The diary of a Scot in Amsterdam

Due to the Internet shutdown in Xinjiang, this story and an older one have been posted simultaneously. See below for more.

Wherever you are, you are probably higher than we. We are currently residing in the Turpan depression, amongst the lowest places on earth. On the day we arrived, we bottomed out at 80 metres below sea level. This makes Holland look positively mountainous by comparison.

This peculiar geography means that the city of Turpan is very hot, even now in October. I write from my hotel bed with the curtains closed and the air conditioning on, although the climate is sadly not the only reason for my reclusiveness.

The honeymoon period of our arrival in China is well and truly over. We were both so excited to have finally made it here after so much difficulty and delay, but events of the past few weeks have left quite a sour taste in the mouth and a feeling of being anything but welcome.

The first few days of the long trek from Kashgar began rather badly, with quite a few wrong turnings (mainly due to the difficulty in reading road signs) and a day spent camped in a field as Astrid was ill. But all of this was nothing compared to what was to follow.

Our troubles started the next afternoon as we were sitting by the roadside, waiting for the tea water to boil. A group of men approached us, followed shortly afterwards by a police car. There was quite a lot of confusion before I was handed a mobile phone, with someone on the other end who could speak English. I was told that we needed to go to the police station and answer questions, although it was not clear at all why. We had little choice but to obey.

At the police station, there was quite a lot of hanging around and waiting while numerous photocopies were made of our passports (and photocopies of photocopies), phone calls were made, and a seemingly never-ending series of different police officers drifted in and out of the office. The little hammer-and-sickle flag on the chief of police’s desk reminded me that yes, China is still an authoritarian one-party state.

Finally someone arrived who could speak some English, and we were asked precisely three questions – where we were from, our ages, and our names. All of this information is of course in our passports, but it seemed a waste of time to point this out. Since it was quite obvious that we were not breaking any laws and were in the country legally, they were eventually obliged to let us go.

Needless to say, we were both quite upset by all this, especially since it appeared that someone from the police was following us as we continued on our way. This suspicion unfortunately proved to be correct later that evening, as we were busy setting up our tent in what we thought was a secluded spot. A man approached us and told us that the police would come and take us away, and just minutes later we could see the depressing red-and-blue flashing lights of the law in the lane next to us.

Now, we were quite aware that camping is not permitted in China, and that foreigners are obliged to stay in approved hotels, but up to this point we had been able to camp without problems. This time, luck was not on our side. The police (via another English-speaking colleague over a mobile phone) explained that we would have to accompany them to a hotel. Once again, there was little point in arguing, although we did anyway.

The hotel, thankfully just a few kilometres away, was quite the most disgusting that I have ever seen. It was the sort of thing you only see in films, even down to the flickering light in the bathroom and the countless brown stains on the walls and sheets. Another argument ensued as we insisted that we were not willing to pay for it, which succeeded in getting us the room at the police’s expense. But I can hardly say that we were overjoyed with the situation.

And much, much worse was to come. The next morning, as we left the hotel, we were dismayed to find a car and two policemen waiting for us. They proceeded to follow us at a not-so-respectful distance for the duration of the day.

I had managed to avoid getting too angry up to this point, but the final straw came as we stopped for a break in the early afternoon. One of the policemen stepped out of the car and gestured that we should not be stopping, at which I completely lost it, screaming at him to “fuck off and give us some damn peace and quite for a minute – we’ve got to eat, same as you pricks, understand?”. This had some effect, since they retreated out of sight while we ate our lunch. But of course we were not done with them.

As we got back onto the road, I did something quite stupid. I asked one of the policemen how long they were planning on following us, of which he of course understood nothing. He once again dialled the mysterious English-speaking colleague on his mobile phone, who asked me where we were going.

When I opened my big mouth and said “Hong Kong”, he became very agitated and upset. “You cannot do that! You must take a bus! It’s too far! You will be punished!” he screamed, to which I said nothing, hung up, and returned the phone.

We continued on our way, convinced that I had screwed things up irreparably. This seemed to be the case when we were stopped at the next roadblock (about the tenth since Kashgar), and told that we could go no further. Astrid was given the phone this time, and told more or less the same story. She replied that no, we would not be taking a bus, yes, we were allowed to cycle, and that no, we would not be punished. Unfortunately this was Sunday, otherwise we would have called the British or Dutch embassy immediately to ask advice.

And then, as inexplicably as just about everything else that had happened during the preceeding 24 hours, they let us go. But the menacing red Citroën which had been following us all day remained on our tail.

It was quite obvious that there could be no talk of camping that evening, and so we pushed on to the town of Bachu and checked into a hotel. The police accompanied us the whole way, and even checked into the room next to ours. Although we were both mighty tired of this harassment, we were by then a lot calmer than earlier. It appeared that a sort of stalemate had developed; while we were unable to shake off the police, they seemed to be powerless to do anything to stop us from cycling. The question was, when would it end?

There seemed to be three possible scenarios:

1. They would forcibly haul us off the road. This seemed unlikely, since if they were willing or able to do this then it would have likely already occurred.
2. They would follow us all the way to Hong Kong. This appeared highly far-fetched.
3. They would eventually leave us alone, most likely when we had left their jurisdiction. This seemed the most probable, although it remained to be seen if this would be the end of our troubles.

The next morning, before leaving Bachu, we rang the Dutch embassy in Beijing to enquire what was to be done about this outrageous situation. We were told that yes, the police had the right to do this, that no, they did not need to give us any explanation, and that trying to reason with them would have no effect whatsoever. The best advice was to stay calm, try to ignore them, be polite, and on no account offer any physical resistance. Although this did not help much in a material way, it did help to rationalise the situation a little, and give us some moral support.

The three policemen, all looking rather haggard (I did by this point have a tiny bit of sympathy with them), continued following us that morning, before eventually speeding off into the distance ahead of us. We assumed that they would be waiting at the next checkpoint, but this was not so. Finally we were rid of them.

But of course, we were hardly able to relax. Only after a few more days had passed without incident was I able to sleep well in the tent, and even then after we had taken quite severe measures to avoid detection – sleeping in tunnels under the motorway, diving behind mounds of earth during lulls in the traffic, and even cooking with the lights off. I was astonished to find myself longing for the carefree chaos of Central Asia, which had so recently been driving me nuts.

The road east across the vast territory of Xinjiang did little to lift the spirits, driving a course as it does between the Tian Shan mountains and the Takla Makan desert. This sounds like quite a picturesque route in theory, but the reality is day upon day of much the same, of countless dusty, grimy villages, trucks with blaring horns, roadworks, enormous empty petrol stations, and little to look forward to besides another sleepless night worrying about whether or not we had been seen as we left the road.

A few days later, we were cornered by the police as we entered a small town in the early evening, and were once again escorted to the nearest hotel. This led us to the conclusion that it was best to avoid towns and other settlements late in the day, since we could not really give a plausible explanation about where our destination might be. This, together with our extra-cautious behaviour whilst camping, meant that from that point until Turpan we were able to camp every night undisturbed. How long this can continue, especially in the more populated regions of China, is anyone’s guess. We simply cannot afford to stay in hotels the whole time. One crumb of comfort is that the situation may improve as we leave Xinjiang province in a week or so – although this is by no means certain.

In the meantime, we have notched up a few achievements. On the day we were first arrested, we reached a total of 10000 kilometres cycled since Amsterdam. And next week, hopefully, we will reach the longitude of 94.985°E. I am a little worried that I am in the habit of quoting far too many numbers here, but this one is important. Since Amsterdam lies at 4.985°E, this means that we will have cycled a quarter of the way around the Earth. And it certainly feels a long, long way from home.

For the first time on this journey, I have to admit that I have begun to feel homesick. It is not so much that I miss Scottish humour or Dutch cheese (although I do, very much), but that I feel suddenly so very isolated. There is me, Astrid, and nothing else which is not strange and opaque. Even in Kyrgyzstan, I could read enough Russian to know what a particular shop was selling, but the combination of Mandarin and Uighur here presents an incomprehensible wall of meaninglessness. It’s a sort of deafness and blindness, a deadening of the senses, in which information is replaced by noise and familiarity with randomness. The absence of any English-language media (aside from the occasional copy of the true-to-the-party-line China Daily), and above all the continued Internet blackout, make the situation even worse. Everyone I know could be dead, wars could have been declared, and I would know nothing about it.

On the evening after we coralled for the second time and escorted to a hotel, we went for something to eat a little further along the street. When we returned to the hotel, the sight of our bikes standing in the lobby, spattered with mud and grease, gave me a sudden warm and comforting feeling of recognition. I feel a little ashamed, although not surprised, to be affected in such a way by a piece of welded steel (not Made in China, but in Utrecht). These same bikes have got us here, and with luck they will get us to the end, too.

Walking along the street, the sound of people coughing up phlegm and spitting on to the pavement is relentless. No amount of cultural tolerance will prevent me from finding this a disgusting habit. There is nothing in the shops which is familiar. Everyone stares (and shouts) at us, and even the local museum will not let you in unless you are part of a pre-arranged tour group. It is hard to feel anything but a pariah and a member of an alien species.

But I do not want to be entirely negative. It is fascinating to experience the reality of such a different society, and the food continues to be a source of delicious surprises. Last night, we visited a restaurant where each table had a gas burner built in to it, all of which were connected together with what looked like garden hose. You get a large bowl with some salt and spices, which is filled with water and set on top of the burner. When this is boiling nicely, you make your own selection from the vast array of different items attached to wooden skewers in the fridges against the back wall. These are left to cook in the boiling mixture, and then eaten in a small bowl filled with oil and nuts, with the skewers being counted at the end to determine the price. It was quite a spectacle, and certainly delicious. Another favourite of mine are the stalls with tables on street corners selling delicious fried dough, dumplings, and noodles for breakfast. It’s all totally unhygienic and dangerous (more garden hose) and would never be allowed at home, but it’s a great way to start the day.

And in the end, I remain positive and optimistic. I hold out the hope that the “real China” is yet to come, and that Xinjiang is just a rather rough colonial outpost, neither authentically Uighur nor part of the heartland of Han China. I look forward to our second quarter of planet Earth, the second third of China, and better times to come.