by Chris Tharp
“Yes. As a matter of fact, I do. I have a date.”
*
When I returned to House of Rose, the dining area was quiet, save for a couple of new guests I didn’t recognize. Andy was there, smoking and drinking, of course, eyes fixed on the cricket highlights flashing on the TV. Rose saw me sit down and came over.
“Are you ready for your date?”
“Yes.”
“Just remember to use a condom,” added Dalisay as she walked by with some empty dishes.
It was nearly midnight by the time Mira emerged. After work, she’d gone back to her shared room to shower, change, and put on some makeup. She wore the same denim skirt from the morning I arrived and a sleeveless black top, exposing her thin, round shoulders. I caught a hint of perfume as she walked up.
“Are you ready?”
“Sure… where are we going?”
“Let’s just ride and see…”
Mira got onto the back of the bike and we took off into the nearly empty streets of the town. It was late, and with the exception of a few bars, and a restaurant or two, everything was closed up. She gripped my waist lightly and nestled her chin into the back of my shoulder.
“Do you want to meet my cousin? We can go to her house.”
We rode through the central business area with its haggard shopping center and fast-food chains, past the impressive white-and-blue cathedral, and out to the far end of town. Mira directed me down a dirt road until we came across a small house. We stopped. The barks of several unseen dogs echoed around the neighborhood and no lights were on inside. Mira lightly knocked on the door, but got no response. She knocked again: nothing.
“Maybe she is asleep…”
“Well, what should we do?”
“Let us just ride.”
We rode back down the main strip into town, toward the airport, and then turned around. We then headed back out toward her cousin’s place and turned around again, doing several laps through Princesa like cruisers in small-town America. We talked about nothing, but just rode, savoring the night breeze that whipped through our hair and the damp warmth of each other’s bodies.
“Are you hungry, Chris?”
“Yeah, I could eat.”
We stopped off at one of the few restaurants still open. It was a Vietnamese noodle house. In the late 1970s and early ’80s, many Vietnamese fled their homeland via the sea. Some of them ended up on Palawan and are still around today, their noodle shops a testament to their presence.
Mira and I were the only customers. We ordered two bowls of chicken pho and colas, sitting under the restaurant’s buzzing fluorescent lights, slurping the noodles and broth and sipping the soft drinks from plastic straws.
“Where do you go tomorrow?” Mira asked.
“I’m heading north, up to El Nido.”
“Are you coming back through Princesa?”
“I’m not sure yet. I may go all the way to Coron and fly back to Manila”
“You should come back during my day off and we can go the beach. Would you like that?”
“I would,” I said, waving away a fly.
We rode back to House of Rose as slowly as possible. Neither of us wanted to be there, but it was very late and there was really nowhere else to go. I suddenly remembered the offer Dutch Jan had made the day before: “If you ever need a room,” he said… but it didn’t seem that this was going to be that type of night. Mira worked hard, but wasn’t a working girl.
As we approached the guesthouse, the streets got darker. The branches from the trees reached out over the lane, and moonlight sifted through.
“Stop here,” Mira said.
I killed the bike and just sat there. An orchestra of frogs chirped from the swamp nearby.
“Look at the stars,” she said, pointing up through trees. There they were, glowing white; majestic.
We got off the bike and stood in the middle of the road, just looking up, afloat in the tropical night. I felt the warmth of her hand, her long fingers intertwining with mine. I turned to her, leaned in, and we kissed.
She smiled and laughed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
I felt that warm wave rise again inside and placed my hands on her hips, feeling her bone through the strong denim of her skirt. I went in for another kiss, this time with more purpose and passion, but she placed her hand on my chest and lightly pushed me back.
“No.” Again she smiled, though I could see in her eyes that she didn’t trust me, that she knew exactly what I was after.
It was nearly four a.m. when we returned to House of Rose. The place was dark and shut down.
“Oh no.”
“What?”
“I forgot my key,” Mira said. “I cannot unlock the room.”
“Well isn’t Dalisay in there?”
“Yes, but she is sleeping.”
“Wake her up.”
“No, no… she will be angry. I will stay out here until morning. Just two more hours.”
“Come to my bed. I have to get up at six as well. The van to El Nido comes at six thirty.”
“I cannot. It is against the rules.”
The temperature had dropped significantly, and now a slight seaside chill hung in the air. I could see that Mira was cold. I went to my room and grabbed a light sweater from my pack and gave it to her.
“Here. Wear this.”
She slipped it on. It draped over her like a blanket.
We sat together in one of the wooden lounge chairs on the edge of the dining area. I held her and she rested her head on my shoulder. We listened to the sound of the night—dogs, frogs, crickets, far-off music, motorbikes, cars, and voices—until I dropped into sleep.
“Get up,” Mira said, kissing my forehead, bringing me back. “Go sleep. Go.”
We stood up together.
“Thanks for a great date, Mira.”
She nodded. I embraced her weakly, then turned and walked toward my room.
“You will come back for me?”
I stopped.
“You can come see me on my day off. We can go to the beach.”
I looked back toward her silhouette.
“Will you promise to come back?”
“I will,” I lied. “I promise.”
INTO THE WILD WEST
China, 2008
Prologue
The best parts of China are often the parts that don’t look like China. After all, China is a country so massive and varied that your preconceived notions are easily destroyed. This is especially true if you travel around the edge of the country. It is here, close to the borders, where things get strange and interesting. This is where you can discover nations within the nation. This is where your expectations get flipped on their head. This is where China will slap you in the face and ask, “Do you even know where you are?”
I was amazed when I saw actual skyscrapers in Ürümqi. The skyline was made up of a cluster of brand-new structures, one of which was a dead ringer for Philadelphia’s famed Liberty Place, reproducing its ziggurat top in smaller scale and reaffirming the Chinese talent for knockoffs. Ürümqi: it sounded exotic enough. I was half-expecting a desert bazaar, a meeting place dug out of the dunes full of camels, turbaned traders, and mud huts. After all, we were following the old Silk Road and about as far from Beijing as you could get. We were in Xinjiang province in the far west—Uyghur country—a massive territory that was supposed to be China only in name. But at first glance, central Ürümqi was an utterly Chinese place, with shiny cars cruising the streets and buildings that gleamed underneath the relentless desert sun. After all, the area was awash in oil money and the city was clearly benefiting. Its residents seemed to be thriving and happy, as long as they were Han Chinese.
Uyghurs are a Central Asian Turkic people, closely related in language, culture, and DNA to the folks who inhabit neighboring countries such as Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Their cities have a lot more in common with Kabul and Tashkent than Beijing. In 1949, w
hen the Chinese communists took over Xinjiang, Uyghurs made up over ninety percent of the population. Today it’s less than fifty, thanks largely to Beijing’s policy of settling the region with Han Chinese, who hold most of the good jobs and pretty much run the show. Uyghurs, it seems, aren’t even invited to the party. They have been made second-class citizens in their own country. They widely consider themselves a colonized people and resent it. As a result, they’re beginning to buck.
Steve, Sam, and I had taken the train to Ürümqi all the way from Shanghai, crossing much of the country over the course of a week. It was the summer of 2008, and the Beijing Olympics were just about to get underway. The eyes of the world were on China and they knew it, so the whole nation had been spruced up in preparation. The locals were under strict orders to be congenial guests; “undesirables” were rounded up and hidden from view; travel was strictly controlled. Security was tight, even thousands of miles away from the action. The authorities were watching everyone, citizens and foreigners alike.
They were being especially niggardly with travel permits, as we found out in the lonely outpost of Golmud, when we attempted to get off the tourist track and head further along the Southern Silk Road. This is why we had come out west: we wanted to get into the heart of un-Chinese China. But we were denied, stymied by a chain-smoking official who repeatedly muttered, “I dare not. I dare not.” Unwilling to risk an incident, he turned us around and put us on a bus heading back north. It was their time in the sun, and they would abide no hiccups.
So after a few days in the touristy oasis of Dunhuang, we jumped back on the train and were now were traipsing the sidewalks of Ürümqi, surrounded by aluminum and glass instead of sand dunes and apricot groves. We weren’t supposed to be there until the end of the trip, where, after our rough sojourn in the sand, we would enjoy the trappings of Western-style luxury before flying back to Shanghai. But one of the hidden joys of travel can be dealing with sudden changes in itinerary. It is here where the happy accidents occur. We were now in Ürümqi whether we liked it or not, so we decided we might as well try to enjoy it.
That night, after resting up in our downtown hotel, we took a walk into the Uyghur quarter, looking for authentic Central Asian grub. This is where the city took on a very different flavor. Perhaps the town wasn’t as Chinese as we thought. The streets were darker and the buildings grubbier. There were far more people outside. Some were busy working and selling, while others just seemed to mill about. Smoke from cooking meat filled the air, along with music. The place suddenly jumped with life. It was poorer and more ragged, but humming with vitality. Moreover, we saw no Chinese faces. The people here were taller and light-skinned, with high cheekbones; round, wide-set eyes; and prominent noses. Most of the men sported moustaches and skullcaps; the women dressed modestly, with long sleeves, long skirts, and multi-colored headscarves. Some were strikingly beautiful. We had entered a different world in just a matter of blocks. An invisible border separated the two areas, but as tourists, we were allowed unfettered access.
We sat down at a plastic outdoor table next to a street cart for our meal. An old man and his son were grilling chicken, and the aroma of the meat cooking over open coals proved too much to resist. He was also the only vendor we could find who would sell us beer, so the deal was sealed. We sat there, under a single fluorescent bulb, grubbing on delectable barbecue chicken and sipping cold lager, while the mournful melodies of Uyghur pop songs warbled from the man’s cheap stereo. We didn’t see a single tourist walk by, just a procession of Uyghur men and women, a few of whom cast curious glances our way.
“It looks like we finally made it out of ‘China’,” I said, raising my glass.
On the walk back to the hotel, we decided that we needed whisky. We had finished our last bottle a few days back and that just wouldn’t do. Once we crossed back into the Chinese zone, we quickly found a liquor shop, where I shelled out 125 yuan (about twenty bucks) for a bottle of Johnny Walker Red. But we had one problem: there was no ice in our room and no ice machine on our floor. We’d have to track some down at the hotel.
“I’m sure that they’ll have some at the bar in the lobby,” said Steve.
The hotel’s bar was a tiny affair: just a bar with a few stools. I never saw anyone drinking there. It was staffed by a single bartender in a black jacket and bow tie.
“Ni hao.”
“Ni hao.”
“Do you have any ice?” I was slow and deliberate, but it didn’t register. Like the rest of the hotel’s staff, the bartender spoke pretty much zero English.
I tried again: “Ice?”
He leaned forward with his eyebrows raised and his mouth slightly open, trying his best to decipher the foreign noises emanating from my mouth.
“Uh… ice?”
He responded in Chinese and then just stood there.
I took a shot in the dark and tried Korean, since sometimes it uses Chinese words: “Eoreom? Eoreom isseoyo?”
No luck. I’d have to resort to charades.
I mimed dropping ice cubes in a glass.
Nothing.
I then wrapped my arms around my torso and shook my body: “Brrrrrrrrrrrr! Cold! Brrrrrrrrrrrrr!” This only furthered his confusion.
Finally I took the bottle out of the bag.
“Ice!” I said, shaking the bottle. “We need ice for our whisky!”
The bartender looked toward the bottle, cocking his head like an inquisitive puppy. He then took it from me and stared closely, scrutinizing the label. A smirk overtook his lips as he looked up and shook his head “no.” He pointed to the label, which, instead of “Johnny Walker,” read “James Worker” in identical lettering. It was a knockoff, and probably undrinkable. We’d been had. We were clearly back in China again.
Heaven Lake
“Is there a problem with the tickets?”
The wooden kiosk was manned by a different guy than the day before and he didn’t like what he saw. Mumbling to himself, he examined all three pink slips as if I had just presented him with a series of advanced calculus problems.
“I bought them here yesterday,” I continued. “Right here.” I tapped on the counter of the creaky kiosk for effect.
The attendant stared at the papers, picked at his ear, and spat.
“Do you think he can read English?” asked Steve.
“I doubt he can even read Chinese,” said Sam
The man shook his head, pulled out his cell phone, and punched in a number. Soon he was yelling at someone on the other end (perhaps the vendor who had sold me the things). He ranted and howled, seemingly livid, but maybe he was just asking about the weather. After all, with Chinese it can be hard to tell.
After more examination and phone squawking, we followed him to the other end of Ürümqi’s People’s Park to a waiting bus—where he proceeded to have a shouting match with the driver. Stymied, he led us to another, where, after more verbal pyrotechnics, we were also turned away. Finally, we were ushered into a totally different tourist office (this one in an actual building with electricity), where our man locked horns with the woman working there until—after handing over a wad of paper Mao portraits—she reluctantly agreed to honor our tickets. Her name was Miss Yi and, after the man left, she was all happy teeth and shining eyes, depositing us on a forlorn and empty coach just outside. We looked on in helplessness as all the other buses pulled away, leaving us to broil in the brutal desert heat.
Over the next hour and a half, Chinese tourists trickled in, and by eleven our bus was full and ready to go, though only after what seemed to be a case of flagrant racial profiling: for some reason, a young couple—the only Uyghurs on the bus—was booted from their seats and ejected from the bus. Perhaps it was a simple ticketing mix-up, but the whole affair seemed suspect. They were soon replaced by two smiling Han Chinese. The passengers of the bus exhaled and collectively unclenched their assholes, and the bus finally jerked into gear and pulled out onto the road leading out of the city.
&nbs
p; Our destination was Tian Chi, also known as Heaven Lake, a natural alpine reservoir nestled high in Tian Shan Mountains, just two hours out of town. This picturesque lake sits right under the nose of the 5445-meter Bogeda Feng (Peak of God). According to the brochure photos, it’s surrounded by pine-covered mountain slopes, looking more like Switzerland than China. But it is in China and the Chinese know when they’ve got a good thing going, so it’s definitely on the map as a major tourist attraction. After some sour incidents earlier in our travels, we had sworn off the big tourist sights, but the photos of the mountains and the lake looked majestic and inviting, so even if the lead-up was touristy, we could at least get in a hike, or perhaps even sneak in a swim. I knew from experience that in China if you’re willing to walk just a little a bit, you can beat the crowds; most bus tourists don’t stray far from base.
About twenty minutes into the journey, as we rumbled across the flat desert plains, Miss Yi got up out of her seat and fired up the karaoke machine wired into the front of the bus.
“Uh-oh,” I said, nudging Steve.
She appeared to be testing the microphone. Her voice echoed from the speakers, drenched in the wet delay effect that is the default setting on all karaoke machines in Asia.
“Please tell me she’s not going to sing,” muttered Steve.
“Dear God no.” Sam pulled down the bill of his baseball hat and feigned sleep.
Fortunately Miss Yi did not sing, but she did talk. Lacking a grasp of the language, I assumed that she was giving us a prelude of what we were about to see, maybe describing the sights and the history of the area. But as her spiel went on, I realized—from her sing-song tone and animated eyes—that she was delivering a sales pitch. Her presentation was fully memorized and well-rehearsed; it was obvious that she performed it daily. Her voice bounced and ricocheted off the many surfaces of the sealed vehicle, lubricated and propelled by the power of Asian karaoke super-reverb. This went on for over forty excruciating minutes; after just twenty, I was ready to garrote her with the microphone cord.
Eventually, after a prolonged pee-stop, we began our climb into the mountains. The weather was gorgeous—literally not a cloud in the sky—and it was wonderfully warm. I was looking forward to getting to the lake and taking in some nature, but going straight there would just be too easy. This was modern China, after all, and there was commerce to be done, so soon we stopped at the side of a road in front of a mystery building.
