December 22 from Beijing to Xining

Nǐ hǎo. Sunday, December 22, 2013

Hope you are all enjoying the last weekend before Santa visits.

Christmas has definitely come to China — I suppose they realized how lucrative a deal it is … and the Chinese are real shoppers!

Last night we went to Duck de Chine for Mike’s birthday, but I think we were still so full from that incredible lunch at Temple Restaurant that we could barely finish one order of duck (shared by the two of us)… with some veggies on the side. We also had some soup which frankly would have been sufficient and hit the spot. But, they do make a big ceremony out of serving the duck which was interesting. They bang a gong whenever someone orders duck and as it is brought to your table and is then carved by what appeared to be a “duck artist.” We had a little problem finding a taxi after dinner as it seems as if all of Beijing is out and about on Saturday nights. So we sat for a while in the restaurant, staying warm, as they scrambled to get us a cab. All was well in about 15 minutes and we got back to the hotel… to find a small cake and candle in the room (a totally wonderful and beautifully done chocolate layered cake inscribed for Mike’s birthday), along with a card signed by several staff (!) and a little gift. I guess they noticed Mike’s birth date on his passport when we checked in.

So Raffle’s is a totally classy joint! Sage — one of the staff on the concierge floor who seemed to take a liking to us got this all organized and actually had been hoping for us to stop in the lounge before heading to dinner so that he could present it to us.

This morning (Sunday, December 22) we had a really early wakeup call and headed to the airport at around 8 am to catch our China Eastern Airlines flight to Xining — to begin our real journey. All airports are a real hassle.. and it’s always more complicated without the language and understanding the different security processes. So, here you go through a “customs-like” process before you get to security even though we were on a domestic flight.. and they actually photograph you at that point. (We probably do the same thing somewhere in our process but with hidden cameras!) But, we made it to the gate. They seem to “wand” everyone and also sent my carry-on bag back through the machine at least twice because it had so many electrical contraptions. They make you take out all cameras as well as computers and phones, etc… The lines are very long.. longer than we are accustomed to at US airports, and it seemed as if no one really knew what they needed to take out and what to take off.

Boarded the plane fairly easily and made it to Xining on time. Chinese planes (like the rest of the world except the U.S.) serve food on even short flights. So we had the usual rice and chicken, plus cake and cookies.. on the two-hour flight… very efficiently served and collected. When the plane landed passengers got out of their seats and opened the overhead bins well before the plane had stopped… which is what we had experienced in India on an earlier trip.

Taxied to the Sanwant Hotel in “downtown Xining.” Pollution was really bad today, combined with a low level haze making everything look pretty awful. It’s also colder than it was in Beijing. Xining has 1.2 million people — a mere village — and is at about 7,500 feet. It’s pronounced something like Shenen…

Xining appears to be a fairly bland city with buildings everywhere and overpasses to get across streets and little or no planning. Because of its location, the city boasts a good deal of diversity and a quick walk on the street reveals Muslims as well as Tibetans. For those of you who have followed these daily reports of our travels for years.. Xining is a hell of a lot better than Yong Ding (where we based ourselves in rural southern China a few years ago to see the toulans), but it’s pretty bland and certainly lacking the vibe of either Beijing or Shanghai or Xian and many other cities across China. That said, people are all well dressed, fashionable, and very busy shopping!

The Sanwant (or Sanwang — we’ve seen it spelled both ways in English) Hotel is pretty much what you’d expect — worn, tired, and probably not so great even in its heyday. But we have heat so it is a step up from some places we’ve stayed in while traveling in Asia. The staff tries really hard and I’m sure we are a real stretch because of the language issues. We asked about good places for dinner but that conversation didn’t really go anywhere… so we’ll hope for the best later tonight. Our room is on the 15th floor and we are serenaded constantly with honking horns and other street noises.. Good thing we are genuinely urban people.

Xining was never intended to be a real stop for us but in order to catch the train to Lhasa Tibet tomorrow we had to get here and were afraid to try to fly and go straight to the train station for fear that the plane might be late. So it’s all good. We packed pretty efficiently last night as we were leaving Beijing.. and I’m hoping that we don’t have to open our bags at all tonight or in the morning so that we are ready to go.

I may have mentioned in a previous note that I have a bit of laryngitis and a hacking cough that I’m trying to cure before getting to Tibet — thus far without success. I did get cough syrup in Beijing and just now went to a pharmacy here for more. It’s quite a scene — me going into the pharmacy without any Chinese and no one in the pharmacy speaking English.. So I pantomimed…did a great “cough performance” and they immediately showered me with options — mostly pills. So then I mimed drinking and out came the syrup. I also wanted some nasal spray so that was like Act Two for me.. And then “aspirin” which is clearly a universal word. Mike decided to get some lozenges and we mimed that .. so we are set. All of that came to about $6 !!

Walked around a bit; stumbled on a street painting activity for kids with lots of parents and children..

Made contact with the guy who is supposed to meet us in the lobby of the hotel tomorrow to give us our Tibet Travel Permit papers as well as our train tickets and airline information from Lhasa to Kathmandu. We’re hoping for the best on that one. It was funny. He said that maybe he should have a sign with our name tomorrow so he’ll find us in the lobby. I said the hotel didn’t seem crowded and I was sure he would spot us.. What I wanted to say was that I’m pretty sure we are the only two non-Asian people in the entire city!

After a short respite from the cold, pollution, and overall cacophony of noise, blinking lights, uneven sidewalks, and traffic — we headed out to dinner. Naturally we didn’t want to eat at the hotel (so wimpy and also looked terrible). Went online to see if there were any recommendations and all suggestions pointed to a Muslim restaurant (where we probably should have gone), but I really wanted to have a glass of wine or a beer with dinner and that eliminated the Muslim place. So we asked at the front desk. After a lot of discussion (among staff) and very very very little English (from just one person) they wrote the name down (in Chinese — we always need to have all destinations written in Chinese so that the taxi drivers can know where to go; we always need to have a card from the hotel with the name in Chinese so that we can get back). They said it was a Chinese restaurant about 10 minutes away.

So off we went, after the hotel found us a taxi. It’s a little hard to describe, but the hotel is basically on a service-like road adjacent to a very very major street that is on an incline. Anyway the taxi somehow appeared and backed up onto the service road and off we went. He drove for about 15 minutes and it was clear he didn’t know where he was going. Unfortunately we were of no help as we didn’t even know the name of the restaurant as it was only written in Chinese. Then he seemed to talk to someone on his cell and double backed such that we basically passed the hotel and kept going.. Then he was on the cell again and we reversed course. Had we been able to talk with him, we probably would have said to just take us back to the hotel. But that was no longer an option. At one point he seemed to think he found the restaurant but we were driving on the elevated street (sort of like a viaduct) and he stopped on the highway to point out the restaurant to us, but didn’t know how to get there. He finally took an exit and another road that paralleled the major road and pulled into a parking area in front of a series of very large, very ugly, buildings. He motioned that “this was the place.” A bit unsure, but at that point ready to eat anywhere — and realizing that we were in for bright lights, bad food, and a big space — we entered the building. Two women were at a reception desk, but no English. We showed them the name of the restaurant in Chinese and they chatted with one another but never confirmed we were in the right place. At this point we weren’t even sure it was a restaurant. As we were trying to determine what to do a family appeared to be leaving the building and the woman spoke a little English.

She asked the problem and then started yelling at the reception people and told us to follow her. We went up a non-working escalator (!) and there was the big, ugly, brightly lit restaurant. She yelled again at some people and we sat down. She asked us about drinks and then seemed to yell to people to bring us some beers. Then off she went and we were left to order. Fortunately the menu was all pictures but it was really difficult to understand what was what. Using Google Translator I typed “chicken” and the waitress pointed to one of the pictures; I typed eggplant and she pointed to another picture– etc. Eventually we selected three things — pork, chicken, beef. Somehow the veggie options didn’t work. The food came a little chaotically.. and they were huge portions — a far cry from all of our other wonderful meals in Beijing.

So, dinner matched the expectations … terrible. Then it came time to leave and find a taxi. One of the women at the reception desk walked out ahead of us and we followed. She (and with us in tow) walked to a break in the fence that separates the parking area from the highway, down a little dirt slope, and onto the edge of the three lane road. Within minutes a taxi was there (stopping all traffic behind him) and we were off to the hotel. The trip back to the hotel took about three minutes (as compared with the drive from the hotel to the restaurant which took about 30 minutes).

OK.. tomorrow it’s the 28-hour train to Lhasa.. and the big climb to 16,000 feet.

Best to everyone.

Fern