Tom: Hezuo (July 17)

Hezuo (July 17) · Jul 21, 08:30 AM

“Waking up” this morning is the unpleasant process of going from wanting to sleep and not being able to until it’s almost time to get up. The seats are pretty uncomfortable. Mikael eventually moved to the floor in the hallway between cars. We’re both groggy when we get up. I’m almost snappy.

Looking for an empty set of seats to lie down on, I’m pulled into conversation with two different groups of Chinese tourists. Can’t they see I need sleep? At least this feels like China now, for the first time in maybe three weeks. Mikael and I sit down in the dining car after a conductor’s meal/meeting. Very strong coffee helps. It’s black, instant, and served with a bowl of thick sugary cream, which we stir in. Before I disembark at Lanzhou I help Mikael secure a new ticket — an unreserved hard seat to Beijing. Mikael is as old as I am, nearly. He’s returning to school for an MBA in January. He has never — high-school aside — worked for anyone. We say goodbye and I’m off with a large crowd.

According to the Lonely Planet, the visa office will be closed from noon until 14:30. It’s 12:30 when I show my ticket to the exit gate attendant at the train station. I’ve been to this city before — there is a classy 2nd floor internet bar across the street where I can waste the visa officer’s lunch hour. The foreign person visa office wasn’t open until nearly three, so taking a cab to get there early at two fifteen didn’t do much good. A friendly un-uniformed lady opened up, letting me in through the back door in the main visa office. She gave me the thirty day extension I asked for, even hand-carrying the paperwork when a colleague wouldn’t answer the phone. I was out the door with my new visa by quarter to four, and it only cost 20 USD. There was exactly enough time for me to get to the southern bus station and jump on a Hezuo-bound bus on it’s way out of the station.

Our bus pulled out of the lot, empty except for me and the crew; we picked up riders from a couple stops on the way out of town, but we’re never so full that I can’t keep my pack in the window seat next to me. They put on a classic-style Hong Kong movie. We stop for lunch after two hours and I sit down with two muslims for soupy square noodles with a fermented taste that numbs my tongue a little. One of the ladies from the bus give me spare change to buy ice-cream and we’re off. I’m sitting near the front, and have a great time with the driver and passengers in front of me. After dark out bus breaks down. They fix the problem by opening up the engine compartment in the back of the bus and running a cord forward. The man in front of me is effectively the gas pedal. He pulls the cord and the bus accelerates. It’s an interesting careen into town.

Off the bus I follow a couple other passengers to a hotel that charges fifty yuan for a room with a clean floor but no A/C and very little hot water pressure — if I lift the shower nozzle more than a couple feet from the floor, nothing comes out. But I’m tired — exhausted, really — and have no energy to bargain. I make sure that someone will knock on my door at five; they say the bus to Langmusi leaves at six. Then I shower, eat a bowl of instant noodles, watch ten minutes of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and fall asleep despite road noise coming in through the open window.

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http://tom.spacing-guild.net/2006/07/21/langmusi-july-18

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