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.
7 responses to “So, China”
Megan, I hope your journey through China will be less, well, annoying than you are currently describing. Good luck!
Reminds me of our trip from Lagos, Portugal to Spain… Planes trains and automobiles!
Hang in there!
delays suck, but at least you’ve got some Zinn to pass the time.
The irritations of limbo. I wish you a fast, safe, sleepful bus ride. Just keep your eyes on the prize…the other travel waiting for you once you get past this limbo-bump.
Sketching in public sure does draw the crowds, eh?
Megan, you are not making me excited to visit China 🙂
Well, I made it to Lanzhou okay. I didn’t sleep much on the sleeper bus because the bed is so small and there was no way I was putting my bag with my expensive equipment anywhere where it was not physically toughing me. Surprisingly though the music was turned off around 9 and no movies were shown!
So I guess one day isn’t so bad. Jim, China is a very excitig place and I’m sure you will be amazed. It’s just that it’s not really my goal and I think I’ve seen the most exciting parts of China, which you will see too! The far west should be interesting and less Han at least.
Ali, sometimes I don’t want to draw because I don’t want to talk to people. Once I start everyone interupts me. But I guess it’s really good to talk to the local and I shouldn’t be such a stick in the mud.
Oh, and as far as Zinn goes, we just finished the Mexican war and told the Indians in California they’d better behave or we would exterminate them.