Urumqi Surf Forecast: Flat

Xinjiang: Not the China I Hate

Since Xinjiang and Urumqi little resemble the China of the east I’ve come to despise I thought I should put my eastern sentiments to rest before moving on. A few curious findings, observations, and annoyances from the Moon:

1. The Chinese may very well have manufactured the least masculine motorbike in Asia. Ultra efficient, ultra quiet and ultra boring. Like a silence Ninja fleet of two-wheeled Priuses.
2. The Chinese have a spitting disorder. No environment or setting (inside or out…day or night…breakfast, lunch, or dinner) is sparred the cacophony of phlegm-clearing eruptions and snot-filled expectorations. The sidewalks are literally a minefield. It’s foul.
3. The chomping noise that accompanies the average Chinaman’s food or beverage consumption is revolting. I’m not sure anyone in this country knows how to chew with their mouth closed. Seriously, it’s horrible. I’ve had perfectly adequate meals ruined because I couldn’t stop concentrating on the sound. Regardless if it’s instant noodles, dried fish, a tube of processed meat or doughy dumplings…the “Chinese Chomp” is reason enough to skip a visit.
4. With no verbal or written means of ascertaining the identity of a dumpling’s core contents, I’ve created the Dumpling Test. This consists of buying a single dumpling, which is essentially as absurd as buying a single buffalo wing back home, and taking a brave bite. Sometimes you win (pork) and sometimes you lose (unidentified fried jelly substance…might as well been jellyfish).
5. All taxis are metered. Thank God. One point China.
6. Overall the Chinese cuisine (including Urumqi) has been uninspiring at best. Maybe China and India could work out a deal? In exchange for teaching how to build decent roads, India could give China a lesson in food flavor. Flavor. There just isn’t any anywhere.
7. There are entire stores whose sole business is the sale of cigarettes. Think about that. Think about the various types of doughnuts you can buy at D&Ds. Now imagine each variation of the munchkin is a unique brand of domestically produced cancer stick. That’s a lot of brands. That’s a lot of smoke. This country may have no flavor but it’s all about Flavor Country.

Hard Sleeper to Urumqi

When the train finally left the station in Xi’an I dialed the time on my phone: 9:22am, Friday April 9^th. When it arrived in Urumqi I did the same: 12:57pm, Saturday April 10^th. Duration: Twenty-seven and a half hours. Now I know you probably just spit out your diet coke, but in all honesty it wasn’t that bad. By this point I’ve pretty well conditioned myself to deal with lack of space, invasion of privacy, and general discomfort. So what do you do during a twenty-seven train ride, other than block out the sixty-five other passengers in your train car? Not much. I slept a great deal. I wrote a bit. I drank a pop or two. Then I slept some more. To no surprise I was the lone westerner in the eight cars I had to cross to find the beer fountain. Interactions were limited, my dislike of China grew, and my ear plugs seldom came out. That’s about says it all.

The world out the window was an entirely different story. I woke up Saturday morning to find sand and desert mountains in every direction. We might as well been hugging Interstate 15 between L.A. and Vegas. A great feeling came over me as I stared out the window at those distant peaks. A feeling that I’d entered a whole new realm. This wasn’t China anymore. This was Xinjiang. The bordering neighbors weren’t familiar places like Nepal, India, and Vietnam. Instead they were Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Mongolia. I had entered a new world and it felt freaking exhilarating. I’d been waiting for this moment for a long time, since watching Ewan and Charlie ride through Kazakhstan to be exact.

Communication Vacuum

The travel Gods threw me an unexpected curveball just outside Urumqi. I had seen pictures of the developed skyline and knew the capital city of Xinjiang wasn’t going to be some redneck outpost. I knew the climate would be cold, but I wasn’t expecting to arrive into:

Upon exiting the railway terminal into a sideway snow storm, everything immediately felt different. In the best way. I was back off the grid and out in left field. I felt home. Not another westerner in sight, a disorganized taxi queue ahead, and snow coming down like mad. I took a deep cold breath and exhaled. I was pretty happy.

I knew communication in this corner of China was going to be near impossible so I employed a familiar tactic and showed my taxi driver the address of the nicest hotel in town, according to my three year old Lonely Planet. I hadn’t showered in two nights, my hair looked like a pot of spaghetti, and I wasn’t in the mood to crisscross the town hunting for value. More often than not a swarm of affordable hotels can be found within the very shadow of a city’s crown jewel. This couldn’t have been more true and timely then when I walked two blocks from the $100usd/night four star luxury tower and found my current home. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Islam Hotel:

(Look closely. Everything in Urumqi is written in both Arabic & Chinese. Just to make you feel even more out of place.)

It was in the lobby of the Islam Hotel I discovered the first real challenge to my planning session in Urumqi. The Chinese government has indefinitely suspended all internet service in the Xinjiang Autonomous Province following a bloody clash between Uighur and Han nationals in Urumqi that killed 184 in July 2009. I hadn’t done my homework and wasn’t aware of this not so insignificant fact. Five days without the internet. God forbid! But given my need to secure visas and transport to some seldom visited central Asian countries, loss of internet is more significant than you think. It meant I had to rely entirely on local information, local communication, and local human interaction. More on that later.

The second challenge was entirely my own fault. I got completely sidetracked in Shanghai by booze, food, and Gerard’s tomfoolery. The end result being I didn’t locate a Lonely Planet Central Asia guide as I had intended. I don’t know why I thought I could find one elsewhere, but sadly there isn’t a single bookstore in Xi’an or Urumqi that carries it…let alone an English text. Seriously, I haven’t laid eyes on an English language publication since Shanghai. I mean why the hell else would I be writing so much? I simply have no alternative.

Here’s a challenge for ya: With no real information on Kyrgyzstan or Kazakhstan, no guidebook, no internet, and the inability to meaningfully communicate with 99% of the population…research, plan,  secure, and execute visas and transportation to ‘Stan One, ‘Stan Two, or maybe both.

Along that line I had an epiphany the other day. While sitting in my third cab in as many hours running around Urumqi chasing down research leads, the followed lighting struck: It’s entirely possible I don’t actually enjoy traveling, as most people would define the term. And perhaps the only reason I’m continuing down this road is that “traveling” presents what I’m really interested in: a steady fix of increasingly challenging problems to solve, back-dropped by exotic locales. Just like sharks Mr. Walter, I like Third World problem solving. People might argue however that with enough money and time any person can navigate their way through a Third World travel obstacle. I would agree. The challenge and thrill for me though, is doing it on a budget and under time constraints. Two factors that make every decision accountable. Did I maximize value and did I maximize time efficiency? With that, an announcement…

On The Clock

I’ve kept my cards pretty close to my chest thus far. I’ve enjoyed keeping you in the dark and writing only enough to (hopefully) entice you back for another read. The reality is I’ve known for months and months where this Indefinite Walkabout was going to wander, and for the last month I’ve known precisely when it’s going to end. Like anyone who’s ever redeemed airline miles knows, you need to plan ahead. On March 15^th I sat in a hotel lobby in Kathmandu and phoned United Airlines over Skype. I had spoken to them ten days prior about availability from Beijing to Washington D.C. From that initial call the calendar was wide open and seats o’ plenty. That afternoon in Kathmandu the news however was quite different. My free flight home had suddenly been reduced to two options: mid-August out of Hong Kong or June 9^th out of Beijing. I’ll save you the guesswork. I land Wednesday afternoon at Dulles airport exactly 9 months to the day I left. Fitting, as Devin and I took off at 9am on 9/9/09.

As far back as Myanmar I put a bulls-eye on Mongolia in July. Sunsets at 11pm and empty grasslands to the horizon. I always envisioned ending this journey on horseback riding through a warm and green Mongolia and I’ll be damned if that’s not going to happen. Ever since that afternoon in Kathmandu I’ve been researching and strategizing how possibly to fit it all in. I may have been writing about the next week but I was always thinking about the next month (well, three to be exact).

So here it is…the whole shebang. If all goes well I pick up my Kazakhstan tourist visa tomorrow morning at 9am. I then board an overnight bus to Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city. In Almaty I immediately apply for a Russian tourist visa (a transit visa would serve my purpose but my application would have holes and be rejected). If I’m successful with Russia I’ll head north through Kazakhstan into the former Soviet Union, at which point I’ll bang a hard Rickey and have to choose between two open Russia – Mongolia borders. If I can’t secure a Russian visa in Almaty I’m essentially screwed. The reason being I’ll have no means of entering Mongolia without significant back tracking through China and likely a flight. Kazakhstan does not share a border with Mongolia and despite China’s lengthy border with its neighbor to the north, there is but one open crossing…all the way back near Beijing. It’s worth mentioning for clarity that Mongolia issues tourist visas to U.S. citizens upon arrival at all land borders (a rarity in the region).

At this moment I have 57 days left. Look at a map. Kazakhstan, southern Russia, and Mongolia. That’s a lot of ground to cover in two months, but it’s that very challenge that’s driving me. This Walkabout is now on the clock and as such I plan to squeeze every last desire, urge, and country out of it while I can. No more secrets. Anyone want to meet me in Mongolia in May? Still feel like reading?

Dress Rehearsal

I checked into the Islam Hotel in Urumqi around 3pm on Saturday. The afternoon was for eating and resting. Sunday morning I’d go to work. I needed to locate addresses for the Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan consulates and visit both to confirm the addresses were legit and business hours. Visa information and rules change like the weather, and despite having read that Kazakhstan could be done in two working days I wanted to be there front and center Monday morning when the doors opened up.

The small mountainous country of Kyrgyzstan was always my top priority given its proximity to the Chinese city of Kashgar and the fact its border crossing read straight from my Wish List. A remote and unsealed mountain road leads to Tourgart Pass, and a seldom used Kyrgyzstan – China border crossing. Chinese immigration is apparently fickle about tourists crossing, but recent message boards claimed it was very passable. I reasoned that if Kyrgyzstan took a full week to process I would get it first and land a Kazak visa in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s capital. The first step was finding the consulate.

There are five rotating people working the desk at the Islam Hotel. Only one speaks extremely broken English, but with patience and the use of visual aids she was able to make several calls and write down the supposed consulate addresses on little white slips of paper in Chinese characters. These little slips of paper have been my keys to the city. My floor is littered with them. After a day I started calling them something else though: clues. Sometimes the clues got you exactly where you wanted to go and sometimes they lead to another stranger giving you another slip of paper and another clue.

Sunday morning I handed the taxi driver a white slip and a hotel address. The Kyrgyzstan consulate was supposedly inside. As the ride dragged on I gazed out the window as the faces on the street morphed from Chinese to central Asian. Short, thin Chinese physiques were replaced by stocky, barrel-chested, strongmen. Skin complexion, hair, and eye color lightened. The shops and restaurant names changed as well. Chinese and Arabic characters were replaced by those funky inverted Russian letters familiar from any Tom Clancy film. I was in China still but it didn’t feel like China.

When I finally walked into the hotel lobby I got chills. Pure excitement. I was giddy. I felt like I could have been in Moscow from all the black leather jackets, gold teeth, and ascents. For the price of a two dollar taxi ride I had essentially jumped countries. It was an awesome moment and I knew immediately I was going to love central Asia. The hotel ended up being a dead end, but I walked out with another clue. This time it proved spot on. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the no-frills Kyrgyz Republic consulate in Urumqi:

After finding the Kazakhstan consulate later that day I went to work on transportation. Three options to Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Planes, trains, and buses. That meant three trips to the airline agent, the train station, and bus station. Trust me, those little white slips begin adding up on the floor. In a place like Vietnam or Thailand or even India it wouldn’t take but twenty minutes to find a travel agent and aggregate the same information that took me six taxis and three hours.

CCTV

China has something like 40 government-run TV channels. Only one of them, Channel 5, is in English. Every thirty minutes a pompous and aging Brit, straight from the George Plimpton mold, regurgitates live the same news broadcast from thirty minutes earlier. Channel 5 is for all intents and purposes my only link to the outside world, and I’m pretty sure I owe it a thank you. On its Sunday night broadcast I learned that last Wednesday in the Kyrgyzstan capital of Bishkek, 81 people were shot and killed by military troops following a wave of violent civilian protests over government corruption. President Bakiev has fled the capital while an interim government has begun talks of reorganization. I figured in light of that news my mother would probably prefer I visited stable Kazakhstan instead…

Last thing on CCTV. The reported weather forecast for Xinjiang on Monday: “Sandy.” How great is that? Don’t forget your goggles today Honey, it’s going to be sandy.

Monday Morning Queue

There were over sixty people milling about in front of the Kazakhstan consulate in the freezing cold at 8:45am on Monday when my taxi dropped me off. I stood out just a little bit from the others in line. Two hours later a middle-aged German traveler and I walked out having set the process in motion. Pickup we were told was Wednesday morning.

Fingers crossed but tomorrow could be my final day in China. Oh please sweet Jesus let me get my visa to glorious Kazakhstan.