July Journal

In which I explore Eastern Tibet and the Taklamakan Desert

July 1st, 2005 Yilong
    I woke up early from strange dreams and quickly cleaned out my apartment. I gave my vast beer bottle collection to my friendly neighbor with the kid who just learned to walk in the time I was there. I also gave her my little plants. My boss and the school principle kindly came over to see me off, then it was the jolting seven hour bus ride to Chengdu. True to form, the road out of Yilong had degraded even further. In a few spots, some peasants were trying to fill in a few potholes by putting boulders in them and hammering. Chengdu is the same as ever. It’s weird to feel air-conditioning again, and to see other laowais. After checking into the notorious Traffic Hotel, I went on my annual mission to buy a musical instrument for my landlord in Portland, who is storing all my books and records. I bought him a Chinese lute or Piba. It has a solid body, lots of frets, and a little engraving of a cock and dragon chasing a primordial pearl. I managed to bargain it down from 1,200 Yuan to 900, plus insisted on a burly hard case. Tomorrow is the trip to the post office. I wonder how it will compare in glorious Kafkaesque inefficiency to the Cairo post office.
    I also walked around the city and had some interesting street snacks, including a cute little pancake with pickles, a cone of sticky rice with sugar, and some spicy noodles. I also enjoyed the first shower for many months where I could control the water temperature. In my Yilong apartment, the controls were located in another room. It’s hot and sticky here too. Wonderful cicadas have come out, and I love listening to them, heralds of high summer. Now I’ll try to trade or otherwise dispose of my small pile of English books.

July 2nd, 2005 Chengdu
    A busy day. I succeeded in mailing the Piba and my own hoard of crap. The woman at the post office was very friendly, and we had fun communicating the words cassette and chess via gestures. These were the contents of my package. Then I walked up to the cloth market to buy some fabric for a strap for my manpurse. It began to rain and thunder heavily. I stayed inside and sewed on the strap, sitting in the lobby of my hotel. I talked with an interesting Czechoslovakian traveler about Kham. He had traveled there extensively and knew about the places I wanted to go. I traded the rest of my books for beer. Now I’m disburthened of crap and ready to hit Kangding tomorrow.

July 3rd, 2005 Kangding
    Last night was rather odd. I talked with my Czech roommate for a while, then went to sleep. All night it rained heavily and thundered. Sometime in the dead of night, an appalling noise erupted. An obese Japanese guy in another bed started snoring loudly. This woke us all up, and continued for about an hour and a half. I had plenty of time to meditate on some interesting questions related to snoring. How can they make all that noise and not wake themselves up. Sometimes it’s just ridiculously loud, almost like shouting. And a more pressing question: how is it that natural selection has failed to eliminate this terrible habit, along with its practitioners? I would think and hope that anyone who made such a racket while unconscious would be swiftly 86ed from the gene pool. Even weirder, this guy’s snoring was occasionally interrupted by a bizarre noise like that of a mechanical frog. Was this some sort of device attached to him, or was he making this noise himself? At last, he rolled over, and I got a few more hours of sleep.
    In the morning, I made the seven-hour bus ride up to Kangding in the mountains. In the lowlands near Chengdu, I saw some flooding, and a huge triangular billboard blown over. On the way up here, the bus climbed up steep, narrow gorges with an extremely powerful black roiling river rushing right below the cliff-like edge of the road. I’d never seen a river that big and strong before. In many places, the road was covered in landslides. At one point, a rock bigger than a truck sat demurely square in one lane. The vegetation was heavy, damp and enclosing. Then, at some point, we went through a very long tunnel, and when we finally came out into the daylight again, it seemed like the world had gotten 100 times bigger. Our little bus was now a tiny dot in an enormous landscape of towering green mountains, tumbling rivers, and fast clouds. This change in the sense of space was quite dramatic.
    Now I’m sitting on the balcony of my hotel in Kangding, looking out over the town. It has a sort of old-West feeling, except all the cowboys are wearing purple dresses. These would be the Tibetan monks. The women weave red wool into their long black hair. These Eastern Tibetans, or Khampas, are generally quite large and imposing folk. In this town, they are still a minority to the Han, but not by too much. The city itself has two fast rivers racing through it, and big mountains all around.

Fourth of July, 2005 Kangding
    This day I explored the environs of Kangding. I walked up part of a mountain called Paoma Shan, and found a large white chorten there. A Tibetan woman who was walking around it said “Tashi Dele” (Hello) to me. At first I though she was gong to try to sell something to me, then I noticed that she was circumambulating the chorten many times. This place is real. I wanted to walk up the big mountain, and indeed I found a path under construction that got me well up into the clouds, but it terminated well before any peak. I went back down, past the toiling Tibetan work crews and their female auxiliary tea support. The mountains around here remind me of those in Scotland, only bigger. Also, they are covered in a dense, forest-like scrubbery featuring blue flowers. Back in town, I visited a temple behind my hotel. Although small, it was awesome, and totally blew away any temple I’d seen in China in terms of vibrancy and active practice. You spin prayer wheels when entering. Right near the front door, off to one side, was a small dark room filled with old people pushing around an enormous prayer wheel and chanting. That sight alone was striking. Many monks were busy hanging huge banners around the central courtyard. In the main temple, two old monks were chanting hypnotic chants. Hundreds of gold Buddhas lined the walls. I went into another room that featured an enormous Buddha covered in blinding gold and brilliant colors- orange, blue, yellow and green. Around this was a series of excellent new paintings that featured great background detail in depth and intricate clouds. I looked at these in amazement for a while, then looked back at the two-story central statue. It seemed to move around subtly when I looked at it, in a way I’d seen other idols do, such as the Artemis of Ephesus.
    Next, I tried to walk to some hot springs a few miles out of town. The walk was pleasant. I saw ganja plants growing wild by the roadside. It always makes me happy to see marijuana growing happily to itself. I didn’t find any hot springs, only a sort of enclosed pavilion with lots of Tibetan women dancing. The Tibetans sure love to dance. They are such an interesting people. I love to look at their dramatic costumes and postures. At some point, some people gave me a ride in their car, although I had no idea where we were going. I just noticed their wild Tibetan dress, and knew it would be OK to get in their car.
    Back in town, some Chinese folks invited me and two other Americans out to a Tibetan dinner. We had all kinds of interesting Tibetan dishes, as well as the famous Tibetan yak-butter tea, which tasted like cheese. It was quite good.
    I found this print on the ground while walking up the mountain. Many were hanging from tree branches. There is something so stark and numinous about printing. Thus, the goal of this stage of my trip is the Dege printing monastery, many days of grueling busrides away.

July 5th, 2005 Kangding
    This day, I bought my ticket for tomorrow’s twelve hour bus-ride to GANZE. Next, supplied with some water and round Tibetan bread, I set off to climb the mountain on the North side of town. I walked up past graveyards and more ganja plants. I was able to get about half way up before getting bogged down in shrubbery. Aside from the MJ, I saw several other interesting new plants, including one with scarlet thorns and hairs. I waded through soft, heavy, luxuriant vegetation. The air up there had a beautiful, clear alpine smell of pine trees, wildflowers and cold wind. Mostly, clouds hid the mountaintops, but at one point I could see some towering snowy peaks off to the West.
    I came back down to town and ate some spicy noodles, before walking to the town’s largest monastery. This place was really incredible, both for its new artwork, and ongoing Buddhist noise music. The inner sanctum was filled with monks banging gongs and blowing horns. I didn’t want to disturb their ritual, so I listened from outside while looking at the paintings. I’d seen a lot of Buddhist art in books, but the paintings here were probably the best I’d seen. They were very new, in bright, deep colors, and the figures had a depth and realism lacking in the more traditional paintings. One side had a giant wheel of life featuring the six realms in intricate detail. In each one, the Buddha appeared, saying, “get out!” He even manifested as a hungry ghost. On the other side was a weird image of circular lands and seas, which perhaps represented a map of the cosmos. Also a lavish and alluring nagini. It’s cool that these works are being done today in the old tradition, and even to some extent excelling the older works. Monks were wandering around, smelling flowers. Coolest of all-right outside the main entrance to the inner temple was the hugest, most vibrant and flourishing marijuana plant I’d ever seen. It was at least six feet tall and wide, with gigantic leaves. Some kids stood nearby it, studying their Tibetan. On my way out, some monks tried to show me how to do this ritual they were doing. I did it wrong, so they made me try again with my eyes closed. Not sure what that was all about. Now I’ll head off and try to get some photos of Kangding and its super stylish inhabitants. The Tibetan costume reminds me a little of the old European peasant fancy dress seen in old ethnographies. It features lots of embroidery in brilliant colors, fancy boots, and wild headdresses. There is something so interesting seeing someone dressed like that, or a Tibetan monk, shopping for CDs or wearing sunglasses.

July 6th, 2005 Ganze
    Today featured an 11 hour bus-ride from Kangding to Ganze, a few hundred miles to the North. I really think it was the most beautiful bus-ride of my life. I didn’t know that there was land like this. Huge green mountains, occasionally breaking out into rocks, fields and meadows of blue flowers, dotted with black tents and yaks. The sky was dead blue with incredibly bright clouds. All sorts of beasts cropped the short, flowery turf. Tall poplars lined the occasionally paved road. It would have been excellent for biking. We passed through several totally Tibetan villages. The old West theme even extends to pool tables. This town, Ganze, is so incredibly Real. I feel like I can visit various countries and make snide comments about them, but this place is so far beyond anything I’ve seen. It’s difficult to describe how intense and weather-beaten all the people are. Everyone has long black hair with huge crazy bone ornaments. I’ve never seen faces like this, except in old daguerreotypes of frontier pioneers. Wizened, crabbed and hale, with a fearsome gaze. All the men carry huge daggers in the folds of their robes. The few Chinese people about look scared, and even more out of place than I do. At least a quarter of all the people on the street are monks in full regalia. Huge snowy mountains ring the horizon. Birds circle overhead. I think I will stay here for several days. Right now, I cannot really come to grips with the intensity of the Tibetan world. Right after I got off the bus, some people asked to take my picture with a group of Tibetan women. When you are in a strange land, you take pictures of the people, but when you are in a really strange land, the people take pictures of you. As soon as I dumped my pack in a hotel room, I walked for half a block, feeling like I’d slipped into another universe.
    Then I met a local student who showed me around town and took me to two amazing temples, which I lack the energy to attempt to describe, what with the long bus-ride, getting up at 5 AM, and the altitude. Ganze is at about 12,000 feet.

temple

July 7th, 2005 Ganze
    Last night I was very tired, but somehow unable to sleep. It was weird-I could get to the hypnogogic state, where spontaneous images start to emerge, but I just stayed there instead of dropping off. I felt some of the old big/small illusion that I used to get in childhood fevers. But I woke up feeling fine, and set off to visit another monastery. Once again, I hadn’t gotten 100 feet out of my hotel before someone latched onto me and showed me all around. This young fellow couldn’t speak any English except for “Yes” but we got along just fine with my rudimentary Chinese. He showed me all around a huge monastery above town. It featured an enormous tree sculpture of hundreds of Buddhas, arhats, vajrayoginis, yabyums and so on. It was several stories tall, and brightly painted. The monks let me take a photo. We also saw endless dusty rooms absolutely crammed with ancient paintings and sculptures. On the roof was a giant 3-D mandala, indescribably ornamented. The view of the town, with its surrounding green hills, blue river, and huge mountains, was awesome. Then my guide took me back to his house, or at least to a house, where we drank hot water on the Tibetan couch. The whole interior of the room was crammed with religious and ornamental pictures, including many of oddly-hatted lamas. Tibetan interiors remind me a bit of the old student organization offices at my college. Everything is brightly colored and worn down from years of use.
    Next we played some pool, which was fun. They play a version of nine-ball. Shooting pool is very popular with the Buddhist monks, yak-herders and nomads. After I made a few good shots, a big crowd gathered around to watch, but then I lost. We ate some noodles, then I came back to my hotel. It’s still before noon.
    4:47 PM Next I walked South and crossed the big river on a long suspension bridge, I passed through a pleasant poplar forest, past monks washing their robes, barley fields, free-range piglets and farmers, up to some ruined earth-walled buildings. I walked around in the foothills, amazed at the appearance of everything. The sky was an unusually deep blue with brilliant white clouds unfolding themselves. The short, soft grass was covered in wildflowers of all colors- purple, blue, yellow, orange and pink. Fierce snowy mountains towered above the bright green hills. Monks in crimson robes strolled down from their adobe palaces. A black thunderstorm raged above a high peak. You can walk for miles across this short, pleasant, thornless, flowery turf, unimpeded by thickets or scrubberies. I made plans to climb to various places in the coming days. Back in town, I shopped for a cowboy hat to keep off the blistering sun. I found one in a store staffed by three Tibetan women. Some sort of very ancient and impressive lama in a pointy yellow hat strongly encouraged me to buy it, so I did. Also sunglasses. That ancient Lama, and many other people I see around the town, have turned a very deep brown from the sun. Almost black, in fact. I wonder if I could ever turn that color. My forearms are making the attempt. I walked up to the hill over the town and looked out over the swift river, eating some local round bread. I think this river drains into the Yangze, which goes through Chongqing and Shanghai.

tsampa

July 8th, 2005 Ganze
    This day featured my all-time favorite activity. That is, waking up early, getting some bread and water, then heading out to walk in the mountains. My destination was a sort of stupa high up on a green mountain North of town. I walked through barley fields and started climbing up. When I was high up, a boy appeared and invited me to visit his father, who was sitting on a nearby prominence. I guess they were watching their yaks. The wizened, happy old fellow gave me some buns and a taste of the famous Tibetan tsampa- roasted barley flower mixed with tea and yak butter. It was quite good in a simple, smoky kind of way. These khampas are a noble, good-looking people, tall and strong with powerful features. The Chinese seem shrimpy, pale and weak in comparison. I think they look even more out of place here than I do. Anyways, I took a photo and continued my walk.
    I had to walk slowly because of the altitude. The town is at 12,000 feet, and I was up a few 1,000 feet more. At one point I came out onto an immense meadow of short grass. I felt like I was on top of a vast flowery sphere, whose edge dropped off into vales of darkness on all sides. Very slowly, I climbed to the top, where a small pile of rocks and prayer flags stood. Many birds were there. I watched rain approach from across the valley. Soon it was raining, and I went back down. The rain helped my hat fit better. About halfway down, I watched the rain blow off into the East, and the sun came out into a blue sky. I dried off. Back in town, I bought a poster of the Potala, and ate some veggie noodles at a kung-fu noodle bar. I love eating a big bowl of noodles with nomads and monks, all watching some Hong-Kong ultraviolence super loud on TV. Tibetans come up to me on the street and try to sell me their knives, jewelry, and bone hair ornaments. This town definitely has a rough feeling, and I really have to compose myself and collect my aura before walking out into the streets. Giant nomads with long hair, bone jewelry, big knives and fierce stares can be a bit daunting, but oddly enough, the most common difficulty is excessive hospitality.
    8:52 PM I spent most of this afternoon hanging out with the local kids. I was on my way up to the big monastery to check out the view, when a gang of kids suddenly erupted from an adobe house and pulled me in. We went through a sort of lumber room, and into a cozy bedroom decorated with pictures of Chinese pop stars. There was a wonderful picnic spread out, including sticky buns, sunflower seeds, plums, sausages, candy and watermelon. The kids tried to fill me up as much as possible. One girl was a student in Kangding and could speak English, so we had a little chat. I took my leave supplied with a watermelon slice and went up to the monastery, where a monk tried to charge me 35 Yuan to go in. Fortunately, I’d been all over the place yesterday with my local friend. All the mountains were clear of clouds for the first time. Next I followed the river upstream to what I assumed is a Buddhist nunnery, from the amount of nun traffic to it. I’ve been seeing a lot of nuns around lately. They all have shaved heads and dress like the monks.
    On my way back down, it started to thunder and rain heavily. Fortunately, I noticed a small, dry cave just around the cliffside. I went in and sat down on a rock to wait out the storm. After a while, a little girl with a red plastic bag on her head popped around the corner and entered the cave. She said “Hello” and looked like she was around five years old. We sat patiently in the cave together for a long time, watching the storm. We built little towers and houses out of pebbles and sticks. I love how kids around that age don’t really need language to communicate. I don’t feel like a foreigner hanging out with them. We watched wet people pass by, including two nuns who looked a bit worried to see us in the cave together, but they laughed when they saw our little towers. The storm continued. After a while a troop of boisterous boys came in. We ate peas from their pockets. One boy had a baseball cap on, with a wad of fluorescent gum stuck to the brim for safekeeping. After more waiting, the rain finally tapered off, and I bid them all goodbye. I went back into town and ate some su mien or veggie noodles, then went out onto the suspension bridge to wait for dark. Now, back in my hotel room, two Chinese guys are in the other beds, evincing considerable fascination with the diary-writing process.

July 9th, 2005 Ganze
    This day I tried to hike up another big mountain, but was driven back by a big rainstorm. I didn’t see much because of the clouds, but one interesting event did occur. I came up over a hill and looked down onto a green valley. I saw what I thought were four large yaks grazing there. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed them moving about in a strange hopping fashion, but didn’t pay much attention. When I looked at them more closely, I was staggered. Holy shit! Those are BIRDS! I had no idea they made birds anywhere that big. From shoulder to shoulder, they were about two feet across, and about four or five feet long! They were like giant, tawny-colored emus or something. As I walked up to the spot where they were picking at a yak carcass, I found one of their feathers on the ground. I took that as a sign to go no closer. When I put it in my hat, they spread their enormous wings, took off one by one, and soared away. That was certainly one of my most powerful encounters with wild animals. I got absolutely soaked up there, and only barely managed to stagger back into town, with the aid of a motorcycle ride offered by a friendly local.
    I ate some noodles and bought another pair of pants. For some reason, I thought I could get by with one. I tried to buy a ticket out of here, but Meiyo (not have). Looks like another day in the Wild West tomorrow. I just love entering one of these dark, beat-up old noodle bars and sitting down on the benches with monks, nomads and cowboys, watching kung-fu and eating noodles. Often big crowds gather on the street outside to watch the kung-fu. I can tell the locals are interested in seeing all those guns, cars and cities-that whole world they’ve never seen, while I find their awesome weather-beaten faces and tribal gear way more interesting than the Hong Kong flash and glitter.

July 10th, 2005 Ganze
    Apparently a bus leaves for Dege tomorrow at 6 AM, although this information was qualified by some jabber I didn’t understand. Hopefully it didn’t mean “only yaks and nomads allowed.” Maybe I’ll have to hitch-hike. This morning it was still raining, so I bought an umbrella and went on a long walk along the small river North of town. Strangely, a certain brown dog followed me for miles, all the way out there and back. I don’t know if it befriended me, or if it thought it was herding me. At one point, I saw it rolling wildly on the ground up ahead. Reaching the spot, I found a flattened dead toad. Back in town, I ate some noodles and visited the old temple again.
    There is a certain fun protocol to visiting Tibetan temples. In this instance, you, the pilgrim, must first walk around the temple in a clockwise fashion, spinning the prayer wheels mounted on the outer wall. There is a dark, mysterious corridor for this purpose. It’s quite atmospheric to join the chanting crones and wizened, hobbit-like pilgrims in this circumambulation (kora). The prayer wheels are large metal cylinders covered in Tibetan script and containing myriads of printed prayers. When you spin the wheel, the prayers are considered to be activated. Each has a wooden piece on the bottom, shaped something like a blunted swastika, allowing the wheel to be turned by hand. The wooden piece is worn smooth and polished a deep, glossy black by years and years of pilgrim’s hands. It’s quite sensual to feel. It is rather easy to fall into a deep trance walking along the dark corridor, spinning the wheels. That’s the purpose, I guess. I’ve been doing it a lot. After doing this kora any number of times, you can go into the inner hall, which is totally covered in giant, intricate, mind-blowing Buddhist wall paintings, featuring demons, vajrayoginis, bloody skulls, conch shells, parasols, vajras, and multi-armed, and eyed couples locked in intercourse, festooned with limbs and skulls, dancing on bodies. The first time I went there, I asked the caretaker, through my Tibetan pal, who painted these murals. He said that the person who painted them died a very long time ago, and that the temple god came here to instruct him what to paint.
    Next, you can go up a few stairs to the central shrine. This has another, inner corridor for circumambulation, also lined with prayer wheels. After completing that inner kora, you can enter the main shrine, which has its own innermost kora, lined with extremely ancient murals, almost entirely obscured by deep layers of dust and soot. Who knows what they depict. After that kora, you bow before the central god, an enormous squat demon with barred fangs, adorned with Christmas lights and illuminated plastic disks featuring lamas. What relation, if any, this demon has with Buddhism is entirely unclear to me. Before him is a large tub filled with precious stones and jewelry donated by pilgrims. Also a row of donated watches and other shiny things hangs nearby. The whole experience is intensely surreal and addictive. I’ve visited this temple three times since I’ve been here. This last time, some monks and pilgrims were having a picnic right in the central shrine. The design of the temple has some similarity to that of the ancient Egyptian temples, in that the visitor walks higher and higher, up to smaller and darker rooms. This is apparently a very ancient architectural device for inducing trance and awe. All the spinning wheels and walking around and around in the gloom induces a state of mind that makes the final appearance of the central deity all the more brilliant and astounding. Perhaps these circular movements are also related to Sufi trance spinning, but I think it must also derive from a much more ancient, pan-Eurasian practice of round dances and navigating labyrinths. Plotinus wrote that the circular movement is characteristic of things trying to reach the center, but which cannot. Perhaps like a lover circling his beloved’s house.
begger

    On the Eastern outskirts of town is another temple with a huge chorten or stupa. It sits high above the river plain, with an awesome view of the vast mountains all around. There is an outer kora around the whole compound, then two inner koras on higher levels of the chorten. According to my pal, in this place there was some kind of massive eruption of light or energy from deep underground, so the chorten was built. I’ve also visited this temple three times. I love doing the kora, which is a sort of walking meditation. In fact, since I didn’t have much to do today except wait for my clothes to dry off, I spent the afternoon wandering around to various temples and doing their koras.
    Across the river was another huge new chorten that you could go inside and circumambulate on several levels. It was in what appeared to be an abandoned, overgrown monastery, but lots of old lady pilgrims were there doing their koras. They unlocked and opened up the main shrines for me to see. The topmost shrine featured a woman with multiple heads. Most of the pilgrims are old women, who are actually quite beautiful in a hale and wizened way. Some have their long hair in 108 braids. They radiate a peaceful, focused energy. So often, it seems that old people become bitter and crabbed as their habitual expressions of aversion or distaste become engraved on their faces. By contrast, these ancient crones seem happy and inwardly focused. I think they actually do accumulate merit by doing all these koras and pilgrimages and spinning of prayer wheels.

July 11th, 2005
    This day I got up at 5:30 AM, determined to make it out of Ganze, despite the dire tunes of the ticket sellers. All the busses, however, were bound to points East, back into China. I decided to stand around until the shops opened, buy some serious raingear, and try to hitch-hike West. Failing that, there was always the bike shop. I stood for a while with a small group of forlorn, rain-soaked travelers- a monk, two nuns, and some greasy nomads. It turned out that we all wanted to go to Dege, so we hired a meecrobus for 75 Yuan each and set off. The monk sat shotgun, and I sat next to a nun the whole way. In the back were two Khampas and a Japanese kid trying to get to Lhasa. At first, the young nun and I were a bit afraid of each other, but after a while, we were merrily bouncing off of one another and laughing as the bus sped over potholes. She wore one of those curious collapsible monastic hats. After many hours of bouncing around, the bus began a long climb up to the high Chola pass at 5050 meters, or 16,000 feet. The narrow dirt road crawled up long switchbacks with classic, harrowing drops on the side. The mountains up there had many narrow fingers of rock. Once we got over the pass, the road passed through a steep gorge for a long time before arriving at Dege.
    Despite the fact that Dege has only two streets, it took me a long time of wandering in the rain to find a hotel. Maybe I was just grumpy from a long bus-ride and lack of food, but I concluded that Dege must be one of the most horrific pits on the planet. The main street varies in composition between sections of skull-sized rocks and an open pit of mud and trash. Pedestrians must walk along narrow, warped planks and climb little wooden ladders. All sorts of pipes stick out of the buildings, gushing noxious effluvia onto passersby. Laborers toil in the waterlogged trenches, and diesel tractors plow through the mud. It looks like the Western front. I can only regret the absence of razor wire and rat-gnawed corpses, for these would complete the effect marvelously. In addition, the whole town is clotted into a claustrophobic valley with steep, thorny sides. There are more Chinese about than in Ganze. Tomorrow I’ll have to visit the “internationally revered printing lamasery” to see if the scary ride out here was worth it. Right now, I’m boycotting the outside world, with its five consecutive days of rain.
    So, I think the Chinese are quite afraid of the Tibetans, who are so much larger and more rough and ready, not to mention mysterious. The Chinese seem like pale, soft little dolls in comparison. I’ve heard someone say that Tibetans are like the black people of China. It’s funny to see the way the Tibetans tease and freak out the little immigrant Chinese shopkeepers and restaurant owners. Like they’ll walk into a restaurant and stand in the middle, talking in Tibetan and not ordering anything, while the Chinese owners peek out from the kitchen. Or else they’ll come sit right next to a Chinese shopkeeper and keep elbowing him in the side while talking and laughing. I haven’t seen any overt hostility between them though, only this subtle mockery.
    Today I had the first chance in a long while to get a look at myself in a mirror. As the bus waited for road repairs near the top of the pass, I looked into the rear-view mirror. My nose has a sort of Hiroshima look going on now, with many layers of peeling skin and bloody scabs. The sun really burned me in the days before I got my hat. Also, there has been no sign of a shower since I left Kangding. That’s not too surprising, as it’s a well-known fact that bathing of all sorts is anathema to Tibetans. I’ve also not had an English conversation in many days, and I can feel the verbiage building up inside me.
    9:37 PM After penning these derogatory remarks, I noticed that the rain had stopped, so I went out for a walk around the town. As I passed a pool hall, some young Tibetans gestured for me to come over. I ended up playing a marathon game of 9-ball in front of a sizable crowd. Now, why would a game of 9-ball take half an hour to play, you might well be entitled to enquire? Consider that the felt bears more resemblance to Astroturf than to the accustomed smooth surface. In fact, perhaps the felt of Tibetan pool tables resembles the rolling grasslands of Kham itself, in which any wandering nomads, or approximately spherical objects would often be inclined to deviate from their appointed courses, to visit pleasant hollows, or shy away from rising prominences. The cues and tables were so warped as to bring to mind the possibility of their having been submerged in the habitat of rabid amphibious gerbils for extended periods of time. The balls themselves appeared to have been repeatedly shot out of small cannon into stone walls, such was their cratered surface. Finally, the pool hall itself was so narrow that it was impossible to take any shot from the sides of the table. For this purpose a splintered half of a cue, about three feet long, was especially employed. All these variables combined to favor a slap-bang, swashbuckling, frontier style of play. Soon, lots of Navajo-looking Tibetans were crowded around to watch. They were impressed by my practiced bridge, but not by the way in which my delicate shots failed to reach their targets. Nevertheless, I managed to win the game with a long bank shot. A fun time was had by all. To use a West-coast expression, they were like “Dude! I’m playing pool with an American! How cool is that?” and I was like “Dude! I’m playing pool with Tibetans! How cool is that?” After that excitement, I went up and did a kora of the printing Lamasary, then found an internet café and contacted residents of the Great Satan.

July 12th, 2005
    This morning I visited the printing monastery above town. After doing a few koras, I went in. I noticed that the price of admission had been reduced from 50, to 35, to 25 Yuan. On the ground floor were two unilluminated temples filled with construction rubble. Upstairs was where all the action was going on. First I walked through the vast, dark library of woodblock texts. These were all carved in minute, reversed Tibetan letters onto paddle-shaped wooden blocks. They were stacked high on endless dusty shelves. I didn’t seen much in the way of a catalog system, so I guess the librarians just knew where everything was. In the middle of the building, about twenty young men were furiously printing off texts, working in teams of two. One inked the block, while the other rolled over it with a roller, and dealt with the paper. After busting off a number of prints from one block, they switched to another. I guess they were doing several copies of a book at once. Supposedly, the library holds more than 10,000 complete books in various languages, on diverse subjects such as astrology, religion and medicine. If only the ancient Romans had come up with something so simple as woodblock printing, so much more would have survived. In other rooms, people were making ink, cutting paper and pressing books. In one section, some older men were printing large beautiful illustrations, using enormous wooden blocks. I ended up buying two of these for 60 Yuan each. They are so cool, I really hope they make it home safely. Up on the roof, boys were painting the blocks with a substance like butter. The whole monastery was filled with grotesque, rich Chinese or Asian tourists in fluorescent North Face jackets, all holding digital apparatus to their faces, taking pictures and arguing in the narrow staircases. Despite all the “No Photo” signs, they were all flashing away constantly, trying to navigate the corridors by staring at the screens of the machines. What total morons. Across the street from the monastery were the workshops where the blocks were carved. I went over and the workers tried to sell me their old woodblocks. I didn’t think it would be ethical to buy them.
    This afternoon, I took a walk South of Town, but saw nothing aside from a desiccated yak carcass. Later I had a nice walk up a valley to the East past the temple. Finally, a sunny day. At this altitude, the sky has an unusually deep blue color, against which the clouds look especially white as they billow out from themselves. The air in Tibet has an unusual quality. It is so clean, pure and cool, smelling of flowers and yak butter. Also, it’s quite rarified, so that even after a week up here, I still have to walk rather more slowly than usual when going uphill. After that walk, I played some more pool with the local sharpshooters, and ate a supper of veggie noodles. Also, I wrote letters to the grandparents while sitting in front of the printing temple. Tomorrow I’ll try to make it back over the pass to Manigangno.

July 13th, 2005
    Today I arose early and caught a meecrobus over the high pass to the awesome, old-West town of Manigangno. I shared the ride with two monks and a Korean woman and her son. Manigangno is a little one street town that feels far more Old West than anything in the states. Log cabins line the main drag, and cowboys shoot pool on outdoor tables, frequently sending the balls careening off into the dust. Dogs and feral kids with dreadlocks roam the streets. The sound of intermittent gunfire rings out from noodle bars. A large mountain stands to the South of town, and when I arrived, I decided to climb it. That proved to be more of an ordeal than I expected, but I made it to the top. The high altitude is a strange thing. If I’m walking along level ground, I don’t notice it at all, but going up even a small slope is exhausting. What looks like a quick, five-minute dash up a valley side ends up being a 45 minute, old-man style slog, with frequent breaks. Once I made it about three quarters of the way up the mountain, I really started to feel the altitude. I noticed a bi-hemispheric headache (unusual for me), some loss of co-ordination, and confused thought. My hearing got a bit weird. However, I judged I could make it to the top without collapsing, and so it proved. From up there, I could see lots of really tall peaks off to the West, some more than 6,000 meters. I recited poems to focus myself- the first sura of the Koran, the beginning of the Iliad, Alone by E. A. Poe. After standing on the peak, I started back down quickly. At one point, I watched one of those giant birds circling far below. It kept spiraling around, and without flapping once, soon rose far above me. Another odd effect of the altitude is that a mountain that takes four hours to get up takes only about 45 minutes to get down. If I’d had a mountain bike, I could have been down in three minutes. Again, I saw many amazing flowers up there, including orange and purple daisies. Also a giant hare and some woodchuck type animals. The summit had its own minute ecology of little 5mm tall succulent plants. Back in town, I sewed together my new pants, which had already started to fall apart.

View from the mountain above Manigangno

July 15th, 2005 Yushu
Yesterday, I let myself sleep a bit late, although I’ve found that getting up at 5:30 AM is quite useful for getting out of these busless Kham towns. I wandered down to the crossroads to see if I could get a ride North. Where the three roads met, a crowd of loafing cowboys was gathered with their luggage in woven plastic sacks. Many dogs rolled under the lopsided pool tables, or rotted in the gutter, depending on their state of health. My plan was to go North about 50 km to the Dzogchen monastery, home to a unique Nyingmapa school of Tibetan Buddhism. They posit something like a primordial oneness, a Heraclitan monad. After about an hour and a half of waiting, a tiny bus, already half full, pulled up and was instantly mobbed. I failed to stampede the requisite number of women and children to get on, and so settled down for more waiting at the crossroads. During the subsequent hours of waiting, I observed and became very familiar with the crossroads and its inhabitants. Two magnificently dressed Tibetan women in particular attracted my attention. They had very long hair in braids, and were covered in coral and turquoise jewelry. One was breastfeeding a tiny baby inside her chuba (very long-sleeved Tibetan coat). She sometimes fed it noodles, which ended up in its hair. A loudspeaker started playing Tibetan lute music. The shadows receeded as noon neared. The gas station owner’s wife sorted out rotten potatoes. At some point, an orange and green canvas covered truck full of monks arrived. They claimed not to be going my way. I settled back for more waiting. I decided to just take any transport North and forget about Dzogchen.
truck

    After about four hours of waiting, I noticed some activity near the orange and green truck, which was still parked by the roadside. I saw the woman with the baby climbing into the back. I knew she was headed my way, so I ran over and quickly negotiated a ride to Yushu in Qinghai Province for 100 Yuan. I jumped in the back, the driver tied down the canvas, and we were on our way. The woman was happy to see I’d finally gotten a ride too, as we had both been waiting the whole time together. Also in the back were two greasy Tibetans, armed with huge knives. We lay back on the lumpy cargo and watched the sky and clouds pass by. Just what were these myriad cylindrical lumps on which we reclined? Investigation showed them to be rolls of ragged newsprint covered in Tibetan text, on which a single mantra was repeated millions of times. Each roll was wrapped up in paper with red letters bearing more mantras. Our truck must have been transporting several billion Om Mani Padme Hums. The ride was bumpy, but it was actually somewhat sublime to lie back on the mantras, stretch out one’s legs, and watch the superwhite clouds roll by. Yet something was missing, something crucial to transport in Tibet- Monks! Soon enough, four young monks climbed in and sprawled out on the mantras. Then, a short while later, a Tibetan family with two boys, and several other people climbed in. Now there were 13 people in the back, bouncing around, sprawling in an indiscriminate heap.
    I love the way Tibetans dress, for it is a beautiful combination of being very lavish and dirty at the same time. Every one has jewel-encrusted daggers and little silver purses hanging off their chubas, and bone ornaments in their long hair. Dreadlocks are common here too. We drove for six hours without stopping, until we arrived at Serxu, a town in the far West of Sichuan Province. The landscape featured tall rolling hills and mountains, dotted with black tents and yaks. All this while, the kids never complained. I took a picture right before Serxu, during our first urination break. After eating dinner, we piled in and drove on. Several important-looking monks, riding up front, got off at an enormous and new-looking monastery a little past Serxu. Now it was only four monks and I in the back. We drove on into the night, and arrived at about half past midnight. That was 13 hours bouncing around back there with the monks and mantras. It’s actually quite tiring to ride in the back of such a truck, because you have to constantly hold on and push with various muscles in your legs and toes in order to stay upright.
    I shared a room in the bus station hotel with an elder monk, and woke up in the morning to explore the famous Yushu, Datong of the West. It’s a gangrenous pustule of a town, the kind of place that would be much improved by the detonation of a hydrogen bomb in the centre ville. Yushu confirms my belief that industrial civilization must be obliterated. What kind of thing are humans, that we take a beautiful, green valley, and turn it into a smog-choked pit, filled with raw human shit? Tractors belching black exhaust ply the streets. Some truck spraying water drove by and soaked me. I was too busy trying to evade the piles of shit and beast-corpses that littered the unpaved sidewalk to notice it coming in time. It’s a mostly Han town, but there are still lots of Tibetans about. Men stand haggling over piles of yak skins, and women sell little jars of yak butter. I really need to find a bank here so I can get enough money to leave.
    This afternoon, a wind came and blew away the cloud of coal smoke and exhaust that had hung over Yushu, bringing a return of the intense blue and white sky of Kham. In these conditions, the town does have a certain gritty appeal, especially in the feral-looking Tibetans lounging around. I’ve noticed that even in very Tibetan towns, all the restaurant owners and shopkeepers are still Chinese. I think that in Tibetan culture, these occupations must seem somehow unmanly. The Tibetans are nomads, farmers, truck drivers, mechanics, monks and nuns. The traditional methods of trade in Tibet involve pilgrims and nomads carrying goods inside their long chubas. Merely sitting in some little shop or kitchen is an undignified degradation, a fact which the Tibetans seem to be pointing out when they stride into one of these places in their long robes and flashy jewelry. The Tibetan method of trade involves standing outside in groups and haggling en masse.

I was eating some noodles in this restaurant when these Tibetan gangsters strode in and scared the Chinese cook and his wife into the back room. They sat down at my table and proceeded to inspect the contents of all my pockets in a curious, non-threatening way. They lifted up my pant leg to inspect my freakishly hairy epidermis. Only after these inspections did I work up the courage to ask them all to come outside for a photograph.

    I went up to some of these groups to see what was going on. Peering over the ornamented locks, I saw huge yellow stones, bejeweled belts, daggers and purses changing hands, often hidden in the long sleeves of the chuba. I noticed a particular hum of this activity near the yak statue in the center of town, and went over to investigate. A fierce trade was raging in an unidentifiable commodity resembling moldy dried caterpillars and twigs. Once the vendors saw me looking, a large crowd formed around me, all proffering their bags of dried up larvae. I retreated in confusion, saying “Wo bu dong!” (I don’t understand!). Chinese women were selling amulets with pictures of various lamas, and I invested in two of these. I seem to be buying a lot of crap in Tibet. Their style appeals to me so much. Aside from these amulets, I bought about 12 big weird posters, and a big Tibetan knife with an ornamented sheath. Although it’s super cool, it deprived me of 200 Yuan, which I could certainly use. After buying my ticket to Xining, I’ve only got 44 Yuan left-about 5 USD.
    I did find a branch of my bank, but after three attempts I was unable to withdraw any money from it. First, it was closed for lunch. When I went back, I found a crowd of about 40 men, all pushing, trying to reach two six-inch square windows. Peering over their heads, I could see two women behind the bars. They were slowly counting out by hand huge stacks of small bills, removing the worn notes, and filling out various diaphanous paperwork in quintuplicate. Each customer took about ten minutes to deal with. Two times I pushed my way to the front of the crowd, once even managing to get close enough to touch the counter, but rushed out in disgust as the dwarvish bodies wormed in ahead of me, pressing on all sides. When a customer was finished, he had immense difficulty pressing his way back out of the crowd. They were like diseased cattle fighting for space at a tiny trough. It was the most incredible instance of massive organizational incompetence I’d ever seen in any country. Just that image of ten hands clutching wads of cash and bankbooks, all pushing through the tiny window, encapsulates why China is still so firmly rooted in the third world. I did manage to buy a somewhat sketchy bus ticket with my last two 100-Yuan notes. A little boy followed me all around the bus station, and outside of it, clinging to my leg and clutching at my hand. After a long while of this, I picked him up by both hands and started swinging him in a circle. I watched as his face changed from total glee, to uncertainty, to unmasked panic, as the g-forces increased. I let go of one hand and spun him by one arm. When I set him down, he seemed somewhat disoriented. After this experiment, I noticed a 100% decrease in his following and leg-clinging behavior.
    Later, I walked about 10 minutes out of town, up into a beautiful silent valley where I watched the moon and clouds, and the undulations of the rolling barley fields.

As I was walking in the hills above Yushu, these girls spotted me from a long way off and ran over, demanding to be photographed.

July 17th, 2005 Xining
    Yesterday featured a 22-hour sleeper busride from Yushu to Xining, capitol of the vast but obscure Qinghai Province. As we drove North, the flowery rolling hills became flat, brown grasslands, then grey eroded mountains. As we neared Xining, I noticed that the opposite lane of the highway, now paved at last, had been blocked off and was lined with lounging civilians and many police. Was this the beginning of a Muslim revolt? In one bit, tribal dancers on stilts and young communist pioneers lined the road. Then, in about 2 seconds, a huge pack of spandex-clad bicyclists flashed by. It was the most laowai I’d seen since the states. Was this the Tour De Chine, perhaps? Who knows. Xining itself reminds me of Cairo. It’s an interesting, large, dirty, mainly Muslim city, in which crossing the street entails dashing from lane to lane between heavy traffic. It even has the same dun colored Cairo dust permeating everything. However, Xining is dirtier, which is saying something. At least the Cairenes didn’t burn coal and blow snot everywhere. The combination of Muslims and China seemed weird for the first five minutes in town, then entirely normal. There are still some Tibetans around. I love the intersection of Buddhism and Islam, two of my favorite religions. There must be very few places where these two traditions meet.
    When I first arrived in town, I had 27Yuan on me, about 3 USD. Fortunately, I found an ATM and withdrew a massive wad of RMB. From now on, I’ll sew up lots of cash in my clothes and hide it in my books.

July18th, 2005 Xining
    This day I visited the Tai Er Si Monastery close to Xining. It featured many chapels filled with sad, dusty Buddhist kitsch. Throngs of rich Chinese tourists with digital apparatus swarmed everywhere. Inside all the temples were huge piles of money. It was collected in large troughs, which were for some reason partially filled with grain. This only added to the hog-like appearance of the monks as they rooted through the piles of cash. The whole thing was interesting, in that it demonstrated just how antithetical to its original teachings a religious institution could become. Also, most of the prayer wheels were rusted and had handles made of rebar instead of pilgrim-polished wood. It was quite expensive to visit. How often I notice that the more expensive things are, the less interesting and satisfying they are inclined to be.

July 19th, 2005 Xining
    This day, I completed my Xining errends- mailing back all of the crap I accumulated in Kham, and securing a bus ticket to Dunhuang in Gansu Province. The woman at the post office expertly mummified my Buddhist posters and water filter. The filter proved very useful for seven days, until I broke the ceramic filter element while cleaning it. Oh well, one less piece of crap to carry. She wouldn’t let me send back my big Tibetan knife, so I’ll have to carry that around for a while longer. At the bus station, I found a place where a semblance of a line was enforced by a metal railing. When people tried to budge around the rail, I stared directly into their eyes until they went away.

    Afternoon. I wandered all around the town, exploring the endless interesting markets. Bananas, lychees, grapes, pears, peaches, plums, watermelons, cantaloupes, cabbages, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, spices, slain beasts, pelts, fish, eggs, shovel handles, wheels, and dysfunctional nail clippers were all freely available. Xining actually has a lot of its old town left, with narrow lanes and passways, unlike more prosperous Chinese cities. At one point I crossed the railroad tracks and climbed up the big red cliffs that line the Northern edge of town. Up there was a little abandoned garden and a smashed pavilion. Some kids tried to follow me up, but fell behind. I was interested to note that I could quickly dash up the steep slopes without resting, whereas last week in Manigangno, I had to plod slowly because of the altitude. Most of the city was lost in clouds and smog. I’ve noticed that people here don’t seem as happy as they do in the other Chinese cities I’ve visited. Most places I’m like “Dude, where’s the nitrous?” but in Xining I see some very depressed, glum faces. I also drew a picture of the accepted method of gut coolage/display practiced in Xining.
    Also, it’s quite odd to note that with certain people I am able to interact successfully, despite my very limited Chinese, but with others they just start talking louder and louder. Usually in these instances I have to go away before a big crowd gathers. These are the people who have obviously never interacted with anyone who was not dead fluent in their local dialect. It’s quite rare to meet someone who is able to talk slowly in simple words with gestures. Often, as soon as I say something wrong, or don’t exactly understand what they say, they say “tibudong” (He doesn’t understand) and write me off as an imbecile. On my part, it also very much depends on the mental force with which I direct my speech. Sending a clear mental image is often very helpful.
    In many respects, I think the very strength of Han Chinese culture is its own downfall in trying to interact with the outside world. The language, culture and nation are all so vast and all-encompassing as to leave no room for anything alien. This explains the undue difficulty the Chinese have in learning foreign languages. Where else do you see enormous signs with ridiculous, nonsensical English phrases? Where else are 4th year English students unable to answer the question “Where do you live?” Even the appearance of someone from another ethnic group causes stupefaction and awe. Again, I can’t help but to contrast this situation with that in the Arab world, where even if you were a peg-legged, stuttering Maori who spoke only inversely inflected Elvish and wanted to buy a 1937 Ford truck cam shaft, you couldn’t even walk anywhere near a marketplace without someone latching onto you, determining exactly what you want, and dragging you off to where it can be bought, with a hefty commission tacked on.
    One English phrase many Chinese students seem to know is “to kill time.” “So, how do you kill your time?” they ask. This afternoon, while killing time by walking around Xining, I came across a group of old men playing Chinese chess. I often like to join the group of onlookers watching the game, because no one will stare at be, as they are all so intent on the action. When my boss in Yilong, Mr. Liu, was teaching me chess, he kept showing me all the moves I could make, and moving all of the pieces himself, as he went down long chains of combination. I kept trying to get him to stop giving me advice, and let me make mistakes. But watching the old men play chess on the street, I realized that that is not at all the traditional method of playing Chinese chess. All onlookers are free to move and replace pieces at will. The whole game is a collaboration between all those present, and is attended with constant arguing and grabbing and replacing of pieces. What a total contrast to the International chess game, with its two silent, reserved opponents quietly thinking out their moves to themselves. There, once a piece is touched, it must be moved, but in China any passing pedestrian can move all the pieces to explore some long combination that he wants to develop.

July 22nd, 2005 Dunhuang
    I left Xining by a horrible 18-hour unsleeper bus-ride. Aside from myself, the bus also transported the entire membership of the Xining chain smoker’s guild. At least the road was mostly paved. It lay like a collapsed tower across the desert. Upon arrival in Dunhuang, I fell into a catatonic sleep for many hours. When I woke up, I had a bit of a walk around town. Dunhuang is a fairly large, entirely Han town in the desert. In ancient times, it stood at the end of the great wall. Eroded adobe watchtowers stand in the surrounding wasteland. The small, dull museum preserves a few glass beads and crossbow triggers.
    This morning I went to visit the famous nearby Buddhist caves at Mogao. They turned out to be pretty disappointing. Each cave was a square room with a few broken-down, chunky statues, and the walls were covered in crude murals. Considering their age (400-800AD) the murals were very well preserved. They had a blocky, ungainly, inelegant style, like early mediaeval manuscript illustrations. A few of the earlier ones showed some traces of the enlightened Indian style, but mostly they just seemed like faded cartoons from a 1930’s adventure comic. By far the best things on display were photographs of a few of the thousands of brilliant scroll paintings looted from the caves by Sir Aurel Stein in the early 20th century, now in the British museum, and in Paris. In 1900, a Chinese caretaker discovered a cave filled with over 50,000 texts, scrolls, and paintings, almost all of which he sold to Western explorers, using the money to carry out dubious restorations on the caves. A small museum detailed the adventures of these early explorers and looters. One guy from Harvard spread adhesive over the murals and peeled them off. He was eventually driven off by angry locals. There were also two caves with giant flat Buddhas, into whose nostrils and crotch one could stare. In my tour group was one Australian fellow with a tiny blue-eyed, blond-haired daughter in a backpack. This kid caused a sensation among the hoards of Chinese tourists who followed her around, touching her hair and poking at her skin. As usual, the presence of real, live laowais proved more interesting to the Chinese tourists than the multi-headed demons they had paid to see.
    Chinese people remind me of a certain type of American one sometimes meets. He is happy, clean, business-oriented and straightforward. His mind is active and closed. He totally lacks any quiet or mystical tendencies. Many Americans of this type indeed end up in China. Also, Chinese people must be among the most unreligious in the world. When I try to talk about Buddhism with them, they say “Ah, so you like Chinese culture,” or else they say it’s total nonsense. For the Chinese, their religion is just a part of their culture, like baseball for Americans.
    After visiting the caves, I took a long nap, then rented a bicycle and rode out to some massive sand dunes South of town. At the edge of the desert, there was a huge clot of glitzy tourist crap with an absurd 80 Yuan admission price, so I just rode my bike West through the irrigated fields and entered the desert down there. It took me about an hour to climb up this huge dune, and about 20 seconds to run down it. There were some interesting plants out in the sand, whose only leaves were pale green twigs. Also, tiny lizards lived there. I could follow their little tracks, and those of desert insects.

July 24th, 2005 Urumqi
    Yesterday I traveled by bus to Liuyuan, North of Dunhuang, where the railroad to Urumqi connects. Relics of the Great Wall and eroded watchtowers stood in the desert. A super-sexy Chinese girl sat squished up next to me the whole way, which circumstance proved almost as disturbing as the chain-smoking old men with smelly feet who shared my seat on the previous ride. For the first time, I successfully bought a train ticket by myself. I had about six hours before my train left, so I walked out of town into the desert. Liuyuan is located in probably the most frightening, Mordor-like environment I’ve ever seen. On the outskirts of town, the ground was composed of a mixture of gravel, plastic bags, shattered glass and bones. Out in the desert, the land was really strange. Small hills and mountains composed of a black, oily-looking stone. For some reason, the stones stuck up out of the ground like racks of racked knives, especially on top of the hills. They were really stuck there and couldn’t be moved. Anyone falling down would have been impaled on a black knife of stone. I walked around out there for a few hours. It was actually kind of beautiful in a frightening way. Two plants grew there in dry gulches. One had twiggy leaves, and the other had two large, thick crinkly leaves with a complex flower in the center. Quite a weird plant for a desert. Back at the train station, it turned out that my ticket was for the luxurious “soft sleeper” class, where four people share a private cabin. Appropriately enough for these bourgeois quarters, my cabin mates were Taiwanese, the offspring of exiled Kuomintang capitalists and warlords. They drank wine and coffee and spoke fluent English with me. They even offered to be quiet when I showed signs of getting ready to bed. Imagine, a concept of quietness! What a staggering difference a few decades of capitalism can make. One guy had a doctorate from a US university. Another had residence in Canada. The twelve-hour trip was exceedingly pleasant. I slept very well and arrived refreshed in Urumqi. So civilized compared to the bus. Almost like traveling in a Zeppelin.
    Urumqi is a large, typically Chinese city with a strong Muslim Uighur presence. These folks use Arabic script, and everything around here is covered in weird nonsense Arabic. I suppose it must mean something though. There are a few differences from standard Arabic script, mostly weird amounts of dots over traditionally undotted letters. Like many large Chinese cities, the city design panders slavishly to cars. Anyone not encased in a metal and plastic pod, many times their own size and mass, and filled with explosive super-carcinogens, (in other words, a pedestrian) is forced to crawl like a rat through dark underground corridors, or scamper like a gerbil through raised plastic tubes, in order to cross the street. Cars drive in the bike lanes, and on the sidewalks. In order to leave the train station on foot, you must either run across several highways, jumping over the barriers like a bum searching for a good underpass, or else run across a single highway, then navigate a vast labyrinthine underground shopping mall with at least five levels, called Accoutrement World.
    This morning I visited the Indo-European mummies at the wonderfully named Exhibition of Xinjiang Relics Treasures and Ancient Corpses. These ancient corpses were quite interesting. They were clearly like modern Europeans, but very small, with delicate features. Some of them wore awesome multicolored fuzzy wool thigh-high boots. They had spiral tattoos or painting on their faces, and dated to about 1,000-500 years BC. Most of the museum, however, was closed for renovations. I walked back to the train station and successfully secured a train ticket to Kashgar for the

July 25th, 2005 Turpan
    Um, for the 28th, now that I actually looked at the ticket closely. I thought I told the woman houtien, or the day after tomorrow. So, I’ve got to hang out around this area for three days. I decided to get out of Urumqi, a place which did not interest me at all. Now I’m in the oasis city of Turpan, a few hours South of Urumqi, and well below sea level, meaning that it’s incredibly hot here. I actually love extreme heat. It’s so hot during the day that it actually hurts to wear my metal-framed sunglasses. It feels like peeking into a hot oven. Even now, at night, the wind blows hot. How lovely. A perfect climate for drinking beers in the park and reading Moby Dick.
    These Uighurs are interesting folk. They remind me of Turks, to whom I presume they must be closely related. Some have brown hair and green eyes. They like Arab style music, so different from the Chinese car-alarm based music aesthetic. Now I can hear that distinctive Arab drumline which I heard everywhere in the Middle East. BOOM tap, tap BOOM tap. BOOM tap, tap BOOM tap. The Uighur men wear brightly colored and decorated Islamic skullcaps, and some of the women actually wear a proper, pinned up hijab, not just the black mesh sported by Chinese Muslims. I’ve yet to see a real niqab, or anyone rolling out the prayer mat and getting down, or even heard the call to prayer. Nevertheless, it feels good to be back in the umma, or Islamic world. There is a certain, sweet, boyish aesthetic to everything Arab. I’d really love to hear the call to prayer again. First, the bright, jarring dawn prayer, the high, clear one at dawn, the lazy afternoon call, and most beautiful of all, the sunset prayer, followed by the mysterious, haunting prayer of the night. It’s almost enough to make me not question the book not to be questioned. But not quite.

July 27th, 2005 Turpan
    Yesterday, I visited an old mosque from 1777. The minaret was made of brick, but the mosque itself was made of cob or adobe. It was quite beautiful in a blank, geometrical, Islamic kind of way. All the graves around it were in unique geometrical patterns. I also rode a bike out to a desert of grey gravel.
    Today I did absolutely nothing. I sat around in the park, and under the grape arbors, reading Moby Dick, and chatting with a few of the locals, including a strange Uighur woman and a Chinese college student.

July 29th, 2005 Kashgar
Last night, I stayed up late chatting with a crowd of expats. Spaniards, Brits, Aussies, French, Slovakians and Americans. We drank the weak Chinese beer under the trellises until 2 AM Beijing time. Then I got uup early and took the bus back to Urumqi. On the way, we watched a Uighur movie, which seemed to have been heavily influenced by Manos, Hands of Fate. I waited around the Urumqi zhan for my train to Kashgar. The journey took 23 hours, and was mostly pleasant, except for the horrific Chinese music blaring 6” from my head. It’s that sort of soft music with one slow drumbeat per measure, and soft, breathy, emotional vocals. Exactly the sort of thing that makes me want to stomp someone’s face into a pulp. I absolutely loathe being subjected to that sort of shit against my will. Anyways, I arrived in Kashgar quite refreshed. It’s a small city with distinct Chinese and Uighur parts. The Chinese part is the same as everywhere else, with broad, clogged, fenced avenues, which pedestrians must crawl under or above. The Uighur part is actually really cool. It reminds me a lot of Cairo, in fact. Lots of narrow lanes, earthen buildings, and veiled ladies. They even have the same hand-worked copperware as in Islamic Cairo. Some of the buildings have wonderful;, decaying wooden balconies overhanging the street. I spent all day wandering around Kashgar. The kids here have the endearing habit of saying “Hello, what is your name?” at great volume. Two other Arabic features I’ve noticed: Salespeople accost me in suspiciously fluent English, way better than I’ve heard anywhere in China, and the Uighur people stare at me in that dull, bovine way, despite the large number of tourists about. Maybe I’ve just gotten more strange looking lately.

July 31st, 2005 Kashgar
I’ve been exploring Kashgar. I must say, the inhabitants find me far more interesting than I find them. The Uighur old town is surrounded by vast swaths of standardized Chinese new city. The two races seem to keep to their respective areas. Yesterday, I rained all day. I went to see the famous Sunday market this morning, but nothing was happening there. I also visited an extremely dull mosque. The only interesting thing there was a hilarious chinglish sign about how the Chinese government has such great respect for other cultures, and allows freedom of religion, except for illegal religious activities. I’ve changed my plans a bit, and now intend to head up the Karakoram highway, which goes to Pakistan. There are some 7,000 meter mountains along the way which I’d love to see.

August Journal

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