Mongolian Flies

Photo: Sander sleeping in bed, Henan Mongol Autonomous County (August, 2010).

When I got sick in Xining, Sander took care of me.

Now Sander is sick. Really sick. Far worse than I was. I bought a thermometer and took his temperature. He has a fever. He's really in bad shape. I'll save him the embarrassement and won't describe it. In case his condition worsens, I scoped out the hospital. It's down the street. It closes at 5:30 pm. They seemed like good people. Meanwhile, Sander is taking his Ciprofloxicin, and he's sleeping.

Because the hotel's, and maybe this part of town's, water supply shuts down for hours daily, I only left Sander to make three water runs and pick up supplies. Otherwise, I'm just laying here as Sander sleeps. I wake him up periodically to get him to drink the oral rehydration solutions I mixed up with bottled water, salt and sugar. He did this for me in Xining. (Although he recently admitted that he mixed up the sugar and salt amounts. It tasted like saltwater, but I drank it anyway.) Meanwhile, things are quiet. I hear Sander breathing. Good.

I'm caught up with my journal.

I'm not in the mood to read.

I watch the flies.

The flies.

We have three or four types of flies in our room. Their numbers have been reduced, however. I bought a swater today on a water run. I had to. When I woke up and saw six flies on Sander's heavy thick white quilt, I found the site disturbing. I've been getting Genghis on the flies. Not all the flies. I'm selective with my wrath.

The first type of flies are the ones Sander noticed and wrote a humorous piece in his journal about. He named them Mongolian flies. I look forward to what he says on his blog when he writes about them. We've never seen anything like them. They hover in a self-selcted imaginary sphere in the three-dimensional center of our room and dance. It's fly ballet. Elegant. Beautiful. Inspiring. They interact mostly with themselves. They glide and dart but only within that imaginary sphere. They leave us alone. They leave our food alone. The only things they don't leave alone is the second type of fly.

I call these the bumble-flies. They are huge, fat, obnoxious, clumsy, juicey, and loud. They arrive one at a time. When one comes near the Mongolian flies, they attack. The bumbles bumble away and bounce off the wall. Sometimes they hit my head with a thud. I splatter the bumbles with my swatter. They explode. This leaves me with a mess to clean up. But I'm glad to do it. I hate bumbles in our room. All flies have easy access to our room because there is no screen on our window. Our room would be impossible during the day with the window shut, so we keep the window open. We open an invitation to flies of all sorts. They like to visit. We provide good things to eat. Our room fills with flies.

The third type of fly is the common house fly. Unlike the unnerving buzz of the bumbles, the houseflies fly silently. Stealthfully. They land on our faces in the early morning and wake us up. I hate waking up to houseflies. I cringe at the site of them on Sander. I wonder if they landed on garbage and then on our spoons, chopsticks, mugs and glasses. Maybe they contributed to Sander getting sick. I grab the swatter. I go Genghis. Carcasses are bestrewn across the floor. Legs are still sticking to the walls. I put a sign outside our window. It has a crushed fly...and says: ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK.

There might be a forth type of fly. It's narrow. It bites. It reminds me of those biting flies on the beach of the American eastern seaboard. But I could be wrong. I need more data.

I could say that I'm sick of flies, but that would be a gross generalization. I love Sander's dancing Mongolian flies. They're welcome anytime.

Photo: Dead flies, Henan Mongol Autonomous County (August, 2010).

Arrival in Henan Mongol Autonomous County

Photo: Manager of the hotel in which we spent most of our nights in Henan Mongol Autonomous County (August, 2010).

28 July 2010

Sander and I have to make our money last. We have no choice but to make every Yuan Renminbi stretch as far as possible. We can't leave China before our flight, and don't want to leave Amdo in Greater Tibet until the last possible moment because our money goes further here. This has meant a change in lifestyle.

We can't graze through the course of a day simply because an abundance of food is available in the refridgerator or cabinets. We have no refridgerator or cabinets. Processed food in China is expensive, although there is a lot of it and it's beginning to show on the waistlines of the more affluent Chinese in the form of pounds.

Meanwhile, I'm shedding them. I eat meals and seldom anything in between. I've gotten used to being hungry. That has been a big step for me. Before this trip, at home, I never went hungry for very long. At the slightest urge, I shoveled or woofed something down. But not now. I even wake up famished because I don't eat before bed. If I'm hungry at night I drink a cup of hot water. At home, I had a couple beers.

The first day we arrived in Henan, I had a regional beer to celebrate even though I had a headache. I didn't realize that my headache was the beginning of altitude sickness. It was a mistake drinking the beer with altitude sickness. I haven't had a drink since and feel no need to. It's odd, but I feel better, thinner, healthier, than ever. I would like to think that I'm acquiring a heightened sense of discipline, but it's really a matter of necessity to stretch our money. The true test will be after we return home and I have food all around me 24 hours a day. But for now, this lifestyle has been good for my wallet and waisteline.

Sander, on the other hand, I try to keep well fed at all times. He doesn't need to lose weight. But he doesn't have the option, like the yaks and dri around us, to graze through the course of the day. So Sander might be losing a little weight too. I hope not. But as Big Tiger and Christian often say in Muhlenweg's book about their adventures in Mongolia, "It can't be helped."

Notes from a Traveler: Guidebooks to Amdo

For anyone interested in low-budget travel to Amdo, the cheapest route is not always the cheapest route. To do over, I would not book the cheapest flight to Hong Kong and enter Mainland China through Guangzhou. Southeast China is expensive. Travel in China peaks during the summer months, and not only with foreigners, but with moving migrants and students. When one considers the migrant population, Guangdong Pronvince has China's highest population. Schools usually close in July. As Sander and I discovered, the transportation system becomes strained in the summer. Seats of any kind can be hard to come by. If one can't find a seat then one is stuck, and to be stuck in southeast China is to shell out a lot of money. It got so bad for us that I feared we might not get to Amdo, Qinghai Province, at all.

To do over, I would fly directly and non-stop to Beijing before catching another flight to Xining, Qinghai. This will be quicker, less strenuous, and, in the end, possibly cheaper.

Xining is different world. Prices are lower and get lower the farther one travels into the countryside. The countryside, the great steppes of Qinghai, are worth traveling to. Really, they are amazing! After Sander and I return home to the States I will begin posting photos. Then you can see for yourself.

As far as guidebooks, I brought a small library. I did so because knowledge is power, it can save money, and I wanted to provide Sander with the best experience and education possible. But the books are heavy. Presently, my Chinese is good enough that I could do away with all of them. Nevertheless, they have served as valuable resources. I brought four books. They are as follows:

1) Footprint: Tibet Handbook, 4th Edition, September 2009, by Gyume Dorjie. This is an amazing, informative, well-done book. Anyone traveling anywhere in Greater Tibet would be better off with it. I think it's fantastic!

2) Mapping the Tibetan World, 2000/2004 Reprint, by Osada, Allwrite, & Kanamaru. I love maps and therefore this book even though it is outdated. Nevertheless, it remains a valuable resource.

3) The Rough Guide to China, April 2008. Like maps, guidebooks are outdated as soon as they are printed. Especiially guidebooks on China because China is changing that fast! So it is with Rough Guide to China. But it has been useful. It is packed with loads of information. It is, indeed, a worthwhile puchase and useful tool. I'd always been a fan of The Lonely Planet Series but heard that Lonely Planet was going more middle-class and that Rough Guide was better serving the budget traveler. I don't know. I do know that I was often frustrated with Rough Guide to China.

One reason for my frustration has been the maps. The maps included in Rough Guide to China assume a Republic of China political perspective and not a People's Republic of China one. The maps show Taiwan as a separate nation. Regardless of one's political views, what this does is that it not only risks offending the people of the host country, but it puts the low-budget traveler at risk of having his book (his resource to low-budget travel) confiscated. That would be inconvenient and costly. I'm fine with taking political stances, but we should start at home with: independence for, and returning lands to, all of America's Indigenous Peoples; returning lands to Mexico; forming a new nation-state along America's southeast seaboard and calling it, I don't know, Africa America, and so on, and so on (to say nothing of having these forts around the world). Or we could look at Taiwan and how the government has dealt with its own indigenous population. Putting the low-budget traveler at risk of losing her/his book, and offending one's hosts, are not good ways to begin a journey.

A second reason is the spelling of the place names. It would have been useful to include the pinyin, the tones over the romanization of the Chinese characters, whenever a Chinese place was named. Granted, this was done in colored blocks in the chapters, but the way I used the book I didn't discover this until I realized I didn't need the book anymore. To use the book with the Chinese interpretations, such as finding a hotel and using the book to ask directions, one had to constantly flip back and forth between pages. If one didn't do this, then one was left with the name, for example, of a hotel without the tones or characters. In China, this is dangerous.

For example, when we hosted a Chinese exchange student and I would practice reading narratives in traditional Chinese characters, and she would correct my pronunciation, I once read the character for gan. But gan has four or five tones and each tone means something different. The gan I said was not the gan I meant. The gan I said was, "f**k". Another example: In China, the softdrink, Sprite, is popular especially among foreign travelers. Sometimes the more adventurous foreign travelers ask for Sprite in Chinese. But the second character for the Chinese word for Sprite is bi. Bi, like gan, has different tones and therefore different meanings. A Chinese tour guide once informed me of the frequency in which foreigners ask for Sprite in Chinese but since they don't get the tone right what they end up asking for is some form of vagina. It might be wet vagina, or watery vagina, but a vagina nonetheless. This cannot be found on the menus in Chinese restaurants. Tones matter. Rough Guide to China could to better with the tones and character throughout. To do over, I'd give Lonely Planet: China another chance.

4) Lonely Planet: Mandarin, 6th Edition, September 2006. At this point in our travels and limited language abilities, this is the only book I need to travel through China. Whether one only uses this, or with an actual guidebook, this is a wonderful, useful, light, small, efficient, useful book and I highly recommend it. My only complaint is that the pinyin tones and the Chinese characters are so small that I can hardly make them out, sometimes even with my glasses. Still, it's a wonderful little book!

Henan: Men with Beads

Attaining a portrait of a community is not easy work. Photographing the landscape and streetscape absent of people has its challenges.

Photo: Grasses and flowers of Amdo's rolling steppe (August, 2010).

Photo: Necklaces and prayer beads of a Henan Mongol Autonomous County shop (August, 2010).

Photo: Bundles of prayer flags in a Henan Mongol Autonomous County shop (August, 2010).

Photo: Bells for sheep and goats in a market stall (August, 2010).


However, photographing the people can be another matter altogether. This blog entry is about a process of, an exercise in, building relationships with others:


In an effort to come to grips with our own experience in the landscape and culture we find ourselves, Sander and I have been writing about, filming, and photographing the land and people around us. This has been, in part, our way of documenting the land that has shaped the people; the people, the land. Both have certainly been shaping us. I'm not sure what or whom we have been shaping. But both sides usually come away with something. Sander and I are trying to come away from this experience with as much as possible.

But one cannot just go around filming and photographing people here. Don't try this on the Hui. The Tibetan women, weighted down in colors, silver belts, and jewelry, will not allow it. And I wouldn't again risk it on a Tibetan man wearing a short sword or long knife. (I found out the hard way a couple decades ago when, after pressing the shutter button, a Tibetan pulled out a long knife and lunged after me). So Sander and I ask before we shoot and have meanwhile been trying to break down barriers. Create a sense of trust. Exposing ourselves to show that we're not bad people and hoping that maybe some will allow us to photograph them. There is so much to photograph and film here and we feel we have done so little.

Photo: Peace sign ... usually always displayed backwards (August, 2010).

Our latest attempt to endear ourselves was to sit out in a public space and draw people and things within our line of sight. In China, anything that happens in the street is fair game to watch. It is public theater. It might be an argument, a fight, a stabbing, an accident, or an actual performance...say, with a monkey. I've seen all these things. But over the past couple of days, Sander and I performed. We staged our own theater.

We sat ourselves down on a set of concrete steps outside a store on Tumotenanlu Street in Henan, and drew. We knew what would happen. It did. Within minutes we had a crowd around us so thick that not only were we unable to see each other but the motocycles we were drawing. Tibetan herdsmen love their motocycles, which they call moto. We quickly had a crowd of Tibetans, many were herdsmen.

The men who ride these motocyles dress them up colorfully and elaborately with sheepskins, saddleblankets, saddlebags, and other things. The are, in effect, modern horses. The men, meanwhile, wear chubas (the traditional Tibetan tunic) with sleeves tied in front, or in the back when it's warm above the sash, and sometimes a sword. But in the mornings and evenings their arms are in their sleeves because it gets cold quickly on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau when the sun isn't up.

As we drew, they were also facinated with the hair on our legs. I'd read once that the Chinese look at such characteristics as ones that place certain people closer to apes on the evolutionary scale of things. I don't know what the Tibetans surrounding us felt. But they did appreciate our efforts at drawing and loved watching. One man pretended like he was going to pull the hair from my legs. I pretended like I was going to pull the hair from his chin. He flinched, then laughed.

It was fun drawing even if Sander had to draw the moto from memory because of the crowd and I had to keep shooing people away. Some shooed still others away for me. They loved the diversion and were wonderfully encouraging to both of us.

A little girl nearby laughed at my toes in my sandles. When I wiggled my toes, she laughed. I kept wiggling. She kept laughing. Sander and I tried to draw her too but she kept moving. Finally, I took a photo of her and when she ran off I drew her from the image on my camera. The Tibetans loved that! When I got up to try to capture all the people crowded around Sander most ran off. I took a shot at those who remained.

A couple of the young, virile, males permitted me, finally, to take their photos. The one on his moto invited us to his home. He said his home was south of town out in the steppe. Because I have concerns as a father with Sander riding on a moto behind a young virile male who might have a tendency to show off, to say of the other dangers, I pretended to not understand. He told me in Chinese that he would be back for me and took off with his friend on the back of his moto. The scenario I saw playing out was: both of them soon returning each on his own bike looking to give Sander and I rides out to their homes. I told Sander. Wanting to save our Tibetan friends a sense of face (by not having to turn down their public invitations directly) and uphold my fatherly sense of responsibility, we packed it up and headed for a restaurant on another street. We saw our Tibetan friends roar by a couple times on their motos looking for us. We heard them roaring through the streets many times through the night.

But during the day we were able to form the relationships needed to photograph the portraits of many. One thing we discovered during our time in Henan was how the young males can be described as men with swords and the older ones as men with beads.

The following is a series of photos of community elders, many with prayer beads:

























Photo: A prayer wheel held and spun by one of the community elders (August, 2010).:

Photo: Furniture builder (August, 2010).

Photo: Furniture carver (August, 2010).

A Note from the Doctor

Photo: Sander filming a stand of prayer flags high above Henan Mongol Autonomous County (August, 2010).

Dear Dr. Sue,

Sander and I were hiking down off a high hill after a photo shoot of a stand of prayer flags when he spotted a Tibetan herder's tent. Known for their mastiffs, we picked up some rocks and quietly made our way hugging a fence in case we needed to climb over (or crawl under) to the other side. But because of the rusty barbed wire at the top and bottom, we didn't risk climbing (or crawling) before we had to.

Photo: Prayer flags during sunset high above Henan (August, 2010).



Once we got beyond the tent, I had Sander walk in front of me in case any dogs came up from behind. Everything here is grass (no trees) and it was getting dark and we simply didn't see a strand of heavy, rusty, barbed wire hidden in front of us. Sander tripped on it and it caught him in his left Achilles heel. The wire broke the first layer of skin but did not penetrate deeply at all. We had some hand sanitizer on us, so I put down my rocks and scrubbed it immediately.

Photo: Tibetan tents in Henan (August, 2010).

We descended the hill and on our way into town stumbled upon a stupa. Curious, we stepped inside. Not wanting to exit in a counter-clockwise direction, we got sucked into the monastery deeper and deeper, and beyond the prostraters, ended up turning a few dozen prayer wheels in order to make a quick getaway. Maybe the wheel turning will help Sander, but I'd rather hear from you. We stopped at an internet cafe on our way back to our room where we will scrub Sander's wound.

Photo: Stupa at the monastery Sander and I stumbled upon after Sander cut his foot on barbed wire hidden in the grass (August, 2010).


Photo: Clockwise-spinning prayer-wheels spun by clockwise-walking pilgrims at the stupa (August, 2010).


Photo: Human-size prayer-wheels at far end of the stupa (August, 2010).

Again, it's not deep. But I would like to know if you think I need to get Sander a tetanus shot here in Greater Tibet?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Brad Houk

---------------

So cool--email from Tibet!. Sander's last booster was 5 years ago so tetanus-wise he should be fine. Make sure the area is kept clean and covered with a bandage and antibiotic ointment if you have any. I'm not sure if he is still taking antibiotics from Dr. Smith but if so, that should help. Watch for any signs of increasing redness or smelly discharge.

Photo: Prayer flags high above Henan Mongol Autonomous County after sunset (August, 2010).

Henan: Men with Swords

Photo: As soon as Sander and I stepped off the bus in the Henan Mongol Autonomous County, we knew this was a place we would spend a lot of time. We visited Henan for 11 days.

China's march toward modernization has been relentless. As Guy Davenport states in his book Apples and Pears, "culture always suffers at the expense of progress." So it is in Amdo, eastern Greater Tibet, Qinghai Province. But in Henan we have finally leaped ahead of the major thrust of China's modernization efforts. Finally! It's been such a long hard journey getting here.

Photo: Mongols, motorcycles, and horses in the Henan Mongol Autonomous County, Qinghai Province (August, 2010).

Sander and I feel no need to venture deeper into Amdo, into Qinghai Province, than Henan. Ninety percent of the people in this county are Mongolian, although most of the people we see in town are Tibetan. Most of the Tibetans are still dressing in their traditional chubas and sashes adorned with what appears to be like pounds of silver, turquoise, and coral jewelry. They come from miles around, maybe hours away, to resupply their tents and yurts on the steppe where they tend herds of yak, dri, horses, and sheep. The horse, for the most part, has been abandoned for the motorcycle. Indeed, the town is abuzz with motorcycles and herders bundled to the hilt on these chilly Qinghai mornings. By mid-day, the chill gives way to the intense Amdo sun and the faces of the people are often those that have been hardened by living out in the weather every day, year after year. The weather of Qinghai is harsh. In contrast, the Tibetans and Mongolians are warm-hearted and open with most any form of generosity...even a smile. As Sander and I entered Henan, we smiled at each other. We knew that this was it! Henan is not a place where foreigners frequently travel. Certainly not with their kids. Currently, we are the only foreigners in town and Sander might be the only Western young adult they have ever seen. He gets lots of looks and plenty of attention. The Tibetan girls are gaga over him. Sometimes they huddle in groups giggling and smiling watching as he eats in a restaurant.

Photo: Sander with a friend in the Henan marketplace.

Meanwhile, we've been documenting everything as much as possible. But getting people to allow us to photograph them is not always easy. So we've been thinking of ways to develop relationships, especially since many portrait photographs or filmings represent the relationship between the subject and the one behind the lens.

To try to address this, we visited a school with the intention of helping out in an English or physical education class. But the school was all locked up (the Chinese often take July off). Another angle was needed. Given the resonableness of our living expenses (we're managing to get by on $10/day/person), I purchased Sander a chuba. It took several days to complete this transaction because most of the chubas were enormous. But finally, through a teenage girl who could speak Chinese, she was able to interpret what I said to her into Tibetan to get Sander what he wanted. Sander left the shop with a dashing summer chuba with colorful wool trim and a bright pink sash. If Sander got looks before this, he really got them now! In fact, he's achieved celebrity status in Henan. Large men in chubas and sashes make beads for Sander on the street to shake his hand! After the purchase, he kept the chuba on while we walked around town hoping that this might break down some barriers and get us invited into a yurt or tent. Our plan worked too well: we soon had two invitations. But I had to pretend not to understand their invitations because our way to their homes on the steppe would have been by motorcycle. Helmets are the rare exeption here and my heart raced at the thought of my son shooting across the grasslands (maybe an hour one-way) without a helmet on what surely would've been a wild ride even if the driver didn't show off. I feared the driver showing off. And then, were we to do this, I would be expected to engage in more than a little drinking in the tent or yurt of our host. Then there would be the ride home. Shit, I really worried about the ride home! Often I don't think about these things. I do things impulsively. But Daryl, my wife, has been a grounding force in my life. Neverthless, as much as I would like Sander to be exposed to life in a tent or yurt, it's not necessarry. What's neccessary is his safety. This has already been a successful journey. My job has not only been to teach Sander to travel on a shoestring and to expose him to this part of the world, but to get him home safely. I have to get him home safely. So we don't need to go deeper into Amdo and we do not need to visit the inside of a yurt or tent. As Sander will attest to, this journey has been wild and challenging. Personally, it's been as hard and challenging as any journey I've ever taken. Sander has not missed out on any adventure whatsoever. I'm proud of how Sander has stood up to the challenges. Neverthless, we both felt honored to get the invitations. Besides, just going out to eat is an adventure.

Photo: Just before we entered our hotel (in the background), another man on a motorcycle pulled up after spotting Sander and invited us to his home.

There is not a lot of variety to the food here. Most people eat various noodle dishes. Any dish with rice that we've had so far has been the exception. Actually, the rarity. We've been eatings lots of noodles; baozi, jiaozi, huntun (wonton), mutton, yak and beef. Our most unusual meal in Henan so far has been Mongolian firepot. Firepot sets on the table and is made of brass. It has a chimney in the center, a moat around the chimney, and a dung, coal, or sterno fire inside. Raw noodles, mushrooms, vegetables, and meat are placed in the broth, in the moat (sometimes the food is raw and placed on a platter and the dining individuals use chopsitcks to hold the food in the broth until it's cooked). The flavor changes, becomes more intense, deeper, with time and interactions. Mongolian firepot is an exciting way to eat, share the company of others, and pass the time. This is a fascinating landscape in which to pass the time, and the food is certainly reflected in the landscape.

Photo: Not only are tunics commonly worn, but sometimes short swords or long knives.

The land around Henan is an elevated steppe plateau. The land is so high that Sander and I spent our first two days suffering from altitude sickness. It was terrible. Pounding headaches, nauseousness, restlessness. But now we are fine. It just takes a lot of effort to do physical things. For instance, yesterday we hiked up the hill to the north of town to film and photograph the strand of prayer flags at the summit. The climb was steep and we had to stop for many breaks. It was exhausting! But we were stopping anyway because the flowers of this hilly grassland were blooming and absolutely gorgeous (I wished I could send bunches to my Daryl and Courtenay)! At the top of the hill the world just opened up: grass hills and rolling green flats to the horizon in all directions. Tents, yurts, and herds thinly spread across the landscape. The fluttering and vibrating prayer flags exploded in color beneath the intense sun, blue sky, and brightly-tinted clouds. I shot photos until my battery died. Then I replaced it and shot more. Sander filmed for 25 minutes. It was a successful shoot. Below, it looked like a funeral. When I saw a vulture, I hoped it wasn't a sky burial. It wasn't. But we gave them lots of distance and I wondered how Henan has changed over the past 50 years.

In only a few years, Henan may look like Tongren. Geographically, Chinese modernization is spreading out from her major cities in predictable ways along roads and rails. Fortunately for Sander, this was the perfect time to visit Henan. What he has been able to observe is precious, informative, revealing. It's an education everytime we step on the street. Henan streets belong to China's wild west.

Photo: While Sander was walking around Henan after purchasing a chuba (a traditional tunic of the Tibetans and worn by the Amdo Mongolians as well), he received invitations to a couple homes and the attention of many.

Henan has that rough-and-tumble steppe character I've so often read about. And yet this is a place of transition. Then again, the steppe has all too often been a place of transition. I've been wondering how this time and place might not be that different from a century and a half ago in what's now America's Midwest before the last of the Plains Indians were forced off their lands and onto reservations. Like this land shaped by relatively recent geologic orogenies, it is about to witness a cultural orogeny of sorts. A transformation from within and without. I wonder if progress will take place at the expense of culture. Yet many of these tent-living, weather hardened, hardy pastoralists look as their great great great grandfathers did a century and a half ago. But just when I think I've stepped back in time, a Tibetan in a chuba and sash pulls out a cell phone and makes a call. Could they have a flat screen TV in their tents? I have yet to own a cell phone or a flat screen TV.

Then again, each day I pass a Mongolian or Tibetan wearing a sword. I can't help but wonder how many communities today still have this: men with swords.

Photo: Mongolian yurt, Tibetan tent, laundry on fence.

Photo: Close up of prayer flags from our first trek up a hill to a stand north of Henan (August, 2010).

Photo: Prayer flags from our first trek up a hill to a stand north of Henan (August, 2010).

Photo: A sample of the many flowers found on the steppe during our hike up the hill to the prayer flags (August, 2010).

Photo: A sample of the many flowers found on the steppe during our hike up the hill to the prayer flags (August, 2010).

Photo: A sample of the many flowers found on the steppe during our hike up the hill to the prayer flags (August, 2010).

Tongren: Monks on Motorcycles

Photo: The Tibetan elder who sat with us at the Tongren intersection while we waited for the bus to Henan Mongol Autonomous County (July, 2010).

After three days in Xining, Sander and I boarded a bus for Tongren. The drive was a journey into old China, but with a new twist...such as those satellite dishes on so many old adobe homes. Meanwhile, farmers still threshed their grain by spreading it in the road for vehicles to drive over before they winnowed it in the wind along the roadside. It was a gorgeous drive to Tongren.

Tongren, according to the guidebooks, was a small town of huge importance concerning art and Buddhism. The 3 1/2-hour drive through the mountains was as incredible as our arrival was disappointing. Tongren was not a small town focused solely on art and religion. It was a large Chinese town built around the commercialization of Tibetan art and religion. I would not claim that Tongren has reached the stage of Chinese theme park, but we knew as soon as we arrived that this place was not what we'd come for. We felt the urge to move on as quickly as possible. Given the time, however, we had to spend the night.

We tried to book a room in a cheap hotel but were refused entry because we were not Chinese. Being foreigners, we had to go to another hotel, the Re Gong Binguan, and pay twice as much. We did. We paid. And the following morning we threw on our backpacks and hiked to an intersection by a bridge. I had learned the day before that bus tickets would not be sold from the Tongren bus station. What one had to do was wait at the intersection for a bus with the Chinese characters in the windshield showing the bus's destination. We did not know for sure when the the bus we wanted would arrive, but based on what I learned the day before it should arrive by 12:30 pm. Not wanting to take any chances, Sander and I hung out under the shade of a tree at the intersection with an elderly Tibetan man and, from time to time, many passersby.

On the corner, we were never left alone for long. The Tibetans have taken a wonderful interest in Sander. One Tibetan woman thought Sander was a doctor (he was wearing a Red Cross tee-shirt) and was getting up the nerve to ask him to check her out. She never did, but she did hang around us for a long time. Meanwhile, the intersection was fascinating. Men and women dressed in traditional Tibetan chubas (heavy tunics with sashes) walked by. So did many monks in their burgundy robes.

Photo: The woman whom we met at the Tongren intersection who thought Sander was a doctor and wanted him to check her out (July, 2010).

The monasteries, appearantly, have shared in the profits of Tongren's commercialization. It seemed every monk we saw had a cell phone. Many had digital cameras. And still others raced past us on brand new shiny purple motorcycles. Others of red ones. When we ate, sharing a table with a poor Tibetan family eating from bowls of square noodle soup, the monks near us at an adjacent table were devouring huge cauldrons of sizzling beef. Some monks were actually fat.

Photo: Detail of a woman holding beads in Tongren (July, 2010).

Suddenly, a bus with the characters for Henan (the Qinghai town, not the province in the east) appeared and it wasn't stopping for long. I leaped to my feet, raced across the intersection, and flagged down the bus. I confirmed that it was the bus we wanted and asked if there was room. It was. And there was. I ran back to get Sander and my gear but Sander already knew that this was it and was loaded and handed me my pack. We shook hands with our Tibetan friend and ran to the bus.

On the bus we were given seats. The bus drove across the bridge and stopped before taking on more passengers. One man, who I took for the driver, said that I was in someone's seat. Then a man stood by me and told me that I was in his seat. I gave it to him. But then I realized that the first man was not the driver and instead another passenger. Since I was paying like everyone else, I had the feeling that I had just been taken advantage of. What followed was my first argument in Chinese. Some people laughed at the scene. Then another man said that it really was that guy's seat and I backed off. I felt like an ass and kept my mouth shut. But then the last man who spoke to me offered me his seat. I insisted, in Chinese, that he sit...over and over. But a minute later he was sitting with the driver in front and I was in his seat.

The drive was breathtaking! The young mountains were of vertically folded layers of sedimentary rock often capped over with a hundred feet of loess. The slopes weren't vertical but not far from it. This was landslide country and, indeed, we did see the results of some. The drive on the narrow, windy, gravely road and the steep deep cliffs were enough to give one the willies to say nothing of the heart-stopping action that took place whenever our driver passed other vehicles in the most unusual circumstanses: like on the curves. At other places, the road had been washed out. Nevertheless, we continued to climb in elevation and eventually we found ourselves driving on a beautiful hilly steppe with white Tibetan tents, gray Mongolian yurts, yaks, dri, sheep, and horses. In Zeku we stopped to let someone out and I stepped off the bus to snap a few quick photos of a huge pack of tightly grouped horses and Tibetans in what might have been the prelude to a horse race during a festival. There was definitely a festival taking place in Zeku. But the driver called and I hopped back on the bus. Our next stop was Henan. Henan is the county seat for Henan Mongolian County. Ninety percent of the people in Henan County are Mongolian. Sander and I had high expectations for Henan.

Photo: Monks, like many others, gravitated toward Sander. The monks around Tongren, unlike those in Tongde or Heri, showed many signs of wealth, from buzzing around on new motorcycles to talking away on cellphones to snapping photos with digital cameras and so on. Here, Sander stands with a monk between Xining and Tongren during a break in our bus ride (July, 2010).

The Budget

Photo: Our evolving budget on a clipboard, Xining.

One point of this journey has been to show Sander how to travel on a low budget. I just didn't realize how low, low was going to be. Actually, I didn't realize many things...such as how precisely we were going to have to plan our exit from China. This we completed yesterday with the purchase of airfare tickets from Xining to Guangzhou on August 11. From Guangzhou, we will take a train to Hong Kong before flying home on the 14th. Given the national squeeze on the transportation systems, we had to plan all this out now before heading into the steppe. Had we waited to do this, we would have found ourselves saying, as Ulysses Everett McGill did in O' BROTHER WHERE ART THOU, "Damn! We're in a tight spot!"

Tomorrow, we head into the steppe and will be out of touch for the next 18 days. Our plan is to make a loop visiting Tongren, Henan, Zeku, Tongde, Xinghai, Guinan, and Guide. These are all places Sander chose based on goals, research, and cross-referencing as well as our budget. I haven't Google-earthed these communities but if I could, now I would. This is the part of the journey Sander and I have been most looking forward to. We also have to keep to a budget that amounts to less than $20/person/day for the next 20 days. This will not be easy but we have to do it. If we don't, the consequences will be severe.

The urgency of taking on this challenge, assuming this critical responsibility, is something Sander has risen to. In fact, he has taken control of our finances and has organized his record-keeping to an art. This has carried over in everything, from how he maintains his backpack, counter-space, life. The degree of maturity I have witnessed in Sander is staggering. And because he has been involved with every decision and part of every solution, he, I feel, has grown in ways that classroom or organized tours simply can't provide. This has become Sander's journey. It's just so wonderful to witness this growth in Sander.

Sander has now begun to keep me in line. Last night, as I debated whether or not I could get one more day out of what I had been wearing, he said, "Dad! You really need to change your clothes!"

Photo: Night view from hotel (the Great Mosque of Xining, also known as the Dongguan Mosque, is outlined in green), Xining, Qinghai, P.R. of China.

The Train to Qinghai Province

Photo: Sitting in the aisle during our 19-hour hardstand train ride from Zhengzhou to Xining, Qinghai Province (July, 2010).

Sander and I arrived in Greater Tibet yesterday evening by train from Zhengzhou, Henan, Province. There are different classes that passengers can choose from on the rail cars: 1) soft-sleeper; 2) hard-sleeper; 3) soft-seat; 4) hard-seat; 5) hard-seat standing. The names are revealing and that will have to do (I have traveller's diarrhea and am between runs. Therefore, this posting will have to be quick). Because this is the time of year when students and migrant workers move back home, or to other regions, making space available aboard trains, planes, and busses is tight, and tickets are hard to come by. In fact, our rail tickets were the last two available for that day. They were for standing room only, in two separate hard-seat cars. We bought them and decided we'd find a way to be together. The train was scheduled to depart around 10:00 pm and we had to be out of our room by 6:00 pm (after buying an extra half day to sleep a little more (Sander did, but I didn't).

I've been sleeping very little on this journey. Actually, I've hardly slept much over the past week for a combination of reasons: 1) jet lag; 2) excitedness; 3) fear of running out of money; 4) fear of not following through on my promise to show Sander Tibetan and Mongolian cultures in Greater Tibet; 5) fear of Sander getting hurt. Some nights I've waited for up to six hours for Sander to wake up.

While waiting, I'd pore over my books (I brought a small library) and finances to explore possible solutions with Sander after he woke up. We started this journey with $4,000 in our pockets. But after five days of travel, as we flew from Guangzhou for Zhengzhou, we had spent half of our money. I was in a near panic. Once Sander woke up and we ate, we talked about our situation and came up with a solution: we opted to cancel our plans of visiting Pingyao (famous for its well-preserved architecture), Shijiazhuang (where we used to live at a Chinese army college), and Shanghai (the location of the World Expo), and instead decided to focus completely on Greater Tibet in Qinghai Province. We figured if we got into the frontier region of Amdo, inflation would be nothing like it was on China's eastern seaboard. It was a gamble we had to take. We cashed $900 in Zhengzhou and dedicated that to travel money in Greater Tibet. Our remaining $1,000 in Traveller's Cheques that Sander was carrying would be used to get us from Xining, Qinghai Province, to Hong Kong for our flight home.

Photo: A long, cramped, grueling ride (July, 2010).

But first we had to get to Xining. The hard-seat train car was new, clean, with air-conditioning and a high ceiling. Every seat was taken. Sander and I didn't have a seat and had to stand in the aisle. What the Chinese do, is sell the aisle-space to an additional 30-50 people. This can nearly double the number of people in the car. With the aisle packed, and people eating and drinking (mostly hot soups and teas), there is a constant flow to the toilets where lines form since, I'm sure, the rail car designers didn't anticipate up to 100% additional passengers using these facilities. As a result, Sander and I sat on our backbacks and constantly had to stand to let people squeeze by to use the toilets, where one was located at each end of the car. And then there were the train attendants, coming through frequently selling food and sweeping the aisle. When the attendants came through we had to squeeze between the legs of those passengers in actual seats. No part of anyone's body was left untouched. For those in seats, it was a sort-of party (but I assure you that hard-seat is no party for any long journey, especially with a crowded aisle). For those in the aisle, it was a testing of stamina. We were on this car, in this aisle, standing and sitting, for 19 hours. That was after four hours of waiting outside in the plaza and later inside in the boarding gate. And this was after my hardly sleeping for a week. The ride was hell.

Photo: The Meining Binguan, Xining, Qinghai Province (July, 2010).

But now that we are in Qinghai Province, our gamble paid off! Today, we brought our daily expenses down to 181 Yuan Renminbi (RMB), for food, lodging, groceries, and a map). We will spend less than 50 RMB for this posting and supper. That amounts to about 231 RMB for the day. This is great news because we figured that we had to live within a 250 RMB/day budget over the next three weeks to make this work. It's working.

Photo: Sander making coffee in our room at the Meining Binguan in Xining, Qinghai Province (July, 2010).

And it's worthwhile. This is without question one of the most interesting, if not the most interesting, city I have ever seen! Tibetans and Hui are walking around in great abundance. In the nearby market we saw several Tibetans in off the steppe buying supplies, such as large cartridge bullets that are still worn in belts like the sort Poncho Villa once wore. Another was looking at beautiful leather and felt boots with upturned toes (a Mongolian influence).

Now our journey begins! Everything that came before was just to get here. This is where the excitement starts, and we are both so damn excited! Today Sander and I made a matrix of the places on the steppe where we want to visit over the next three weeks, which includes the good things about each place based on Sander's values and goals for this journey, the costs in time and distance, and decisions on what to include and what not to after much research. Then we mapped out a route. Fortunately, my poor Chinese is good enough to read a bus schedule and there was one on the Qinghai Provincial map we purchased, giving us an enomous amount of information at our fingertips. But more importantly, Sander also cross-referenced between various books we'd brought to extract additional information to make an incredibly informed and organized journey into this steppe of Tibetan and Mongolian cultures.

I will post before we leave (after I rid myself of this bug).

Brad