by Danny Bent
As he walked in, Matt was clearly deliberating something with his panniers in his hands. “I can’t decide whether it’s more disgusting to put the panniers on the floor or on the bed,” he stated simply.
Walking round town in the evening, we looked for somewhere to eat that wasn’t going to give us first degree gastroenteritis. When a restaurant's endearing feature is a lack of rats outside the front entrance, you know you are sinking to new levels.
Without an ounce of Mandarin between us, and with our phrase book written in Chinese English, there was only one way to decide what we should eat. Grabbing the waitress' arm, I led her into the kitchen. After the steam cleared from my glasses, I could see chicken's feet everywhere - no chickens, just their feet. I pointed to them and crossed my arms to say “NO!!” In other pots I found noodles and something resembling vegetables. I gave them the thumbs up and held up two fingers. She smiled broadly and offered me the peace sign back. Leaving the kitchen, I pointed to the feet again and reiterated that I wanted nothing to do with them.
We sat and hoped.
* * *
Having seen the public toilet - which doubled as our hotel toilet - on our way to the ‘restaurant’, I’d looked up at the sky, to the God of bowel movements, and prayed. My intentions were very clear. There could be no confusing them; no bowel movements tonight please. The toilets were based on a modern open plan design, eight holes side-by-side dropping down a bank that ran along the side of the road. Six of the toilets allowed for a degree of privacy with a wrought iron fence between them and passers-by. The smell emanating from the toilets monopolised our attention and, once we were hooked, we couldn't avoid letting our eyes explore the piles of excrement lying on the floor.
Sitting in the restaurant, I felt a twinge but ignored it, hoping, against all odds that it was a fart in the making waiting for an opportune moment to depart my body. As we left the restaurant, I felt another one and my stomach swiftly sent a message up to my cerebellum to say “Get to a toilet. Fast.”
Unfortunately, by this time it was dark and tiptoeing round deposits from other caring guests would have been like playing Russian roulette, so I had to choose one of the two toilets under the glaring street lamps in full view of the passing public in this godforsaken town. Pulling down my shorts, I was forced to reveal my porcelain white bottom to the creatures of the sewage. ten seconds later a man ran in and stopped right in front of me to assess why I was there. One would have thought it quite obvious. He quickly pirouetted and skipped his way to the other end of the barn with aplomb. As I got back to the job at hand, a delegation of people came from left to right chatting to each other and stopping to laugh at the white man sitting in the toilets, grimacing.
I kept on all my clothes that night, including my hat, to keep out not only the cold but also the slime and sweat on my bed sheets that looked like it might dissolve a body if it were lain upon it in the raw form.
It was around 250 kilometres east and two kilometres south to Kashkar, the next city on our route. We were hoping that it would all be down-hill from here and, indeed, traditional logic would suggest that the best route down from a pass such as this would be to pick a river valley and follow it to the plains. One of the lessons of this trip, however, was that the passes were rarely what they seemed, let alone what I was expecting. In this case the Chinese had inexplicably decided to build the descent from this particular pass across the valleys, so we dropped down into each one, only to climb out the other side and into the next.
The valleys were beautiful. The sides of the road were still green but the mountains on either side were made of red rock that folded as it emerged bare from the earth, leaving ripples running across it and peaks and troughs in-between. On the up, Matt held on as I twiddled up in the granny gear, and on the way down we raced whooping like children. On the occasional flats we chorused Take That, Chris De Burg, S Club 7 and other trendy songs. Luckily there was no-one else to hear us, so we escaped without anyone knowing our taste in music.
Then Matt taught me my greatest lesson. I was struggling up a steep hill, but knowing Matt was fairing far worse made me carry on. Then I heard his singing ‘Life is a roller-coaster’, a Ronan Keating special. He seemed to be enjoying himself. I heard an engine too, and was fearful to turn around and find myself under the wheels of a passing truck. His singing got louder and louder. He was catching me up and preparing to overtake me. My legs were screaming as I tried to stay ahead of him. He flew past at about twice my speed. I stopped dumbfounded, out of breath, and pissed off. Where had all this energy come from? How had a man who’d never really cycled gone past me when I was supposed to be a decent rider? Then I noticed it. He wasn’t even peddling. He only had one arm on the handle bars. The other was stretched out in front of him. He’d waited for a lorry to come, had grabbed hold of part of the bumper and was allowing himself to be dragged to the top. I couldn’t believe it. Cheeky bugger. But a brave cheeky bugger. Surely that was death-defying to be on these roads and riding one-handed at twice the rational speed. Matt informed me this was called 'skitching'. I had to give it a go.
Waiting at the bottom of the next hill, we could see the dust from an approaching truck. Psyching myself up, I could feel my pulse quicken and my legs becoming taut, ready for the sprint. The truck got within ten metres and I set off up the hill as fast as I could. My legs were burning, my lungs felt full of glass and, whoosh, it went by. I had no chance. Collapsing over the handle bars, sucking breath in, I heard Matt laughing in exactly the spot he’d been in before the truck had appeared. He hadn’t moved.
“You don’t try and catch hold of the Chinese trucks, just the old Kyrgyzstan trucks!”
I swore under my breath. “You could have told me that before.”
Again a truck was coming, this one a lot slower than the one before. Again I accelerated and this time I was racing alongside it. As it trundled by, I let go of my handlebars, balancing with one hand. The bike was jumping left and right as it hit the stones that littered the road. My heart was racing. Almost there, you can do it and, bam, I had hold of the back of the truck and was disappearing up the hill at a tremendous pace. I felt like ET. flying across the moonlit sky. On the other side of the truck was Matt. He’d confidently and swiftly grabbed the right hand side. It was an amazing feeling. A bond formed between us for that split second. We laughed, we joked, there was no complaining, no pain. We were flying.
Chapter 26
That evening we put up my tent in a mine after being turned away from all the hotels in town by the owners who clearly wanted our much-needed custom but kept a keen eye on the military who were always close at hand. It was as illegal to camp, and probably more so, in an industrial area like a mine. It was a stone mine and quiet enough. Assuming all the workers had gone home, I felt we were safe to proceed. Matt didn’t like it but it was my tent. And my stove. And my food. He had no choice.
After burnt noodles, apples and oranges we squeezed in and fell to a blissful sleep.
We were woken by the crashing of machinery - the late shift had arrived. The diggers arrived first. Lorries then came to carry away the stone and finally the foreman arrived. We immediately turned off our torches and sat and watched, or I should say Matt sat and watched. I lay in the tent scared out of my wits. Matt gave a running commentary on what was happening. The digger was smashing the living daylights out of the rocks. It was filling the first lorry. The first lorry was half full. The first lorry was full. The second lorry was full. They were leaving. They were leaving. Yes. Almost gone. Oh shit…. The foreman was turning this way. He’d got his lights on our tent. He was driving this way.
Matt stood up in just his tight Lycra shorts, revealing the true extent of his malnutrition. I was cursing under my breath. As Matt walked forwards, I popped my head out to see how things were developing. Matt explained with hand signals that we just wanted to sleep and that we would go in the morning. The foreman released a tirade of Mandarin, then gave us the thumbs up and
smiled. Bloody brilliant, Matt!
Kashkar is an oasis in the middle of the Taklamakan Desert. It was a central focus of the political intrigues of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries between Britain and Russia known as the Great Game - two great empires tormenting themselves over each other's penetration into Central Asia.
Eric Shipton was a famed mountaineer of these times. He lived in Kashkar in the 1940s and was a source of much information for the British military who were concerned with the comings and goings of Russian spies in the area, buying Khanates' support with lavish goods from the Russian Empire.
The first sign for us that the enduring sands might be coming to an end was that motor cars replaced the donkeys and carts. Earlier some children had burst into tears upon seeing my face. I was assured by their father that they hadn’t seen a white man before - it wasn’t my unfortunate looks that were causing their distress. Now children ran alongside us waving and cheering.
We knew we were close, but it was still difficult to see the city. The dust that now rose from Kashkar’s old city no longer came from the sands of the Taklamakan Desert but from the debris of centuries-old houses being demolished in a residents’ resettlement project. This historic urban heartland of Uyghur society was once given its character by the lively trade in the bazaars, the vibrant alleyway communities, and the cool refuge of shaded courtyards. Today its defining feature is the gap-toothed and pockmarked landscape of flattened houses razed by Chinese bulldozers.
When Shipton came here as British Consul-General in 1940, he described the city as being surrounded by massive fifty foot high walls but now the old ramparts can be seen in very few places where a small section of wall has been preserved. He noted that the narrow streets were lined with people on donkeys, but these have now been replaced by wide boulevards lined with cars and buses.
The Chinese authorities declared in early 2009 that 65,000 homes in Kashkar’s old city - an area that encompasses nearly eight square kilometres - were unfit for habitation due to poor drainage and concerns over potential collapse in the event of an earthquake. Only one square kilometre remains of the city where the kite runner was filmed. A significant number of Uyghurs have been relocated to new apartment blocks eight kilometres from Kashkar’s centre, and find their new residences conveniently fitted with the accessories of modern surveillance such as CCTV cameras.
The demolition of Kashkar’s old city is a great loss to world heritage and a serious threat to the survival of what is most distinctive and precious about Uyghur material culture, architecture, and human community. What makes the process all the more sinister is that it is being accompanied by a relentless diluting of Uyghurs in their own homeland as the Chinese are encouraged politically and through monetary incentives to move into the area.
We dived into the dust on our bikes, weaving in between the old and the new. A ten ton truck hooted its horn as we overtook a cart being pulled by a donkey. Tuk tuk drivers pulled alongside to get a better look at us touring cyclists. Business men in the back discussed politics. Children played in the street, oblivious to the thundering buses that passed them by. Convoys of army vehicles carrying soldiers approached. Every soldier was standing to attention. Each one looked over us, not because we looked funny, but trying to see if we were breaking the law.
Amongst the expensive featureless hotels the Chinese were offering up as Western accommodation was a little hostel tucked into the old town. It was squashed in between a butchers serving meat heated by the midday sun and a stall selling woodwork crafts. Squeezing through the gate, I was greeted by Hai, a Chinese worker enticed to come to Kashkar by incentives. Wrapping my arms round him, I received a cold push. The Chinese aren’t famed for their affection and this served as confirmation in my eyes.
Rumours of a variety of food and drinks in Kashkar enticed us out of the hostel. We walked down the road eating fruit and walnuts bonded with honey. We named this delight ‘Uyghur Gold’ due to the fact that we paid such an extortionate amount for it but also due to its sensational taste.
We bought a bag of chicken's feet and heads and wondered around the arcades. Nibbling on the crest of a cockerel or biting the toenails of a talon, we shot bullets at balloons and hit sadistic looking fluffy moles with hammers.
Life went on around us. No-one seemed interested in the white faces that drifted down the street eyeing up the weird and wonderful sights that were on offer in the streets of Kashkar. Street vendors plied their trade and we bought it all - hats, mobile phones, dried fruit, swords, and nuts and bolts to repair our cycles. China was selling everything you could imagine and more.
A large statue of Chairman Mao watched over us from upon high. More army vehicles passed, first in one direction and then in another. I was dying to take a picture of them, but my new camera would have been crushed in an iron fist if I had done so.
Trying to use our basic Mandarin to ask for things, we endeared ourselves to vendors. Mandarin is a tonal language, so one word can mean several different things according to the tone with which it is enunciated. For example, the word Ma can mean mother, donkey, hemp or scold depending on how you say it. It would make dating a Chinese girl very difficult. Pointing at her mother and saying donkey wouldn’t go down well at all, I shouldn’t think.
* * *
We got up early the next day and I headed off to the live animal market using two buses and following the road signs. Fortunately for me, the local authorities have signs in English as well as Mandarin. Uyghur has been removed not only from signs but also from the school syllabus, replaced by Chinese, thus diluting the Uyghur culture further.
The English signs have all been written by the Chinese with what looks to be no collaboration with any native English speaker, hence what follows is known across the world as Chinglish and is guaranteed to keep a smile on your face all day. Signs adorning all streets and corners proclaim “Don’t press the glass to get hurt” on breakable glass, “Cash Recycling Machine” on a cash machine, “Slip and fall down carefully” when you need to be careful not to slip.
In Kashkar, two time systems operate. The official Beijing time – which is enforced by the government and is thus the time used by big business - and local time which is only communicated between locals. It’s amazing that the whole of China should have the same official time zone. It would be like the whole of Europe or America being on the same time zone.
My Chinese had not served me very well and I arrived in Beijing time, not local time. I was there before any of the animals. Fortunately, this gave me the opportunity to have an insight into how some of the animals arrived. A car pulled up. A group of five men, all sharing the same cross-eyed gaze, got out of the car. They limped to the back of the car, pulled open the boot, and began a discussion in the same manner a group of English gentlemen might discuss a crossword. Looking over their shoulders I saw what they were puzzling about. Inside the boot was a fully grown cow. It had its legs tied and it took the five men about ten minutes to extract the cow.
Wandering around, I saw huge goats, plenty of sheep with fat bottoms, bulls dragging owners around, and the occasional camels. Men grasped the udders, ears and legs of the animals. They forced them to open their mouths and they lifted their tails before bartering for a decent price.
It didn’t seem as though the purchasers gave any thought to how they would get the animals home. As I hitched a lift on an empty cart heading back to the city after a good day's business for the driver, a scooter overtook me with two live sheep strapped to it, thrashing their legs and muzzles.
* * *
Back at the hostel, I found a few figures I recognised sitting in a circle chatting: Katya and Cedric, Jonathon (the Israeli who had given Matt and me honey in Kyrgyzstan), Matt, and an English girl, Ali. Ali was heading into Pakistan where she’d taught English the previous year. She was nervous about the change in political stability but was adamant she would see her friends.
We all set off to the night market. A cauldro
n on a makeshift fire bubbled away giving off a steam that glowed green under the fluorescent lights that lit up the old square. Men gathered round, cupping their brownish bowls in their hands and eating the soft substance that was being served. At one point the mist cleared and I was able to see into the cauldron. Eyes that seemed attached to skulls bobbed like apples on Guy Fawkes Night. Jumping back in shock, I bumped into a man wearing a skull cap and with what looked like an eye between his fingers. Pointing at the broth, I made monkey impressions, trying to ask if they were monkey heads. The crowd grew interested in my gesticulations and gathered round. The man shook his head, laughing. He released a “Baaaaaaa” as he popped the eyes into his mouth, crushing down on them. As the eye burst, juice gushed out of the man's mouth, spraying into my face. I wanted to vomit.
Noting my interest, the vendor pulled out one of the skulls and offered it to me. It was a gift. The Westerners among us backed up fast. No-one wanted what was being offered. A prod in my back pushed me into the centre. Matt had volunteered me, and the skull was thrust into my hands. My legs went weak as I sank into one of the chairs, dropping the skull on the table in front of me. An axe head whooshed through the air. I rocked back on the chair to avoid the swing which took the top of the skull clean off. A white mass of neurons and synapses was revealed. Chop sticks were thrust into my hand. I couldn’t get the picture of the cute sheep I’d seen and stroked at the market earlier out of my head.
Using the sticks to prize a piece free, they cut through the soft white flesh quite easily. The once bustling street, the music, the chatter seemed to have stopped. All eyes were on me or, more to the point, on the little piece of brain on the end of the two sticks I was holding tentatively in my left hand. I brought it towards my mouth, opened it and dropped it onto my extended tongue. I had no idea what to expect as my tongue drew it into my mouth like a factory conveyor belt. As I bit down, the life around me started again. No-one cheered, no-one gasped, it was business as usual. The last thing I expected was Philadelphia. It tasted like soft, smooth, cream cheese. I finished off the brain, leaving an empty skull, and I popped one of the eyes into my mouth for pudding. It tasted like old chewing gum, the kind you found under your seat in the classroom as kids.
