The flight was like flights are, at least for me:
Falling asleep when the drinks arrived, again falling asleep, but now it’s time for food (dinner two hours after midnight), falling asleep, and then an announcement, etc.
My planned walk to the hostel was a flop:
My e-SIM didn’t work, so I had no location, no maps, no digital money, etc.
I tried to leave the airport and half an hour later I found a way out of the building because the only official options were “taxi,” “bus,” “sightseeing buses,” etc.
Outside, all I found was a pedestrian path that circled halfway around the airport, but no exit. Only some layers of highways completely enclosed the area. It took an hour of walking before I could accept that I was trapped and, after flying instead of trains, also would take a taxi instead of walking to the city.
It was hard to find an official entry to the airport for pedestrians, but ended up running back where I had escaped to sneak in. Without asking (offline translator is helpful!), I wouldn’t have found a way to exchange money, an ATM tucked away in a corner.
With some cash, I went to the taxi stand and found a driver who spoke very fluent Chinese. She was convinced that by speaking more, louder, and a little slower I would learn something. The hostel booking was done through Gmail. Gmail loves the internet, but my e-SIM card ignored us.
Luckily, I had written all the addresses in a notebook, but not in Chinese.
sooooooooooooooooooooooosaöööööööö
(the last line was one of those emerging when I fell asleep during writing)
But truly luckily, I also had made PDFs of bookings on my laptop and also stored them on my phone. So I coukkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk – (Sorry!)
showed it to the driver. And she left the airport via 2,4km long tunnel. As I pedestrian I woujjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjhave been stopped fast (cameras everywhere).
After a while she stopped but it was the train sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss,wwwwwtion.
She realised her mistake and found it funny. At the right address, someone told her to drive down to the garage and after driving around for a while she found a sign for Yunbo hostel, but the door was locked.
I finally wanted to send her away because the taxi counter was still running. She wanted to get the money via Alipay which didn’t work but instead of giving me a hotspot she just complained (in fluent and loud Chinese). I offered her my 100y but she had not enough cash to give me the change. She wanted to send me the change via Alipay…
I found a way from the garage to the elevator and to the hostel. Check-in was done in a “moment” (read: an hour). At the hostel, when I got Wi-Fi, my e-SIM also decided to work.
My 8-bed room seemed currently empty. I wanted to take a short nap before meeting Ben, but the moment I fell asleep, someone in another booth started a phone call. Every time I hoped he was finished, there was only a long explanation from the other end, and his reply woke me up again. I gave up.
Ben had been in Sydney, where he had met Efan, and he had to stay in Urumqi longer than me for some meetings, otherwise we might have travelled together to Kunming (finally he couldn’t come at all).
He took me on a lovely sightseeing tour, which began with an overwhelming start at a restaurant. He ordered too much, and I ate so much that I felt sick and knew I had to stop before I would cause my worst lunch disaster ever. So, one plate went uneaten.
We went to Hongshan Mountain, a hill overlooking the city, where you could find even more of these women in traditional clothing. There are two groups who wear this:
Women promoting restaurants or dance performances, and tourists.
I’m not sure what to make of this, considering that tradition is intertwined with religion, and religion is a sensitive topic there…
Ben ordered a taxi to take me to the hostel and then him to the train station, but again we ended up at the “magnetic” train station 😊. That meant leaving the taxi and ordering a new one, the app wants it like that.
My 8-bed dorm seemed currently empty. (We’ve been through this before, so you can imagine what happened next.) I was getting ready for bed, and that guy called again! I was starting to hate his girlfriend because every short reply from him was followed by a minute of silence on his and apparently a new torrent of words on her side. Enough to almost fall asleep and then jolt me awake again.
I tried to keep writing for a while, but it was very hard when you want to produce more than the chains of letters like the one above.
