her own bed. Quite frustrating.
We got up and were in a small city, I forget the name, but that isn’t important. The tour guide told us (or more, those who understood what he was saying, maybe three of us in all) that 75% of that town worked at the small train station. The other 25% were either children or worked at one of the few shops around town. We took a bus for two hours on a dirt road through the Gobi Desert and over the Black Mountains before we made it to Dunhuang at around noon. At least we got to see parts of the longest stretch of the Great Wall of China that was made during the Han Dynasty (206 BC) that stretched from North Korea to modern day Kyrgyzstan.
Let us not forget that I’m traveling the best way possible, in a large group. So of course every stop which should be five minutes is an hour because ‘someone forgot something’, or ‘someone has to go to the bathroom’, etc. So we stopped for five minutes at the hotel to drop off our bags, 2 hours later we left to eat lunch.
As we are walking into the restaurant that we have booked I stepped on a manhole. Big mistake, because remember, I’m in China. The sidewalk around the manhole literally collapsed and I found myself standing waist deep in, well, waste.
So here I am, standing in a sewer in a small city in the middle of the desert in China. I know that my hotel doesn’t have a washing machine, so I know that I’m now going to have to take my shoes and jeans with me in an airplane while still covered in sewage. The tour guide suggests I ‘go to the bathroom to clean up’. All I had to do was get out of the sewer I was standing in for him to realize that a couple of wipes in the bathroom wasn’t going to be enough. So I walk back to the hotel, shower, change, and head back to the restaurant. I show up and the people whose table I’m supposed to sit at tell me that they saved me some food, which meant that they left what they didn’t want to eat on the table until I got back so I could have something. I filled up on fish eyes, chicken feet, and celery. Yum.
Fortunately from here on out the day was great.
We went from there to the Mogoto Caves. These caves were carved out of the sandstone by Buhddist pilgrims anywhere from about 400 AD till 1200 AD. Inside the walls were covered in fresco paintings that still remained from the time. We saw the 3rd, 4th, and 5th largest Buhdda statues in the world – 9 stories tall, 8 stories and I think 6 stories tall. While there we were unable to take pictures though (they say that the flash of one camera in the caves reduces the life of a fresco painting by one year), so I walked around with Dr. Honey’s kids while he translated what the tour guide had to say so that there would be more than three of us that could enjoy the trip. The three year old fell asleep in my arms and I carried him around for the entire 2 hours, the 5 year old insisted I stay with him the whole time, so I alternated between holding his hand and carrying him on my shoulders. My back should be sore tomorrow.
After seeing some of the caverns (we saw probably just over a dozen, I think that there are more than 500) we headed over to the Crescent Lake, an oasis that exists between some of the sand dune mountains right outside of the city.
When we got there I heard the best news yet. For 30 RMB ($4 USD) we could ride a camel over to the Crescent Lake and back. Of course I jumped on that opportunity. We rode the camels over (maybe 5 minutes) and then the camel guides tried to get us to pay more to go further. Of course I had done my homework, I knew that the Crescent Lake was just around the bend and it wasn’t worth the extra 50 RMB ($7 USD) to go to the top of the giant sand dune to the side of us, and I knew that they would then charge even more for the camel to take you somewhere further and further until it was time to go back. So my roommate and I got off, everyone else went further. We walked around the bend to the Crescent Lake and took pictures, everyone else got back an hour later complaining that they had spent hundreds RMB and were wondering where I had gone that I had gotten such good pictures.
We headed back to the city for dinner, and after dinner we went to a Chinese acrobatics show. The ticket cost me 160 RMB ($23 USD) but I felt like it was worth it. At very least I didn’t spend the night sitting around the hotel room watching TV that I couldn’t fully understand. And the things that the Chinese acrobats can do are amazing. It was definitely an exciting experience.
So here I am – over 500 pictures later (150 on the train, over 350 in and around Dunhuang today) and I’m ready for the second day of the trip. I need to get to bed so that I can make the most of that.
I’m so tired, but there is so much to write about. I need to get this down.
Yesterday and today were very, very long days.
We were on the train the entire day yesterday, nothing to do but sit around. I had originally wanted to go around the cars and talk to people (Chinese people), but they locked us all into our own car I’m guessing to prevent theft etc. The people that were in our car weren’t willing to talk because the stupid students that came along with us had kept them up half the night before by being noisy, and were generally acting like retarded Americans abroad. It’s funny that one of the things that I was looking forward to about this trip was getting away from ‘Provo’, but much to my dismay, I haven’t gotten away from ‘Provo’, rather they have brought a part of Provo here to China to follow me around always.
My entire day yesterday was spent playing with Dr. Honey’s kids. For some reason I’m the only one (besides the parents) who has any patience for putting up with a 5 year old and a 3 year old. I thought it was fun, but it definitely left me tired. I got a lot of sleep on the train- at least during the day.
Come night I was once again trying to sleep with everyone (ages 20-40) in the train acting like 6 year olds at Chuck-E-Cheese’s, and after they finally settled down I was still awoken many times. Apparently a woman who was getting off at a stop at 4 AM ‘lost’ her shoes. They called security down to our car and searched for over an hour, walking up and down the aisles and shining their flashlights all over (and on my face) and looking under beds. My suitcase was under my bed so every time someone pulled it out I had to sit up and make sure that they put it back before they decided that the 22 year old white man on the train didn’t steal the 55 year old woman’s high heels. After over an hour of searching they found her shoes, under her own bed. Quite frustrating.
We got up and were in a small city, I forget the name, but that isn’t important. The tour guide told us (or more, those who understood what he was saying, maybe three of us in all) that 75% of that town worked at the small train station. The other 25% were either children or worked at one of the few shops around town. We took a bus for two hours on a dirt road through the Gobi Desert and over the Black Mountains before we made it to Dunhuang at around noon. At least we got to see parts of the longest stretch of the Great Wall of China that was made during the Han Dynasty (206 BC) that stretched from North Korea to modern day Kyrgyzstan.
Let us not forget that I’m traveling the best way possible, in a large group. So of course every stop which should be five minutes is an hour because ‘someone forgot something’, or ‘someone has to go to the bathroom’, etc. So we stopped for five minutes at the hotel to drop off our bags, 2 hours later we left to eat lunch.
As we are walking into the restaurant that we have booked I stepped on a manhole. Big mistake, because remember, I’m in China. The sidewalk around the manhole literally collapsed and I found myself standing waist deep in, well, waste.
So here I am, standing in a sewer in a small city in the middle of the desert in China. I know that my hotel doesn’t have a washing machine, so I know that I’m now going to have to take my shoes and jeans with me in an airplane while still covered in sewage. The tour guide suggests I ‘go to the bathroom to clean up’. All I had to do was get out of the sewer I was standing in for him to realize that a couple of wipes in the bathroom wasn’t going to be enough. So I walk back to the hotel, shower, change, and head back to the restaurant. I show up and the people whose table I’m supposed to sit at tell me that they saved me some food, which meant that they left what they didn’t want to eat on the table until I got back so I could have something. I filled up on fish eyes, chicken feet, and celery. Yum.
Fortunately from here on out the day was great.
We went from there to the Mogoto Caves. These caves were carved out of the sandstone by Buhddist pilgrims anywhere from about 400 AD till 1200 AD. Inside the walls were covered in fresco paintings that still remained from the time. We saw the 3rd, 4th, and 5th largest Buhdda statues in the world – 9 stories tall, 8 stories and I think 6 stories tall. While there we were unable to take pictures though (they say that the flash of one camera in the caves reduces the life of a fresco painting by one year), so I walked around with Dr. Honey’s kids while he translated what the tour guide had to say so that there would be more than three of us that could enjoy the trip. The three year old fell asleep in my arms and I carried him around for the entire 2 hours, the 5 year old insisted I stay with him the whole time, so I alternated between holding his hand and carrying him on my shoulders. My back should be sore tomorrow.
After seeing some of the caverns (we saw probably just over a dozen, I think that there are more than 500) we headed over to the Crescent Lake, an oasis that exists between some of the sand dune mountains right outside of the city.
When we got there I heard the best news yet. For 30 RMB ($4 USD) we could ride a camel over to the Crescent Lake and back. Of course I jumped on that opportunity. We rode the camels over (maybe 5 minutes) and then the camel guides tried to get us to pay more to go further. Of course I had done my homework, I knew that the Crescent Lake was just around the bend and it wasn’t worth the extra 50 RMB ($7 USD) to go to the top of the giant sand dune to the side of us, and I knew that they would then charge even more for the camel to take you somewhere further and further until it was time to go back. So my roommate and I got off, everyone else went further. We walked around the bend to the Crescent Lake and took pictures, everyone else got back an hour later complaining that they had spent hundreds RMB and were wondering where I had gone that I had gotten such good pictures.
We headed back to the city for dinner, and after dinner we went to a Chinese acrobatics show. The ticket cost me 160 RMB ($23 USD) but I felt like it was worth it. At very least I didn’t spend the night sitting around the hotel room watching TV that I couldn’t fully understand. And the things that the Chinese acrobats can do are amazing. It was definitely an exciting experience.
So here I am – over 500 pictures later (150 on the train, over 350 in and around Dunhuang today) and I’m ready for the second day of the trip. I need to get to bed so that I can make the most of that.
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