The train ride from DunHuang to LanZhou was 6:45pm to 8am. The thing about sleeper berths is that the train cart attendant will remind me when it is time to get off. How does this work? When I arrive at my bunk, I have to hand my paper train ticket to an attendant on the train and trade it in for a plastic card with my berth number on it. The attendant goes around to collect the tickets. When it is 20 minutes before my station of arrival, I have to trade it in for my paper ticket. This system allows the passengers to not miss their exit. Then at the train station exit I have to show my paper ticket at the exit gate.
The same attendant on the train also comes around regularly to sweep the floor and mop the restroom. This person also cleans out the trash and collects it from everyone. The tiny little container for trash is fitting for the train but not all that functional for the amount of trash disposed by passengers, so people make a mess. And when its water melon seeds or pumpkin seeds it is definitely all over the floor. Knowing the attendant will sweep the floor and keep it clean, people do just go right ahead and help themselves. In the sleeper berths, people don’t spit on the floor, and that is a good thing. Seeds, nuts, and instant noodles are found in everyone’s snack bags. People really like spicy beef instant noodles here. Can't find anything else beyond that and seafood flavor. I can smell the very strong portions of MSG in the noodles. Sometimes there is Sichuan spicy instant noodles that is vegan but may have onions unlisted in the ingredient list and it is spicy-spicy.
A young man from the next cabinet was ill. He threw up and had diarrhea all day. By the time he was on the train he was in cold sweat and shivering. There was no doctor on the train and they didn't have the right medicine. The family was on their way to Xi’an. They were seriously worried and it was too late to find a doctor at the next city. I decided to not mind my own business and inquired more about it. It looks to me he shouldn't have eaten 5 skewer sticks of lamb BBQ at the night market. I checked his pressure points for flu symptoms etc... nothing was inflamed other than his colon organ. In my conclusion he was seriously ill from food and nothing else.
While checking for inflamed pressure points on his body he made sure I knew he had a wife and he was not available. I found that to be very funny. Here he was sick, people all think he’d be dying and should get off the train, sweating like there is no tomorrow and a bit feverish, and all he could think of was making sure I knew he had a wife. I tried not to laugh in this very serious scene on the train.
People asked me if I was a doctor, how come I had knowledge of these things. I said it's all available in books and the best part is you can test it on yourself to see if it works. I was mainly concerned if it's more than just diarrhea, if it was then he would need to get off the train and somehow locate a hospital. So he stayed on the train and I had his wife work on his kidney, liver, colon pressure points of his foot and hands and recommended that he drink salt water. Today he was better, he stopped shivering and the fever was gone and he thanked me. Being fully literate is a big deal in China. It is a big deal to make it out of high school, and college, masters or doctors is rare. I cannot tell people I majored in Psychology, it pretty much doesn't exist in China. That's a dead give away that I am a foreigner. I tell them I studied photography, of which I did. People all think I am a tour guide for some reason, maybe it is because I speak English. When I speak English to other foreigners, inner Chinese people look at me with awe and wonder, all of a sudden I am royalty or something. It’s quite an interesting experience.
I recently dreamed I was on a train to Tibet and the scenery on the train was so beautiful that I cried and cried in joy. I have been thinking about this dream and on this particular train ride, I have decided to see if I am able to get a train ticket from Lanzhou to Tibet at the Lanzhou train station.
Showing posts with label Gansu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gansu. Show all posts
Mogao Caves at Dunhuang
I woke up and realized why I was so cold last night, the windows were left open and it didn’t notice because I arrived so late and so tired that I didn’t check behind the curtain covered windows. I headed down to the reception to check out and to complain of the hot water that was promised but didn’t really exist. I was replied with that is how it goes here. I then complained of how cold I was that the windows were left open by the service maids. There was no sympathy or any sense of service. I had already paid them the money last night and they really didn’t care that I was unhappy.
As I laid in bed last night I realized how much I much I enjoy comfort even though I can rough it and how much I like to eat well even though I can go on very little.
I had millet porridge for breakfast. The pickled vegetable was too sour for me. At the restaurant I saw two people who were also heading for the caves but they had just filled their cab with another couple. The four of them were splitting a hired car for a day for the local rate of 200 yuan.
Another patron at the restaurant who was once a cab driver now a long distance bus sleeper berth bus to Lan Zhou connected me with his brother Hsu who is still driving a taxi to take me to the caves and will also help me take care of train ticket to Lan Zhou. We agreed on 100 yuan for his service all the way to 4:30pm. The other option would be to take public bus for 8 yuan to Mogao Caves and 10 yuan to Crescent Moon Spring and 5 yuan to bus center, another 20 yuan to the train station with the grand total of 43 yuan instead of 100 yuan. However, public bus runs every hour here and there and not always on time and taking the direct route. I may risk missing my train and have to stay at the hotel for another 150 yuan and forgo my train ticket on top of that. So, I felt the cheapest and most time consuming way was go for a hired car for 100yuan.
I told my driver that I needed to go shopping for thermo wear because I was too cold and needed a thermo to hold my tea. So he took me to the right places and wasted no time and helped me out with prices too.
At the historical famous caves of painted flying Devas, my driver told me that the whole tour would take 45 minutes in the caves, well, I took two and half hours. I didn’t bring a flash light like I was suppose to. The caves are kept dark and parts of it can only be seen with flash light lit by the tour guide. The paintings on the walls looses its vibrant colors and grows dark due to oxidation. I joined three different tours just to see as much as I could. Each tour guide had different caves it visits to keep the traffic flowing.
I learned there was a cave where a monk was sealed in along with thousands of scrolls of Buddhist scriptures. This one man discovered this by accident when the sealed wall was cracked a hundred years ago. He decided he would go ahead and sell the them even though they were not his to do so and he didn’t have the authority to make such a decision. As a result, most of these important scriptures and were lost for profit of one man.
Somehow at these caves there was no translation available in English for foreigners so I stepped in and helped fellow travelers. They thanked me on how much of a difference this made to their understanding of the significance of these caves and recommended I should consider the career as a translator or a tour guide. I said they don’t pay me enough.
The paintings were amazing, intricate and detailed. I like the flow of the lines and it is these lines so well done that these caves were famous for. I hope somehow these painting will be preserved in the long run and the colors too.
As I laid in bed last night I realized how much I much I enjoy comfort even though I can rough it and how much I like to eat well even though I can go on very little.
I had millet porridge for breakfast. The pickled vegetable was too sour for me. At the restaurant I saw two people who were also heading for the caves but they had just filled their cab with another couple. The four of them were splitting a hired car for a day for the local rate of 200 yuan.
Another patron at the restaurant who was once a cab driver now a long distance bus sleeper berth bus to Lan Zhou connected me with his brother Hsu who is still driving a taxi to take me to the caves and will also help me take care of train ticket to Lan Zhou. We agreed on 100 yuan for his service all the way to 4:30pm. The other option would be to take public bus for 8 yuan to Mogao Caves and 10 yuan to Crescent Moon Spring and 5 yuan to bus center, another 20 yuan to the train station with the grand total of 43 yuan instead of 100 yuan. However, public bus runs every hour here and there and not always on time and taking the direct route. I may risk missing my train and have to stay at the hotel for another 150 yuan and forgo my train ticket on top of that. So, I felt the cheapest and most time consuming way was go for a hired car for 100yuan.
I told my driver that I needed to go shopping for thermo wear because I was too cold and needed a thermo to hold my tea. So he took me to the right places and wasted no time and helped me out with prices too.
At the historical famous caves of painted flying Devas, my driver told me that the whole tour would take 45 minutes in the caves, well, I took two and half hours. I didn’t bring a flash light like I was suppose to. The caves are kept dark and parts of it can only be seen with flash light lit by the tour guide. The paintings on the walls looses its vibrant colors and grows dark due to oxidation. I joined three different tours just to see as much as I could. Each tour guide had different caves it visits to keep the traffic flowing.
I learned there was a cave where a monk was sealed in along with thousands of scrolls of Buddhist scriptures. This one man discovered this by accident when the sealed wall was cracked a hundred years ago. He decided he would go ahead and sell the them even though they were not his to do so and he didn’t have the authority to make such a decision. As a result, most of these important scriptures and were lost for profit of one man.
Somehow at these caves there was no translation available in English for foreigners so I stepped in and helped fellow travelers. They thanked me on how much of a difference this made to their understanding of the significance of these caves and recommended I should consider the career as a translator or a tour guide. I said they don’t pay me enough.
The paintings were amazing, intricate and detailed. I like the flow of the lines and it is these lines so well done that these caves were famous for. I hope somehow these painting will be preserved in the long run and the colors too.
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