Procrastinating Departure

Published on July 13, 2007 in Tibet

Although our trip schedule had hit a delay by the Bus From Hell, we refused to let that diminish our enjoyment. After eating our usual spicy pancake breakfast things we started preparing to visit the Sera Monastery, which is one of the three great Gelukpa university monasteries of Tibet. While waiting for our friends we met a lady from Corsica, and upon mentioning our dreams of owning a vineyard, she reiterated that the people from Corsica are crazy. Although I tried to joke around what was actually a serious statement, she proceeded to tell me of the extreme pseudo-xenophobia from the locals, and the threats, bombs and fires that are associated. This scare tactic did seem to work, however, as it opened our eyes to other areas to have our dream vineyard. We left for Sera Monastery.

The flowers were in full bloom, which must have been great for the various tour groups tromping around. Our method of travel was, as usual, local bus. After walking up a long straight road lined with knick-knack shops, we passed where the buses dropped off the high-quality tourists.

The inside of the monastery looked like many others, except a little after 14:00 a swift commotion started. The monks exited into the open pit and the 'debate' or 'discussion' started. Although I had been in debate in high school, trying to speak as fast or smoothly as possible, this was a different form of debate. Several monks would sit down and start talking, while the 'opponent' came around slapping his hands. I'm not entirely certain what the methodology was, but it sounded unique.

Several hours later and we departed back to near our hostel. We sometimes knowing fair well that we shouldn't be doing them, but somehow justify it by saying "we're travelling." At 17:00, stepping inside a small Tibet-style tavern, we ordered our sweet tea. This time, however, we joined the lady to get the tea from the back. She moved to the back of the dirt floored room and stuck the spoon in a large wooden vat of yak milk, and created our tea. We sat back down and drank the milk, giving some to a beggar, and departed for dinner. Unfortunately, we'd be seeing this milk again, in the most vile fashion possible.

The next day our friends departed for the train station, and while we would have loved to have joined them, our tickets weren't until the 15th. The rest of the day was spent in idle waiting, the worst part of being stuck travelling but unable to progress forward. We visited an internet cafe, and ate YHDW for dinner. After the internet cafe we realised something was a little wrong with our stomachs. I'll fully admit, we don't have weak stomachs, especially W. We'd eaten food all around Asia, in some rather interesting places, and never became sick. Part of our medical kit included some, well, you get the idea. We were ready for the worst.

The 15th finally came, and late in the afternoon we boarded the overnight train back into China. Just before getting on the train it was apparent that we would be needing to take the pills, so we each took on. Just one.

I'll give future railroad travellers a bit of advice: don't do overnight trains in China, and if you must, do not get 'hardseat' class. Because no tickets existed for real beds, we were forced to get the hard seats back to Xining. After several hours of cruising through the plateau, the sun went down and we started to contemplate sleep. Unlike the trains in Europe that are somewhat clean, the trains through China, especially hard seat class, get dirty at an unbelievable rate. A frustrating habit was prevalent with the people on this train: sunflower seeds. One of two things would happen; firstly the chewer would suck on the seeds, finish, and drop them under their seat in a neat pile, or secondly, the chewer would throw them out the window, but because we're in a train they would fly back into the cabin a few rows back. When the cleaning people did come through, they just swept under everything, and by the end of the cabin it looked like an invisible garbage truck had exploded somewhere towards the front of the train.

We arrived the next morning in Xining, tired and dirty.