July 2010, Inner Mongolia headed to Mongolia.
These guys joked their boss about how a “woman rides stronger” than he does. He was a fat man and eventually called them to give him a ride and his bike a lift. Sometimes he would wait for us up ahead, while having a smoke break.
Check out the color of my skin. Dang!
The girl on the left could speak fairly good English. She met Brandon and I at the restaurant her brother cousin owned. The two older girls in the photo are sisters. Their family had lived in these Tibetan mountains for generations. When we walked up to the temple, as they bought Brandon and I each a beer, she explained how the city had grown since her childhood.
There were about 2 dozen small Tibetan homes now, and a large area of homes and a dormitory for the monks.
These girls were half Tibetan half Han. Their mother, Han, had passed away near her birth.
The house we are in here is new, because her father had sold the older and bigger home. Since his daughters were growing up, and one in college.
I slept in her bed and Brandon got the floor. In the morning he gets up first and runs back into the room and tells me to get my lazy a$$ up because it’s 11am! “Oh sh*t!? REALLY???!!”
“No, it’s 9:30”.
Even though we left early in the day, we didn’t make a lot of progress because we kept getting stopped for tea and tsampa. We weren’t riding road or tarmac either. The road eventually broke into a cow path through some of the most beautiful valleys I have ever seen in my life. This route continued for a couple of days and over a pass.
I’ll never forget when we got out of the mountain valley and finally hit tarmac, a Tibetan invites us in for some frozen Yak meat. Yes…raw frozen Yak…Brandon and I especially enjoyed the cookies.
I awake well rested around 9:30.
When I go around corner to the WC, in the part of the town that’s crumbling to the ground, there is already company in the two women “ce suo”. She exits and I can hear her and another woman whispering about me, from about a 1 meter distance. Can I please use the bathroom in privacy, let alone having to listen to you two clucking gossip about me, in a not very welcoming tone.
Back at my room, laobanniang brings me some bread and congee. I keep it heated on my stove. Not too anxious about the day because I know have a steady 8km climb out of this town…a fair incline. Enough to make me not want to go.
I leave behind the Hami melon they gave me and some grain, that’s not rice, that didn’t work for my sweet porridge last night.
Push the bike out the door at 11:30, the sun is bright, sky clear, and not too chilly. The rock man and his son are there, the son helps open the gate for me. I give the man a hug goodbye, not really the Chinese woman thing to do, but hell…I needed to meet this fellow last night. A nice American style hug, smile, and thank you.
2km out of town is lined with coal trucks, on both sides of the road. China has seasoned me and I know after lunch, these trucks are going to be riding behind me.
The 8km out isn’t too bad, after a good rest and food…it feels good. Truck drivers obviously go slack jawed and stare at me with the typical, “it’s a foreigner”. On the way up and out, Stone man pulls up and gives me his written phone number on a band-aid. Yes, it’s a wrapped new band-aid…not a used band-aid. I was really kind of hoping for a lift, no go, and his truck is well loaded anyhow.
Up the climb and on the edge of town, I strip down to two baselayers and NO GLOVES. Damn the weather is good.
I’m looking ahead and see about a steady, slight, 10km ride to the mountains, covered in snow. Why do I EVER think it’s still going to be warm where there is snow…really? Ellen?! Come on…it’s not like that!
With one potty break, I’m pretty stoked on my steady speed and ride up out of the basin. Around 1pm all the trucks begin barreling from behind. See! I do know what I’m talking about. The wind draft nearly sweeps me over a couple of times.
If I do well today, I’ll complete a mini mountain pass and I hope to find a luguan before getting to Balikun. I assume I won’t get to Balikun until tomorrow. It’s a near 85km ride, and if I have a pass, it may not work out.
At the beginning of the pass, I have to throw all my clothes back on.
Especially the little rides down with the frigid wind blasting against my face.
I’m out here with only an occasional truck. I do a see a few Kazakh men with their extra thick pants and their funny looking big hats. There is a Kazakh woman walking along the side of the road, from seeing other places, I’ve noticed they are collecting coal dropping off the truck.
Around 2, it’s beautiful up here – covered with white snow and blue sky. On occasion, I can see motorcycles riding through the fields herding their flocks.
There is a shepherd on his horse, coming down from the hill to my right. There is another shepherd to my left. As I pass through the two, I look at the one man on my left who has just lounged on the snow. He looks at me and I smile and return it with a “Hello!”…he follows me with his eyes. Perhaps I should of stopped…but I’m freezing and I’m racing against the sun, like everyday.
Just a view from the top.
There are a couple of hours of riding over the pass. My face freezing, hands, and feet. I have to get off to push the bike for a short while to get feeling back into my feet and fist my hands up into the palm of my gloves.
As I descend the pass…appears to be an ocean of snow ahead. This picture does no justice to what it look like from the top of that mountain.
About a 10-15km descent…FREEZING. Minimal traffic of trucks.
There is a town at the base, the sign reads 18km to Balikun. I know it would be cheaper to stay here for the night so I look around.
Men are selling animal skins at the 1 intersection of town. The roads are muddy and sloshy from ice and snow melt. It almost appears as if a massive rain storm just rolled through, except it’s cold.
There is an old 3 story brick building off the main road. The “bingguan” sign is barely holding onto the exterior and there is a local grocery on the first floor. It looks pretty damn hopeless, especially with the busted glass and it looking abandoned on the 2nd and 3rd floors. I’ve surely lived in worst places then this fine establishment. The town is hell…a brown, muddy, sloshy, cold mess. I can deal with cold, or wet…but not both.
I have my hat, hood, and sunglasses on and my face is covered over my nose.
Let me state, that my Chinese friends have told me that Chinese people are very helpful and kind to foreigners, but not to other Chinese. This moment confirms this.
I speak in Chinese and ask her if this is a bingguan. And she completely ignores me and I excuse myself and ask again. A short and rude response. Never have I had this happen to me. I asked her if she could help me and she wanted nothing to do with me. Screw this, 18km and I’m going to get a decent dinner and place that isn’t going to give me pneumonia.
God, hell of 18km. I was warned that Bali is one of the coldest places in the area. It’s getting colder. My hands are frozen and my feet frozen. I always do this, race into town completely frozen in hopes to beat frostbite. Yeah, now I race to beat frostbite.
It’s a beautiful ride in, passing little Kazakh establishments and one village.
I arrive to Balikun.
First local hotel won’t allow foreigners.
Second, which they recommended, is over priced AND they won’t allow my bike inside. I don’t even mess with that anymore…no bike no go.
Third, a little more than I wanted to spend but they help bring up my Nelly fully loaded and I can stash her behind the desk.
Top floor, no other guests, heat…HEAT!…and a shower.
I eat instant noodles and cookies for dinner…and that chocolate bar. After the surprise in my noodles it’ll be awhile before I eat much of anything.
Out of the desert and couldn’t be happier. Well, I could if it wasn’t freezing up on these mountains.
I’ve been stranded here for too long now and I feel myself going down that road to dark places, too much time to think. Been carrying a heavy heart and thinking about a lot of stuff. Waiting for myself to snap back to where I should be going, teetering on sanity and blowing a fuse (3 screaming dogs and employees don’t help). Grappling upwards, away from that dark pit of grossness. Since temporary lobotomies aren’t available and there was no package of lucidity arriving at my bed in my mornings – I had to find something to get back to land.
Not sure how it happened but I remembered that not only is photography my career, but my therapy.
If you’ve known me for awhile, you will remember that during Undergrad I concentrated on self-portraiture a’la Cindy Sherman. It followed me for a couple of years afterwards but then I dropped it. Not sure why, it just wasn’t exciting or fun anymore. Maybe I had finished my self therapy sessions and needed to move onward. Or it kind of freaked me out to see my face and body get older.
So, here, in Urumqi…where every day seems almost like the last and prepare for the next that will seem like today…I’ve gone back to my productive therapy.
View from my window
As I’m preparing images, my jade heart and St. Christopher drop in my lap. Omen?
Hell, either way…after a hours of Skype’ing and some photo therapy, my heart and mind are on it’s way to a recovery.
Perhaps I’ll get a good night sleep, finally. Battling insomnia for about 7 days, with no real Crash and Burn. My roommate last night didn’t help with his snoring on inhale AND EXHALE!!!! Then he was going to carry on a conversation with the other guy before sunrise. I love being able to shout my irritation in Chinese…with a “buhaoyisi” after exclaiming they are being rude. If I hadn’t been so groggy and my Chinese better, I would of let him know a bit more of how I was feeling…but a good “HEY!!! I want to sleep!” got the point across clearly.
I hope to visit the donut lady tomorrow…jonesin’ for some homemade glazed donut chunks.
I wake up around 9 and feel like a bag of bricks was dropped on my head and I’d been eating cigarette butt flavored sand paper. Baijiu still puzzles me, I can handle any liquor/beer but that stuff is like pure poison.
After a run to the “bathroom” (hole in the ground) I go to get water from the hostess.
She says something about me being drunk last night. Are you insane? I wasn’t drunk but I know you fools were.
I ask her for some water to fill up my bottles and she offers me some food before leaving. Sure, why not.
After about 15 minutes sitting there filling up on water and watching her put her make up on, clean her face, and wipe up stuff, I apologize and tell her I must get going.
Walking with my bag to the police station, I see a Kazakh shepherd with his flock and a give a friendly wave and a “Hello”. He smiles and waves back. Whoa, maybe I shouldn’t wave, it made me nearly fall over. Damn, this is going to be a long long long awful day.
The man from the night before without a uniform helps me get my bike. No one comes to me, no one really says anything except for the guy that grabbed my bum screams something about me going. Yeah, don’t worry buddy, I’m ready to go – trust me. The civilian clothed man asks if I’ve eaten and lie. “Yes, she fed me”.
View behind, the entrance to the town of hell:
View ahead, get the hell out of here…take a deep breath, it’ll be okay.
I get on on ol’Nelly and feel my head spin. I can’t wait to get out of here, 50 less kilometers to a town where I can eat and crash. Shouldn’t be too bad.
Wrong, head wind. Feel like death. Scenery is crap.
I pass SanTang Hu the first time and as I’m going up out of the basin I notice from my compass that this is all wrong. There was a turn off and with an 8km descent to town. I turn back reluctantly but with a tailwind this time and descend to the edge of town. A typical truck stop town, “Brown Frown Town”. It’s more black and lots of frowns.
There is a sign for the town with about 2 km more to go. I arrive into a very small, dusty town and ride to the furthest part to find a luguan. It’s clean and laoban/laobanniang are friendly. I also get to pull my bike into the room for 15rmb.
A little quick laundry and head to get some noodles. It’s only about 5:30 and I’m glad to finish for the day. The blasting headache finally disappeared.
Find a Chinese restaurant and order Chow Mein. Okay, so…it arrives. It doesn’t look as tasty as the other 500 bowls I’ve eaten but I begin to dig in.
There is a strange meat/texture of something. I put it to the side, it’s also a little cold like it hasn’t been cooked. Then, there is something sharp in my mouth. I pull it out expecting to see the stem of a vegetable and to my disgusted surprise it’s a claw/nail. I’m telling myself it’s a chicken claw but it more resembled a large cat claw or small dog with a little blood vein to the nail still attached.
“meow meow” I hear the cat pass by me to the door. Yes! The cat that is in the shop. I’m literally starving and tuck the nail under the plate so I don’t throw up from seeing it and finish the noodles scraping everything else to the side.
I had seen police around town earlier and as I was inside the restaurant a military jeep pulls up out front. An officer barges into the place, looks at me, and barges out as fast as he entered. Yep, that’s probably for me.
As I exit the “xiao mai bu” next to the luguan with my cookies, breads, and soda, the jeep is pulled up out front with 4 officers and 2 locals. I walk past minding my own business.
Within 5 minutes they are there. “Where are you from? Where did you ride from? Where to? Where are you going? Where have you been? What are you doing? What do you do in Shanghai?”
This is the second time where they photograph the cop checking my credentials with me sitting next to his side. Do they submit these to Big Brother to let them know they are doing their jobs in the desert where all the crazies are stationed?
After this ordeal the cop tells me that if I have any problem to contact the police, they will help. HA! ARE YOU SERIOUS?! He also gets my phone number because he’s going to phone the town ahead to expect me and to help me find a place to stay. I’ll have to figure out how to get out of this one.
The owners are sweet people and chat me up for awhile and give me a Hami melon that I have to leave behind because of the weight.
Making a sweet porridge for desert and to hopefully erase the idea of a eating cat/dog out of my head.
As I’m cooking there is a knock on the door and a middle aged man walks in and looks at me and then leaves.
He returns in about 10 minutes and examines my food and says it’s not good. Asking where I’m from and how he’s going to Miami in 2 years. He gives me some sweet caramel candies too. After a short chat he leaves, but also telling me he’s going to go get me some food.
Again, he returns, after knocking comes in and gives me some instant noodles and a cup of instant milk tea and some breads.
Then he returns. He asks me to come over to his room so he can get a photo together. “It will be quick”.
Ah, okay, whatever…I’ll play along. I enter the room and there are sunflower seeds everywhere and a small table. There is also a young attractive boy. Turns out to be his 18 year old son. He takes the photo of us together and poses a polished stone on a pedestal next to us. The boy seems to have problems with the camera and Dad laughs at it all. I’m offered some baijiu and the thought makes me want to puke. I smile and wave my goodbyes.
He returns to check on me and sees my instant noodles. He takes them away. Only to return with them and a bar of foreign CHOCOLATE! A big bar of too…holy cow. This is a treat. I need to return to the room for a retake of the photo. Okay.
Ah, and I think it’s over…smiling at the thought of that delicious chocolate and eating my instant noodles.
He returns with some boxes.
They are opened and more polished and colored stones. He hands me a stand and tells me to take a rock. I’m not sure if he is selling them or really just offering me one. To play it safe I tell him, “I’m sorry, I can’t, they are too heavy. Thank you so much but, really, I can’t, I’m on bike.”
He seems okay with it but we go a little back and forth about it. His son is standing at his side, smiling.
I exchanged QQ #’s with his son, which I still have to send this photo to him.
As I lie in bed, I relive the past 48 hours and I remind myself that the days can vary from light to day. That the people drastically can change from 50 kilometers. What I’m saying, people, generally are so awesome and I’m not going to let a few rotten people make me think differently. Of course, I’m a little damaged from 2 experiences and I’m a little weary of things and men…but for the most part…they just want to talk with me.
Sometimes, China, I love you so much. NOT the ones in charge..but the wonderful strangers I meet along the way.
www.skiingthesilkroad.com
I hope you all, dear readers, you’ll take time to watch the most rad vid I’ve seen in a long time. Fortunately, I got to bring in the New Year with all 10 of them and even got some skiing lessons, in trade for my translation services. These folks are beyond words of awesome and kindness. Much love, all around. And now I totally believe the hype wrapped around the awesome’ness of Kiwis.
Click here to watch it:
As I’m trying to update my blog, and drag monsters out of the desert past, I should post some wonderful moments to remind me of all the awesome. Don’t you think?
Tibet camp, looking like a garden gnome. This was around 9am at over 4500m altitude. September 2011
Somewhere in Kham, Tibet…as we arrived towards a very strange Tibetan village deeply set in the mountains. July 2011
This happened in, I believe, July of 2010 in Hulun Buir. Some of you may remember this. It was approximately 410km with one town in between. One stop…and this is where it happened.
A young Mongolian boy locked me in a room and threatened to kill me for 3-4 hours if I were to make a sound or tell anyone. He is cracking his knuckles repeatedly, snapping his head to the left then right – crack, crack. He and his friends carry knives and he has scars and tattoos all over him.
He got very frustrated with my crying and pleading to let me go, for him to go. Finally he took my phone away from me as I’m sending emergency texts to who ever I possibly can think of.
Yes, he was going to rape me…he had every intent to rape me. Yes, he did get on top of me, he did attempt to kiss me gently, and as I begin see my life flash before my eyes, and the idea of contracting AIDS or Hep…knowing it was all going to be over…as he begins to hold me down, force me down…as I’m crying and pleading and begging in English to please stop, trying to pry his head away from me…I stick my mouth next his ear, breath in as much air as possible and as soon as I feel his erection through my clothes I let out the loudest, shrillest, longest, most blood curdling scream you could ever imagine. It throws him off of me and I unlock the door behind my head and run into the laoban’s room shaking and crying hysterically holding onto the woman. At the scream I could hear the entire place wake, gasps of air were heard, and doors opened.
He ran away, I told them he wasn’t my friend and I didn’t know him…they reassured me it would be okay and to stay and be quite. He returned, banging down the door. He claims he left his phone there, he didn’t…I’m crying and begging for them not to let him in.
He finally leaves, there is silence, I sleep for 3 hours, I catch a car to get me through the desert as I have visions of him waiting for me behind the dunes. The taxi driver takes me for every rmb on me, there is no half way decent luguan in the next town, over priced hotel where I wait 3 hours for hot water to wash this filth off of me.
Camp in Qinhai on the way to Tibet, with Brandon Wallace, under the Qinghai/Tibet Railway.
Taking a break along Namucuo, highest salt lake water in the world. 2nd day solo in Tibet, heading West.
Tibet at 5280m altitude. Physical ailments are beginning to become noticeable. Hungry and tired.
Camp in Qinhai on the way to Tibet, with Brandon Wallace, under the Qinghai/Tibet Railway.
Taking a break along Namucuo, highest salt lake water in the world. 2nd day solo in Tibet, heading West.
Tibet at 5280m altitude. Physical ailments are beginning to become noticeable. Hungry and tired.