I wrote a wonderfully long post about The Gobi (finally!) but somehow forgot to put it on my thumb drive to upload today. In any case I can give you backdated entried about Naadam here and Lanzhou here. You’ll find some more photos from Urumqi in the gallery and a few more food and design photos. There’s also a new poll in the sidebar.
This morning I woke up around 11am Beijing time and got things together to pick up my passport at the Kyrgyz consulate. Before I left I remembered that I had been given a reciept but hadn’t seen it since. When I was standing at the counter a week ago I specifically remember getting the reciept, thinking “this is important” and then putting it either in my wallet or with my envelope of money. I remember this because I almost put in my passport and then realized that would be stupid because I had to turn in my passport to get a visa. Anyway, I searched everywhere, even in my books and the reciept was nowhere. So I rushed out of the hotel with a photocopy of my passport in hand and hoped they wouldn’t be too hard on me.
When I got off the bus and hightailed it to the big yellow hotel where the consulate is located I held my breath. I was about 7 minutes late and the man behind the counter was waiting for me. He looked at me and said “where is your reciept?” Before I could finish “I lost it but I have this…” he handed my passport over to me. So, there you go. I have my passport and even stopped to make photocopies of my new visa on the way back. It doesn’t start until August 7th (there’s no buses to Osh before then anyway) so don’t expect to see any beautiful mountain photos until well after then.
Although I have been using the same internet place this whole week today I was confronted with a slip of paper asking for my passport. I said “no.” Then she asked me my name. I asked why. She went onto the computer, using her translator and came up with the word “passport.” My answer to that was a shake of my head and the word “yuan.” I took my money and found another place. Although I am a little paranoid I refuse to give my passport to use the internet. That’s ridiculous. At least my last city in China, Kashgar, should be more interesting.
4 responses to “Last Day in Urumqi”
Hey Megan, I’m really enjoying keeping up with all your amazing adventures. I just returned from mine. I spent 4 days in Seoul seeing the sites, hooked up with a few Aussies at a hostel (the Backpackers). We all treked together into Seoraksan NP in the NW corner of the country. Fly fished in wide rivers with rented poles, slept in temples, tried to stay dry despite the rain. I’ll snapfish you the pics when the film comes back.
Hope you’re doing well, feeling better.
i’m with you on that. i wouldn’t give i.d. to use the internet.
Hi Megan, I am really enjoying your travels, you seem so brave and get along well with just English and a few hand signs I guess. It is interesting how they try and rip off tourists etc, re the hotel room etc. Guess that is world wide as I have seen it happening to Japanese in Banff National Park in Canada. We have been having a heat wave and I imagine where your from is as well. TOday it is raining and it is such a relief, I can get some house work done and not drip all the time. You mentioned about the Chinese people wanting to have their photo taken with you. We found that it was the same in Banff and Lake Louise, we would be about to take a photo and suddenly they arrived and had to take photos of us with one of the Chinese in the middle of our group, this was not once but often it happened.
In my travels I have run across people wanting to take my passport like a security thing as well, only place I am willing to give it up is in Hotels when staying there several nights. We are off to the Maritimes and down the East coast of USA to see the Autumn leaves in New Hampshire, Maine and spend a week at Cape Cod before going on to my daughters place in D.C. Then it will be the long trek home by car to Northern Canada, probably with snow on the ground as we plan to be away 3 months if the money holds out. Our gasoline has gone up to $1.15 litre which still makes it cheaper than in the USA my husband tells me. Well I had better finish my housework now,
all the best in your travels,
Jan
David,
It would be great to see photos of the rest of Korea. Did you make it to a baseball game? I think that and the DMZ were the highlights for me.
Lucas,
It seems suspicious, doesn’t it?
Jan,
It’s not so hard to communicate when you get used to it. You don’t always get what you want, of course! Usually it’s best to find out info from other travelers but the silk road has been pretty quiet, at least for me. People are keeping to themselves.
Enjoy the scenery out East! I think I will be in the Pamir Mountians and Tibet for fall.