While I emptied my bowels, Brice chatted with a local family waiting for a bus.
Yet another pass to climb, not mentioned on the maps.
Ran into a Tibetan cyclist.
Around 2 pm stopped to eat dried fruit and crackers. Behind us a terrible storm, black as night, coming our way. Luckily, the road here turns away from the storm, putting its gale at our backs. This pushed us nicely up a second pass, and from that the descent to Naqu. Ninety-eight kilometers in all.
Naqu (pronounced "naw-choo") is at 4628 meters, or about 15,279 feet. It's lower than our last several stopovers, which have been around 47, 48 and 4900 meters. But it's high enough that I feel it quite strongly. Walking is a bit exhausting. Either I am very weak or the altitude has got me.
Yesterday was a strenuous 100-kilometer day, even with the wind. I need to rest today. One feels the lack of oxygen in many ways. On the ride from Amdo, after the pass, Brice and I started to laugh at some inanity (probably "face the rain!") Suddenly my quads started burning -- no oxygen. So I added a rule: no funnies while climbing.
Rolling into Naqu we are shocked by what we see. The streets are a mess. Muddy, they have formed into roller-coaster undulations, like a series of frozen waves from a very harsh storm. Trucks slowly make their way up and down the undulations, right through the center of town.
Naqu is booming. It has been inundated with commerce and immigrants, some Tibetan, some Han, some Hui. The roads weren't ready and neither any other sort of infrastructure. But this is changing: there are new roads and there are sewers being built. It will be a different town in a couple of years.
But we can't wait that long. We're here and we'd like to find accommodation. In fact, we'd like to take a rest day here. We're due. Our Chinese companions ask a traffic cop about lodging and he responds with bad news: a horse-racing festival starts tomorrow and people from far and wide are in town for it. “You won't find any lodging.”
Okay, let's go get the maps stamped and while we're there see if the post office has any accommodations.
The front of the post office, on the intersection of two main streets, is underwater. The water runs almost up to the doorway, leaving a narrow path of approach from the street. Unable to arrange a better solution, I stand with the bikes on that narrow path as Brice goes in for the postmarks. People are stopping to gawk at the bikes and fire off questions. It's an untenable situation as other people are being held up in either direction. "Don't block the way," I urge a series of onlookers.
There are no accommodations at the post office, but Gao Ceng has found that the Naqu Hotel, just up the road, has a dormitory-style room with five beds. There is no shower, neither in the room nor in the building. The guys have already spotted public showers down the street (a big advantage of being able to read Chinese; this kind of stuff goes completely unnoticed to Brice and I) so they aren't bothered by the lack of shower facilities at the hotel. Gao Ceng has been quoted a price of 40 yuan per bed. "Let's take it."
Inside the lobby the reception clerk sees me and says "eighty yuan for foreigners." Rather than settle for the discriminatory pricing, I make a stink.
"China's part of the world market now. Firms can't do this anymore." The receptionist holds fast to her position. I up the ante by saying this is a "cheat-the-foreigner" approach to business.
"You're calling us cheaters now!" the assistant manager shouts. "Well, there are no beds available at all. Not for you and not for your Chinese friends." At this the Chinese go ballistic. Fangkun jumps from his chair and says “No Way! You just quoted us a room and a price, nobody has come in for it since then!” These guys are incensed, so the receptionist relents. But the foreigners still must pay double. Seeking a way out of this impasse, we get the hotel manager on the line, by cell phone.
Naqu has a future as a tourist destination, or so it is thought, and the manager sees the value of reputation. The foreigners can pay 40 each.
Next step is to register. "Where is your permit?" the receptionist asks. I show her the Chinese visa in my passport but that's not good enough. Foreigners should have Tibet travel permits. "It looks like this," she says, holding up a sheet of paper with a group of names on it and a police stamp.
I'm in a cold sweat, thinking a million miles an hour of how to deal with this. Should we just cancel and try to go sleep in the back of some restaurant? Are we going to wind up with a visit from the police if we force our way in here? It wouldn't be unprecedented. We'd found during the 1995 trip and other travels in China that merely getting into a hotel is not a guarantee that you're allowed to stay there. Late in the evening the police, called the Public Security Bureau, or "Gong An" in Chinese, check the registration books of hotels. If they see a foreigner on the list, and the town is not officially open to tourism, they will descend on the unsuspecting foreigner and read them the law. The maximum fine is $100 and the foreigner will be instructed not to leave the premises and will be escorted onto a bus out of town the following morning. I'm inclined to gamble on this one; I have a good feeling about it. We're with the guys, too; maybe that will offer some cover.
"We don't need a permit," I tell the woman. "These aren't required in Tibet anymore." Now she's in a quandary. She's been told to offer us beds, for 40 yuan, but she's also supposed to check our documents. We don't have any.
"I'll put you on the registration of these guys," she says, pointing to our Chinese friends. More likely than not she won't record our presence. Brice and I are a bit nervous all the same. We're happy to have beds, but we just wonder when the cops will show.
The five of us go out that night and treat ourselves to a big Sichuanese ‘hot pot’ meal. We've brought along our toiletries because we'll stop by the showers on the way home. It's the first washing since Golmud. We agree that tomorrow will be a rest day. The horse-racing festival will begin and everyone's excited to have a look.