My favorite noodle place will have to be revisited the next time I return to Xi’an. I settled for a nearby food stand that made stuffed fried bread. I liked the fennel and dill stuffing and when it is freshly made, hot and crispy on the outside, soft-chewy and juicy on the inside, oh it is just so good. They were 1 yuan each. I bought three. I ate one there and took two for the road.
The train was full, packed with people. This train’s final destination is the capital of Xinjiang. After getting settled in, thoughts of worry and fear ran through my mind. It scares me that I will be arriving at night. I have to watch out for thieves who cut through bags. I have to watch out for cabs without official license. Then the train broad casts things to be aware of when you are asleep. Aside from your belongings, one of it was getting needled injections that puts you out so the thieves can search through your things on your body. This scared me even more. I realized my new hot pink stuffed donkey travel companion was not going to be enough. I decided I better lean on my Buddhist practice of reciting mantras, sutras, meditation as my most reliable traveling companion and insurance for assurance.
A lady from Hangzhou who has been traveling in Xinjiang told me when traveling by myself in this part of China that it would be best for me to just visit the Mogao Cave paintings and leave Dunhuang and skip the Jade Gate and others for a different time when I am not traveling by myself. Jade Gate, Yumen is the historical sight where it separates China and the rest if the Silk Route nations. She tells me it’s rough out there and she encountered problems of being cheated.
Fear of being cheated, what’s this about? Its just a loss of money. How about safety? What am I afraid of? Fear of being preyed upon? What’s this about? How about being in the dark, alone at night? All these fears, what is it all about? When was Ven. Hsuan Hua scared? What did he do? Was Hsuan Zhang of the Tang Dynasty scared? What did he to with his fears? I guess it is my journey in this journey to overcome my fears somehow.
This was my first train ride experience in China on hard sleeper berth. I had top sleeper berth. I heard it is better for getting rest. On the lowest bunk, the good side is you get to sit up and have a table by the window. The draw backs are it’s too close to the track, very loud, noisy, and bumpy. During the day people may just sit in your bunk like a seat. On the top, the most expensive berth, no one will want to climb that high and it’s obvious when your things are being stolen or when you are being searched. People will have to climb over two berths to get to the top. I like the hard berth. I thought it would be direct plastic or metal or wood contact. But it is cushioned just the way I like it. It’s like a futon consistency. The soft berth has actual mattress and doors to close the berth like a room to keep the noise down. Some trains have TVs in each bunk of 6 but this train doesn’t have one.
I got plenty of rest on the train. I didn’t realize how tired I was from my travels so far and in general from my life. The bus rides were too rough and long for me. Here I can lay down, sit and walk around. There is even a restaurant on the train. The restrooms are locked whenever the train stops. I have to time my restroom runs according to the line and the stops.
There is a deep yearning within me for my life to be simple. To wake up each day and do martial arts, drink tea, attend to my garden, practice my Buddhist studies, cook a fun healthy meal, read a book, do art work, do community service, have more tea with friends, watch the green humming birds fly and enjoy nature, go on a nice hike , bake some goodies, and call it a day. Anything and anyone that is not in alignment to support this rhythm makes me tired and I just repel from it all.
The momentum of this year has been pushing me to be on this journey in Asia that I have been resisting and delaying. Somehow this was the only way for me to set everything aside and put all my energy on changes I would make during this trip and it would require all my attention. What are these changes? I don’t know yet. If I did ahead of time, I may outsmart myself and ruin it all and avoid it completely.
I’ve been in China for only two weeks and I feel like it has been a long time. A part of me wants to be done with my journey and go home. But then what? I would just be back and I’d have to do this all over again because it was left incomplete. I am only two weeks in and I know somehow I have to go all the way to February of 2007. Until then, my journey will be incomplete. That is a long time from now. Although I have comforted myself and given myself plenty of permission to turn around and fly home whenever I decided to call it, I hope to somehow make full use of this unique opportunity one step at a time. I am aware the two places I am not to miss are Tibet and India and everything else is just a warm up, icing on the cake. I don’t know if I can make it into Tibet and I don’t have the courage to do India by myself.
The day pack I used in my last European backpacking trip fell part. I replaced it in Xi’an for 25yuan. It is quite flimsy but it will do for now. My internal pack of 10 years is holding up. I hope it hold up all the way. I have used it for all sorts of travels and camping trips in the last decade. I thought it was over priced when I bought it but now it has been well worth it. I had to buy it because it was the only pack that fit my body frame, everything else was made for taller larger built western bodies.
I am learning it is really important for locals to know where each other is from. Natives think I am from Zhejiang. This was fine with me because it’s also where Putuo Shan is home of Guan Yin Bodhisattva in China. In the cities, the young people are hired for jobs at the airport, stores, etc… The older aged people are sweeping the streets, cleaning toilets, hauling carts.
My neighbor is a 21 year old girl from Xinjiang capitol of Uremoquoi. She sings professionally in Ge Wu Tuan, Song Dance Group. She has a beautiful voice. It looks like she has had very little formal education. She relies mainly on her conventional wits to get by. She went to visit her friends in Baoji and appears to be nervous about getting back. We had various conversations and kept each other company. She was curious of everything about me down to the lotion I was using for my hands. She had never seen ear plugs before and I let her try my ear plugs and my lotion. She didn’t directly ask me of things she wanted to know and learn from me. Maybe it wasn’t in her habit to do so. She just watched and learned instead. She was a very nice person. I handed her a piece of seaweed, her eyes lit up and smiled like a little kid in receiving. She's never had it before and I ended up giving her the whole pack even though I was very hungry. She must have had to fight hard for everything in life. Just a little sharing of seaweed made her light up like a Christmas tree. I felt sad that she had very little formal education training and that from her profession her best bets are to go single and run a small business like a shop or marry a n+ divorced old man. That's too bad she's lovely sweet and talented just not in a great field or in a very prosperous city where woman can climb the social ladder. When we parted there was sadness in her eyes that our paths would not cross again this life.
I landed in Liu Yuan train station and I ended up sharing a taxi with three other local women heading for Dunhuang. It took one and half hours and we each paid the local price of 30yuan. I was happy to be sharing a taxi with local women we chatted the whole way about everything, they were good company to have. On the taxi they cleared away any possibility of getting ripped off and being in any physical danger with the driver. They each had stories like mine of getting dropped off middle of nowhere at night and the driver demanding more money etc…
My taxi driver offered his service of driving me around for a day for 150 yuan. I felt 100 yuan was doable but not 150 yuan. I was dropped off at my reserved hotel for 146 yuan for a double bedroom in a so called three stars hotel. It’s quite nice for Chinese standards and clean too. They promised hot shower but there wasn’t any. I really like getting hot drinking water in a canteen delivered to my room. I like being able to make tea in the morning. The driver told me there was a train line that opened up in August from Dunhuang to Lan Zhou and it leaves 6:45pm tomorrow. It is very dry and cold here in this region and I was not prepared at all for this weather
