The diary of a Scot in Amsterdam

A month and a half after crossing the border, we have now reached Lanzhou, approximately the midpoint of our journey across China, or Zhōngguó, the “Middle Kingdom”, as the Chinese call their country. If you have reached the middle of the middle, then you really must have arrived somewhere.

The descent from the mountains into the city was suitably dramatic, as the road suddenly curved around a corner to reveal the city in all its high-rise glory, sprawling out into the distance on the far bank of the Yellow River. The sight of this mighty waterway, cradle of Chinese civilisation, is in itself significant. It is our first connection with the faraway sea, to which it eventually flows, and which will also form the end of our journey. But that is still some distance away.

Things have improved a lot since my last post. We have had no more trouble from the police, aside from an incident which I shall shortly explain, and it does feel as though we have found our feet a bit more in China. It would seem that the secret of avoiding great frustration in this country, as in any other strange and foreign environment, is to adapt to the norms and realities of the place, instead of trying to defeat or avoid them. People will stare unashamedly at us from the side of the road and through the windows of buses, but all I can do is smile back, wave and try not to let it bother me too much. And while such things as bread, beer, and coffee are available here, it seems better to avoid them since they taste so terrible. By eating and drinking what the Chinese do, you are much more assured of something good.

Our first stop after Turpan was the city of Hami, the last major town in Xinjiang. The journey there was quite a dry, dusty and monotonous one, interrupted only by our meeting a group of three English cyclists, also heading east. Two of them were being sponsored by Nokia and various solar energy companies to cycle round the entire world, in less time than it will take us to get across just Europe and Asia. We camped together for one night, before they headed off at the crack of dawn with the aim of cycling 150km the next day. I did feel quite a bit deflated in the presence of such sportiness, although on balance I still prefer our more relaxed tempo.

The day we reached Hami, we came upon quite an upsetting discovery. We were cycling along the motorway through a very empty piece of territory, when we saw what looked like a man lying next to the entrance of one of the many small tunnels which run under the road. We had seen numerous construction workers bedding down for the night under blankets next to the road, and so it seemed like this was just another one of them. But something seemed not quite right, and so we decided to investigate in case he was ill and needed help.

It did not need much close inspection to see that we could offer him no more help, at least not in this world. Indeed it was quite obvious that his body had been lying there for some time, perhaps because the position he was in meant that drivers of cars and trucks would probably not be able to see. Either that or no-one cared.

I was less shocked and horrified than I might have imagined, but all the same, the sight of what was left of his face is one which will stay with me for a long time to come.

Clearly it was necessary that he be dealt with in some respectful way and not left to continue rotting in the sun for months on end, but ensuring that this was done was not so straightforward. We cycled back along the road a few kilometres to the nearest motorway toll, and tried to explain the situation as best we could. Eventually, a small cheery fat girl came bouncing towards us and asked us in English what was going on. “There is a dead man over there”, I explained. Her reply was quite perplexing – “only one?” (is that not enough?) – and in any case no-one appeared very shocked by the situation.

We were kept waiting for some time for the police to arrive, of course not our first dealings with them in China but in this case voluntary. Thankfully the motorway toll canteen had some food for us, although I ate more out of hunger than appetite, as can be expected. Eventually we were allowed to go, and on our way passed by the man once again, this time surrounded by a group of perhaps eight or nine policemen, who appeared quite indecisive about what they should be doing. We waved, they waved back, and we left the gruesome scene behind us.

The physical reality of what we had seen was not much more shocking than seeing a dead dog or cat on the road (and the smell was about the same), but I did later feel quite down about the whole event. It was just so sad – this poor man had died in the gutter, literally, hunched into the foetal position, just as he entered this life. Didn’t he have family or anyone else who had missed him? How long would he have remained there if we hadn’t seen him? How many others had seen his body and passed it by as not their problem?

Later that evening, I am a bit ashamed to say, we sat in KFC in Hami eating fries and ice-cream for a badly-needed injection of the Western lifestyle. I kept seeing Colonel Sanders’ stupid little face everywhere, and thinking, why is his face on plastic cups from New York to Beijing and everywhere in between, while the man we saw today gets his eaten off by flies in the roadside? What did he do to deserve such a pitiful end?

But such questions serve no purpose. Life is not fair, and we will all die sooner or later, one way or the other. But before then, let’s enjoy things as they are. That is what I keep telling myself.

And the journey onward towards our next stop, the city of Jiayuguan, put me in better spirits. A few days after Hami, we were finally clear of Xinjiang province, and were moving down the long Hexi corridor towards Lanzhou. Firstly, however, we stopped for a few days in Jiayuguan, where it was possible to check e-mails and catch up on the news for the first time since Osh. It turned out that nothing much had changed in the outside world, and that all was relatively okay at home, aside from my grandmother having suffered a heart attack. This was quite upsetting news, although I was relieved to hear that she is recovering.

One more strange incident on the way. We had stopped for something to eat in a grimy little village called Xingxingxia, and were quite puzzled by the thick, heavy fabric curtains which were hanging in front of the restaurant where we sat. As soon as we were in the door, one of the women working there rushed to close the door and the curtain behind us, and insisted that we stay inside. She made a wide gesture with both arms and imitated the sound of an explosion by way of explanation, which made me think that she was perhaps expecting thunder. This was quite confusing, as the weather showed no signs of turning stormy.

A short time later, an answer to this puzzle arrived in the form of an enormous explosion which shook the whole building and threw up a huge cloud of dust outside. It turned out that there were workers close by busy dynamiting away bits of the mountains to make way for a new road. Clearly the residents of Xingxingxia were simply expected to deal with the resulting disruption as best they could. The general attitude to health and safety here is a bit different from home, to say the least, and in fact in sometimes appears that people almost wilfully go out of their way to do things in the most dangerous way possible. Truck operators in particular seem to take it as a matter of pride to overload their vehicles to the point that they are constantly in danger of overturning and crushing whoever is unfortunate enough to be close by, which will hopefully not be us.

In Jiayuguan, we took the time to be tourists for once. As well as visiting the city’s fort, symbolic western endpoint of the old Chinese empire, we of course paid a visit to the most important tourist site of all in China – the Great Wall. Except, of course, that it is not quite as might be expected. Contrary to the expectations I had of a magnificent turreted, castellated structure snaking over the hills all the way to Beijing, it is in most places quite dilapidated and was in any case never constructed as much more than a muddy embankment for most of its length. The section here was in fact completely reconstructed in the 1980’s, displaying the same heavy-handed approach to conservation that we had earlier seen at the Kizil Thousand Buddha Caves (front concreted over and doors installed). But it certainly looks like the real deal, which is the intention I suppose.

After Jiayuguan, there followed a relatively uneventful week as we passed through yet more tedious dusty terrain on the road to Lanzhou. It was during this time, and particularly the more mountainous sections, that we began to experience freezing temperatures for the first time since March. I had been quite worried about this happening, given that all our visa delays meant that we had arrived in China more than a month later than planned. The coming weeks will be quite hard, I am afraid, although there is some hope: shortly we will begin heading more south than east, as well as downwards as we reach the vast, low coastal plane which comprises the eastern third of China. In this way, we should have reached the warmest part of the country before the harsh winter sets in. But this is all just theory right now.

China is cheap. All the hotels we have stayed in up to this point have cost us around €10-€15 a night, which is a nice surprise after paying 3-4 times this earlier. In Hami, we paid even less for a room without a window (it was already dark outside…). We realised that we could afford to spend a few nights in the most expensive hotel in Lanzhou for less than the dirtiest and cheapest of hotels in Amsterdam, a chance which will not be available soon. We thus decided to splash out (€50 a night!) for some luxury in the Lanzhou Legend Hotel, certainly the poshest I have ever stayed in. We even ordered room service, which is of course a sure sign that you are rich and have made it. Just like the fake wall, it’s nice to pretend. There is a huge widescreen telly, complete with BBC News, an even bigger bed, a fantastic view over the city, and about the best breakfast yet. They clean the room twice a day, and the restaurant serves pizza at any hour of the day or night. And even the chambermaids speak English.

Tonight it’s back in the sleeping bags, waking up shivering to find that all our water is frozen and that the tent is covered with ice. Soon, though, we will be toasting our arrival in the sunshine of Hong Kong, if all goes well. It seems so close, but it’s a while away yet.