2,000km Head to West

In China, any part of the landscape never appear to be untouched. Trees and sun flowers lined up neatly alongside the train tracks, while rows of windmills blossoming in the empty field. Tire marks of large construction vehicles remain on dirt leading to no where, and abandoned shacks left behind like a forgotten past. These remain in the foreground view of an endless stretch of land for hours and hours.




On the train to Hohhot in Inner Mongolia, 1,140km (700 miles) away from Ulaanbaatar, we shared a cabin with one of the family of 5 on the way home from visiting a relative, and a quiet, middle-aged man who lives in Xin Jiang. As soon as they found out Sahe speaks Manderin the entire family was in our cabin each with a bag full of questions. Unsure of how much Sahe's third language was going to come in handy outside of eastern mega cities, it was a relief to know we are able communicate in their native language, but it sure wore her out.
 

Translates to Blue City in Mongolian language, Hohhot (呼和浩特) is the capital of Inner Mongolia with 1.1million people. We arrived to the station at 22:00. Surprised to its larger-than-expected cityscape, we aimed straight to a guesthouse, ignoring all that are trying to offer something in the dark. Next morning we went back to the station to purchase tickets towards Urumuqi and amount of people lined up were out of control. There are 5 types of tickets available; soft bed, hard bed, soft seat, hard seat, and standing. When we got to the counter we learned two things; we had to transfer at Lan Zhou, the hub station to all continent-crossing, and that there are only hard seats available due to summer traveling at it's peak. The cost to travel 1140km was 70 yuan per person, about USD9.00. We spent the waiting hours buying food at a grocery store, and somehow got on the train while people rushed to be on board with larger-than-door sized boxes.

Music blasting from their cell phones while cigarette smoke fills the entire car. Windows are left open for fresh air and dust, and the entire floor is covered with empty bottles and sun flower seeds. There are more than four people sitting in a box seats, aisles and entrance area is filled with people, standing and sitting without a shirt. The sign, "capacity 122 people" has lost its meaning. The reality of China was here and now. When leaving for a bathroom, people wanting to sit even for a few minutes will unhesitantly take it, as people boarding from stations in between can only purchase standing tickets, and any empty seats are up for grabs. One man who sat in front of Sahe turned out to be a talkative preacher, who kept biting her head off for four hours about the war responsibility and how Japan stole Chinese characters from them. Unfortunately there was very little that I could do to help her, but other people nearby was kind enough to tell him off, and he eventually moved to another box to find someone else to do the same. Everyone seemed to be curious about us, and when we had to hand in our passports to the authority instead of People's Identification, there were people climbing over the seat to get a peek of our strange ID. We needed to get some rest but with a vertical back of a seat nothing was going to let us relax. We stretched our legs in between luggage and other legs, closed our eyes and hoped for some quiet.

Yellow River in front of the city of Lan Zhou

We arrived the centralized transportation hub, Lan Zhou at 10:50. Trying to ease the pain in our neck now stiff as the hard seat, we looked for the train to our destination but all are fully booked. Not wanting to buy standing tickets, we went to a bus station to find seats, but there was no sleeper bus available. 23 hour bus ride for 380 yuan each seemed extremely expensive in comparison to the previous train ride, but with a reclining seat in mind, we happily took the offer.
 

The bus, turned out to have no reclining seats and so tight our knees touching the seat in front, was supposed to leave at 17:00 but it kept making unknown stops, and it finally left an hour and a half later. The bus was on the highway only for a couple fo hours when the road sign forced us to yield and take a detour route. Even on this one-lane all vehicles are trying to pass each other like a race, brakes and acceleration was applied simultaneously in a sadistic manner. At 22:00, the bus came to a complete stop, with many over-loaded trailers in front of us lined up. Maybe an accident. The bus was filled with a curiosity, cigarette fumes, and an odor of old fruit.

Like an off-road race for trailers and buses

A view from the bus is nothing like that of a train. Windmills and electrical towers are the signs of development, and constructions of highways and bullet train tracks that can be seen everywhere reminded of the country's rapid economic growth. On the other hand, you can also see the gap in between the country's fast development and people not catching up to it, through littering and lack of road safety. On new highways skid marks are visible everywhere, and we even came across four accidents, all trucks, appeared to be fatal. We later learned that there are about 600 accidents per day in China, and while on the road best we can do is to pray that we do not become one of them.

The bus is fully packed, mostly with traveling labors on their way to an unknown work. They are often nice people, always offering fruits and cigarettes, but they always ask the same question; how much money we make in Japan. They didn't let us dodge the question easily either. The aisle, again, is filled with trash, but some are willing to sleep on it, likely more comfortable than non-reclining seats. About 20 hours into our trip we started to accept the fact that it was not going to arrive the destination within a promised timeframe, but not having a clear map, we could only sit and patiently wait. About 22:00, our destination finally came across a sign, "乌鲁木齐 475km"... We realized the arrival will be in the morning, and so we folded our legs in between narrow seats and went to sleep.

At 6:00, the bus drives into the city of Urumqi. Probably due to being 2,400km away and still in the same time zone as Beijing, it is still dark out but from what is visible tells us how established the city is. As soon as we step out we headed for a guesthouse in hope to lay down for the first time in 70 hours, but we were told to wait until 14:00 to get a room. Funny we were able to accept an 8-hour wait... or we were too tired that we didn't feel like arguing.