12/5/97

Was woken up my a blast of classical Chinese music at 0630, and as sleep seemed impossible, I decided to make a run for the bathroom before anyone else though of it. I then started getting to know the people in my compartment. Three of them were men who said very little apart from their names, but the others were a mother and her adult son, who said enough for all of them put together. As per usual, the family photos were the main focus of attention. They were travelling past Xian for a holiday (didn't catch where), but were very interested in where I had been. The hubbub attracted a small crowd which turned out to contain a Chinese Mechanical Engineering PhD student who spoke some English. She was travelling with her professor, and they both worked at an ammunition research institute in Manchuria; interesting as I spent a summer doing similar work for the Ministry of Defense. We didn't talk shop much, but spent our time productively, i.e. learning each others languages. She had a small electronic translator which we used to test our pronunciation, and although the Chinese characters meant nothing to me, she could write Latin script quite well, so I struggled through a few banalities. Thankfully, the Chinese aren't like the French, and even the most appalling attempt at their language is greeted with rapture.

I got into Xian at just past 1 pm, and had hardly moved off the platform before I was pounced on by a Chinese girl who worked for a local hotel. Obviously they wait for backpackers, and I was the only one that seemed to be going handy. I managed to disentangle myself, and took the bus to the Remin Flats. Unfortunately, the possession of a good city map (bought outside the station) failed to stop me from getting off five stops too early, and I had a long walk. I get the impression that the locals know about where all the laowai go, because they kept on pointing in the direction of the Remin hotel whenever I passed by. As I walked up to the hotel, a young Chinese woman appeared beside me, and to my great surprise, produced a card for me. "Please go to Mum's cafe" she said. Looking over the road from the hotel, I saw two cafe's, one called Mum's, and the other called Dad's. A bit of rivalry was obviously in order!

The hotel was obviously used to backpackers, and I was upstairs in no time, where I met a Malaysian girl just leaving. Great, I thought, a room to myself. Becky, an Australian girl of twenty five or so, appeared fifteen minutes later! She had just flown in from Beijing, which rather explained why I hadn't seen her at the station. I asked her where she had been staying in Beijing, and she said the Jing Hua; so, why hadn't I seen her? She had apparently been staying at the Sheraton for most of this time, with some American bloke she had met! Some people have all the luck; all I needed to find was a lonely businesswoman, and I could have been in some luxury hotel- I'll bear it in mind for next time.

We decided to go downtown to see the Bell Tower, via the Muslim quarter, but we get slightly lost on the way. While going down one of the back streets a Chinese girl latches on to us (this is happening a lot here), and invites us into her art school. After fifteen minutes of looking around and explanations as to how some of their pottery was used in a recent film, she asks us if we'd like to buy anything. I decide a small painting of 120 Y would be nice to have, and Rebecca looks thoughtful. "What are you thinking of getting?" I asked her. "Oh, about four or five of the big ones" she replied; it seems her budget is a little more generous than mine! Eventually she walked away with six costing 1600Y. The gallery staff are amazed, and obviously think that the New Year came early; but as she remarked later, it would cost ten times as much back home, so why not?

After a look at the centre of Xian, we walked back through the muslim quarter, lit only by fires in the street and lights in the houses; the Chinese don't go a bundle on street lighting. On getting back to the room we met a Danish girl called Susie, who greeted us with all the joy of someone being liberated. Apparently she had spent the last week in Manchuria, where no-one was speaking English, and she was feeling a little isolated. An evening in Mum's followed, where we spoke not a word of Chinese, and I bumped into- Zoe! She had finished Shanghai and had come straight here, and was doing much the same thing as ourselves; going off to see the terracotta's, though on a different tour. We turned in after some horrifying experiences with the toilets; the women's in particular was absolutely terrible!

Hard sleeper compartments	Mum's and Dad's home cooking!

13/5/97

Up early to get the tour bus; it's full of Chinese from other provinces, who are lectured in high speed Mandarin by our tour guide as we pass various nondescript sights. Every five minutes she has to stop in order to receive rapturous applause from her audience. Eventually she came to the back of the bus and tells us a little of what she was saying; well, I assumed it had to be a little as she only took a minute! Susie thought we were lucky; the last time she had been on a tour, her guide had started singing as soon as she had run out of things to say.

Our first stop was at a "museum" where the eight wonders of the world were displayed in miniature form (the eighth being the terracotta army). We marked ourselves for the awkward squad by declining an invitation to pay another 30Y to see this, and instead spent the money on beer and talked to a bus full of schoolchildren; and with a redhead and a blonde our party was the centre of attention! After an hour we were back on the bus and off to the terracotta's, which were well worth seeing. You got the impression that a fair proportion of the wealth of the Qing dynasty was spent creating their graves, which could be interpreted as good or bad depending on your point of view. Photo's were not allowed, so we had to buy postcards instead, but in all it was one hundred percent worth it.

Our next point of call was a medical "institute". While Becky and Susie went off for a walk, I went into a lecture room with the locals after a bit of arguing with the guide, who rather thought I should be spared Chinese medicine! A doctor then entered the room and gave us a long lecture which seemed to be about how parts of the body were interconnected with others, which all seemed fair enough. He then motioned us all into a semi-circle and had us hold hands, and then plugged each end of the chain into what looked like a mains socket. I suffered a moment of momentary panic at the thought that I had stumbled on some secret Chinese scheme to reduce their population, but all you felt was a shiver and tingle once every five seconds or so. As we were leaving the doctor called me over and insisted on taking my pulse Chinese fashion. Instead of one light forefinger on one wrist, you get all four fingers pressed down hard on both wrists, with a single finger lifted every now and again. The doctor then told me I had weak kidneys, and I needed some medicine that only he could supply for a mere 280Y. I declined politely, as I felt that there was a much easier way of improving my kidneys; stop drinking so much!

Finally we were taken to the Huaquang Pools, which looked so interesting us laowai decided it would be better to go for a walk instead, thereby confirming us as nut cases in the eyes of the locals, who could hardly wait to rush in. They looked quite decorative from the outside, but glorified swimming pools are hardly an unique experience!

Back at the hotel, Becky started felling unwell. This could be construed as a nightmare because it would involve repeated visits to the toilets, but luckily the men's were much cleaner now, or they were until someone threw all their leftovers in the urinal; but Becky wasn't using that.

Susie on tour in China for three months, wearing only sandals; no wonder the Vikings were so sucessfull!

14/5/97

As Becky was still rather ill this morning we were forced to reconsider our earlier plan to climb the local sacred mountain of Huashan together. The girls would go on to Chengdu, while I would "do the mountain" in my usual brutally manly way. In the meantime, we all went off to the train station to get our tickets- me for Lanzhou- and say goodbye, where we learnt that hugging is considered very amusing by most Chinese!

Huashan is about 120k away, so I needed to find a bus. Getting a ticket is easy, but finding the bus is a nightmare; I stopped mine just as it was on the way out. I was originally on the floor, but the presence of a couple of toddlers travelling with an old man with a blind eye made me rapidly move to the engine cover, just in time for both of them to squat on the floor in quick succession. The drive was rather slow, with a lot of roadwork's in progress towards the end. It was therefore about 5 pm by the time I got to the village just below the mountain, where I had a meal, then started off up the mountain.

You go through a sort of temple before you get to the entrance to the mountain proper, then you walk under a large gate and up a very pretty valley. Much to my surprise the route is along a road made of stone and concrete, and there are drinks stalls every 300m or so. Further twinges of alarm are caused by the appearance of locals walking up the mountain dressed in cocktail skirts and suits! The appearance of a sweating Brit humping a rucksack full of backpacker gear caused much amazement, plus some extremely wide grins. So much for the manly bit then! A group of four Chinese tag along with me, and although we try to understand each other, we end up using sign language. About 8 pm the light starts to go and I start looking for a place to lay my sleeping bag, but my new found colleagues are having none of it; they want me to carry on in half moonlight! Looking back on it, it was probably the best time to climb it, as what I could see of one pitch (steps cut into nearly vertical cliff face) looked fairly hair raising; it's just as well the cocktail skirts had been swapped for tracksuit bottoms by this point. We make for the East Peak Hotel, which is within easy reach of the other summits, and there I meet a Malaysian who speaks English. There's a dorm downstairs, and we set our alarms for 5 am to catch the dawn.

Entrance to Huashan	Up the valley

15/5/97

I wish I could say that sunrise was stunning, but sadly the mist was even thicker, so I went down for some breakfast; pickled vegetables, at which it has to be said the Chinese are not as good at as the Russians! I start climbing early, and within 5 minutes my camera is refusing to work, which is a bit of a pity as the number of Chinese who wish to include me in their group photographs would do the average Japanese tourist to shame. Furthermore, as the mist clears the view becomes stunning; sod's law applies once more. I comfort myself with several pots of that fantastic Chinese invention, the mandarin orange slices in juice. Provided you can use chopsticks (I'm now an expert, due to sheer necessity!), it's a great way to pep yourself up. It's also noticeable how the prices increase as you ascend, but having seen the loads that the local porters carry up the mountain, I think they deserve everything they get.

I made it to three of the four summits in the end; the last was a little out of my reach as I ran out of time. With a train to catch this evening I have to be off the mountain by 2 pm or so, so I take the wimps way down from the East Summit via cable car. Jumping on the first bus that goes round to the base of the mountain and the main bus station, I bump into my acquaintances from the other night, who celebrate my arrival with a lot of excited babble to the other passengers. Doubtless the translation would have run to "this wally went up carrying that rucksack", but no-one laughs!

The bus station is much the same as usual; there's no official buses there, but there's an abundance of private buses, and I get a ticket to Xian for 20Y, along with a promise that I will get there by 7 pm. The bus starts once a further three people have been dragooned aboard, and we progress in the time honoured fashion; stopping and hawking for custom whenever anyone at the side of the road coughs! There is an advantage to taking the private bus though, as any queues of vehicles by roadwork's are bypassed in short order with the driver hooting imperiously. This can be a problem when you meet an equally determined driver coming the other way of course; we were stuck for five minutes while both sides revved engines and scowled at each other; our side backed down first.

On one of the stops we picked up a new conductor, a young man of 25 or so who had an annoying habit of tapping my shoulder and the spouting derogatory comments in my ear with a big grin on my face. Well, perhaps they don't see much western outdoor gear round here; anyway I concentrated on counting the absurd number of new garages being built alongside the toll motorway extension that was being built; I counted thirteen in two kilometres or so. Eventually we reach a largish town, and it becomes obvious that we have to change buses to go to Xian. I get off the bus, and the conductor grins, holds out his hand and says "you pay", obviously expecting me to pay for the second bus as well. I somewhat lost my rag at this point, grabbed him by his shirt and threw him against the bus. I suspect that the words "don't fuck with me" translated rather poorly, but the context must have been clear when I raised my fist! To my amazement, he grinned! I was about to punch him when I remembered that the Chinese are supposed to smile when nervous, something that became obvious when I drew back to hit him and he smiled even wider! The red mist fell away a little and I saw the people around us laughing at him, presumably for having lost face, so I dropped him and got on my new bus, where the driver immediately offered me a cigarette! I suppose the conductor can't have been too popular.

The drive to Xian passed without incident if you disregard the driver turning round every five minutes and giving me the thumbs up signal, and I got on the Lanzhou train in time. There I was greeted by three Uighurs and a Chinese in my compartment, plus a German, two British girls called Tiffany and Lisa, and an Alaskan DA called Ryan Bell, who had just given up his job to go travelling. I did ask him if he was worried about finding another, but he just grinned and said that there was always scum bags that needed to be put in jail!
Back to frames- if you're not in them already!
© Rupert Fiennes 1998