We set off for our trip on Saturday morning. We met at 8am to load up the car. I got to sit shotgun first. That was fine because I was very tired and since we would spend a week together we would all rotate. Our driver Lang looked decent he was in his early thirties who spoke mandarin with heavy Tibetan accent. He did not speak English and was very glad that I could communicate with him. Lang was a nice, good safe driver who has no record of accidents.
There were plenty of fun stories coming from the back row. Everyone in the car had plenty of travel experience and stories to share. They were pretty outrageous from traveling all over South America on public buses with the chickens and shotguns to breaking the back in three different places. On this trip so far I have come across people who are young and have traveled all over the world for months to a year at a time. The most I’ve traveled was two and half months in Europe on trains and ferries. All their stories and experiences seems so much more monumental than my very comfortable backpacking trip in tourist friendly Europe.
Rupert shared his story of having a sleeper berth ticket from Beijing to Xi’an but the train service person at the dock would not let him on. He had the right train, right time, right cart number but he was not allowed on. So he went back to the counter to inquire and they said he should have been let on. So he decided to take the next train figure that there would be one in a few hours. Well, that turned out to be 12+ hours of waiting. He didn’t sleep because he didn’t want to miss the train. He finally boarded the next train but it was full. He was not allowed onto the sleeper berth cart because he no longer had a ticket that was valid. He ended up as a traveler with a standing ticket. He stood the next 8+ hours to Xi’an. On the train he hung out with locals who slept in the toilet because they too had a standing ticket. He complained of the spitting and other disgusting things he saw on the train. Finally he made it to Xi’an during the National Holiday week and was just too tired and bummed out by the whole experience that he decided he didn’t like China and would try to at least make it to Tibet on the next available flight. When he left Hong Kong he left all his winter gear in his friend’s place thinking he wouldn’t go to Tibet. But he made it in and was totally unprepared for the cold etc….His story shed light on his terrible experience with the train that it was tempting to feel sorry for him but all and all it was so funny in the same time that we laughed the whole time. We encouraged him and supported him by saying that if he had not been through all of this, he wouldn’t have such an unique story to tell and the story was worth the suffering he went through.
I kept the driver company by chatting with him in Mandarin. He told me many things about the Tibetan culture and his tour guide stories. He was so happy that I could communicate with him and be a translator for the rest of the group. He said often he would give tourist instructions and make arrangement but then they would disappear. One time he told a tourist to not wonder off but he did and he got lost. It took Lang 6 hours of driving around a small old town to find him at sun down. He attributed all of this to miscommunication on both ends.
I bought lots of car snacking kind of food. No one else prepared a supply of fruits, crackers, nuts, dried fruit, and candy. There was no Seven Eleven to stop at or drive-throughs, I was very hungry and so was everyone else in the car. I decided to share, things tastes better shared anyways.
There were plenty of fun stories coming from the back row. Everyone in the car had plenty of travel experience and stories to share. They were pretty outrageous from traveling all over South America on public buses with the chickens and shotguns to breaking the back in three different places. On this trip so far I have come across people who are young and have traveled all over the world for months to a year at a time. The most I’ve traveled was two and half months in Europe on trains and ferries. All their stories and experiences seems so much more monumental than my very comfortable backpacking trip in tourist friendly Europe.
Rupert shared his story of having a sleeper berth ticket from Beijing to Xi’an but the train service person at the dock would not let him on. He had the right train, right time, right cart number but he was not allowed on. So he went back to the counter to inquire and they said he should have been let on. So he decided to take the next train figure that there would be one in a few hours. Well, that turned out to be 12+ hours of waiting. He didn’t sleep because he didn’t want to miss the train. He finally boarded the next train but it was full. He was not allowed onto the sleeper berth cart because he no longer had a ticket that was valid. He ended up as a traveler with a standing ticket. He stood the next 8+ hours to Xi’an. On the train he hung out with locals who slept in the toilet because they too had a standing ticket. He complained of the spitting and other disgusting things he saw on the train. Finally he made it to Xi’an during the National Holiday week and was just too tired and bummed out by the whole experience that he decided he didn’t like China and would try to at least make it to Tibet on the next available flight. When he left Hong Kong he left all his winter gear in his friend’s place thinking he wouldn’t go to Tibet. But he made it in and was totally unprepared for the cold etc….His story shed light on his terrible experience with the train that it was tempting to feel sorry for him but all and all it was so funny in the same time that we laughed the whole time. We encouraged him and supported him by saying that if he had not been through all of this, he wouldn’t have such an unique story to tell and the story was worth the suffering he went through.
I kept the driver company by chatting with him in Mandarin. He told me many things about the Tibetan culture and his tour guide stories. He was so happy that I could communicate with him and be a translator for the rest of the group. He said often he would give tourist instructions and make arrangement but then they would disappear. One time he told a tourist to not wonder off but he did and he got lost. It took Lang 6 hours of driving around a small old town to find him at sun down. He attributed all of this to miscommunication on both ends.
I bought lots of car snacking kind of food. No one else prepared a supply of fruits, crackers, nuts, dried fruit, and candy. There was no Seven Eleven to stop at or drive-throughs, I was very hungry and so was everyone else in the car. I decided to share, things tastes better shared anyways.
