5 - Dial M for Mutton (Kashgar)

Kashgar, CHINA - 13 june 2002

One of the ladies in my cabin on the train to Kashgar was a Chinese local living in Kashgar. As we prepared to get off the train, I enquired about the taxi fare to town, so that I would not be ripped off. This, somehow, spurred her to perform her duty of a local extending her hospitality to a foreign tourist. She said we could go to her nursery (she imported and exported plants and in fact, had had four plants with her on this train-ride) together and then, she would buy me lunch and get me settled down in my hotel. “OK, xie xie, [thank you] Liang Dan.” I accepted graciously.

Indeed all the above were done with a lot of attention and extreme generosity and I was really touched by her actions. Very sweet girl.

After I got settled down and did some laundry, I decided to head out for a quick walk around Kashgar. As I descended down the steps, a Chinese man was shouting in Mandarin to the room attendants nearby, “I am looking for a guest in this hotel. She is from Singapore.” He paused to examine me, “Are you the one?!?!”

Hang on, what was going on here? Well, it turned out Liang Dan had mentioned me to her brother and now, her brother, who apparently had heard ‘what a wonderful country Singapore is’, wanted to extend his hospitality to me too. So, Liang Dan and her brother trooped over to my hotel to try and track me down.

They sat me down at the lobby and her brother proceeded to criticise the hotel’s condition and boasted he could get me to stay at his friend’s hotel (which normally cost Y100+) for free.

The hotel I was staying in seemed to be Uyghur-run as many of the staff were Uyghurs. In a way, it was an affront to them to have an Uyghur hotel criticised so openly by a Han Chinese man, within their ear-shots. I felt very embarrassed. Although I tried my best to thank him for his kindness and that it was unnecessary for me to stay in a fancy hotel, he refused to listen to a word from me and stated I would check out tomorrow and stay at his friend’s hotel. He proceeded to inform that his friend was buying them dinner and I was to join them as I was now their guest.

So, that was how I found myself in a Chinese hotel on the outskirts of town, staring at a set Western dinner (beef steak, soup, bread and everything) plus heaps of food ordered from the Chinese menu.

I was still having a little diarrhoea problem but they would not listen to my feeble protests against eating any oily food and insisted I eat to give them ‘face’. Later, I was also made to drink a shot of the local Chinese whiskey even though I did not know how to drink and did not think it wise to drink anything with my weak stomach condition. Nope, Liang Dan’s brother would have none of it.

He then informed the Hotel Guy to get a room ready for me and my Irish friend tomorrow (Jane would be flying in then). The Hotel Guy paused for a long time before nodding his head in agreement. Oh no, he was unwilling to do this. Now, I felt even worse.

I was finally released back to my hotel by midnight, after making me promise to call Liang Dan’s brother on Saturday so that he could take me out on a tour.

I felt terrible. They were trying to make me comfortable and happy with my stay here in Kashgar. They did not want money or anything. They were just being generous and thoughtful in their ways. But this was not what we wanted. We did not want to be in the outlying area of Kashgar in a fancy Chinese hotel with a Western Café and the Imperial Restaurant.

But, there was the problem of the not giving them ‘face’ if I rejected all their generous offers.



Kashgar, CHINA - 14 june 2002

I gave a call to Liang Dan and explained that my Irish friend, Jane, and I travelled so far out into the Kashgar area to be in the middle of, we hope, the Uyghur culture - eating shish kebabs, smelling the mutton body odour, seeing the wonderful variety of exotic faces, head-gears and dresses and wandering in the bazaars. Liang Dan said she understood. I thanked her profusely again. I was once again reminded to call her brother on Saturday for the ‘tour’. Ooook, I guess I could not reject that.

Throw all your romantic notions away! Kashgar is no longer the exotic remote oasis, which had been a major trading post of the Silk Road for thousands of years. It is 2002 now, after all. One would be SILLY to expect the same rustic charm as 2000 years ago. We learnt our lessons in Turpan by setting high expectations for it and then, feeling a tad disappointed about it. So, before we came to Kashgar, we aimed really low.

True enough, there were spiffy roads, a Mao statue, new shopping malls and Oriental-looking bridges in front of the Ren Min (People’s) Park. But once in the Uyghur areas, the whole place was a labyrinth of twisting alleys and mud huts, interspersed by bazaars and mosques.

Jane and I simply wandered round the Id Kah Mosque and the bazaars by the two sides of the mosque and across the road. It was truly a fantastic experience. The faces we saw here were as diverse as those in Turpan and the bazaars here were busier and more interesting.

Here, shish kebabs are huge, chunky affairs and really delicious! The way to stomach it without feeling too queasy or gross about the fat is to accompany the kebabs with the local Uyghur tea. I loved them.

I had three sticks of kebabs and a bowl of noodle. The locals were gobbling them up like ten sticks each. A bevy of babushkas - Uyghur middle-aged ladies and grannies - came and sat next to me. Some sat with one of their legs up on the seat, exposing their underpants. Soon, they were served a mountain-load of shish-kebabs and gnawing away at them in no time.

With the mutton intake came the ‘aromatic’ body odour among the locals. Sometimes, I could still smell an Uyghur lady 3 minutes after she left the toilet, for example. Well, what you eat is what you smell. In the Tibetan part of China, I smelled yak butter among the monks. And here, I smelled barbecued mutton. Why not?







Kashgar, CHINA - 15 june 2002

I knew it was Saturday and that I ought to call Liang Dan or her brother but I decided to procrastinate til as late as possible.

I spent the day wandering among the alleyways in the Uyghur area, getting lost in the labyrinthine alleys. I enjoyed it very much. Uygher children were all delightful and seemed more precocious than Tibetan children and definitely more so than Han Chinese children.

In the Tibetan part of China, when the children asked for photos, all the boys would pose excitedly but the girls would stand by the side awkwardly. The Tibetan girls needed more persuasion before they shyly agreed. But here, the Uygher girls, many dressed in frou-frou lacy dresses and looked like wedding cakes, had had their hair shaved (maybe due to head lice?) and were fighting with the boys for more pictures. Strangely, these girls also had a kick out of tiaras. They would wear tiaras on their heads proudly and march off to school.

While the locals were mostly Muslims, there were many interesting varieties in their dressing too. The babushkas with the see-through head-scarves were plentiful. There was a larger number of women who covered their whole head and face with a brown cloth. Some wrapped their nose and mouth with a white scarf and wore dark sun-glasses. These looked like they participated in the Invisible Man Project. Many ladies and some girls also had drawn a line across their eye-brows connecting them. It was really interesting to observe such varieties.

I called Liang Dan in the evening and well, she said she and her brother were too busy with their work today and could not meet me. I know this made me look like a really bad person but I actually felt quite relieved. Liang Dan was sweet but her brother was difficult.

By night-fall, the area around Id Kah Mosque was transformed into a food market, selling boiled goat’s heads and innards, spicy chicken and eggs, chickpeas and some deep-fried sweet desserts. It was colourful and extremely busy. Jane and I sampled different dishes that looked swallowable, i.e. we did not try the goat’s head and innards.

An Uyghur elderly man found us interesting and chatted with us in Mandarin. Soon, we were surrounded by a group of at least seven people who appraised us seriously, furrowed their eye-brows, puzzled over our replies and made further queries and clarifications with the Uyghur elderly man who acted as the translator. We felt like zoo animals but they were friendly and just curious.


















Kashgar, CHINA - 16 june 2002

Kashgar is famous for its Sunday Bazaar. The population can swell up to 50,000 as villagers from the surrounding region come to buy and sell. According to a local, today’s bazaar was the quietest in a long time. It was the harvest time now, apparently.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the day tremendously doing what I liked best - people-watching.

The Kashgar Sunday Bazaar is a fantastically huge market. Farming forks, melons, yoghurt drink, apricots, hats, cloth materials, dried fruits and nuts, house-hold items, bicycle-repair parts, etc… everything that could be sold was sold here. The main covered market was huge and confusing, although similar items were indeed organised to be sold at their special sections. I got lost many times - which was great.

Outside the market was just as chaotic. Barbers had set up stalls by the side. These Uyghur men, who had apparently worn their skull caps all their lives and now removed them for the barbers, actually had fair skin where the hats used to be. The contrast was incredible. They received a good facial massage after their shave or cut.

I saw old, worn shoes being sold as well. Many came to try on the least disgusting looking pairs. Donkey carts shoved past you as the owners ferried sheep, fruits, their families across the market. It was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. There was so much to see. I really enjoyed myself here.

The weather was very hot and I stopped frequently for home-made vanilla ice-cream and yoghurt drink. People always warned about avoiding food items with ice and glasses which were not washed after each use, because of the questionable hygiene. Jane was very careful about this. But, NOT to eat the vanilla ice-cream and yoghurt drink is NOT to get into the Uyghur action. They were sold everywhere and eaten by everyone. And I loved them too.

4 - Desperately Seeking Shade (Urumqi)

Turpan to Ürümqi, CHINA - 09 june 2002

We made the easiest bus-trip so far to Ürümqi on an excellent bus which really barred smoking and actually had a luggage-storage area below, and we sped through an excellent highway.

There were modern, wind-powered structures like white, tall, skinny wind-mills in the desert around the highway. It reminded me of the scene in ‘Se7en’ where Kevin Spacey took Inspectors Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt to the desert to look for ‘two more bodies’. Very ‘Develop-the-West-Everyone-prospers’.

We placed ourselves in a nice hotel and I headed out to the train station to try and buy a ticket to Kashgar for a few days later.

I stood behind pushing and shoving men at the ticket window. The policeman yelled at them and they got into proper lines for a while before resorting to pushing and shoving again. It was unruly. I was a little disturbed but I believed patience would prevail.

A 100-kg guy pushed past me and jumped in front of me. The impatient old man behind me was dismayed. He started scolding me for allowing the 100-kg guy to jump the queue.

A 70-kg guy pushed past me and attempted to jump the queue. I believed my 48-kg frame could handle this one and elbowed him, yelling at him to queue up behind. He looked at me, unblinking and indifferent. After ignoring me successfully, he tapped on the shoulder of 100-kg guy and asked him to buy the ticket for him. 100-kg guy successfully ignored him as well and 70-kg guy slithered away when the policeman veered near us again.

Impatient-old-man-behind-me started scolding me again and asked if I was really buying train tickets. No, I am just casually standing here amongst you unruly men for the pleasure of annoying you! I supposed since I was not pushing and shoving or standing restlessly on one leg or the other, my sincerity in purchasing a train ticket was not so obvious.

When it came to my turn, the lady curtly told me she would not sell tickets for another day. She only sold for today. No wonder. Now I understood the urgency of these people. Oooomph, I was shoved off to the side by impatient-old-man at once.

I had no choice but to arrange with a travel agent then and pay the commission, sigh…



Ürümqi to Tian Chi, CHINA - 10 june 2002

Tian Chi is a beautiful glacial lake at the top of Tian Mountains. Being so accessible from Ürümqi, it meant many local tourists came here and it also meant the whole place was done up with kitsch touristy activities and high admission fees were charged.

Jane and I wanted to stay a night in a Kazakh yurt on the lake. The tour guide on my bus simply could not fathom why anyone would not want to follow behind her little flag, pay another Y20 for the boat-ride around the lake, visit a Kazakh yurt and wear the Kazakh costumes for a photo, stop for lunch at 2pm, have some free-time around the lake (but please do not stray too far) and then, take the cable-car for a lovely ride down by 4pm for the return journey to Ürümqi. We split from the group, pronto.

I was not feeling well again. It felt like fever. So, while Jane explored around the lake after we settled ourselves in Rashit’s Yurt, I slept in the yurt for most of the afternoon. Later, when I felt remotely better, I walked along the edge of the lake around the headlands and valleys until I could not find a safe route around the rocks and returned to the yurt. It was really quite peaceful and picturesque after the majority of the day-tourists had left.

Rashit’s name-card had promised ‘Three delicious meals’. I must correct that the meals were the worst we had ever eaten.



Tian Chi to Ürümqi, CHINA - 11 june 2002

I hate to disgust readers with this but I crapped every 2 hours from 2am this morning. I was really sick with diarrhoea but as I had packed a smaller bag for the trip here, I did not have my medicine with me.

A Chinese tourist staying at another Rashit’s yurt gave me some medicine. He asked if I knew this brand ‘Xie Li Ting’. I replied a ‘no’ and he proceeded to sing the jingle for me, hoping to jolt my memory from my presumed bouts of advertisement-watching on Chinese TV.

I could not eat anything and Jane and I decided to leave the yurt early and make our way slowly back to the touristy area and see if I could purchase a bottle of Coca Cola. Always Coca Cola for diarrhoea.

Near the dock for the boats, I sat and waited while Jane went for the boat-ride. A few men came to sit with me and invited me to eat at their restaurants further down the road. “Er… sorry, I have diarrhoea. I cannot eat anything today.” Immediately, the concerned men asked if I had medicine for it and told me a brand – ‘Xie Li Ting’, the same brand as what I had just been given - and promptly sang the same jingle. This must be the most popular brand in China for diarrhoea.

Hmmm… I was OK once I returned to Ürümqi. Good medicine.



Ürümqi to Kashgar, CHINA - 12 june 2002

Kathy (we met previously in Dunhuang) was issued a bed in our dormitory this morning. We greeted her ‘hello’ but she kept her back to us. Jane, later, tried to chat with her. Kathy did not look up from her diary and answered one-word answers to Jane’s questions. Gosh, she must be mad at us. She must have thought we ditched her that day in Dunhuang and now, refused to talk to us. Fine, I did not care. I was leaving Ürümqi today.

I braced myself for the 23-hour ride to Kashgar by stocking up on snacks and cup noodles. Jane would be flying to Kashgar tomorrow. So I would see her there tomorrow evening.

The train to Kashgar was the most luxurious I had been on. The announcement over the train kept harping on how one should be civic-minded and not smoke, throw rubbish, spit, etc… in the train cabins.

Hmmm… I had heard from a fellow traveller that she had once seen the train attendants dutifully gathering up rubbish from each compartment and putting them in plastic bags before tossing the bags out of the window.

I did not know if the attendants would do the same on this luxurious train but I would not be surprised. If one ever does a walking tour of China’s railway lines…

4 - Desperately Seeking Shade (Turpan)

Dunhuang to Turpan, CHINA - 05 june 2002

We decided to return to the scene of our crime and visit the sand dunes again, but now in the morning.

Kathy, a middle-aged American lady who was staying at Jane’s hotel had wanted to join us. We waited 15 minutes for her and she did not show. When Jane went to her room to try and listen at the door, she heard no noise and figured Kathy was still sleeping. So, we decided not to wake her and headed out there ourselves.

We decided to go round the gentler side of the dunes and tried to walk through farms further out and see if we could enter from there. We made terrible mistakes here and there and ended up perched on the mud-banks separating neighbouring crops and with prickly shrubs (obviously to keep neighbouring farmers off) in our faces.

We tried not to step on the farmers’ livelihood as far as possible and kept imagining the farmers setting their barking dogs at us. We finally emerged, dishevelled and very scratched. A grim-faced farmer stopped ploughing and stared at us, unamused. * dee dee doo whistle whistle *

Once again, the sand dune was a fantastic place to laze around for a while until you felt too burning hot to cope. We really loved it here.

We caught the mid-day bus to Liuyuan about 2 hours north of Dunhuang and bought the hard-sleeper tickets for the night train to Turpan.

Just before the train pulled in, a geezer looked at my bag of apricots and disapproved of them. He claimed they were not sweet at all. He then went on to sing praises about the sweet apricots from Xinjiang Province and the wonderful flavours of the grapes in Turpan (if they were in season now) and insisted that the best melons in the world were from Hami (west of Dunhuang). He was quite a character. He simply stood there, splattering his saliva at us and did a soliloquy on the fruits of Xinjiang. We wondered if he was a fruit-basket.

We settled ourselves in the train and Fruity was in the next berth. He fished out two lychees from his wash-bag of toothpaste and toothbrush and offered to us.

A roly-poly guy on the berth below me took an interest in Jane and decided to practise his English on her. He proudly said he learnt his English from the Petroleum University and was now working for PetroChina Company. He proceeded to bore Jane with how petroleum was formed, blah blah blah.

Not to be outdone, Fruity started to fish out all the expensive cups and tea-pots he obtained from his shopping experience in Dunhuang and kept interrupting us to show them off. We were really amused with the two of them, obviously fighting for our attention.



Turpan, CHINA - 06 june 2002

We arrived at Daheyan Train Station, near Turpan and were promptly set upon by Uyghurs tour guys who tricked us into taking their van to Turpan by saying that theirs was the public van.

I only realised it later when they tried to get me to get MORE tourists from a later train (because I could speak both Mandarin and English) onto their van so that we could all form a group and go for a tour around Turpan together tomorrow.

I tried to talk to the tourists but they were not interested and I did not press further. The Uyghur tour-guys were disappointed with me and became quite pushy with those tourists. The tourists left in a taxi, disgusted.

One of the Uyghur tour-guys, Sata, meanwhile, tried to charm his way through by telling us about his past trips with satisfied tourists and his one special ‘girl’ friend from America. He got us settled in Turpan Hotel and encouraged us to go to John’s Café later where they would talk to us.

Turpan Hotel was super-grand, with a chandelier hanging in the extravagant, intricately-decorated main lobby. We were staying in an air-conditioned dormitory. Air-conditioning was essential here in Turpan which, during summer, is the hottest town in China - up to 50°C or so as it is about 80m below sea level.

Turpan had been developed heavily so it is no longer the charming little town we read about in our guide-books anymore. This must be part of China’s ‘Develop the West. Everyone prospers’ enthusiasm. I spotted such propaganda slogans painted on walls from Xining onwards when I started heading west. We were about two to three years too late.

The touristy roads and the main highway are now paved and wide. There are even inexplicable Greek or Roman statues at the end of each vine-trellised avenue.

Jane and I were pounced upon by Sata and his cronies when we emerged from the hotel later. They tried to get us to pay Y100 each for a tour the next day. We had learnt from other travellers it was between Y40 to Y60 and we baulked at their price. It was swiftly reduced to Y50. Sata quickly explained Y100 had been a tour in a car, but Y50 was in a van. Whatever… We told them we were only heading out for a tour the day after tomorrow. We would talk again tomorrow.

We meandered around town and sat in a bazaar to people-watch. The faces we saw here were very varied. Turpan was getting interesting now. The features seemed to be mixtures of Eastern European, Central Asian, Russian and even Middle-Eastern, we thought.

These guys probably had names like Mohammed, Ali, Abdul, etc… but they looked so exotic, we started to classify them ourselves. We spotted many heavy-set stocky guys who looked a little Russian and promptly named them ‘Boris’. There were also some thinner guys with brown hair, huge eyes, round head and pretty fair skin. This kind we named ‘Ivan’. Another group had smallish slit eyes and pinkish skin (like a burnt white European). For no reason except to try and create a name, we called them ‘Sergei’.

We gave up after this. There were just too many varieties and we had not even started on those Arab-looking ones! So, we simply went, “This one? Yeah, think he is an Ivan…” “Hmmm… look at that one. Wow… That’s not yet classified.”

While the young Uyghur ladies here were gorgeous with large, round eyes and lovely long hair, their mothers and grandmothers were heavy-set with large boobs and hips. Guess in their later years, the fatty mutton intake begins to show.

The older ladies wore dresses and tied see-through scarves on their heads. There was only one word that came to both our minds when we saw them – babushkas. (‘grandmothers’ -- in Russian)









Turpan, CHINA - 07 june 2002

The sun was hidden behind the clouds today. So, the temperature was not as high as yesterday, perhaps around 35°C. In a way, this was a wonderful day to be walking around Turpan.

As it was a Friday, we went to some of the mosques to see if they were busy but they were moderately so. After wandering around town for more than half a day, we decided to reward ourselves with a swim in the indoor swimming pool in our hotel.

Well, today was not as hot as yesterday to deserve a swim but we had already psyched ourselves up to crack open our swim-wear and take a dip. One of the rules stated that only people in appropriate dress would be allowed into the swimming pool. Jane had a bikini with her. She wondered if that was appropriate. Out of modesty, Jane wrapped herself in a towel when we reached the swimming pool. The ticket lady quickly called out and asked me if the Western woman over there had anything on underneath the towel. Gosh, did she really think Jane would enter the pool naked?

Later, we had dinner next to the Public Square which, we figured, was another sad attempt by the Chinese to over-develop a place to the worst of taste. There were these garish bad-taste structures with displays of flashing coloured lights lining the whole square, Las Vegas style. What the hey? It looked terribly kitsch and out-of-place.

Then, a strange thing happened in the dry oasis of Turpan tonight. It rained. And the rain continued on for hours into the night.



Turpan, CHINA - 08 june 2002

Because of the rain last night, the weather today was very cool, by Turpan standards. It should be a good day to go sight-seeing.

We had a deal with Sata to go on a tour around Turpan for Y40. They took us on a spin around town, telling us they were looking for the other tourists in our group. Later, they returned to our hotel and Sata asked me to go in and wake the other three tourists who were probably still sleeping.

I felt this was ridiculous. First, they seemed to imply the tourists were staying in another hotel and now, they drove us back to our hotel and wanted me to walk in and look for the three tourists. How was I to know how they looked like? I expressed my displeasure and Sata meekly said, “No problem, no problem.” and he went in to check.

Later, he sauntered out and went over to his friends and they smoked and chatted a while. Finally, the smarmy Sata came over and said, “The three tourists left by taxi this morning. So, with the two of you left, the price must be higher.”

We did not trust him anymore. OK, the higher price was Y50, Y10 more. But, we could have gone with the tour bus from our hotel for Y40. We went with them because we had a similar deal.

We felt that they dilly-dallyed the entire morning on purpose. We did not like his attitude nor his stories. If he had appeared more sorry about the missing three tourists or he had sent out more sincere vibes instead of laughing with his cronies at the corner, we might have agreed. He seemed to time his announcement WAY AFTER our hotel tour bus left so that we would feel that we were left with no choice but to agree to the new price.

We stormed out of the van and left. We decided to hire a taxi for the two sights in particular - Fiery Mountain and Gao Chang Ruins - we were interested in. We were relieved the taxi driver was a Chinese lady. After being surrounded by yucky guys the whole morning, it was good to be with women again.

We spent a long time exploring the ruins of Gao Chang Ruins. While it was quite badly preserved, the grounds were huge and it was just wonderful to walk around, checking out the walls and half-standing structures.

We had also heard that Jiao He Ruins was good. Jane wanted to cycle out there that evening. I opted out and headed out on the mud streets behind my hotel to walk around and towards the Emin Minaret. The locals kept trying to shoo me back to the main road. To them, the mud streets were an embarrassment while the main road was advancement. No, I explained that I wanted to walk here. Gosh, I should have given Turpan a chance. Here must lie the old Turpan that gave many past travellers its charm. I loved the little mud streets and huts, the colourful mosques and the lovely children playing around. Nearing the minaret, the area turned into pretty grape-vine yards. It was really charming.

Jane did not make it to the Jiao He Ruins. She claimed she nearly died from the effort of cycling and returned after 50 minutes on the horrible bike.

4 - Desperately Seeking Shade (Dunhuang)

Dunhuang, CHINA - 01 june 2002

We arrived in Dunhuang early in the morning, our ears ringing with the dance music from our driver’s favourite tape which he played over and over and over again in the 20-hour journey. I noted with disdain [YO!!… YO!!…] that the two well-coiffed ladies still had their hair [ARE YOU READY TO PAAARTY??!?!…] well-coiffed, while my deranged look was marginally subdued [BABY, LET’S GO!!…] by wrapping a bandanna over my dishevelled hair.

I lumbered, blurry-eyed, to a hotel next to the bus station and I must have been really sick with cold then on agreeing to the hotel, because on hindsight (by afternoon, that is), I knew I had made a terrible choice.

The toilet was not too far from my room but should be far enough for me NOT to smell it. Yet, I could smell it even through my blocked nose. The shower was right by a window that opened to the street. There was a curtain of sort for modesty but it left a gap adequate for any sharp-eyed voyeurs to spy through. The mattress was so thin, the thinness had to be measured with laboratory calipers…

Yes, I was sick and miserable. I blew my nose and inconsiderately built a mountain of tissue paper on the next bed. Despite the illness, I still attempted to walk around town later in the afternoon to hunt for food.

Now, after the previous exotic towns with interesting mix of people and culture, Dunhuang looked almost too ordinary. In Langmusi, we saw yak-men in 1970s sun-shades and with such wild hair you want to run your comb right through it and go, “There!”. In Xiahe, we saw internet bars filled with Tibetan monks surfing and chatting on the internet and playing violent computer games like COUNTER-STRIKE. In Xining, I saw a large Muslim population wearing white skull caps and velvety scarves and er… many dry-cleaners (OK, Xining was perhaps not THAT interesting).

But here, in my first foray around town, I could not detect anything unique about it. The faces around seemed to be more Han Chinese again.

I arrived at the Night Market and walked down the area with food stalls. There were rows and rows and rows of food stalls with a table each in front of them. In one row, the stalls were selling spicy noodle soup, spicy noodle soup, spicy noodle soup, etc… In another, the stalls were selling knife-cut noodle, knife-cut noodle, knife-cut noodle, etc… This totally bewildered me. Why were all the stalls selling the same food lined up next to one another, with signs that hardly distinguished one from the other? It gave me no choices at all. What was to tempt me to sit in one stall and not the other? I just did not understand it.

The aunties and helpers tried their ways and means to holler out to me to entice me but I walked around, totally dazed. Finally, I grew tired and sat down at one stall and had apparently made my choice.

Downed an aspirin at around 8pm but I tossed and turned in bed until midnight, almost delirious by then, unable to get comfortable on the wafer-thin mattress.



Dunhuang, CHINA - 02 june 2002

The aspirin must have worked. I did not feel that bad to stay in bed the whole day. It seemed I would be able to go to the Mogao Caves today.

I recalled my time in Ta’er Si Monastery, near Xining. I had been accosted by tour-guides near the entrance asking if I wanted to employ them for my visit around the Monastery. I decided against it because I was a cheap-skate. But while I was making my rounds, I attempted to follow, oh alright, sneak behind certain groups and try to siphon some information from their guides.

However, to my horrors, I realised I could not understand what the guides were saying and they were speaking in Mandarin!! I flitted from guide to guide and I must say, 85% of the time, I was lost. I realised that perhaps the Mandarin they used was too difficult for me to comprehend, especially with all those complicated Tibetan Buddha names.

Now, back to Mogao Caves. On learning there was an English tour but with Y20 extra, I decided to stop being such a cheapie and pay the extra and have a proper English tour.

I waited around for more than 40 minutes for the English guide and no one near the gate seemed to confess that he or she was the English guide. I started to wonder if I should have just saved my money and gone with the Chinese tours which were leaving every other minute after forming groups of 20-25.

In the end, I realised this guy who had earlier told me he was NOT the English guide was actually THE English guide engaged by a group of American Chinese. He had been waiting for them to arrive before starting the tour. I trailed behind them unhappily at having been lied to.

All but one guy from this group of American Chinese spoke some Mandarin. They had engaged the English guide more for the benefit of this one guy. Our English guide, happy to learn almost everyone knew Mandarin, embarked on his explanation entirely in… Mandarin. What the…?

After his poetic rendition of the ‘Library Cave’, the wife of the English-only guy requested my guide to explain everything again in English and he agreed. “There were many documents in the caves… Long time ago, they put… they HIDE documents in the caves… So, many many documents are in the caves… Now, no.” I rolled my eye-balls. Rrrrrrright…

The admission ticket to the Mogao Caves was really expensive at Y80. I hope they put the money to really good use to restore the caves and preserve the amazing art-works. What I saw in these caves and grottoes were really astounding, although many squares of the wall-art and several Bodhisattvas’ heads had been taken and now, probably reside in the dungeons of some European museums.

The admission ticket to the nearby Mingsha Sand Dunes, on the other hand, was a different story. This was a natural sight, nothing as far as I could see to restore, and yet, the Chinese are charging an exorbitant Y50 to see the sand dunes. I had to try and get around this inconvenience if I visit the sand dunes later this evening.

However, I still did not feel well enough and decided to postpone the sand dunes trip to another day. The sun was evil from noon onwards and I hid in internet bars and my room. I walked around town only in the bearable evening and, haha, stumbled upon Jane. We had gone our separate ways a couple of days ago and now, we meet again.

We caught up on the missing days in our lives and decided to try and sneak into the sand dunes tomorrow evening together.





Dunhuang, CHINA - 03 june 2002

One of my Chinese room-mates in my dodgy hotel room had sung praises for a sight out in the western desert called Ya Dan Di Mao which basically had fantastically formed, wind-eroded structures. She had gone on and on and on about it and really encouraged me to go.

So, today, I went to the hotel organising the trip. While waiting for the bus, I observed with amusement the mass physical exercise lessons organised in front of the hotel for the staff. Yes, every staff, from cleaning lady to finance accountant, had to gather in the compounds and do their morning exercises to recorded beats ‘Er-Er-San-Si-Wu-Liu-Qi-Ba’ [2-2-3-4-5-6-7-8] in public view. Eewww, how embarrassing! I simply stood there and gaped in amazement.

There was no bus. I asked a few drivers nearby and found that the tour did not leave today (Monday). They only left on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Darn! The reception should have been better informed. I had turned up yesterday and made inquiries and they had told me the tour left everyday. Alright, so I woke up really early for nothing.

I headed to Jane’s hotel to see if I could write a note for her to tell her I was still in town. At the desk, I inquired if a lady from Ireland stayed here and the receptionist wordlessly went through the entire stack of registration forms and shoved me the Ireland one and told me, “408”. Some security.

Jane had a lovely, lovely room for only Y5 more than me, with her own bathroom, bouncy beds and wonderful decorations and even a fan! I was envious but I knew I was too lazy to move.

We lounged all day in the comfortable room, escaping from the harsh rays of the sun, curiously watching B-grade Mandarin-dubbed English classics like ‘Mayor of Casterbridge’.

By evening, we took a bus out to the sand dunes. Between us, we had obtained some information from the internet and a tips book in a Western Café on how to sneak around the admission gate and enter the sand dunes without paying.

“Jane, I had never committed any crimes until I met you!” Jane pondered over this and recalled her criminal days years ago when she and her drunk friends shoved £800 worth of books down their pants from a book-store. Bad bad girl!

I reminded her, if we were challenged by guards making their rounds, we had to pretend we ‘no speaka Mandarin’. We had to act like we were really interested in the farm-lands and trees around the sand dunes. Understand?????

We hiked out through the fields until the edge of the dunes. There was a barrier that attempted to draw a circle around the dunes but well, the sand shifted and had buried parts of the barrier.

“See you on the other side…” I muttered to her solemnly as I made my attempt to cross. We were half-way up the dunes when someone started yelling at us. What… what??!? Oh, OK… just two other foreign tourists who knew Jane and apparently, knew this sneaky way too.

We huffed and we puffed and made it all the way to the top of the dunes. What a feeling! There, we simply sat and stared. It had such a wonderful view from up here. Down between the sand-dune valley is a curious-looking crescent-shaped lake which apparently had been in existence for at least 2000 years. The dunes had come all the way to the edge of the farmlands. Strange to see sand and fertile lands side by side. Three more foreign tourists later sneaked in and joined us.

I wondered if the guards ever wonder why they only have Chinese tourists paying the Y50 admission. And I wondered if the guards ever wander their eyes upwards and spot little unaccounted dots high up on this dune.

As the sun set over the horizon at 9:30pm, I tried to watch out for the green flash which someone told me about and I had once observed over the Egyptian desert. Previously, just as the sun went down the horizon, I had seen a white light that went anti-clockwise on the spot. Now, we could not quite see that anti-clockwise light but the area around the horizon flashed and blinked white light for a while after the sun went down. What in the world were those flashes? I thought my eyes were playing tricks but everyone else saw them too. Nuclear testing in the desert??










Dunhuang, CHINA - 04 june 2002

I was surprised to learn that although I was the only one on the bus to visit the Ya Dan Di Mao site in the western desert, the bus still left. I guess the hotel which organised this trip had some employees out in the desert and this tour bus also provided transportation for them.

We passed by an ancient gate called the Jade Gate Pass. This was one of the Han dynasty beacon towers that marked the caravan route. The ruin is historically very important but not impressive to look at. But since the road to Ya Dan Di Mao passed by this gate, I had no choice but to pay admission for this site whether I wanted to see it or not. Yet another rip-off, I guess.

3 hours of very hot travel later, we arrived at Ya Dan Di Mao and I was surprised to learn I had to fork out yet another payment of Y80 to rent a jeep to go into the grounds for the visit. Argh!!!! What an expensive trip this was turning out to be!

Gosh, with me as the only tourist around, there was no one else to split the cost. It was 11:30am and more than 45°C out here. I guess it was not wise to stay around and wait for other individual tourists to drive up here.

As for the wind-eroded formations, maybe my Chinese room-mate was more easily impressed than I was, for I did not find them so worthwhile to make the arduous 3-hour ride here (and back later) and pay so much for admission plus the unjustifiable Y80 for the 1-hour trip around the grounds. The Chinese seemed less concerned about paying for admissions, it appeared.

Maybe I was too hot to enjoy it and would change my mind when I see the photos. One thing though, it was a good experience to be out in the desert and learn a lesson: You fry. Then, you die.

I met up with Jane at the Night Market that evening for dinner. By then, we had noticed what was the unique thing about Dunhuang and kept cracking jokes about it.

Dunhuang has many ‘beauty parlours’. These ‘beauty parlours’ are open until very late at night and are lit by neon pink or blue lights. The services they provide include ‘leg washing’ (sort of foot massage, I suppose), ‘dry-cleaning’ (I had no idea what this was), ‘bone-stepping’ (probably some sort of massage), etc… The ‘hair-dressers’ are always dressed in hot-pants and sexy skimpy tops. At midnight, there were still customers, er… having their hair washed.

Well, we really liked Dunhuang. While it was not very interesting itself, it had a great relaxing feel about it. The town sounded quieter somehow. By nightfall, deck chairs were set out in the Night Market and one could relax with a drink or two. It was a wonderful place to relax but do watch out for over-charging.