Friday, April 28, 2006
April 28: Final notes on Xi'an, and on travel
Yesterday was spent exploring more of Xi'an's Muslim Quarter, the shopping areas there, and a lot of little streets. The night before I walked on the city walls with Leticia, who was leaving the next morning. This calls for a story.
At around 7 or 7:30 PM, we were back from an excursion to the Big Goose Pagoda (a big buddhist temple, with very nice grounds). We decided to look for dinner in the Muslim Quarter because there's lots of street food, little restaurants etc. We'd walk on the city walls on the way.
Apparently, admission fee to the walls is 40 kwai normally, 20 kwai for students. Quite expensive, really. Anyway, we get to the gate, I notice two prices. I say "shueshung!!" and hear some incoherent babbling. I raise two fingers. Pull out my student ID. Leticia is not a student, doesn't have student ID, but plays it cool. They try to sell me a normal ticket and a student ticket.
I get overwhelingly irritated at this because, well, 40 kwai is a lot to pay for a stroll on the city walls. I point at the student ticket, hold up two fingers, keep saying "shueshung!! shuesung!" and pointing at the two of us. The poor ticket girl looked a bit overwhelmed. She deferred to the local security guard (a 17 year old in uniform, as Lee describes them) who clearly wanted to get us out of his hair. They relented and sold two student tickets.
It's not that the extra 20 kwai is a lot of money - it's less than $3 CAD. It's the principle of it!
Oh, and that night I did my first "randomly point at a menu" meal-selection. It worked out not bad.
Anyway, the next day was more walking streets, this time with Guani. She's a very experienced traveller and a great companion for wandering the streets. More haggling. More shopping (mostly on her part). More great food.
This brings me to the point I'd actually like to make here. One of the most satisfying things about travelling has been, so far, the incredible variety of people I've met. These backpacker-oriented hotels I'm staying at are absolutely indispensibe for meeting like-minded travellers. If I was staying at normal expat or tourist hotels, I'd be pretty lonely.
Some of the very memorable people I've shared my travels with so far have included:
- The Danish girls (Sofie and Maria) and Dutch girls (Elisa and Nina) who were great company for the Great Wall hike.
- The multitude of fine people at Beijing's Far East Hotel, like the guy who "befrended" the masseuse there and constantly seemed to be plotting something vaguely illicit...
- Leticia, the French work-holiday traveller who I met in Xi'an, and who I spent a day with exploring the Muslim Quarter. We sort of spoke the same language - and it wasn't Chinese!
- Guani, the half-Dutch, half-Peruvian long-term traveller in search of her sanity, who showed me how to stand my ground at restaurants (but I think learned something from my negotiating skills with street vendors!). Her story is a fascinating one.
- Stefan and Rob, the two random guys I met at the Xi'an hostel and ended up discussing political issues with, quite heatedly, over a few beers. Good fun!
- And, last but most certainly not least Katie, the American NGO worker, who helped make a day and a half in Beijing ever-so-memorable and seems to be following an eerily-similar itinerary to mine... Tibetan areas followed by Northern India. I hope to see her again in Delhi.
These people are a big part of what makes this trip such a powerful experience. Everyone has a story to tell, everyone is from somewhere different. But we all share something and there seems to be a pretty strong bond between travellers. Especially young, university-age travellers - although being young at heart is really what counts.
I am currently in Chengdu (took an overnight soft sleeper train from Xi'an - most boring 17 hours of my life). Tomorrow I am on my way to Lhasa, for a week or so (possibly more). I'm meeting Murray Sherk, a professor who taught at UW briefly a few years ago. This is the power of networking.
