Last Plane to Lhasa
| A New Nation |
|
Last Plane to Lhasa |
May you live in interesting times : 25 February 2004
|
|
The ancient Chinese proverb seems to be very fitting for our time in China so far. Hong Kong is a crazy city. Our hotel was nice with a view of the very hazy harbor, and off course we managed to pick the hotel that was only two blocks away from the crazy busy red light district. At first we where incredibly overwhelmed by the amount of people everywhere….ha ha..if we only knew what lay ahead. The city was so busy with huge modern looking buildings mixed with old ancient Chinese Pagodas. The shopping malls are very clean and huge, and everything is way cheap, however, we didn’t do any shopping. There is a “peak” tram that we took up to the top of this mountain. The tram moved up this track at about a 35 degree angle, which at the time felt like a 60 degree angle, especially as we looked back. At the top there was a huge platform area that we could see almost all of Hong Kong, the harbor, and Kawloon. It was pretty amazing. Hong Kong seems like kind of a fun place to live, though I wouldn’t say that either of us would want to live there permanently. We did have fun going out to some of the bars and restaurants, and met a fun German couple that we drank too much with one night.
For some reason, we decided to take the train to Xi’an. So, first we had to take a train from Hong Kong to Guang Zhou, just over the border from the "special district" of Hong Kong. Now, Hong Kong is a pretty crazy city, having the highest population density on earth. But at least it's very clean and efficient. Guang Zhou, has almost as many people, and is a classic Communist Chinese city. The train station was an absolute zoo, with thousands of people crammed into these giant halls with no A/C and not enough seats. We had to wait around here for a few hours. This leads us to our first experience with Lee Han Ming. The train consisted of a bunch of open sections with six beds in each one. No curtains (this is China, after all). We had found our two beds, when in walks this older man, who starts shouting at everyone around in Chinese. Eventually, this girl in the next section moves her bag from the overhead storage area, and he calms down. This, we find out later, is Lee Han Ming. During the painful 28 hour trip (yes, I said 28 hours) we got to speak with Mr. Lee a bit. Well, not really speak. He doesn’t speak a word of English. He doesn’t even read or write Chinese. He did gesture a whole lot and speak random Chinese words at us quite a bit. In the evening, he showed me some old trinkets he apparently dug up. More on this in a bit. We also met a nice young man who called himself Tony (his English name). He and his business partner were traveling to Xi’an for a business meeting, and he spoke a little English. We all chatted a bit, and made a plan to all meet up in Xi’an. Mr. Lee was going to take us to see the terracotta army, and we were all going to meet up and go out for food. The train ride itself was pretty hard. Not only was it long, but it also was pretty gross. The Chinese have some issues with cleanliness. There were bugs on the floor of the train from the stuff people threw on the floor. The toilet..ha ha, is that what they call it? It was a shit hole in the floor of the train, surrounded by brown sludge. The smell was vomit inducing, it was unbearable. Try squatting over a hole with pee and crap all over the ground, holding your nose and balancing while the rickety bumpy train chugs along. Oh, and toilet paper..what? what is that? GROSS. They would wheel these carts down the hallway with various stuff, food, both steaming in giant pots and prepackaged noodles and fruit. Of course, these things ended up being eaten with slurpy noises and spat on the floor, along with all of their mucus. Apparently, Kleenex hasn’t made it over here yet. At about 8:45 the next evening, we finally pulled into Xi’an station. With the help of Mr. Lee and Tony, we managed to figure out where to pick up our bags. However, for some reason, they wouldn’t be ready to pick up until about 11 that night. So we got in a couple taxis and headed to the hotel where we would check in then go back to pick up the bags. We had called ahead to book a hotel from Hong Kong. The only hotel we could get through to was the Hyatt, the nicest hotel in the whole city. Tony and Mr. Lee helped us check in, and then Mr. Lee (who was traveling with his son, and met up with his daughter) and his family all helped us take our stuff to the room. At this point, we were waiting for Tony, who went to check in to his own hotel. This was Mr. Lee’s chance to make his move. Mr. Lee and his son and daughter were in our room, not by our choice, as soon as we walked into the room they made themselves comfortable. Mr. Lee started smoking his cigarettes, don’t mind us or anything. Then he went to the toilet followed by his son. By the time I had a chance to go to the bathroom the toilet and floor was covered with piss. I know, being a Hyatt and all, that the room did not come this way. What is wrong with these people? Just so messy, anyway this is where Mr. Lee pulled out the trinkets. None of them spoke English, but his children could at least read, so we pointed through the back of our guide book, which had a few words in it. From this we managed to figure out that he wanted to sell us one of these things for 20,000 yuen (about $2,500). Yeah right… Finally, we convinced him to let us go down and meet up with Tony to pick up our bags. After paying another fee, we managed to actually regain our bags, with a minimum of damage. We even made it back to our hotel and ditched all of our new friends for a good night’s sleep. Our first day here, we spent looking for a Chinese/English dictionary. This gave us a brief view of the main shopping street in downtown Xi’an, the third biggest city in mainland China. It was impressive how much high fashion was available, and how cheap it was. Then again, most everything is made in China anyway, and the markup back home is disgusting, so maybe it’s not too surprising. That night, we met up with Tony and his business partner Cassy (not their real Chinese names, but the English names they have chosen for themselves) for dinner. We ended up at a pretty fancy place in the very center of town. It was actually a very pleasant dinner, and it was fun to watch Tony drink too much. The next day was our day to see the sights. Xi’an, near the center of the country, is where the famous Terracotta Army is. It’s actually the guard of the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the emperor that first united China in a single empire in 221 BC. We met up with Tony and Cassy, and caught a bus towards the tomb. First, though, we had to stop while Tony and Cassy took care of some business. They work for a company that sells clean room equipment, and we stopped at a factory that makes the plastic bottles for cleaning supplies and medicinal soaps. It was actually pretty interesting. It was especially interesting how clean the factory was, compared to the dirt of the street outside, though Andrea said that the bathroom was still a nasty hole in the ground surrounded by sludge. Strange country. After they finished their business, we got on another bus up to the army itself. We worked our way through the vendors outside saying “Hello! Batteries! Film! Camera!” Tony bought our tickets. This is because they charge Chinese people 60 Yuen to get in, but charge Westerners about 200 Yuen. The guys outside the actual museum gate laughed at our clever plan, but we had no problem actually getting in. Inside, the museum grounds were actually very beautiful. The whole place was clean and modern. Even the toilet holes where somewhat clean (still no toilet paper). There are three pits where the army is buried, and excavation is still taking place. Then there were a few other buildings, including a big museum place with displays and artwork about the whole thing. You could still tell you were in China, though, and reading the English translations of the information signs was always entertaining. The army itself was amazing. There are thousands of these guys, and each one is unique. They are still in the process of restoring them, though they’re not painted in the original brilliant colors. There are all these soldiers, and horses and chariots, and weapons and stuff. It’s simply amazing. After the museum, we caught a cab to a little dive to eat lunch. It was actually surprisingly good, though I’d hate to see what letter grade the LA county food board would give the place, with the kitchen being an open gas grill out back with the cats scurrying up the poles, and people ashing their cigarettes on the ground around the tables. This is where we finally met up again with Mr. Lee. He was originally going to hang out with us all day, and try to get us into these places for free. But something came up, so he hadn’t made it until later. Now, every time he called, the phone conversation with Tony was, well, animated, and Cassy would be shaking her head. Not a good sign. When he showed up, you could cut the tension with a chopstick, though we had no idea why, of course. We ended up all going together with him in his little minivan thing. He drove us to some other tomb place, though it was just a museum of it, not the actual tomb itself. Apparently, the tomb was originally a phenomenal underground city that recreated the countryside. We went to the cheap scale model recreation of it, with blinking Christmas lights and plastic replacing giant oil torches and rivers of mercury. Mr. Lee sort of herded us through the tour, which was OK, since it was all in Chinese anyway. Next, he herded us all up to the top of some mountain, where there was a temple undergoing heavy renovations. First, we’re driving randomly down the road when he started shouting at the people in the car next to us. Eventually, we pull over and, after much shouting and gesturing, one of the women gets into our car. Apparently, she is supposed to be able to get us into this place at a discount. So the group heads up this terrifying road up a mountain. Poor Tony is in the back suffering a serious fear of heights. We get to the ticket office, and a whole new round of shouting starts up. This goes on for about 10 minutes. Finally, Tony and Cassy get out of the car and say they’ll wait at the ticket office. “I’m tired” he said, but it seemed more like a face saving gesture. We promised to be quick. The rest of us then went up to the top of the mountain to see these temples. Both Andrea and I got to light incense and bow to some statue (we’re still not sure which religion this particular temple is about). We also got little paper fortunes, though we didn’t get to learn what they meant until much later. Mr. Lee and his buddies were laughing a lot and running around, so we made it through the place pretty quick. Which was good, because they left poor Tony and Cassy sitting outside the ticket office in the freezing cold (2 degrees celcius) on the side of this mountain. It was pretty clear that the Mr. Lee and Tony didn’t get along at all. Our last stop for the day was to the park where the Communists arrested Chaing Kaishek after the Japanese invaded in WWII. It was strange to wander around this great Communist memorial with all these little shops trying to sell trinkets and munchies. The lovely toilet here was just a trench. And I’m not sure that the Chinese rap music that the proprietors were listening and dancing too would have made the cut during the Cultural Revolution. China is a land of contradictions… After a long drive through rush hour traffic in the city, we finally made it back home. We told everyone we had a great time, and promised to try to meet up again before we left. This didn’t seem good enough for Mr. Lee, who showed up at our hotel room door at 9 at night, with his daughter and another girl that spoke a little English. She called him her uncle, and I tried to get rid of them, but had to promise to call for dinner one last time. But before he left, he came in again to try to sell yet another thing he had dug out of the ground. This is a man that doesn’t get it. The next two days were a welcome break. Yesterday, we had to get our tickets and permits to go to Lhasa, in Tibet. It’s very hard for foreigners to get to Tibet. We couldn’t just buy the airline tickets, because you need this “permit” thing. Now, our guide book says that 99% of the time, once you get your ticket, no one ever looks at this “permit” again, but for flying we needed it for the ticket. (They have a whole plan to beat the system if you take the bus, but the prospect of a 30-50 hour bus ride through the mountains in the middle of winter seemed like a bad idea to us.) Originally, we were planning going to Mr. Lee’s house for dinner tonight. We had called his niece, and setup a plan. But the more we thought about it, the less we wanted to be bullied or guilted into seeing this guy, just so he could try to sell us more crap, or improve his standing with his buddies by having us for dinner. And a call from Tony saying to “be careful” further scared us off. So we were awful people, and canceled our plan, and played sick. And now we’ve locked ourselves in the hotel, waiting for him to knock on the door. We’re absolutely paranoid that he’s going to come here and try to sell us more stuff, and abuse us some more. It’s awful. We are literally being stalked by a Chinese man.
Well, that’s the bulk of it. I’m sorry for the extremely long entry. We’ll keep you posted, hopefully with shorter entries in the future! |
Replies: 3 comments
|
Awesome story guys! I never made it to China when over in Asia, but would still like to check it out (even after hearing about the "sludge around the hole") I've heard worse believe it or not! You are both true adventure heros for doing this amazing trip. We'll stay tuned for the next exciting chapter. Ciao 4 now, Wes Posted by Wes @ 02/25/2004 03:25 PM PST |
|
How's the food ? Posted by Patrick @ 02/27/2004 12:54 PM PST |
|
Hi Andrea and Robin !! Posted by Kathrin Sohr @ 02/29/2004 03:48 AM PST |
