Hitting a wall...

I know. We shouldn't be complaining. We're out, in the middle of China, feasting on mutton head floating in cold intestine soup (actually, we're not; we've avoided that particular dish so far), while all of you are working. But, every once in a while, one hits a wall. This is that time.

Xi'an
Not particularly sure why, really. Xi'an was one of the most spectacular cities we've seen so far (granted, it was raining, so we weren't forced to contend with what is supposed to be an insane amount of pollution). It's a beautiful city, one of the few with its city walls still intact. You can walk around on top of them—it takes about four hours, which we didn't do given the aforementioned rain.

It has served as the capital of eleven Chinese dynasties, most importantly of the Qin dynasty, the first one that unified what we now know as China. The lone Qin emperor was also responsible for such minor advancements as the standardization of the Chinese writing system, the completion of the Great Wall, the standardization of weights and measures, and the construction of those infamous Terracotta Warriors (more on that later). Small stuff. Because of this, the town is steeped in culture.

It centers around the Bell Tower, which looks nothing like our western minds expect a bell tower to look. But, true to its name, it's fringed with bells. Just to its northwest is the Drum Tower (fringed with, well, drums). The emperor would ring the bells in the morning and beat the drums in the evening. And now, though not in use the way they used to be, the towers are dramatically lit at night and house an amazing museum of furniture and shadow puppets (yes, I just described a museum of shadow puppets as amazing. But when you think about the fact that these puppets are cut from translucent leather with an intricacy that belies the material they're made from, you'll agree. Of course, if we could show you pictures, that would be better, but certain censors persist in their dislike of Flickr).

To the north of the Drum Tower lies the city's Muslim quarter, home to the small Uighur population in Xi'an (there's a bigger one where we are now in Urumqi). Mostly a Chinese-run tourist trap at this point—myriad copies of Mao's little red book, in whatever language you want, as well fake watches, purses, "100% real cashmere" scarves, and the like—this quarter centers around a still-functioning mosque. Again, this looks nothing like you'd expect a mosque to look, but in the middle of the bustle of Xi'an, it's a haven of quiet, peace, and the occasional Russian tourist.

Despite its bustle, though, Xi'an has a very chill, laid-back vibe—at least, as chill as a city of 3.5 million people can be. (Of course, in China, that's a veritable hamlet, but no worries. The Greater Xi'an area boasts 11 million.) After the haranguing of Beijing, this was a haven.

The Terracotta Warriors, by the way, live up to their reputation, and are therefore justly thronged by people. They were also the only place where the touts—ubiquitous in Beijing—exsted in any number. Even in the bathroom: I followed a local Chinese guy into one of the public toilets. He waltzed in, made a left for the men's room, and did his business, unobstructed. I, on the other hand, was accosted with the most original pick-up line I've ever heard.

"Hallo! Sir! Money!"

That's it. No subtlety about it. The guy wanted to charge me the equivalent of $3 (US) for the privilege of using a urinal, just because of my big nose. And this wasn't even one of the three-star toilets you see around China (yes...as part of its preparations for the Beijing Olympics, China has even started giving its toilets stars.)

Not that you wanted to know about our lavatorial woes.

Trains
On the other hand, riding trains in China is, no question, an experience. We timed this portion of our trip to China poorly. October 1 is a national holiday, and the two weeks surrounding it see the heaviest travel of the year. This is China's Wednesday-before-Thanksgiving (the one in November, for you Canadians).

On any given, regular day, 1% of China's population is found on trains. This doesn't sound like much, until you think about the fact that that amounts to ten million people. And this number is likely doubled or tripled around the October 1 holiday. We found out.

I apologize for the stereotyping that's about to happen, but we can only write from experience, and this is what we've found: In one-on-one interactions, many of the people we've met (outside of the tourist industry) have been some of the most kind, hospitable, and helpful people we've met so far. But get these people into a group, pushing for entry through one small gate, onto a train with limited luggage space, and things change. Sharpen your elbows, because you're going nowhere otherwise (well, that's not exactly true. Boarding the 34-hour train from Xi'an to Urumqi, you didn't have to walk. You could have lifted your feet off the ground and been carried onto the train by the mass of humanity with one unified goal: make sure I get the prime spot in the train).

This is because, this time, it was we who were priced out of anything but worst-class. Open, cattle-car type trains, three bunks to a side, with only a small luggage rack with space for two backpacks and little else. It was an uncomfortable ride, but we were, quite likely, the only English speakers on the entire train, and definitely the only ones in our class.

And the attention we got! It was crazy. The train's provodnitsas (sorry...we're in China...fuwuyuanmen) would think nothing of sitting outside our berths and staring at us, blatantly. Our foreignness did, though, make for some great conversations. We met people willing to discuss Taiwan's politics at great length (and, simultaneously, attempt to pick Peggy up—he failed). We met students who wanted to teach us Uighur. We met Wang Yi and his girlfriend Mong Yen, two law students from Xi'an. Wang Yi has picked "Nick" as his English name because, he told us, "All the handsome actors in America are named Nick." And with his rock-star good looks, he chose wisely. Mong Yen—and her anime good looks—wanted us to pick her a name. We failed.

And we met the train's announcer. Every announcement on the train (and there were many; most of them smacked of propaganda—how to coexist on a train in harmony, what sort of food is appropriate to bring on a train, how to use the bathroom...that one needed instruction. Using a squat toilet on a train hurtling at 120 km/h takes some dexterity) was made in Chinese, English, and Uighur. The announcer must have heard that there were English speakers on the train, because, our second night, she came up to us and asked us to pronounce the announcements for her in English. She spent a good twenty minutes practicing (and, to her credit, improved amazingly).

Kindness, genuine interest, and a culture that thinks nothing of pushing old ladies aside to get a better spot on a train...it's contrast at its best.

Next stop
So, we're in Urumqi now, having arrived this morning. We'll be here, sampling Uighur food, until tomorrow, when we board yet another train for the thirty-six hour journey to Almaty. Currently we have no place to stay there. Evidently, some major exhibition has coincided with our Kazakh experience. Every hotel is booked. Wish us luck!

And maybe those are the walls. Maybe it's the trains and the lack of accommodation. Or maybe it's just that we've been on the road for a month. Oh, for a platter of sushi...

PS...once out of China, we'll post all the pictures.

Pleasanty surprise of groping!

The American embassy in Beijing is a walled fortress. To approach, you first wade through the throngs of Chinese people lining up to apply for an U. S. visa. You then meet with a guard who, after checking your American passport, lets you through a turnstile, where you shortly encounter a second guard who goes through your documents again, and you find yourself in a magnetically locked room where your belongings are scanned (and water, sharp objects, and cameras confiscated), after which you walk through a metal detector. After emerging from this you are greeted by a Starbucks, and then a US marine who again checks your ID one last time before you are let into a little room for services to American citizens.

I would have liked to make fun of this attempt at isolation, but honestly it was the first time I could hear myself think since we arrived in China. It was a bit of a relief. Being in China is like standing in Times Square on New Year's Eve, only worse if you look the least bit foreign. Touts shouting "Hallo sir, come come!" while thrusting their wares in your face (kites, electric tops that lit up like a disco ball when you spun them, socks). In buses, loud karaoke music blares, with different music depending on if you are to the right or the left of the aisle. And then there is the almost orgasmic satisfaction the older folks take in announcing their bodily functions, whether it be coughing, spitting, or performing that farmer's blow. In preparation for the 2008 Olypics in Beijing there is an honest attempt to clean up and gentrify, but it is only a thin veneer that is easily scratched away. Witness: The Forbidden City has been garishly touched up, with some buildings patched and painted so that the roofs appear brand new, yet the interiors are in horrific condition, with the smell of dirty underwear emanating from the main throne room. Or the railway, with steel tracks perched on concrete blocks, yet an antiquated system of boarding the train that involves lining up 1 hour early in order to punch, scratch, and kick your way past a ticket checker so that you can get onto the platform. We sorely miss Western efficiency where "no problem" really means things will be done, like buying a train ticket or posting a package. Instead, we have slowly become obsessive compulsive as we double then triple check the money we get from a money changer, tickets that we buy from a travel agent, and room reservations. It is hard to adjust to living with a sense of vagueness, with not knowing whether or not things that we would have taken for granted back home would actually happen here. Everything is fluid, whether it be prices, promises, or schedules. It is with this and the constant assault on the senses that we have experienced the most culture shock, and made us miss the good old U.S. of A.

And the Chinglish. Oh, the Chinglish. "Slipy Carefully" behind the toilet in our bathroom. "Please for attention. Be careful don't dropet" in a touristy spot. And then our favorite. At the big 3.3 mall in the Sanlitun area in Beijing, underneath a picture of a model dressed to the nines, was the phrase, "Pleasanty surprise of groping."

Out of the steppes

Alright...I give up. I delayed publishing this post because I sorely wanted it to be accompanied by pictures. But, the fact is, not only have we taken—between us—about 1200 pictures (I'm not making that up. Don't worry...we won't subject you to all of them. Unless you're our parents. Then, prepare yourselves...), but we've spent many a frustrating hour with internet connectivity in China. Certain websites are suspiciously always "temporarily unavailable." The BBC is one of them; Wikipedia suffers the same fate. Unfortunately, Flickr, where our pictures are hosted, seems to be subject to these vagaries and is therefore causing us myriad problems.

Of course, it could also be the slow computers and twitchy internet access we have in our backwater hostel in one of Beijing's hutongs. Literally outside our window, currently, is one of those drunken parties that flirts with (but so far hasn't descended into) violence.

But enough grousing. We made it out of the steppes in one piece, and, as I said, thoroughly, madly, unabashedly in love with a new country.

Since our last post, we've spent 144 hours on trains and buses, covering 7,972 kilometers. We've met people crazier than us (eg: Bish and John, bicycling around the world in two years, and documenting their beard growth as they do it), made friends with a veterinarian who splits her time between Irkutsk and Ulaan Baatar, where she works as a quality control coordinator for a rendering plant, assuring that the kolbasa imported into Russia is of good Russian quality, learned a plethora of new games (including one that's played with the remnant ankle bones of a slaughtered goat...more on that later), eaten fathomless amounts of Nutella, sausage, and ramen (but not all together...usually), and sampled more than a few Russian vodkas (thanks, mostly, to Andrew and Kim, another set of hard-core backpackers from the UK).

The Trans-Siberian has changed significantly in the last nine years. In 1998, there were four tourists on the entire train. In 2007, there were four whole carriages of tourists. Sadly, many of the Russians, Mongolians, and Chinese traders who formed the backbone of the rail line's customer base have been priced out of anything but worst-class. This leaves the train and its dour provodnitsas at the mercy of drunken Westerners. No wonder they try to charge for hot water.

The railway itself is a massive feat of Soviet (and now Russian) engineering. As proof, there is a marker every hundred meters. Along its entire length. As of 2002, the whole of the Russian portion of the line (Moscow to Vladivostok) has been electrified, making for faster and more energy-efficient trains. The rails in China have also been changed to concrete, minimizing the railway's deforesting impact. And Mongolia...well, they have a bit to go.

But! Mongolia is an ineffably amazing country. Really, drop your plans for Tofino and head out to Mongolia next chance you get. I can't speak highly enough about that country, its people, or the experiences we had in our seven days there. It's impossible to describe Mongolia without descending into cliche, so here goes.

Some highlights of the last couple of weeks:

1. Horseback riding on the Mongolian steppes. (Behold! Cliches!) There is absolutely nothing like riding on the back of a powerful, galloping animal across wide-open, wind-swept steppes with nothing but mountain, grass, and the occasional ger anywhere in your sight. This wasn't your typical tourist-rides-a-horse thing (where the horses walk, bored, nose to derriere). No...these horses gallop. And fast. Fast enough that the grasshoppers accidentally divebomb your face in an attempt to get out of the way.
The thing about Mongolia is that, by dint of the fact that life in the desert and steppes isn't easy, everything is communal. As we approached our camp at the end of our day of riding, a flock of someone else's sheep had found its way there too. So, atop these galloping horses, we herded them back to where they were supposed to be. It wasn't like a movie. It may as well have been one.

2. Gers. Yes, it was seven degrees below zero at night in the desert. And yes, we were sleeping in circular, felt-lined tents, getting up every two hours to try (unsuccessfully) to keep the fire going. But, honestly, the gers are much more comfortable than most hostels we've stayed in. And provided you don't move, you stay pretty warm. Until 3:00 am. Then it's just a fight till the sun comes up. And this, they kept reminding us, was just the start of fall.

3. Mongolian. The language. What a strange one that one is. Masculine and feminine vowels? (really...who gives their vowels genders? And consonants change the way they're pronounced depending on the gender of the vowel before which they sit; but, to confuse you more, the vowels themselves don't necessarily always sound different).
Or, an aspirated L? (every L sounds like it's preceded by a very soft T, with air escaping out of the sides of your tongue. So, it's Utlaan Baatar).
And then there are the four vowels that span the spectrum between O an U. I still couldn't hear the difference, despite pestering many a Mongolian.

4. Food. This includes fermented mare's milk, and more mutton than you can imagine, but it's amazingly good. We happened to be at the ger of a nomad family when it came time for them to milk their mares (not hard to time that one; they do it every two hours) and kill a goat. That was a gruesome sight—two blows with a hammer through its skull stunned it, after which the guy killing it stuck his hand into its chest and, somehow, did the deed. It took two hours, start to finish, to kill, skin, disembowel, wash, and cook the goat. I'd show pictures, but...

5. Hospitality. There wasn't a single time we walked into a ger that we weren't offered something to eat or drink. This did mean medium-rare goat liver wrapped in omentum and grilled on the open fire after its owner was slaughtered, but nothing that we needed ever went unmet. This also meant playing the ankle-bone game with someone you'd never met before, sharing only a few words in common, and bonding over a bar of dark Russian chocolate.

6. Lake Baikal. Yes, it's not in Mongolia, but in the world's largest fresh-water lake, the water is drinkable without adverse side-effects (at least, none so far). And it's bitingly cold. That doesn't stop the Siberians—or us two crazy Americans—from jumping in it.

I could go on, but with that, I've probably already rambled too much. We're off to Xi'an in three hours. We'll post the pictures as soon as we can get them up.