toilets

Woke up at 7AM and went out to the public toilet to join the locals for a shit. Three squat toilets in a row, men to either side of me behind a small barrier but otherwise visible, grunting softly, smoking cigarettes, shitting together. This felt good.

Beijing to Xining to Lhasa, the highest railroad in the world

Beinjing to Lanzhou. Observing the landscape from the window of the train. ALong the railroad, nothing is undisturbed. Every inch of land is manipulated and organized into little farms anf orchards with crooked rows of trees and zig-zagging roads, old stone bridges. The moutains are mostly bare, grimly terraced and harvested for stone or planted with lonely rows of grey trees. The towns in between and all along are the same colour as the naked mountains, clearly of the same material. They blend and dissolve into eachother, fertile valleys and light brown dusty homes below light brown dusty mountains. In a way it's beautiful, and I can imagine a century from now a few crumpled electrical towers and faded soda cans would be all the evidence of an ancient civilization.





Took ages to figure a way in to Tibet. Met people who just bought tickets and went and were turned away, my friend David disguised himself as a Monk and still didn't get in (he says, "I have crossed much more difficult borders than that"). One fellow did make it but had to stay low key and couldn't travel. So we had to do what everyone has to do, which is arrange a guide who will keep us from photographing the wrong things or feeling to much independance.

Eventually after asking everyone I met in Beijing, I was introduced to Bill, an ex-pat living in Xining who arranges tours for cheap into Tibet. I called him, and he didn't have a lot to offer a single traveler. I put the phone down, disappointed, when a tall Danish fellow approached me; "I overheard your conversation. My sister and I are interested in doing the same trip". And from there our group was born, and we later met David in Xining.

In Lhasa, there were many soldiers, young fresh faced soldiers with shotguns or assault rifles who would smile and say hello sometimes. There are many frustrated people too, like the young Tibetan man who punched a fresh faced soldier in the face when asked one too many times for his ID.










Xining to Lhasa. A treeless expanse, a flood plain etched with cracking dry river beds and wide crevaces, at times dotted with distant lines of sheep, but most often uninhabited, stretched flat to the foot of nearby mountains; ancient mountains, lined with time like an aged face, creased by water, season after season. Further on, flanking the landscape are snowy peaks, craggy and rough hewn. The sky is so blue.



Aside from the railway itself, and unlike the landscape from Beijing, this natural world is unmanipulated and mostly untouched. Even the train rounds the mountains rather than tunnel through.

The Great Wall 2 -- Jingchangling to Sumitai

Travelled to Jingchangling for less than a tour price, walked ao our own across 10km of the Great Wall to Sumitai as the sunset and people disappeared.









The wall is so vast, as far across misty mountains as I could see, over valleys and atop peaks, it's crumbling form was there. An incredible testament to human ingenuity and human anxiety. fear and simplicity. Not much has changed in 2000 years, just the means.
The wall to me was beautiful, ancient and solemn, dignified, honourable. To a Mongol invader, intimidating, impossible, a challenge? To a Chinese, security, invincibility, a declaration. How will its context change? And who will find it when we're all gone?

Around Beijing--Forbidden City

Walking around Beijing, I had to always be mindful that I wasn't going to get run down by a long line of cars, each wheeling by in more of a hurry than the last. That made it quite exciting and convenient as I always enjoy a city that permits j-walking.
Here are some pictures of the Forbidden City in Beijing.

Chairman Mao's Tomb. He was a vibrant yellowish, plasitc skin, perfect hair. Couldn't stand longer than 10 seconds though before guards urged us on. Don't look too close...
The entrance to the Forbidden City. Mao, again.




The main stretch of the Forbidden City is kind of a drag, but to the sides are endless little alleys and backstreets.



There are hundreds of these giant copper urns; in the day they would have been full of water, heated gently in the winter to keep from freezing, to douse any fires should something spark.






Saw Mao Zedong today. He looked a healthy orange, glowing; waxy, but otherwise well preserved. Spent hours wandering the alleys and courtyards of the Forbidden City, the Emperors Palace. It was unexciting but impressive nonetheless.

Great Wall of China 1--Badaling

Second day. Folks I met on the boat are taking a tour to a section of the great wall, just an hour or so out of Beijing. I want to go immediately, so I decide to join them. This is the reason I've come to China, that and it's between Japan and Nepal.
The great wall doesn't dissapoint, but the tour does. I start making a plan to head to another section of the wall on my own.

From Kobe to Tianjing

I left Tokyo in a sea of emotions and goodbyes and found on the sea a gently rocking peacefulness, creaking metal and a groaning hull lulled me into a soothing thoughtfullness; a transition between two places, slow and beautiful.



good bye Kobe. japan. ..

sea sunset

sea sunset & sea ship

I don't know how long I've been on this boat, but I'd like to stay forever, listening to the night-time rattle and low rumble, and play cards with less-than strangers and sleep in the top bunk while waves endlessly unnoticably lull me to sleep.