Still Alive

I have a feeling sending off an e-mail telling you all that I'm heading over to an area of the world that isn't so peachy and then not sending out another e-mail until 3 weeks later is not such a good idea on my part. So yes this time I really do apologize. I know that many of you will say that I have no need to apologize but I am anyway since I have had more then a few chances to write an update since then.

 

Alright, so I left you all in Prague or Berlin or somewhere tat I am not too sure about so we'll start where I know you have never heard about which would be the airplane flying to Moscow.

 

The flight to Moscow was perfectly fine, we had no worries, and even being a Russian airline it really wasn't too bad. When we arrived in the Airport Maude and I had some trouble trying to figure out exactly where we were supposed to go, there was no one really leading us around or telling us where we needed to go. So after a bit we found the "International Tansfer/Transit" line. We stood there for awhile while we waited for an actual worker to come. For a bit I was slightly worried, thinking that we were too late to be delt with, it was almost 10:00 PM by this time. After a bit a lady approched us, speaking decent English and took us into the international waiting area. She told us to check into the Transit office at 7:00 AM the next morning. For the rest of the night we attempted to sleep on steel benches in the cold Moscow airport. It wasn't nearly as bad as one would think spending the night in the Moscow Airport would be. The next morning we come to the "Transit" office at the correct time, just for the worker to tell us to come back in 30 mins, we spend the time looking at all the duty free watches and pens that cost more then the amount of money I will be spending on this entire trip. After the time was up, the lady had us wait in a room that would have been much nicer to sleep in then where we were while she checked our passports, like we were criminals or maybe exiles or deportees or something. After another bit we met two other ladies coming from Berlin like us, and we got a private escort through the airport, as we had to go to the "other" terminal which is situated way across the airfield. So it was just four of us, Me, Maude, and the two German ladies, and we get our very own bus all the way around the Airfield to the "other" terminal. On our way we passed several planes that were missing engines, and another few that looked like old soviet bomber converted to passenger planes. At that point I was just really wishing that my plane was going to be able to fly. So we waited in another room for what seemed hours, in over-stuffed couches just begging us to sleep, we all agreed with the couches at one point or another until finally we were sent through a security check, more thorough then that of an American airport, and then onto another "private" bus out to the airplane we were flying in. To my relief it had all of its engines.

 

The flight from Moscow to Almaty (former capital of Kazakhstan) was quite nice actually. The staff on the plane was very accomadating and was more then willing to help us out. They gave us several different things such as headphones and eye covers to make the flight just a bit easier. That flight went almost flawless up until the point when we heard the pilot announce that due to some random reason we would be landing in Astana. Both Maude and I looked at each other rather confused and started brain-storming how we'd get to China in the 3 days I had left on my Kazak visa. As the plane landed I got ready to confront the flight crew about our problem when I noticed that the big sign over the airport did infact say "Alma-ata" (Kazak for Almaty). maude didn't see the sign and when I walked past all the flight staff without saying more then "thank you" she got slightly alarmed until I reassured her that we were infact in the right place. Customs was easy, stamp in my passport and a digital photo taken of me then a wave through.

 

Leaving the airport could have gone a little smoother then it did, as soon as we left the secure area, we had a mob of taxi drivers approch us, all of them wanting us to take their cab. Not knowing any better, we "agreed" on the price of 500 tenge (the local currency) and loaded our stuff up. I immediately knew something was wrong when I saw a whole line of taxis outside with the drivers in the cars, by this point there wasn't much that we could have done, and in no time this man was speeding towards the train station. Driving in Almaty was deffinately a bit different compared to any of the countries I've been in, where one yeilds very little to street lights or the car lanes. We arrived at the train station and the driver continued to quote the price as 5000 tenge, which is about 33 Euros. I was angry, and started asking why, and telling him that we agreed on 500. He just made no backed remarks such as "I said 500 a kilometer, and is was 20 kilometers." (Good math buddy...) "This is a very nice car, an gas is very expensive." (We drove past a number of gas stations and gas was never more then 100 tenge.) After quite a bit of argueing, and me raising my voice a bit to this man, I got tired of it and we got the price down to 3000... which is still too much, but, what can you do, eh? Luckly we were taken to the correct train station and once inside, we actually had a rather easy time getting the ticket the to Urumqi. To our dismay, the only ticket that would get us to China before my visa expired was leaving later that evening. So we spent the rest of our day looking around the city as much as we could and shopping for supplies we would need for a 34 hour train ride. We had an interesting experience in a restaurant while we had dinner where the waiter wanted out autograph. When the time to take the train came we loaded up and made our selves at home with two other ladies, neither of which spoke very much English.

 

The train ride was rather long and uneventful. We spent the night on the rain in beds that were smaller than anything I have ever slept on. The next day we spent the majority of it looking out the windows at the desert with a number of random stops in small villages where no one got on or off. On the train I actually met an american man who had been living in Almaty with his family for the past two years and was going to China for businesse. at about 3:30 that day the train stopped, for a couple hours before that we had been able to see the Chinese border running along side our train. At the stop they took our passports, unloaded everybody, and then after a short while the train drove away. It ended up that they were changing the wheels on the train, the Soviet rails are not the same size as the Chinese, and every train going through has to go through this process. We waited for another few hours until finally our train came back. At this point we were allowed back on the train and this is when the checks started. Three of them just on the Kazak side of the border, various soldiers coming through and rumaging through our stuff, and all of the hiding places on the train. And for some odd reason they really didn't like my water bottle, giving me strange looks, and asking me questions about it. That took much longer then was comfortable on a train whose climate is completely controlled by the outside air. Which being in the desert kept the inside of the train at "Hot". After we got our passports back the train drove for what must not have been more then a couple kilometers when we stopped once again. This time we were in China. And the entry they gave us was great, the Chinese anthem bellowing out at the train, and more then a handful of gaurds stading at salut as the train slowed to a halt. Here they took our passports and did all of the exact same checks that the soilders on the Kazak side performed, and came to the exact same conclusions. As they finished processing our passports and visas they let us out of the train to wait in the courtyard area infront of the train station. As soon as I got out of the train I just felt so much better then I did in Kazakhstan, and was very happy that I was planning on being there for such a long time. After a bit they loaded us back up and gave us our passports. Everything was right on track, off to Urumqi.

 

We woke up after just a few hours of sleep and got ready to arrive, there were a few Chinese people on the train that could not take themselves from the window they were so glad to be "home". When we finally did arrive in the station it was kinda bizarre the major differences that the Chinese rail stations have compare to the european ones.Security it extremely tight, you can't get off the train without a ticket, and you can't even get into the main part of the station without a ticket and putting your things through a security x-ray. Another thing is that like most Chinese architechiture the stations are absolutely massive. We exited the station and deffinately felt more then a little lost. Looking around from sign to sign we could see much more Arbic script then English, an with our packs on we not only drew attention but moreorless a crowd. So we start walking aimlessly hoping that we will be able to find a cheap place to stay when a number of people approach us panamiming if we needed a place to stay. After a few minutes of hard work at trying to communicate we took their offer and had our first experience of driving in China. In China the drivers are actually surprisingly good, there are amost no collisions and you only slightly need to pay attention to the road. Many Chinese drivers use their horns much more then what would seem acceptable in western countries (even Paris) but they use it not out of anger, but much more as a way to notify others when they are in your path, or when you enter their lane, or even just to say thanks for letting me pass. The Hotel we were taken to was not the nicest, but then again living in Hostels for the last 6 months has more then lowered my standards for living. We took the room for 100 RMB which comes out to be about 10 Euros. This price was for Maude and I both, we had our own room, with a real toilet, and almost a shower. I have paid much more for that for hostels that barely reach the same standard.

 

We only stayed in Urumqi for one night. That was all we really needed. The dirty parts were really dirty, and the clean parts were infact clean. The buildings were all Chinese, and if you have never been to China this does not mean like the old Chinse style. The air was dirty, with every street vender and little restaurant still burning coal. Leaving was not too dificult. We bought a train ticket towards the center of China, with our lack of Chinese a stranger helped us, and bought us a "Hard Sleeper" which cosists of about 60 bunks stacked 6 to a compartment 3 high, all open air to the rest of the train car. It was deffinately something different. Maude and I sat at one of the few "tables" in the aisle and played card games for most of the trip, while the beutiful desert passed by outside the window. We spent one night on that train, and the next day arrived in Lanzhou. Here we knew we wern't staying long, and as soon as we arrived we went to the ticket center and atemptted to order a ticket north to a smaller city that is situated much closer to the older section of the Great Wall. We looked lost in the giant ticket all, and to our delight a Chinese man quickly came to our assistance. He bought us tickets for Yinchaun, telling us it was going to be a 4 hour trip, he also asked us if we wanted a sleeper or seats. It being a 4 hour trip we took the seats. So after he talked to the ticket lady he told us that the next train for Yinchaun was leaving a 10:00PM the next evening and wouldn't arrive until 7:00AM. We were quite alright with this snd got the tickets. After we exited the ticket hall, the Chinese man (we later learned his English name to be David) invited us out to eat lunch with him. We agreed and in just a little while we were eating a full Chinese meal with all the extras, while David told us the proper way to eat each thing and gave us assistance with our chop-sticks. For the rest of that day David showed us around a little bit of the city, until he took us to a Hotel he said was "Cheap, but nice..." I thought it was going to be something similar to what we had in Urumqi, nut as we walked towards the Hotel, I could distinctly see the 4 stars mounted right below the name. I again David how much it was going to be, worried that we would be paying the upwards of 80$ for our room, he ruassured me that it would not be too much. We went to the counter and he started talking to the person at the desk, and he reported in a very sad tone that it cost more then he thought and he would e happy to find us a cheaper one. He said that this place the cheapest room was 200 RMB. When Maude and I heard this I thnk we were staring up at the 10 meter tall ceiling, and we both told him that it would be alright for us to pay that much for a hotel. Both Maude and I were thinking of how much of a deal we were getting. David left us that evening only after arranging to meet up with us again the following day so he could show us more of the city. That evening we went walking around and ran into another American. He was absolutly exstatic to see us. He told us he had been there for two weeks and had not seen another american for that long. He then invited us out to have pizza, reporting that two weeks of nothing but Chinese food will get you sick of it. Wer had dinner with him and could tell that he was more then happy for us to join him. And before we left him he told us tht if we ever needed to we could stay with him at his appartment. The next day we met up with David at 11:00 and spent the entire day with us, he bought us various Chinese snacks and took us just about anywhere we could think of. I think we exauhsted him with all the walkng we could manage, and by the end of the day he was absolutly burnt out.

 

The night we left Lanzhou was a long night, mostly because we ordered the seat. Maude and I thought that David would have ordered us a hard sleeper once he found out it was an overnight train, but to out dismay he still got us the seat. Now this isn't any seat this was the "Hard Seat" the cheapest ticket you can get, and it consists of plywood at a 90 degree angle with a thin layer of padding attached. Needless to say neither Maude or I slept very well, or much that night. The next morning I could not feel my butt for a good 30 mins. Exitng the train station proved to be a feat, and as we walked out we were hit by one of the most insistant hotel runners on the face of this planet. We tried to tell him that we didn't need a hotel, and that we were going back to Lanzhou that evening, that we just wanted to see the Great Wall and then we were going to head back. But this man could not understnd that we didn't want a room. He then got a translator, who, when we told her that we just wnted to see the Great Wall she simply replied that the Great Wall is in Beijing. We escaped into the ticket hall when we realized that we would not get anywhere with these people. Inside the ticket hall we had no better luck, when after a few minutes the hotel runner came inside with two different translators who had no better luck. Finally a railway official interrupted, disbanded the crowd, and we succefully got the point accross that we wanted to see the Great Wall in Yinchaun. The Railway official took us to the firstclass waiting area, and in a few minutes a English speaking tour guide named "Jon" came to help us. We told him what we wanted and he got everything ready for us. We took a cab out to the section of the Wall which is about 40 mins out of town, and we spent an hour looking around, while he answered any questons about the Wall we could think of asking. This section of the wall is really neat, nothing like the pictures, dirt and ancient brick, absolutly falling apart in the years it has been exposed to the weather. On our way back to town, the cab driver told us (through Jon) that the next train back to Lanzhou wasn't until much later that night. We asked if there was any other way and Jon suggested the bus to us. For a small fee extra the cab driver took us to the bus station and Jon ordered us the tickets back to Lanzhou. The bus ride was much nicer then the overnight train ride and only took about half the time.

 

Back in Lanzhou we met back up with the American we had met during the time we were there before. His name is Mike and he's teaching English there for a year among other things. The entire time we were there he was more than happy to have us stay with him, and to my dilema I did not have a knit hat to leave with him, like I have with every other one of my hosts. We had a good time talking with him and hanging out. We spent the night at his appartment and the next day we caught the train to Chengdu.

 

The train ride to Chengdu was much like the one from Urumqi to Lanzhou, with the biggest difference being a problem at the security check going into the station where a man mistakenly took Maudes bag instead of his own. Not being able to locate her bag Maude went moreorless hysterical and it took a bit of pushing to get her onto the train. To our luckonly after a few minutes of train movement the man approached us in our train car holding her bag. Maude was more then happy to see it, and the only other problems we had were trying to tell the man that his bag was still in the station.

 

Arriving in Chengdu definatly lifted my spirits a bit. It was so nice to see my family who I usually only am able to see once every two years if I'm lucky, and when that comes around never for more then a few days. And well that's where we have been for the last two weeks. While we have been here we have taken various trips to nearby destinations such as the worlds largest Buddah and Snow Mountain (A mountain which seemingly has stairs up into the clouds and even after 6 hours of climbing you'll still be wondering where the top is.) I have enjoyed my time here and am planning to leave in the next week sometime, but due to Chinese holiday getting anywhere that we actually need to get is rather difficult, and just waiting for an open spot on a train will take about 10 days, which we really don't have with our limited visas.

 

So yes, that is the last few weeks in a hurry, I hope you enjoyed it, and as a bonus I will attach a link to some pictures I have taken, nothing extremely special, just a couple from Kazakhstan, and on the train. A couple from various Chinese cities, and of course the Great Wall.

 

=Logan, China

 

Pictures!:

http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=53881152370915078/l=109015159/g=41976832/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB