Almaty to urumqi
Trip Start
Oct 15, 2006
1
27
Trip End
??? ??, 2007
Urumqi, China
Sunday, February 4, 2007
the folk on my bus were friendly enough, some were koreans, off to urumqi for business, i think.none, however none were chinese or seemed to know how to speak zhongwen (mandarin, the official national language in china) there was some interest in me, being the stranger in the land and not speaking kazakh or russian, but nobody was particularly talkative.
the border crossing was uneventful if time consuming. i was ushered ahead of others a couple of times on the kazakh side, maybe because they didn't suspect me of not declaring whatever goods the regulars liked to cross the border with, to make some extra cashola.
when we reached immigration on the chinese side, i ran into arna again. we chatted for a bit. she was heading to urumqi for a few days to buy furniture for her mum, a comodity that stupidly expensive in almaty. she'd travelled before in india and a couple of other central asian counries, as well as georgia and azerbaijan.
then one of the chinese border guard decided he wanted to question us.....
now here's something about government employed guards in china: they aren't in the least bit overbearing or threatening. i've had policemen's hats on my head, i've played the tap on the shoulder game with train station guards, i've had beers with on duty cops around a bonfire, while my mate is doing tricks jumping over the fire.
......so question us the border guard did. sporting a great big grin and his best english. he asked where are we from? do we like china? are we married? does arna have a boyfriend?
why are we coming from kazakhstan? how long do we want to stay? how good is his english? blah blah blah. blah blah. a very sweet border guard indeed.
stamp stamp kachink kachink and i'm back in china
WOOHOO!!!! enthusiastic cheers.
and...i can speak again, having been in china for nearly 3 months in 2005, i'd learnt more than enough rudimentry zhongwen to get along with day to day neccessities, even to make a couple of jokes and be a bit cheeky.
we stopped just after the border post, where i changed money with some black marketeers and we had a long overdue meal.
satisfied, i was happy to get out of the (freezing fucking goddamn) cold and be back on the bus and heading to urumqi, the first place i was at least a little familiar with since budapest in november.
large moon and amazing countryside through this mountainous region, as we travelled through the night. i'd love to revisit this part of the world one day. i arrived at the terminal barely minutes before arna's bus did. some terminal- it was a hotel carpark in the bowels of urumqi, far from any landmark i recognised or any street i recognised from my map.
some bloke started talking to me and i kinda just blew him off, as one becomes accostomed to doing after arriving at so many bus stations to be greeted by all manner of touts, pimps and con artists.
it was embarrasing when, 5 minutes later, arna arrived and i discovered he was her contact and his name was karnat. karnat was kazakh and worked with zhomar, a chinese kazakh, born in xinjiang province. zhomar and karnat acted as interpreters and intermiediatries for people like arna regularly. they took us to our hotel. we checked in at about 5am local time, about 5 hours before sunrise. you see, beijing reigns supreme in china and if its 5am in beijing, its 5am in urumqi, over 4000km west.
not being tired due to plenty of nap-ettes on bus and probably due more to over excitement about being back in china, i asked arna if she wanted a beer? she wasn't tired either, so off i trot, confident that i could find beer without too much ado. the guard in the looby told me that there's a shop right next to the hotel, and i can wake them, its no hassle.
(all spoken in chinese... woohoo!) so i got beer. several bottles.
arna and i drank all the beer and smoked cigarettes and listened to music and chatted about all and sundry untill all the beer and smokes were gone. by that time, we definatley were most excited and not in the least bit tired. so off i went to get more beer and smokes.
and there we were, when the sun came up at about 10am, and off we went for a walk, beer in hand.
stolling down the obscure-out-of-town-a-bit urumqi street, we ran into a fella with a backpack. dennis, a french canadian who lives in shanghai. after a few minutes of chat, we all decided it was furken freezing (about 5 degrees below 0), and the best thing to do would be to all head to the hotel to regroup and maybe neck another beer or two. then karnat and zhomar arrived to take arna shopping.
dennis and i went wandering, then he bailed to catch his flight back to shanghai.
back to the hotel (glad i managed to find it, in my state), and it was time for more partying with arna, and i just had to tell her of my plan for the evening.
in 2005, when i travelled to so many places in china with my mate christian, we discovered something that every town in china has: discoes. dodgy discoes! manic paced, mid nineties house music, and drunken sweaty chinese of all ages, having the time of their lives.
