These folk are all Tibetan, we are staying in their meeting hall / dance hall. This is the cleanest dao ban we've seen, by far. The meeting hall is adorned with banners for achievements and for being a "civilized work unit;" there is a portrait of Mao Zedong and Tiananmen Square on the wall. I guess it's like a unit of the US government hanging the president's photo.
The workers and their children all speak excellent Chinese. Last night we could see how assimilated they are. When I first sat for tea to discuss getting accommodations, I asked where or how they learned their Chinese (many Tibetans we meet don't speak very much Chinese). "It's been a long time that China's here," one of them replied dismissively. It is just a matter of fact.
In the morning we sip yak tea and eat steamed buns with the family. We bid adieu to the whole compound and set off. I'd like to spend another day here. I could spend a week here. The surrounding hills are green and beautiful. They would make for excellent day hikes.
Our cycling starts with a climb up the remainder of this gentle valley. After that we are rewarded with dozens of kilometres of flat or slightly downhill road and a stiff tail wind to push us along. Now and then we see a lone Tibetan walking the road in the middle of nowhere. What is he doing out here?
Today's road is basically flat and we make mincemeat out of the kilometres: ten, thirty, sixty go by before the weather rolls in and the whole equation changes. Clouds meet the horizon just up ahead.
We're cycling into a strong wind now. There will be no more shredding of kilometres, just step-by-step disposal of them.
Luckily we've got a raucous conversation going, as we often do. It's one of the very reasons we came out here. Probably neither one of us has laughed this much in the last five years. I get to hear about Brice's three years at the International Financing Review--Asia, a magazine covering the Asian capital markets. He's learned a lot about Asian finance and made good contacts in the banking community. It's one of the reasons he's just landed the post of Executive Director of the Asia-Pacific Loan Markets Association, the association of foreign and domestic banks in Asia. We've got plenty to discuss, since I've also been focusing on Asian finance and economics at the US Treasury Department over the past year.
Brice also wants to hear about Israel and I tell him about the excellent time I had and the incredible treatment I received. It's one of the most worthy destinations imaginable.
Friendship is an interesting phenomenon. Like any relationship, it's challenging. All the more so with people as restless as I. My life is filled with the weak or broken last strands of "drive-by" friendships, brief associations never given the chance to grow. But when you meet someone who comes from pretty much your own cloth -- not in terms of geography or even life experience but more importantly in terms of the deeper characteristics of personality which make a person completely unique -- the connection endures. We thrive on each others' outlooks. Our similarities are comforting and our differences are inspiring. Moreover, we've shared some extraordinary experiences.
We're going slightly downhill now but the wind makes it feel like the opposite. We should be doing about 35 kph but we're doing 15 instead. A town comes into view and this perplexes us. Yanshipin, today's destination, should be 20 or more kilometres ahead.
We come to within the town and the rain is by now pouring on us. The place is a deserted assemblage of blown-out and derelict buildings strewn along the right-hand side of the road. It is a ghost town if ever I've seen one. No. There are occupants: a pack of seven or eight dogs is milling about on the other side of the road. Dogs in packs are more intimidating than the random one or two that protect yurts and harass us, usually more bark than bite. There is no alternative but cycle past these dogs slowly. If they sense a chase we've got trouble. The dogs turn out not to give a damn about us.
There's a gas station up ahead and we call in to see whether or not we can get food here. We're quite famished and the rain is an irritant. It would be nice to stop for a half hour. "Yeah, sure, there's a Tibetan restaurant down in there," the attendant says. We can't see it. Are you sure? "Yeah. Just cycle down 'til you see a building with red characters, that's the one." Eventually we find it and there are people with a modest restaurant and shop. It doesn't seem they get many customers. It's certain that most truckers just drive by and wait to get to Yanshipin. This place is Tibetan, and many truckers are Han. They prefer to eat Han or Hui food.
The noodles turn out to be delicious.
The first 20-30 clicks were a cruise; slight downhill with a tail wind. Stopped for a photo of the Tong Tian River, apparently famous from Xi You Ji (Journey to the West), as are the Fenghuo Mountains. Headwinds after that. Rain fell and we stopped at a ghost town with one functioning restaurant -- Tibetan. We set back out into sunshine with a tail wind and 17 clicks to Yanshipin.
The town is set along a river among some attractive geological formations, spiny slopes cradling grass at steep angles to the earth. We rolled into town and I declared I'd climb those formations today.
We spotted the companions' bikes outside a Hui restaurant. The place had nine beds in back. But I didn't like it -- the distinct odor of coal smoke hung in that back room, and I didn't come to the cleanest environment left on Earth -- by bicycle -- to inhale coal soot all night. Turned out there was little choice; the dao ban across the street was afraid to accept foreigners, and the companions aren't keen on pitching the tents.
There's still light in the day so Fangkun and I hike up the interesting mountains surrounding the town. There are prayer flags up here and several yak and sheep. There are also some hawks or eagles. We pose with stunning overviews of Yanshipin and the river valley. There are also beautiful lush high grasslands up here.
Back at the Hui place I stepped through the back door and had a look at the river and the mountains behind it. I was struck instead by the absolute piles of waste and garbage built up from behind the restaurant. A Hui employee followed me out and seemed curious. So I took the chance to express what was on my mind: Where are you from? (Lingxia, Gansu Province.) Why do you turn this into such a mess? (It's okay! We came out here to make money. We'll go back to our home after that. This isn't our home.) Abhorrent.