Communal night @ our hostel, with Mickey Mao looking most forward to our company
Didn't believe it until we saw it... told you it's a small world after all!
We've booked and gotten the tickets - upping the threshold this time to 33 hours
Just our tip - take the bus, or better still go for "Bus No. 11" (walk it off)
We visited probably the most unique mosque to date in our travels (and it's pretty hard to beat Jama in New Delhi) in a sense that not only it's a living practice, it's also one that truly put in form the true essence of man's observing his faith with his chosen God that passed class, creed, dialect and values. There was hardly any long list of not-to-do's and even more favourably, females weren't given a hard time akin to an alien form on legs when we walked through the gates.
It's more than a thousand years of history here and it's to my memory since arriving in China the best ancient historical preservation of its kind. I hope that it will escape China's dire obsession in over-restoring their old and leftovers from the Revolution.
Also I found out that bargaining is something that gets easier with practice. Just like my attempts with the Xun instrument and my Chinese calligraphy.
And that the Muslim Chinese here, which we have endearingly nicknamed "Chuluks" are one of the best cooks - period. Tried my first Chinese Briyanni and man, how on Earth did mutton get that tender? We had some sticky rice pudding with peanuts, red bean paste, rose syrup, honey and black sesame for dessert. I was already feeling extremely guilty from the big breakfast of tofu, fried curly doughs and "oil pockets" but reminded (or rather consoled) myself that you got to live for the moment, right? Any excuse my friend, any!
And as if it wasn't enough that I braved the course of a long 14-hour endurance test from Wuchang train station, of sharing a cabin with a fart machine that wouldn't stop snoring (he was the 25% that let the whole car down) - hubby reckoned that he had a dead rat up his ass - we finally got our permit and train tickets.
My dear friends - yes, not even the Lord of Hades could stop us this time - bags are packed, shoes are tied up. I shall be gone for eight days to expend all that I have in the holy quest for the unseen, unbelieved until I have laid my sight, smell, hearing and touch on it, to chase after that elusive story that had teased me all my life. The end game for this stretch of the adventure will be another 20-hour epic to Lanzhou for a quick transfer to a 2-hour flight to Urumqi. Seem to be a better time option that spending 50 hours on a train. All this, from one destination.
Ladies and gentlemen, faithful friends and readers, I take leave and in my absence, trust that I am never far and shall be back at this space. Pray and wish that come hell or heck, I shall have fun and a story to write!
TIBET BECKONS! AND I SHALL ANSWER!
