Through China with Hector Quinones
October 1999

The day after I arrived in Beijing I hopped onto a train to Xining (province of Qinhai). A friend of mine was waiting for me in Beijing and had bought the tickets (not an easy feat, he told me). I spent 33 hours in the train, which was a great way to recover from jet-lag. I believe I slept at least 15 hours! We met a really nice Chinese man of about 30 who spoke fluent English and taught me how to play Chinese chess (anybody out there want to play a game with me via email?).

We spent a couple of days in Xining relaxing and buying a few things we needed. Xining is rather ugly but I enjoyed it there because of the great food, busy streets and because there were hardly any tourists. After visiting a Buddhist monastery nearby (Taer monastery, I believe) which had some amazing sculptures made of yak butter, we traveled by train to Golmud. Everybody there assumed that we were following the route to Tibet and were rather shocked when we explained that we only wanted to visit a tiny town called Totohue (the first town on the course of the Yangtse or Chang Jiang river)

In Golmud we discovered a wonderful teahouse in the middle of a park where we spent many hours eating sunflower seeds, drinking tea, playing Chinese chess and listening to live traditional music (il dolce far niente). Once we got used to the height in Golmud (around 3000 m, I believe) we rented a car and headed to Totohue. The car had an altimeter and a thermometer indicating the outside temperature. It was fascinating to watch both while we gradually climbed until we reached 5100 m and -18 C on the Tibetan plateau. The landscape was spectacular.

Totohue was barely a few dozen houses along the road and by the river. The area was extremely flat and dominated by the Yangtse river, divided into many small streams. The sunset over this setting was one of the most breathtaking I have ever seen. Disregarding the recommendation not to drink alcohol or smoke at 5000 altitude, my friend and I decided to party and shared a bottle of wine, some sheep's milk cheese (I brought it with me all the way from Spain) and a few cigarettes. The following morning I had a HUGE hangover, could barely walk and felt that my lungs had gone on strike. Luckily, a couple of aspirins and some tea brought me back to life and I even started to feel reasonably well as we started to head down back towards more reasonable altitudes.

We took a train back to Xining and a bus from there to Lanzhou. According to a woman we met on the train it is the most poll uted city in China. We decided to move away from all that smog and took a bus to a town called Linxia where most people were Muslims and ethnically Caucasian (originally from Turkey, I believe). We spent a whole day walking in the rural areas around the town and were invited to lunch and tea by a woman and her mother in law. We proved that you can have a "conversation" for several hours using only about 15 words and a little bit of imagination and sense of humor.

Our next stop was Xian: the major tourist trap in China. Definitely worth visiting, but expensive and rather spoiled by mass tourism (mostly Chinese), unless you really try to avoid it. Next, we went to Chengdu, the largest city in central China, in the province of Sichuan. I wouldn't highlight anything in particular, but we really enjoyed it there. People are extremely friendly and relaxed and there are some great parks, teahouses and restaurants. Almost two days traveling (train and bus through a muddy road) took us to Lijiang, a world heritage site (province of Yunnan, in the southwest, near Burma). It is a gorgeous place, home of the Naxi people (we were very lucky, because there were a number of Naxi music and culture events during the three days we were there).

My friend stayed in Lijiang and I continued south towards Kunming. I loved Kunming, mostly because of the beautiful sunny weather I had during the three days I was there and some amazing architecture. I rented a bike and rode around the city for hours. I also visited the Stone Forest: a magical place where the thing to do is to get lost in the almost endless and senseless network of tiny, twisty paths between the rocks. Finally, I flew back to Beijing (the only alternative to flying was a 46 hour train and no sleeper seats were available. While travelling I'll usually bear almost anything, but this was too much for me).

I spent two days in Beijing (not enough). I visited the Summer Palace (I had been to the Forbidden City earlier) and I enjoyed a mini-Lantracon with Isolda, her husband and her two small twins (Thanks again, Isolda for a wonderful evening). I spent my last few hours in China experiencing nightlife in Beijing with an American I had met in Linxia. Slept two hours and headed back to Spain. I am looking forward to return to China. I feel much closer than before to the Chinese people and have decided to learn Chinese and Chinese chess (I insist: does anyone want to challenge me by email?).
e me by email?).