China

-China-

4-7-2008

The ride itself to Kashgar from the Kyrgyz-Chinese border was far from pleasant, and as a whole, rather awkward. I sat high off the highway in the passenger seat of a large red semi-truck driven by a middle aged Ugher man with a leathery face and a long wiry goatee. Besides a few monotonous smiles from my new friend, our communication was utterly paralyzed. He spoke only Ugher and Chinese,………..while I was relying solely on Russian and English for communication,………..so as you can imagine the 4.5 hour journey to Kashgar was a bit dull and uncomfortable. I understand that “beggars can’t be choosers”, and that I should be incredibly grateful for the free ride I was given to Kashgar; However I will add that the broken shocks on the semi-truck ensured a spine wrenching ride. Each time the truck hit a bump (which was often), I was forced to stand in my seat as I  braced myself with my arms to absorb the fierce bounce and save my spine as the shocks bottomed out. It became tiring, was rough on the back, and ensured that I was awake and alert the entire drive.

On the brighter side of the spectrum, the shallow valleys and serrated mountains we traversed were completely magnificent. We drove through sharp, jaggedly shaped mountains that glowed in remarkable shades of reds and oranges and seamed to radiate beams of sunlight from within. The surrounding cliffs and mammoth rocks were artistically cut up like Swiss cheese. The geological marvels I bore witness to in route to Kashgar were stunning in all aspects of the word, and seemed incredibly unique. The natural beauty of the land became even more charming when it suddenly became intertwined with seemingly ancient civilizations tucked deep into the desolate landscape. Double humped camels, large muscular horses, and fat bottomed sheep roamed around the steep hills under the watchful eyes of their primitively dressed sheppards. The dry flat valley floors seemed only marginally interrupted by the small isolated clusters of mud shacks and irrigation ditches created by the sporadically positioned inhabitants. I enjoyed the beauty of this area immensely, and was entirely impressed by how these people lived without any help from modern technology. It appeared that life in this region had remained fundamentally unchanged for centuries. No power lines, no satellites, no automobiles, the only things that appeared to be in use were the simple necessities of life: food, water supply and shelter. I found myself pondering with intensity whether these people were living in hardship and “poverty” or the idyllic isolation from the pains and evils of the modern world.

Is it true that ignorance is bliss? I found myself pondering a few age old philosophical arguments:…… Is primitive/rural life in its entirety more ethically/morally pure than life in modern societies? Does the increase of worldly possessions equate to more greed and unjustified needs? Are busy, laboriously hard rural lifestyles in many ways easier than the busy, intricately complex, fast, and ambitious lifestyles of modern city dwellers? In the realm of morality, is it not much easier to live a life free from sin, if you are simply living in isolation and away from the raging rivers of worldly temptation?

Whenever I come across rural habitations, seemingly untouched by the expanding claws of modern/Western society,…….I find myself fantasizing about how life would be in their shoes. Would my life be boring and bland, or would it be blissful and rich? I tend to agree with the idealistic core of Eastern philosophy religions:   nothingness = happiness and desire = pain & suffering. As I slowly move forward through the challenging obstacles of our modern world and inevitably gain knowledge, experience, and cynicism; I find myself with an increasing number of worldly vices and a mind willing to challenge anything and everything. Brilliance and innovation have remarkably prevailed within ancient civilizations all over the world for thousands of years. Throughout the last two centuries of rapid globalization we have seen an increased rate of innovation and technology that has supposedly made our lives “easier”. But has it? I find it to be absolutely frightening that in barely over a century, we went from sole reliance of snail mail to blackberries. What does this recent rapid development and growth of technology foreshadow about our future?

I believe that cell phones and the internet have made us to an extent, overly accessible. Soon we will be walking around with GPS microchips implanted in us at birth, and lying to your girlfriend/wife/parents about your whereabouts will be literally impossible. The once sentimental, and carefully written letter, is now near extinct do to the ease of producing frequent, sloppily written emails. Is this a step forward or backward? Is it really necessary for us all to be so accessible? Remember when only doctors and drug dealers carried pagers? It all happened at an alarming rate, within 10-15 years we all went from happy, private, and moderately accessible people, to frantic, turbo paced, easily reached people with compulsive addictions to the internet and an underlying fear of being stuck in an area with bad cell phone reception. Has the quick acceleration of modern technology, industrialization, urbanization, and globalization made our lives easier and spread idealistically peaceful views and humanity, or is it quite the opposite? Just a thought…………….

From the border it took over three hours of driving through a barely accessible geological paradise to reach the end of the fire colored mountains. The final hour and a half of the trip was done on a modern, newly constructed highway that took us through the windy flat desert into Kashgar. 

I was dropped off on the side of the freeway about 8 miles from my destination and quickly hitched a ride into the historical Silk Road city-state of Kashgar. This Central Asian trade post has a long history of conflict with China, and frequently changing leadership and diplomacy. In 1884 Kashgar was indefinitely absorbed into the Xinjiang province of China; however, in 1933 and in 1944 Kashgar was able to briefly pull away from the oppressive grasp of China and set up independent republics.. Kashgar as a whole is only marginally different than the other newly developed capitals of former Turkistan. The inhabitants of Kashgar are predominately Muslim, speak Ugher(a Turkic language) and look, dress, act, and eat the same way as their Turkic counterparts of Central Asia.

Having spent the previous few months exploring Turkistan (Central Asia)……….I was utterly unimpressed with Kashgar AKA Kashi. The old, orange mud cluster of shacks that made up Kashgar’s old town, seamed bland in comparison to the architectural marvels of Uzbekistan, and the captivatingly primitive villages of Kyrgyzstan. Kashgar as of current is going through the changes that other once glorious and ethnically different Chinese cities are facing. It’s culture is being suffocated by oppression, the land being destroyed by industrialization, and the minds of the inhabitants are being brainwashed by the corrupt media and propaganda of the Chinese government.

I also found Kashgar to be slightly disappointing because I was now in China, and ready for a change of scenery, but at the end of the day I was still in Central Asia and far away from Han (majority ethnic group) China.

Upon arrival in China, I became quite intimidated by the language barrier, my Russian language skills were no longer a valuable asset in this part of central Asia. All the signs were written in Chinese and Arabic……….which means confusion, and frustration was eminent. I wandered around the streets of Kashgar for several hours praying in vain to find an English sign that said “Hotel”. Halfway through my 3^rd hour of pain, stress, confusion, uncomfortable heat, agony, exhaustion, and frustration; I came across a group of 8-10 year old Chinese school girls. As I sweated profusely through the blistering heat, and drug my heavy bag up the crowded sidewalk the young school girls all smiled at me and yelled “hello” in high pitched squeals. I stopped immediately and said the word ‘hotel’ in Ugher while looking the girls in the eye and shaking my hands to represent confusion………………This did not work; I must have said it wrong. I then said “where Hotel” over and over while showing the girls the international sign language for sleeping. They seamed to understand this final gesture immediately and after speaking amongst themselves briefly, signaled me to follow them across the 5 lane street. I followed the elementary school girls across the busy road as they dodged speeding cars with ease and calmness. As my mind began to comprehend the situation, I began to feel a bit self-conscious about being led around the city by a group of 8 Chinese school girls with pink backpacks and pigtails. Would it appear to others inappropriate to be led into a hotel by a large group of 8-11 year olds? Well,……………..my options were limited and my exhaustion was almost unbearable, so I went with it.

After about 5 blocks we had arrived at a large run down looking hotel about 50 yards from a busy street. I felt both awkward and relieved as the schoolgirls guided me into the hotel and to the front desk; I can only imagine what the women at the reception desk was thinking. I smiled and said “thank you” to the giggling schoolgirls as they exited the hotel and continued their journey home from school.

I was able to obtain a relatively clean hotel room for about $5 a night………..and was quite relieved to have a bed to lie in, a sit down toilet, and running water. It was only about 6pm, but I was severely exhausted and had no trouble skipping dinner and sleeping through the night.

The next morning I wandered through the busy streets of Kashgar and eventually made my way to the bustling market district. Here I grabbed a quick breakfast of what appeared to be soup. To this day I have no idea what was in this mystery soup. Most of the yellowish chunks within the soup seamed to be internal organs of some sort……..my guess was pig. I ate the 15 cent cup of street soup 2-3 times a day while I maintained residence in Kashgar. 

The market area was quite intriguing………the food court contained various snacks such as pig and cow feet boiled to perfection with the skin dripping off the bone like a pompom for simple consumption. Their were also several varieties of mystery soups and goat heads chopped in half for a quick and tasty meal.

Further down the street was the spice market, and medicinal market where you could find dried frogs, snakes and lizards to cure all of your nagging ailments. I ended up buying a bag of dried apricots and dates and continuing my journey through the overcrowded streets of Kashgar. I walked around 12 miles in a massive circle before I ran out of juice and was forced to head back to my hotel for an evening of relaxation with my recently opened book ‘The Great Game’ by Peter Hopkirk. It was time to learn a bit more about the eventful historical struggle between the Brits and Ruskies for control over the buffer zone (Central Asia) between Russia and India. For the record I found the book fascinating, and was entirely impressed by Hopkirks writing style and his ability to tie a couple centuries of war and diplomatic chaos into one well written book.

At around 9pm I ventured out of my hotel room in order to track down something to eat. I decided to follow the smell, smoke and loud sounds I encountered as I walked out of my hotel. I ended up in a dark crowded alley near my hotel where several Shashlik restaurants busily served traditional Central Asian dishes to hungry locals. I stepped into one of the shadowy, jam-packed, smoky roadside restaurants and ordered some nan bread and four ground beef shashliks ( meat on metal skewer). I consumed the traditional Central Asian meal quickly with the help of no less than 3 cups of adequate tasting green tea. The bill for this hearty meal was a whopping $1.20.

The following day I followed the same routine as day one: a long walk exploring the city, 2-4 hours of reading and a hearty late night dinner of nan bread and Shashlik. I ordered the beef shashlik again mainly because it was the only Central Asian dish I had yet to become ill from.  The thought of any other food on the menu brought back horrible memories, and in consequence made me feel nauseous. I looked forward greatly to leaving Central Asia behind and having a brand new assortment of dishes to become ill from.

Since I had already spent so much time in Central Asia, I was eager and anxious to leave Turkistan behind and stimulate my mind with the cultural absorption of perhaps the most impressive and historically significant country in the world(China).  I bought a ticket for the 8:30am train to Urumqi about 30 hours north of Kashgar. 

4-9-2008

I woke up at about 5am with a bloated stomach and an overall feeling of discomfort and foreshadowed sickness. I drank a bit of water, ignored my symptoms and went back to sleep. I woke up at 8:15……….which is not good, because my alarm was supposed to go off at 7am. I frantically dressed, sprinted down the stairs, and to the hotel reception desk for check out. I showed eagerness, impatience, frustration and cruelty as I yelled at the women behind the counter to hurry up and give me my deposit back,…………..this seamed to take ages. By 8:22 I was out the door and running down the dark streets of Kashgar to the nearest taxi (it was dark because it was actually 5:22am……..trains leave on Beijing time). I eventually hailed a cab, and spent the next 10 agonizing minutes yelling with impatience and freaking out about the $100 bucks I had just blown by missing my train. I arrived at the train station at 8:40am (Beijing time)…………my train had left 5 minutes prior……..F$*#! 

After the adrenaline, anger, and frustration began to subside; I began to feel nauseous and achy. Thirty minutes later I was on a bus from the train station to the center of Kashgar. By the time I had reached Kashgar’s city center my nausea was almost unbearable, and I was on the verge of shitting myself. The two mile walk back to my hotel took over an hour because of my slow nauseating pace, and my desperate need to sit down on hard surfaces about every 5-8 minutes. By the time I made it to my hotel, and re-checked in……..I was in a very sorry state of existence. I began to realize for the first time,……… that perhaps it was a good thing that I missed the train. 

That damn shashlik had done me in, and here I was day 3 in China and already praying to the porcelain god, shivering in bed lying in the fetal position, and trying desperately to keep from “having an accident”. 

Well what can I say…………..the next 4 days was hell, I was out $100 bucks because of the train I never boarded, and I was back to my recovery diet of yogurt, crackers, and bananas. Nonetheless on 4-12-2008 I boarded the 8:30am train to Urumqi and arrived the following afternoon. 

The train ride to Urumqi from Kashgar was relatively uneventful; I spent a lot of time sleeping, reading, and suffering severe annoyance from the preposterously loud sounds of the train’s elevator music. I came pretty close to going postal when from 5-7pm I was forced to listen to some sort of Chinese variety show………..it was hell! 

Day 2: 4-13-2008, I woke up to the pleasant sounds of traditional Uhger music and a few hotties dancing around in the aisle. One guy was playing what looked like a banjo, and 3 beautiful, fair skinned Uhger girls (18-22) were singing, yelling, and dancing seductively while smiling from ear to ear. The whole train was clapping, singing, and really getting into the music. Even though I was still feeling relatively nauseous and exhausted; I truly enjoyed this free spirited Ugher band and the energy that they spread contagiously to the people surrounding me. 

When I woke up and peered my shaggy head curiously into the aisle………everyone erupted with laughter and warm smiles welcoming me to join the festivities. After about an hour of silent observation,…….the theatrics stopped and a couple of the dancing girls spent the next hour trying to impress me with simple English word phrases (most of which they completely butchered, and were not prepared for responses to). 

“What is your name” , “ Where are you from” , “My name is_________” 

The sun was shining, the people were friendly, and my nausea had for the most part subsided. Today was a good day. I exited the train on the afternoon of April 13^th 2008. Urumqi at first glance was incredibly developed and much more Chinese than Central Asian. Despite the fact that I did observe a few basic underlying differences between Kashgar and Urumqi; truth be told, there was nothing that intrigued me about Urumqi. 

Within 30 minutes after arrival, I was able to track down an internet café and began researching my next leg of travel. Where should I go next? Perhaps I should have planned this out better………my only excuse is the fact that I had spent the last 3-4 days miserably ill in my hotel room. Luckily I was sitting next to a cute Chinese girl who spoke immaculate English; I broke the silence by asking her what  the cheapest way to Beijing from Urumqi was. After a bit of cliché dialogue, we both decided that it would be better if we took the train together to Xian (former capitol of China), rather than going solo straight to Beijing. She goes to University in Xian, and offered to show me around the city.

We both bought tickets for the midnight train to Xian, and then proceeded to explore downtown Urumqi in order to burn a bit of time. Susan (her English name) gave me a relatively extensive and informative tour of Urumqi, but at the end of the day I found it to be unimpressive and basically a larger and more Chinese version of Kashgar. The highlight of Urumqi was watching a freak-show street performer tie up an 8 year old boy in cannon ball position, poking a metal rod through the flesh in his forearm, and lifting the boy off the ground by the metal rod. It was graphic, unorthodox and weird, but was strange enough to be entertaining.

-My dilemma: How do I top Central Asia? The people were Islamic, which meant their hospitality was second to none. Their culture was completely bizarre when compared to the Western world. And basically, everyday was a crazy, wild, unforgettable adventure that seamed (at the time) impossible to match. And now……………. I am in China, historically incredible, culturally unique and wildly diverse, but with a current political regime that strangles free speech, open minds, and overall humanity. Is it even possible to enjoy China by simply overlooking the past century of mass murder, political rape, harmful propaganda, invasion, and oppression? …………..I hope so.

4-16-2008

I arrived in Xian 36.5 hours later………finally the China I was looking for, a giant recently restored “ancient wall” surrounding the city, with McDonalds and KFC everywhere. Susan walked me to a nearby hostel…$4 a night(not bad)…..I dropped off my bag and we were soon off to her university. A couple public buses later, we were at her university and speaking to her round bodied, smiley, enthusiastically friendly professor Jane (English Name). She was awesome; we spent the next several hours touring the city, visiting 1,000 year old pagodas and various other historical landmarks. Unfortunately the substantial amount of pollution in Xian hindered me from capturing any memorable photographs. Literally unless you were 50 feet from an object……….Xian’s smog obstructed all clear views no matter how kick ass your camera is. Apparently if it rains 40+ hours strait, and the rain happens to clear up in the morning, you can occasionally get a clear shot of some of the greater monuments of China.

After retiring back to my hostel, I took a short nap then headed to a nearby restaurant for some eats. After a lot of confusion and some primitive sign language, I managed to order something to eat. It ended up being some fried rice with chicken; which worked out fine for me. After dinner I visited a relatively upscale but fair priced massage parlor, the massage was not exactly as deep tissue’ as imagined, but was relaxing nonetheless. Having a few knots worked out of my upper back, proved to be quite rewarding and therapeutic.

4-17-2008

I took a bus to the site of the Terracotta Soldiers about 1.5 hrs from Xian. The Terracotta soldiers were found in the 1970s by a farmer digging a well in one of his fields. After finding a few shards of sculpted clay and relaying those to archeological experts, it became known that what this farmer found was perhaps China’s greatest archeological find of the 20^th century. The 7,000+ soldiers, horses and armored chariots were built to scale for the emperor to be buried with. It was believed that this army would be with him during the afterlife.

4-18-2008

Off to Beijing. I bought a hard seat ticket (half the price of a sleeper) which proved to be absolutely miserable. The seat back was vertical, and the foot room was ridiculously minuscule. I arrived in Beijing at 7am, and was absolutely exhausted. After a short bus ride, and about an hour on the busy subway, I made it to my host Nan’s apartment. Nan is a film student at Beijing’s communication university. She speaks fluent English and sports a recently opened mind, due to her recent study abroad experience in Estonia. 

I spent the next few days touring around Beijing with Nan’s other guest Omri, an Israeli backpacker fresh out of the military. We had a blast together, debating Middle Eastern politics and the prospected conflict between Israel and Iran. One evening we met up with a few more Israeli guys and spent a rainy evening at the Beijing Hooters drinking beers and dancing the Macarena.

……………………………To be completely honest, I found China to be less than pleasant and the people to be living ( in general- from my brief observations and personal beliefs) in a selfish, ignorant, fantasy world; a world that sees China as just, ethical, and the only country with the exclusively correct answer to the world’s problems. I found the selfish social norms and mannerisms of the Chinese to be quite comparable and parallel to that of the people in former soviet countries. I hypothesize that Chinese people are the way they are because of their socialist government. They are products of socialism, and an unfortunate predisposition to selfishness and seemingly discourteous behavior. I have no doubt in my mind that the Chinese are completely unaware of just how off-putting their mannerisms can be. And in general, are kind hearted people: after all, when compared to the West or Islamic nations,……..many countries are comparatively rude and uncivil. 

So what exactly caused this phenomenon of selfishness and rudeness? Could it be that decades of oppressed individualism is what causes Chinese people to act in an anti-social way (when compared to the West)? Or is it simply the NYC/Chicago scenario……..where people are rude and selfish merely because there are just too many people packed into a small space, and it is kill or be killed; if you want to get onto the subway you better push and fight. Why is it that my entire thesis is invalid when speaking of minority areas, and rural villages of China? In my opinion it is because these areas have been out of the governments reach.

 The philosophical ideals that have “guided” the structure of socialist regimes are in themselves beautiful and pure; however, the results when practiced on a large scale have been conclusively negative and disastrous. The only proven successes of communism have taken place on the small scale. For example the Kibbutz system in Israel has shown great success, which means communism to an extent is possible. These small Israeli farming communities are able to function brilliantly by following the pure philosophical guidelines of socialism with few negative side effects. 

So why is it that socialism has failed on a large scale? In my opinion it all comes down to basic human nature. 

-Greed

-Selfishness

-Laziness

-Free will

Unless these are completely eradicated from each and every human being within a socialist regime…………….the communist structure will fail.

 Instead of socialism breeding humanity, hope, comradery, brotherly love, and selflessness, it took a turn in the opposite direction. Somehow large scale communism in practice resulted in infectious corruption, greed, selfishness, and oppression. It is in my opinion impossible for one to adequately argue that the Chinese government has created a socialist government that works. For example when analyzing recent Chinese history, it is not difficult to find the similarities between Mao and Stalin,……….both found the “greater good” to be much more important than individual lives. Suffering, death, oppression, and pain correspond tightly with China’s economic expansion, political reform, and socialistic unity. How does China expect to progress through the hindering oppression of its central government? I personally find it disheartening to see a once culturally diverse, free thinking, genius people fall into a black hole of ignorance and self delusion.

I once asked a Chinese teenager if he thought it was unfair that the government filters and controls all of the media in China. His response was startling; He mentioned that the government only filters out the lies, and that it is better to have government controlled media because “you know you will always be getting the truth”.

That being said, I will simply outline what I did, and where I traveled throughout China:

4-21-2008: At 5:30pm I boarded a train to Kunming the capital of China’s Yunan region; a region of China culturally unique and not surprisingly similar to nearby SE Asian countries.

4-23-2008: I arrived in Kunming at 7:10am………….I was exhausted, having spent the last 38 hours nonstop on a train.

-at 7:30am I boarded a bus and headed north to Old Dali. I arrived in Dali 6 hours later at 1:30pm. After wandering around a bit and visiting a few 9^th century pagodas, I walked down to the freeway and managed to flag down a bus heading to Lijang.

-After 5 more hours in transit I arrived in Lijang at 10:00pm. Soon after I found a place to crash and spent the evening wandering around the extraordinarily intact and charming old town of Lijang. 

4-24-2008: I woke up at 6am, wandered around Lijang for a few hours, then proceeded to the bus station where I caught the 10:00am bus to Shangra La. 

-5hrs later, at 3:00pm I arrived in Shangra La. After checking into a sketchy $3 a night hotel near the bus station; I spent the rest of the day touring around the various Buddhist monasteries, and wandering around Shangra La’s beautiful old town. The monastery on the edge of old town had the largest prayer wheel I have ever seen. It must have been 15 feet across and 20ft high. Buddhist prayer wheels contain (depending on the size) thousands of written mantras (prayers) and these prayers are activated when turning the wheel clockwise. The large prayer wheel was beautifully decorated and was surrounded by handles every couple feet so that people could spin the wheel and activate the mantras.

4-25-2008: I woke up early and caught the 8:20am bus for Deqin. 

The drive was amazing, massive green fields with thousands of grazing yaks, isolated Buddhist villages dotted the hillsides, steep rolling hills, sharp windy roads carved through the edge of the mountain pass. My head started pounding when we reached the top of the pass 14,000ft. 7hrs later at 3:20pm we arrived in Deqin. After checking into a shitty $3 a night, beetle infested hotel, I went out for a tour of the town.

-I spent the day wandering around the steep hillsides, visiting monasteries, and attempting to communicate with the locals throughout old town. My headache never completely went away throughout my time in Deqin.

- Deqin is a small town on the edge of the Tibetan border, its inhabitants are over 80% Tibetan……..and the town sits at 12,000ft. After wandering through old town, and visiting the market, I felt contented that I was able to get a small taste of Tibetan culture. I also went for a short hike around the hillside and checked out a series of white painted mounds, Buddhist graves.

-Unfortunately Deqin is as far north as I was able to go, the Chinese government has restricted all access to Tibet by foreigners. The official reason for this is safety (for the tourists), but the real reason is most likely to avoid another PR disaster by allowing human rights activists to stage another protest against the Chinese occupation of Tibet so near to the opening of the Olympics in Beijing. With so many tourists coming to China for the Olympics, it is easy to see how the Chinese government foresaw a reputation damaging incident during the 2008 Olympics. A simple solution by the Chinese was to stage a fake protest in Lhasa, kill a few peaceful Tibetan monks, publicize media briefs that made Tibetan monks sound like ungrateful, violent beasts eager for the taste of tourist blood, and to cover it all up; set up a Tibetan museum in Beijing in order to show visitors a glimpse into the “happy and peaceful” lives of the “ ethnically Tibetan Chinese”(this is not fact, merely a hypothetical I developed).

-I woke up at 3am with a pounding headache; I was not even close to acclimatized to 12,000ft. After taking a couple Advil I was able to get back to sleep.

4-26-2008: I woke up early and went for a long walk around the small town trying to soak up as much Tibetan culture as possible. The Tibetan women wore pink scarves on their heads like turbans, and usually sported bamboo baskets on their backs. Deqin was tucked into a small valley between large steep hills. The surrounding hills were delightfully littered with colorful prayer flags and clusters of white graves.

-At 11am I boarded a bus that would take me all the way back to Kunming.

4-27-2008: After a miserable 20 hour bus ride I arrived in Kunming at 7:20am and walked straight to the train station, angrily dodging the solicitation of overzealous cab drivers and street vendors.

-At 9:30am I was on a train heading to Beijing.

4-29-2008: After a 48hour non-stop train ride, I arrived in Beijing at 9:30am. 

-I wasted no time and headed straight to the Embassy of Pakistan to pick up my visa, then went straight to the forbidden city for some sight seeing. After a long day of sight seeing I headed back to my host Nan’s Apartment for a bit of R&R.

4-30-2008: Went shopping, highlight-buying a 8GB thumb drive for $15.

5-1-2008: Peleg (my Israeli friend) and I headed to Sematai at 7:20am. Sematai is a place a few hours from Beijing where The Great Wall of China is for the most part original and stretches seemingly endlessly along grassy, desolate rolling hills. We spent the day hiking along the eroding wall, up and down the rolling hills. It was absolutely incredible to be in the middle of such beautiful scenery, and hiking miles and miles on a massive 4,000 year old wall. Hiking on the great wall was definitely the unrivalled highlight of China. The only downside of the day, being that the air pollution reached even Sematai, which meant visibility was muffled by brown smog. The Chinese have really done a number on their environment, but can we really complain? We do in-fact continue to outsource factory work to China and buy up all the products produced in these factories. So in many ways we are as much to blame as the Chinese for the large factories that pump endless amounts of CO2 and other pollutants into the air and water supply.

5-2-2008: After running a few errands, and saying farewell to my new found friends, Peleg, Omri, and Nan; I hopped on the 6:30pm Train to Urumqi. Train travel is pretty expensive in China, so I decided to buy a hard seat ticket instead of the hard sleeper which was twice the cost. 

-I ended up easing the pain a bit by getting drunk with the locals I was sitting next to. It helped me get to sleep, but did not erase the fact that I would be sitting on a hard, vertical seat for the next 44hrs.

5-3-2008: Day two was much more painful than the first, but again I eased the pain by drinking watered down Chinese beer and a few forced shots of the local firewater.

5-4-2008: 2 days of scarce sleep, dehydration, and too much booze really wore me out. I arrived at 10:45am feeling like hell, and completely exhausted………..however the show must go on.

-I scrambled through the ticket line quickly and was able to catch the 11:21am train for Kashgar. Again I punished myself by buying a hard seat ticket in order to save money……

-“I sit now at 12:32pm and drink beer alone while writing in my journal. 30 minutes ago I smoked a cigarette with a guy sitting near me, he is about 20. He is now sitting across from me as  I write, and asking me questions in Ugher. I smile and try to explain to him that I have no idea what he is saying.”

-Eventually the crew got bigger, and by the time the sun went down I was surrounded by a fairly large group of Wiggers (The major ethnic group of Chinese Central Asia). We drank beer into the night, and I eventually passed out at 11pm.

5-5-2008: I arrived in Kashgar at 11am, quickly boarded a bus that took me to Kashgar’s long distance bus station. And within an hour was on a bus to Sost Pakistan. The ridiculously strenuous travel marathon ended 7 hours later when my bus stopped in Tash-Kurgan, China 12,000ft: the last town before the Khunjerab Pass, 16,000ft. 

Just to put a bit of perspective on how ridiculous the previous two weeks were; I will punch some numbers in order to explain to you exactly how much time I spent in-transit: In the last __14__days I was on a bus or train for _213_ hours or exactly __63.4%__of the time. And for the last 4 sleepless nights I had only a hard seat to sit/sleep on for rest. So yeah,…………was it all worth it? I think so, but I will definitely never do it again.

____________________________________________________

Well the party is officially over, I made it back to the homeland on July 16th. I am currently chillin up at the family Chalet in the mountains trying to decompress, and get a few things written down. I have my work cut out for me trying to update the blog,.........a lot has happened since China. I have recently been considering turning my blog into a book, not sure it is publishable, but I figured I would give it a shot. I welcome any feedback, positive or negative. I have no idea how to go about getting published, so any advice is welcome also. 

Thanks,

Trevor

PS: I apologize if this blog offends people, I wrote what I felt, and I know it can sound a bit too harsh at times. I am definitely not an expert on all of the worlds issues, so if you feel strongly about something I wrote, I invite your criticism and debate.

Pics from China:

Beijing with my host Nan, and Israeli friends.

Beijing

The Forbidden city Beijing

The Great Wall of China

Terracotta Soldiers X'ian

In front of the Forbidden City

Kashgar

Uigher men in Kashgar

Mystery Soup in Kashgar

Uigher man in Urumqi

Urumqi

On the train with the crew