Worse and worse

Today I thought I would be at least in Taiyuan but I was too optimistic. I didn't even make it halfway. I ended up in a city about 100 kilometers east of Xi'an with nothing to eat and and my sleeping place is some construction site. I miss the times in Kyrgyzstan where every place I pitched a tent in looked like a fairy tale. Some ladies from a gas station gave me a botte of green tea.
Lesson of the day, chinese people east of Xi'an do not stop on highways anymore. I have to hitch from toll station to toll station.
I get away from that place in the morning with a taxi who doesn't say he's a taxi and to which I don't give any money. He angily leaves me at a service area. Many people expect to make more money from me than they would from a local so giving me a ride for free is more than they could imagine.
In these areas of china, I don't use my magic letter anymore, pretty much everyone understands the concept of hitchhiking or at least asks for money upfront.
I also manage to get the internet a few times only to find out that with my blog, things are worse than I could ever imagine.

"We do not provide support for this service anymore. However a new service will be available from [...]"

No "sorry we screwed up, our faulty hardware gave up and it is entirely our fault, please forgive us, we are doing everything we can to make up for our mistakes", nothing such. They didn't try to solve the problem, they didn't even look at it. Actually they don't even try to find an excuse for their shameless attitude, they write it plain and simple in their reply: "you pay for our service but we don't give a shit about what we deliver to you much less about your satisfaction. And we are proud of it. There.".

They get my morals down everytime but I can't give up, what will I do? Camp in a tent in the middle of China until my visa expires? I continue a few kilometers east with some weird guys who let me in the middle of some middle-sized city. I make it to the highway just slightly before dark. Nobody stops and I should find a place to sleep on the same spot. There are fences everywhere, the only place without a fence is big pile of garbage through which I have to get trough to reach a spot where I can successfully pitch my tent.

Near this pile of garbage, there are some car repair shops. I go ask the people inside if I can pitch my tent there. They don't seem to understand much so I assume it's yes. I make my way through the garbage pile to behind the buildings. The surface is flat, nothing much for isolation except the disgusting garbage but I don't want to touch that, it would be like sleeping on public toilets. I feel more homeless than ever. I am probably experiencing what a mainstram homeless guy is living everyday in Paris.
I am about to set camp when I step on a layer of freshly fallen leaves. But ground never comes, I fall. My feet and leg races through a liquid substance but it isn't water. I manage to grab to some concrete wall and I pull myself out. But my leg is wet until the knee. In the freezing temperatures of the night, this is something to be concerned about. Next bad thing, the liquid is not water. It's some kind of disgusting decomposing mud and feces. I think I've just fallen down into a shitpit. I really needed that right now. I just want to lie somewhere and sleep this over. I have two choices. My first and second layer pants are wet but I have spares for each of them. I usually take three layers for sleeping but I might be able to get through the night with just two if it's not too cold.
I also have spare shoes. There are city shoes that I've got from Igor, not warm at all but better than sandals. And yeah, I also have sandals hanging from my bag, not that they would be of much use.
Basically, I have two choices. I can either get rid of the stinking things, dry my legs, put everything in a plastic bag which I hide in the depth of my rucksack and never open it again. Or I could try to do something about it, wash the things for example.
Every fiber of my being tells me to follow the first solution but I know it is just the easy one. I know that I should do something about my clothes before the disgusting stuff sticks to them forever and before it is too cold. Night is falling quickly and I make my way through the garbage towards the car repair shops once again.

"I don't even want to know what I fell into; do you have some hot water to wash this?"
They do and they are eager to help. They invite me in, let me change and wash my clothes. I wash what I can with the little hot water they have. I wash my shoes also. Meanwhile, it started freezing outside. I am just sitting there, in dry new clothes, waiting for them to kick me out. I don't really have a plan about what to do after. Usually, I have my plan A which is my current course of action and a plan B and C in case it fails. Now I am too tired and depressed to make any plans, my course of action is to wait and enjoy the warmth of the car repair atelier while I can.
But nobody seems to kick me out. It's 7, 8, 9PM. They happily talk in chinese, I wait. They watch TV, I wait. Some friends come over, they talk to the friends, I wait, more friends come over.
They cook dinner, I wait, we eat dinner.
They close the shop and I am still there. I am doing nothing just sitting like a dead leave, waiting for my fate.
At last it comes.

I am sitting there, cold, with my clothes drying, wondering when they kick me out

"Now, we are going to sleep," says one of the guys.
"Yeah, yeah, I'll put up my tent," I say having no idea where the hell am I going to build it.
But they have another plan for me. My automatic translator goes from hand to hand.
"No, no, you will sleep place" The automatic translator usually gives me this kind of cryptic messages, especially when people input complex sentences.
"What place?"
"I also sleep places"
Glad to know that you also sleep in places but that's kind of an empty sentence since everyone sleeps somewhere. I really hope he means.
"You are going to sleep in the same place as me" and also that he doesn't sleep in a tent.
Luckily, that is exactly what he means and I follow him to some other car repair shop. In the back of it there is a mezzanine and I am to take the middle upper bed. I don't really care about sleeping in a room with 5 other guys as long as I don't freeze to death. Tonight, I won't be cold. But I really need to get Beijing, now more than ever.

"I also sleep places"

In the morning I realize how much I needed not to sleep in a tent. The ground is frozen, it must have been -10 at most. My clothes are more or less dry, I can have 3 layers of pants again but my shoes are wet, they'll take more time.
So I walk with Igor's shoes, I can feel the cold ground under my feet.
At last, I make my way through to Taiyuan. It is a huge city but I am not in the mood to stop there. I want to get a ride to Beijing as fast as I can. But I am not desperate for a ride; if I end up in Taiyuan, I actually have a good solution about where to sleep. There is an airport just two kilometers from the highway and exactly in my direction. If I spend the night there, it'll be warm, confortable and I'll probably have internet. The lights will be up all night and it'll be noisy but it still is a good place to sleep compared to other places where I've been.

On my way to the airport I ask a chinese person for hot water and am told to get away as far as possible. Classic. Hot water is my new active heating source. In china, all public (such as gas stations) and private places (such as homes) provide hot water dispensers. I can fill several bottles of water and put them into my sleeping bag. The bottles cool down and deliver heat which is stored in the sleeping bag for some time since the latter provides isolation. Everything cools down eventually but it can keep warm for quite some time.

I go by some other cabin and I ask for water again just for the fun of being kicked out. One guy who looks like a complete homeless person in a police uniform behaves exactly like that but his friend, another guy who looks just a tiny bit less homeless and also wearing a police uniform invites me in.
Maybe you would think that it's strange, you would ask why are homeless guys wearing police uniforms but I am not really curious, I guess that kind of thing is normal for me now.

The two guys live in a cabin which looks exactly as what the homeless people in my country would build except it has electricity somehow. The other homeless policeman is very kind, he gives me hot water, he tells me to follow him, he'll find me a place to sleep which is better than a tent.
I follow him to a toll booth which solves the mystery of the homeless policeman, he is a toll booth worker, he has an official uniform but probably doesn't have enough money to live in something more than a dump.
After thinking for a while and discussing with his collegues, he points me towards a cabin in front of the toll station, just on the side of the highway. There is almost no rational choice of sleeping here instead of choosing the airport. It'll be cold, it'll be noisy and there will be no internet. The only good side of this choice is that I'll be able to hitchhike straight from my camping location.

In the morning my homeless police friend also brings me warm bread for breakfast which I welcome with enthousiasm.
However, hitchhiking out of Taiyuan is difficult. The good tollbooth workers try to catch rides for me but nobody goes very far. They end up deciding that this toll station isn't a good hitchhiking spot and they dispatch a car to take me to another one.
The first one was allright, I should have waited a bit more. Here nobody goes anywhere I know and most of them go back the way I came from. I end up catching a ride a few kilometers north of Taiyuan. It's not the quickest way to Beijing but it's a possible alternative and I go around the capital of Hebei in which I would be stuck in for sure.

The lady, who is very nice, speaks english and works as a lawyer leaves me at a toll station where nobody goes. The few people who ride there go back to Taiyuan. Meanwhile, I get information that one of the guys at OVH grew a heart and is trying to see what happened to my blog but it seems that there is not much he can do. The data really seems lost. There is not much in google cache either. Janela is my best support in those hard times, she is the one who gives me strength not to give up.

One of the tollbooth guards gives me a hard time. He doesn't want me to hitchhike on the toll station and it doesn't work anyway. So I decide to try my luck on the highway even though people don't stop on highways in those parts of China. He likes it even less and starts talking to me very fast in Chinese. I ignore him by replying in english and I continue my way to the highway and he starts grabbing me and pushing me back.
He's really getting on my nerves, I also push him in my direction and we have kind of a pushing and grabbing match which might turn into a fight. I shouldn't fight a police officer theoretically but from yesterday's experience I know that this guy has nothing more than the police uniform, he probably lives in a homeless dump somewhere in the forest and has no social status in China. If I get into a fight with him there will be no consequences.
Another guy comes from the control building (each toll station has a control building). His point is the same but he is more diplomatic. He tells me to follow hil, that we'll write a hitchhiking sign. Of course he'll not write anything and he calls the police instead and I kind of know that upfront. But I need to get out of Taiyuan and the police is as good of a solution as any.

They tell me that I'm brave, they drive me to the next service area where they find me a bus which takes me to Datong, a city 200 kilometers North of Taiyuan for free. I thank them and tell them to tell their friend in the toll booth that he is an asshole. I think they didn't tell him but it made them laugh.

I lost my blog!

This morning I wake up and happily prepare to visit Xi'an. The family must leave at 7:30 and I've spent lots of time with Janela on the phone so I am not very motivated to get out of my bed. When I do, a nightmare awaits me in my mailbox.

Problème matériel
Notre système a détecté une erreur sur le disque dur lié à votre instance.
---  Action :
Description : L'instance a été arrêtée. 

Hardware error
Our system has detected an error on your instance' hard disk
The instance has been shut down

It means that they have not only shut down my website but they have crashed the whole computer. Fucking amateurs.
I am struggeling for my own survival in the middle of cold and unhospitalable china and these losers with a logo crash my website. There were a few worse timings during this trip from which they could choose from but their timing is probably still in the top five.
I can't handle them through the internet because the family has to leave quickly so I have to find another internet spot in the city. Xi'an is one of the historic centers of china, I am in there, hosted for two days with all the free time that I can have to visit it and I will spend it looking for the internet. This is ironic.
I manage to find a shopping center with free wifi and I connect. Thank god for my tablet, it is always there when I need it. Actually, it has gone through hell during six months and it still works better than the OVH servers who are sitting in a quiet comfortable room.

It's 2PM here, saturday, that makes 5AM in france. But the OVH company has an emergency hotline. We are available 24/7, we diagnose your problems in 15 minutes, they write. I am surprised, I would not have expected that of the french. I call from China, no matter how much it costs. There is too much at stake, I have no idea what is the problem, wheather it is a minor glitch or a huge error and all my data is lost.
Someone answers.
"Hello, I have recieved an alarming email and my website went offline. Can you tell me what is wrong with my server (I give the reference of the server)?"
"I don't have that information, can you describe what is wrong with your server?"
"That is my question to you!"
"I do not have that information"
"Can you get that information?"
"We can dispatch a technitian to diagnose the problem"
"Can you do it now?"
"No sir, sorry I cannot"
"Why not?"
"Because there is nobody here"
I am back in france and I am back in hell. These people have an emergency hotline which works 24/7 and tells their customers that there is nothing they can do. However they deliver this information very fast, way quicker than the advertised 15 minutes.
"When will someone be here."
"On monday"
"That's in two days."
It is specified on their website that they work on Saturdays but appearently, by work, they mean keeping up their useless hotline who tells everyone that nobody is here.
The guy writes a task into their maintainance system:

There is a problem with restarting the server.

I could do that myself on the service support page of OVH's website. I didn't have to call an expensive hotline just for that. But appearently there is nothing they can do.

I try to put my mind to other things but it is very hard, this blogs documents six months of one of the key periods of my life, I spend a lot of time writing it.
I go towards the city walls. The old city is just a small portion of what Xi'an has become.
"Most of Xi'an is big buildings now," my host had said, "we forget about the history value." Big buildings, like in every chinese city.

Big buildings in Xian

Drum or bell tower

However, the big buildings are also nice. They look impressive under the orange night sky reflecting the light pollution. I doesn't have the modern beauty of Langzhou but it is still very nice. I make my way to the museum. It is free and everybody tells me that I must see it at all costs. It is nice allright but maybe I couldn't appreciate everything due to the worries in my head.

Janela calls me a few times. She is my support for the day, I realize how difficult the trip would be without her. Even though I am travelling alone now, it is a big psychological plus to have someone supporting you, waiting for you, to have a girlfriend.

I get back and the good family make me dinner. The wife's sister is coming this time so I can't sleep in the son's room but I can build a tent in the living room which I do. Everyone thinks it's a good idea, thinks it's funny and is eager to help and do something out of the ordinary. I feel that I represent more than just a tourist, I am the flagbearer of an idea that everything is possible. It is a noble thought to bear.

Then they decide it is time for me to learn chinese and here I am with a children's book in my hand trying to decipher chinese characters with the help of my new teacher, a 10 year old boy.
The next day, after breakfast I go. Everybody wishes me good luck. And for the blog, I really need it. Actually, I will be going North again, towards Beijing.

Common scene in china

calligraphy in the streets

I think it's warmer

I am not in Xi'an but Baoji, about 200 kilometers away. My clothes are more or less clean, I have the internet and a place to stay. Appearently, I can stay one more night, the guy seem to like me. In the morning, we have a morning run and exercise.
"I run everyday. Good for health.Today you with me." He says. He's very excited and he is waiting by the door already exercising.
"Filips Filips... run let's go!"
He's a funny guy, weird but funny.
There are a bunch of chinese people exercising in a park, that's a normal thing here. I really need to put some money on my sim card but I don't have time to do it. It is really frustrating, I just can't put money on that stupid phone.
The father tells me we are going somewhere. Communication is too difficult for either of us so he just says: "let's go."
We drive to a nearby village, to his family house. There is some event going on there and they point us to a restaurant. The whole restaurant is reserved for that event with prepared tables with tons of food. That's amazing, I still have no idea what the event is, a wedding maybe.
There also is some 酒 (jiu), rice wine which has a weird taste, softer than any other spirit I tasted but gives me the impression of drinking acetone.
There were so many kinds of foods with all variations of flavours. I even think there might have been some worms or insects in the mix but maybe they were just some tentacles from some sea creature.

Lots of food

More food

Some weird looking people were sitting with us, dressed in white with strange hats.
At the end of the meal I was told that this was actually a funeral. I thought these people looked quite happy for a funeral.
We drove to the village, everything is green. I like green even more so than I have only seen deserts for the past few weeks.

Strange hats

Walking through the green

Wherever I go people are surprised. They don't speak english or very little but it's always: "come drink tea with us", "come eat with us". Sometimes I have the feeling to be a bigger attraction than the man who just died.
He was some 86 year old guy who died of natural causes I was told.
The next day I leave.
"Stay one more day!" the father tells me repeatadly. We go to the city to eat breakfast, I don't know what I did but he likes me very much. But I have to go, I told my chinese friend who lives in France that I am closing in on Beijing so I'd better be closing in because his friends are waiting for me. It will be my first contact with home. Indirect, yes, but still, kind of a contact.
I wonder if it takes crazy funny rebel fathers who like to build tents in hotels to host someone in China. If it does, I just hope there are a lot of them.
He lets me out on the exit of the toll station where I start eating my 包子 (bao zi, stuffed bread that I had from the funeral). I don't have time to finish my breakfast, I am not even hitchhiking when I see a car stop.
"Ni hao, ni chu na'ar?" (Hello where are you going?)
"I am going to Xi'an!"
Oh my god this guy speaks english! If he was going to hell, I would still go with him because english-speaking hell is still better than mandarin-speaking hell. Maybe I am too harsh saying that China is hell, maybe it is not fair to all the good people who have helped me greatly, who have taken risk for me. Nevertheless, China has been difficult and I welcome every bit of what is familiar to me... like english.
His name is Baggio (I think) and he works for the government, taxes department.

I must change my opinion of the Chinese view on their society. I thought that chinese people were feeble critics when it came to their way of life. I remember reading in the travel blog of the famous french traveller Ludovic Hubler, that he regretted the lack of interest of the chinese in politics. I think Mr. Hubler has misunderstood the chinese as french people have trouble dissociating politics from society; therefore a lack of interest in politics if often mistaken for a lack of citizenship. On the contrary, the chinese have a critical view on their everyday life. In Xinjiang and Gansu, many critisize the actions of their government but it is clear that they can do very little about it. Many chinese in other regions have different viewpoints about the independence of Xinjiang and Tibet. And many Chinese are saddened by the countless westerners who pass judgement on china without having set foot there. In defence of those westerners I would say that this is also China's fault since they make it so  painful to get a visa.

"Where do you sleep in Xi'an?"
"A tent." It's not a lie, Xi'an is south, it is warmer, sometimes temperatures above zero or only slighly below freezing and only during the night. I can set a tent there and the Chinese will gladly ignore it.
"If you want, I can invite me to your home."

The Chinese have a different way of issuing home invitations. The Kyrgyz would just say: "Come to my home." and expect you to be glad to be a guest, because being a guest is a priviledge, it has a social status in the Kyrgyz culture. The chinese however, are kind of ashamed to invite you to their place. Instead of considering that their place as a great help and benefit for the traveller, they compare it with a luxurious hotel where they imagine the traveller spends most of his nights. They figure that the traveller will expect nothing less and instead of being glad to have a place to stay, he or she will be dissapointed.
The Kyrgyz can't even imagine such hotels since they are poor and are likely to never even have seen one but they understand the simple concept of a hungry traveller in need of food, shelter and shower.
In this regard, the Kyrgyz are right and the Chinese are mistaken, at least in my case.

He calls his wife who asks him weather he is having a nervous breakdown or a midlife crisis but she accepts. I am now in a country where women have a say after a long journey through countries dominated by the male gender.

He is very surprised and interested in my trip. Many chinese are. They are a nation stuck in endless work with little time for pleasure, an adventure such as mine is so different from what they know that it seems unreal to them.
He would also have to travel but work, work, work. And family.
We arrive to Xi'an, the end of the silk road and former capital of China. He has to take his son from school and I wait for him in a food court where he buys me some local Xi'an speciality.
Xi'an is the first city on my way where the muslim presence seems to shiver. Before, mosques were most common in China.
"I don't know how my son will react to the presence of a foreigner," says B. I sincerely hope that he will like me because I really don't want to sleep on the street.
His son is ten years old, he is smart and very communicative to say the least.
"Oh my god! I have a book and there is someone called Filip in my book! But he is a wolf."
Yeah, the little guy speaks english, and at level good enough to have an actual conversation. I can't believe my ears. And he keeps saying "Oh my god!" everytime something happens.
It is friday, restaurant day, the whole family goes to the restaurant instead of cooking at home. And I am invited for some deliscious Xi'an specialities. As in Urumqi I am invited to choose one dish which will be shared and since the Chinese love the democracy they don't have, I have to choose.
The restaurant is very good and I am getting better with the 筷子, kuai-zi, chinese chopsticks.

The family, looking at pictures on my tablet

They organise me a visit of the city but since it takes the whole day and now it is already too late, I can stay one more day. And they have a shower, I had one in Baoji but actually I need a lot of them before my body gets to a clean state after weeks of dust and dirty places.
I even have my own room, I sleep in the son's room and there is internet. I think it's getting warmer. Everything is ok.

Out of the desert

I manage to get out of that lake to Xining. It is a city higher than 2000 meters of altitude, yet it is huge with skyscrapers and stuff. I try to find the internet by going from restaurant to restaurant, they sometimes have wifi. Some of them don't understant what I am asking, others don't know their password but want to buy my tablet. However I quickly find one that can connect me. I don't have to worry about the owner kicking me out because I didn't order anything because in China people don't give a damn, and that includes not giving a damn wheather I order or not as long as I mind my own business.
Two people end up buying me lunch after hearing my story and they give me 100 yuan. Weird country. They won't invite you to their homes but they will give you lunch and money.

Me hitchhiking in Xinning

I make it to Langzhou, the capital of Gansu. The city is beautiful at night. The iluminated buildings look awesome and through them flows the yellow river. The problem in winter is that you don't get to admire any beauty for too long. Google predicts -10°C at night and Google's predictions are often optimistic. So either I find a decent place to sleep, and by decent I mean not a tent in a park, or I continue to Zhongwei (Ningxia, Hui autonomus region) where the climate is more kind.

Langzhou in the morning

There are no abandonned houses anywhere, only giant skyscrapers and clean parks. The only construction that doesn't fit in is that small cabin, right under the highway. In there lives a small guy, alone with a handful of puppies. He hesitates when I ask him if I can spend the night as his place but in the end, he says yes when I tell him that I don't have money for a hotel. He is one of the people who clean the streets in Langzhou. He is very poor, simple but has a kind heart.

My host with puppies

He gives me bread for dinner, and an apple. Under the benches on which I sleep, there are really small puppies, probably his main company. All night I hear cars passing over my head (we are really exactly under the highway) and a flash every two minutes from the road. Chinese roads have very strong lights which flash every now and then, god knows why.
In the morning, the cleaning crew comes for breakfest. It's a bunch of funny ladies all looking used up by the poor condition of their work. I get another bread and apple.

Cleaning team

The next day I manage to make my way to the north of the Ningxia region. It is a lucky ride. A guy in his forties picks me up, and rides all the way to Wuzhong, near Yinchuan, the capital of Ningxia. He has a daughter who is studying accounting, who lives near Shanghai and who speaks english! We talk quite a bit about all kinds of stuff and it makes her father happy that I get to communicate.
He is a funny guy, he may be a grown up and have a family, he didn't completly finish his childhood. He makes jokes, he's open, without many complexes, he's quite different of many chinese people I've met. And he can manage some english words every now and then.
In Wuzhong, he spends the night in a hotel before continuing to Xi'an the next day. He tells me to come with him. The police is already waiting for me. Chinese monotoring of foreigners is fast, effective and thourough. They need to know where I'll sleep as well as my plans for the future. You really can feel the democracy out of that woman's voice. Besides that, she is very friendly and kind, we chat a lot about travelling and our lives, everything is very nice except the regulation. The situation repeats itself.
"I don't think I will stay in this hotel, it's too expensive for me"
"Where do you want to go? It's the best hotel in the whole city!"
Yeah, I believe it with its golden reception and stunning pictures of luxurious rooms.
"It's also the most expensive. My budget is 1 dollar per day."
"Yes, it is more expensive." The police lady thinks for a while, then her face illuminates: "but it has breakfast included!"
Oh really? So if there is breakfast included then everything is allright, all problems solved, I can forget about my principles of being hosted for free that I have managed to keep everyday for six months.
"It's against my principles to pay for hotels"
"Yes but you cannot find a hotel for six yuan per night." Anyway, even if I could, the police wouldn't let me beacause in china, not only foreigners have to  sleep in hotels, they have to sleep in special hotels designed for foreigners and one of them is this one, the best and most expensive hotel in town.
"That's why I sleep in a tent"
"You cannot sleep in a tent"
"Can I sleep on the reception couch for free?"
"Can he sleep on the reception couch for free?" the police asks the reception lady. The reception lady makes her repeat the question.
"No he can't"
"Then I'll leave the city. Can I leave the city?"
"Yes you can."
Looks like me and the police have reached a compromise but my driver disagrees.
"He can stay with me in my room"
Everyone is satisfied, the police leaves and that's another night that I don't have to spend in a tent. My driver seems to find everything amusing.
He asks me if I can show him my tent and we actually build my tent in the hotel room. He seems to be very interested by the weird things that I carry with me such as my tent, my inflatable mattress and my sleeping bag.

We build my tent in the hotel room

"Do you have something to eat for dinner?"
I have the piece of bread that I've gotten from the nice cleaning ladies in Langzhou. He contemplates the thing for a while.
"Let's go."
And we go eat to a canteen, some beef, rice and a whole lot of chinese excellent food.
I don't have any credit on my phone anymore, I don't understand how, but my telephone money keeps evaporating without me doing anything, I think chinese telephone accounts have holes or something. I almost spend my total of 2 euros/day on telephone money, I don't buy anything else and I am way under 1 dollar/day only counting the food.
The hotel has breakfast included as promised and the next day we go to Xi'an. I thought we would be out of the desert by passing the border between Gansu and Ningxia but that region is as desertic as anything else. So Xi'an is my hope for some green.
The next day my driver says to go to his car, we are going as soon as he takes care of some business of his. I end up waiting most of the day, reading the manual of my camera and writing my blog. We have an excellent giant lunch with his work collegues and at 4 PM we go.
We ride into the night, get lost, I navigate him in a mixture of english and chinese and at 11PM we arrive home and... unbelievable: I get invited home! The temperature inside the confort zone even if I slept in a tent but I am curious about chinese homes anyway. This is the first modern family home since... forever. He has hot water, electricity, oh my god he even has wifi home!
His son also is living there and they say I can wash my clothes. I expected a washing machine but no, they are doing everyting by hand. Believe it or not it is the first time I am washing my clothes by hand, I never believed in that process. I alsways believed and still do that clothes are meant to be washed in a washing machine, everything else is just wetting them with water. But since they have prepared everything for me, I wash them anyway with scepticism. Probably it shows because the son helps me out.
He is very curious, asks millions of questions about my family and especially my girlfriend who looks strangely familiar even though she's not chinese. And you know what's also wonderful: I looked outside and trees are growing. No desert, no mountains... trees! 

Qinghai lake

There is really nothing going through that road, except buses. So I hitchhike a bus. The mountains are high, we go over endless prairies over 3000 meters high. On my map there are two sinusoidal roads. The first one goes up, the other one should go down. It doesn't. 3000 meters appearently isn't high enough, the road climbs to 3700. The Kyrgyz don't manage to build roads on that altitude, the Chinese have not only excellent roads but even a pay toll there. But oh my god, I was scared yesterday at 2500m, should I panic now? Let's rather keep calm and enjoy the landscape, the lake will be lower. And I'll find a solution to sleep, I'm a resourceful guy.
The lake is lower, yeah. At 3200. Higher than Son-Kul. It's situated inside a huge high plateau. It's a combination of taiga and mountains, I wonder what the temperature will be there...

The lake

The driver lets me out in front of a hotel. He knows that I have no money for this but appearently it's not a problem for chinese people to leave people at 3200 meters of altitude in winter. The most important think is not to see them die, signing death sentences that's ok and an integral trait of chinese culture. I am starting to think that Xinjiang is the most hospitable province of all and that is a very scary thought (I have been in 3 regions so far, Xinjiang, Gansu and now Qinqhai).

I start looking for places to sleep before it gets dark. I get refused at a first house, I am politely asked to put my tent outside their land. Nobody's going to help me, fine. I don't need your permission you heartless chinese people! I don't need you to invite me, I will invite myself. The houses are sparse around the lake and the terrains are huge. There are a lot of mud houses with nobody in them. They are like the ones owned by the poorest families in Kyryzstan. A room with a stove and an elevated bed. Just a bit more than a Yurt. Here they are situated on the other side of the properties, barely visible from the main houses and unused. One of them really has a stove, I can make a fire and sleep on the elevated bed. I should be able to fight any col temperature. There is nothing to fuel the stove but fortunately I find some coal in another mud house.

Mud houses

That's it, problem solved.
Anyway, I go to that hotel, just for the sake of trying. Turns out it's a youth hostel and it's completly empty because it's winter.
"Hello, I am a traveller bla bla bla, can I stay at your place for free?" says my tablet.
"ok." says the lady.

The hostel

I get a room, unheated but with a whole lot of blankets. I should keep quiet, however. "The authority" didn't allow me to stay for free, I have to pay.
Actually, the chinese government wants to have a precise record of every night a tourist spends in the country. That's why, at every hotel, they enter my passport number into their computer. So most importantly, I have to register. And if I register I have to pay otherwise the registration is not valid.
But the lady takes a risk.
"I admire your courage, she writes. That is why I want to help you. If someone asks, just tell them you payed 20 yuan."
Maybe the people are not so bad, maybe they're just afraid to go against the government's regulation. "The authority" is scary.
Next morning it's cold, freezing cold. I try to hitchhike but nobody stops. These are people from villages, they should be more used to help each other than people from cities. But no, they see a human being in freezing cold of 3200 meters and they just pass by. Some of them stop and demand money. Only the tenth car that stops takes me for free. I am freezing at that point, my fingers are numb and I pretty much don't care where they take me.
I also notice that these people don't understand a whole lot of chinese mandarin, they speak a weird different language which is unlike mandarin and also unlike any turkic language. The inscriptions on buildings I pass are also in a weird script. Unfortunately, these people are so unhospitable that I won't have the chance to get close enough to them to learn about their culture.

Strange person

My mission today is: leave this province and if I'm lucky enough, get to Ninxua Hui, autonomus region of the Hui people. A nicer brand of chinese perhaps? I really hope so.

The state of my things

Last time I made an equipement check, I was about to enter Turkmenistan. Everything was still quite new compared to now. Now, I am in China, about to enter the Qinghai province and things are very different.

Tent:
I confirm that this tent is a good choice. It's holding up very well. No holes, like new. The bag of the tent is starting to rip a little but it doesn't matter really, that's just aesthetics.

Inflatable mattress:
Still not a bad choice because if I had a normal mattress it would probably be destroyed right now and I wouldn't fit in the bag. But now the mattress deflates slowly, I don't know why but it does. I couldn't find any hole. It's definitly worth keeping even though I have to blow in it two times a night if I don't want to feel cold.

Sleeping bag:
It's written confort to -10 but -10 is actually a very scary temperature. I have to wear all my clothes, sleep on an improvised mattress under my inflatable mattress not to feel too cold. I think that sleeping bag lost a lot of it's isolation power when it was too often packed because of people's overwhelming hospitality in previous countries.

Clothes:
My wardrobe has changed a lot. I still have my original pants, they are quite good. They are repaired on multiple places by multiple people, including me. They have lost a bit of their original color but they're still good pants, I am glad to keep them.
I have bought another pair of pants in Bishkek that look better but are of a much worse quality. They already had a big hole in them which was repaired by a good Kyrgyz lady from a mountain village on the way out of Kazarman.
I also bought a red and black sweater, it's very usedful, it keeps me warm in combination with all the other clothes.
I have a green t-shirt, gift from armenia (it also lost some color) and another blue sweater also from Armenia.
I have a blue t-shirt too small for me, gift from Janela but it has long sleeves. It's my only t-shirt with long sleeves but since it's too small, it's kind of middle sleeves.
I still have all of my socks (4 pairs in total). I have forgotten my Kalpak at Janela's parents.
Instead, I have a very good and warm cap, gift from Igor from Bishkek. Bless him, he's a drunk but without his cap I would be in deep shit. I still have Nata's cap that she knitted for me. I don't use it much, it's more of a souvenir.
I have Adlet's warm stockings, thanks for them, they really keep warm and they are dully needed. I have warm pants from the last Kazakh family that I stayed with. I use them also very often, everytime I sleep in a tent. I have three layers, Adlet's gamashe, Kazakh pants and my original pants.
I have a jacket. It's orange, it's ugly but I was lucky enough to get it. It is from Igor. Also, I really don't know what I could have done without this jacket.
I have a scarf, a real scarf, I never put it off. It's from the last Kazakh family also. It protects my neck, prevents me from losing all the heat trough it.
I have a table cloth from Nesluu from Kadzhi-say. It's very beautiful, I sometimes use it as a spare blanket but I'm not sure it makes a lot of difference. Before I had a real scarf, it served as a scarf. I also use it as a towel.
I lost my swimming suit but who would need that?

Electronics:
I have all of my electronic equipement. My GPS beacon seems to be working but a scary red light shines from it more and more often. I have no idea what it means, I just hope it's low battery.
My secundary GPS beacon seems to be working allright.
My camera is still working, I am still learning how to use it, discovering new features every now and then. It's really resistant and there is absolutly no problem with it.
My solar charger still works but it's almost useless. I plug my phone to it from time to time.

My tablet is so amazing that it's starting to have sentimental value. I try to treat is better. It has already been used and overused during six months, I write my blog on it, I look on the map using it's GPS chip, I use the translation program. I don't know how much more it can take but it has to hold on. It just has to, it's of life importance to me. It still doesn't have a scratch on his touch screen. It is pretty dirty now but I think that if I ever clean it, it would look like new.
The charger however is in bad shape. It still works but not on all plugs and I have to orientate the plug and then pray until the power catches. My SD-card reader stopped working for a while but now it works again. Maybe it was the cold.

My phone is great, I love it, I use it all the time though not as much as my tablet. The altimeter is very useful and the flashlight too. The screen has a few scratches on it but nothing of note.

Medecine:
I used a bandage as a towel to clean a small wound. I gave some aspirin to Igor. And I noticed that I lack desinfection, that's stupid.

Bag:
Many changes here. My bag got torn on multiple places in the Kyrgyz mountains. It got repaired first by Asyl in Saruu and then by Janela in Tegizchil. Janela's repairs are holding for now and I hope they will hold forever because in these harsh conditions I don't have time to repair my bag and nobody in this country will help me.
Next thing about the bag, the metal skeleton has somewhat deformed and sometimes I feel it on my back and it hurts. Luckily, I often wear countless layers of warm clothes so I don't feel anything through them.

Shoes:
My Salomon trekking shoes got completly destroyed, I threw them out. Only item I actually destroyed beyond repair and had to throw out. Shame on them, stupid brand. I bought new shoes for about 30 euros, cheap chinese stuff and they are holding like a charm. And yes I went to the mountains for them. Note to self, buy chinese crap instead of Salomon, it'll serve you better.
Sylvie's shoe implants are holding up fine, still. Unbelievable.
I also got a new pair of shoes from Igor. They are nice shoes, city shoes. Completly useless from a practical perspective but I can put them on from time to time.

Misc:
I sharpened my knife in Naryn, it's sharp again.

I still have my twoo sunglasses and my spare normal glasses.
Money wise, still under 2 euros a day.

And that's all for now, I think there might only be one last checkup of equipment before the end of the trip!

Gansu, still desert

Today, I got one ride. A joyful guy, some businessman appearently who is rich and in a hurry. He drives fast, 170 km/h to 200 km/h, this is possible on the excellent chinese roads, he buys me lunch and some variant of chinese tea with milk. He eats fast, leaves half of the food. We ride all the way from Hami to Jiayugan, more than 500 kilometers. My hopes rise when we leave Xinjiang. The inscriptions on the road, instead of being in arabic, are written in bad english and it will soon be the end of the desert.
And my wishes come true. Ho and behold, Taklamakan desert is finished and hello Gobi desert, even more dry and desolate than it's Uygur brother. Is it also colder? I hope I won't have to find out.
I think I can bear temperatures down to -15 in my tent, under that it would start to be borderline dangerous, I don't really want to put it to the test.
Gansu is more modern than Xinjiang and Xinjiang is already more modern than everything I have seen for months. So everything is pretty modern.
We arrive in Jiayugan at 5:30 in the evening (Beijing time but Gansu respects Beijing time without ambiguities I think), it's still light for a while. It isa nice city with big buildings but not opressive as in Urumqi or worse, Hong Kong. The architecture is wisely designed to have a good time and sight troughout the city. The guy leaves me in a park with good luck wishes.
Today, I don't want to sleep in a park. I will try to find another solution. I am not desperate for a solution anymore, I am more confident that I am going to find one. China has become slightly less scary.
I open the door of the most luxurious hotel in the city.
"ying yu?(英语)", english? My plan requires that not only me but also my fellow co-speaker know a language reasonably well to communicate in a more complicated manner.
It takes a while to find an english speaking person but it's the most luxurious hotel in town, designed mostly for rich foreigners, they manage it eventually.
"Hello. I am not looking for a room. I am a traveller from czech republic. My challenge is to travel for a dollar per day. I am writing a book about it. Do you have a place in there where I could stay for free?"
It takes the guy a while to come accross the one dollar per day, his average customer spends at least a hundered times that amount. But it doesn't work.
"Sorry sir, we can't help you"
"Absolutly no problem thank you."
"Where are you going to stay?"
"A tent"
"It's december sir, do you know it gets really cold?"
"Hence my question"
"Sorry, we cannot help you."

Big fancy hotel in Jiayguan center

I continue my way to the residence zone of the city, maybe I will have better luck with the locals. On my way, I come accross a hospital. There are a few doors open, I go for the emergencies. In europe, emergencies are the busiest unit, people are lining up, everything is full. In here, there is nobody.
And there is also no reception, instead, there is a police station. Of course. I will avoid to ask the police for help, I try the nurse office.
"ying yu? English?"
Nobody speaks english in there but they point me to a man next door: "he speaks english"
Turns out he doesn't really speak english but he has a tablet, not unlike mine with a translating program. I try my luck with that. I tell him about the same thing that to the hotel receptionist, just adding that I arrived by hitchhiking from Czech Republic.
"So can I stay somewhere in your hospital for one night"
"Ok. No problem.," says the guy. Just like this. No need for a tent today. That was easy!
Turns out the guy is taking a risk. He hasn't notified "the authority" because we all know what "the authority" would say in this country. He has found me a room with four beds.
"Lock yourself in there and switch the lights off," he tells me. In the evening, there is a high concentration of police in the hospital, god knows why. I go out to the city, get some internet, recharge my tablet, write my blog and get back when the police goes away. I switch the lights off, put all my devices to charge and go to sleep.
The next day, I am on the road again. I didn't have dinner except the milk with tea which I got from the last guy. But I get a small breakfest with my first ride.
My second ride is to Zhangye, where I will try to deviate south to Qinhaihu lake in the Qinghai province. I hope it'll be warmer and also the guy who rode me to Juayguan told me it's a nice place.

Hitchhiking is more difficult here but hey, a bus just stopped. I am slowly riding somewhere in the right direction. Two buses and three cars later it's getting late. There are mountains in front of me, I really don't want to get there. I've seen the rough cold down there once, I don't want to feel it again with 1000 more meters of altitude. That's the altitude that I guess for the mountains separating Gansu and Qinqua provinces.

Woman riding on the back of the tricycle

Nobody is stopping anymore, it is time to camp. But the temperature is lower than it should be and there is way more snow than there should be. The desert is finishing, I cheked the satellite imagery, it should be warmer but it isn't. Why is that? I check the altitude, I did it very often in Kyrgyzstan and while crossing the mountains in Xinjiang but here there was no need. Just endless desert.
My altimeter is ruthless: 2270 meters above sea level. Fuck. I am in the mountains. I am in the mountains and I didn't even notice it. I must have been rising slowly, very slowly, meter by meter until I ended up here.
There situation is clear, I can't put up a tent. I have to be hosted. I have two choices. Either ask someone in the village nearby to invite me in. Or hitchhike further and further until someone invites me home. It would never have happenend in Xinjiang but maybe Gansu is different. And for heaven's sake, who would leave a human being in the mountains in winter with just a tent, that's insane even for the chinese.
It is not. Car by car, kilometer by kilometer, they bring me higher and leave me at intersections, all continuing home to their villages. The last guy leaves me in the middle of nowhere about 2700 meters high and drives off. These people have no understanding for the consequences of their actions. You may also argue that I am stupid and you would have a point.
It is freezing and there isn't anything out of which I could make a mattress. I have to go back. I hitchhike a car downhill.
"Where are you going?"
"I try to find a place to build a tent, anywhere better than here"
"Get in"
They let me in front of a hostel, I don't even argue that it's no use, they would just leave me in the middle of nowhere again. I try my luck in the hostel and yay, I can stay there for free. There are some random guys sleeping in the same room, one of them being drunk but I have saved my ass from the mountain cold. Note to self; always, always check the altitude, you might be high and not even know it and I guess that's true for drugs as well.