Tashkurgan -> Kashgar
The day after our bike ride, Flo, Mag, and I leave the hostel in Tashkurgan at 6:35 am local time and begin our day-long trip back to Kashgar. Before getting on the bus, we stop by the same place as yesterday for breakfast, and I was really excited because I saw yesterday they had pumpkin pancakes that I wanted to try. In fact, I was dreaming about them all night and they were pretty much the main reason I got out of bed this morning. When Flo walks in ahead of us, the Chinese girl standing behind the bar stares back at us for a moment and her jaw drops at the sight of us. Then her eyes widen, and her eyes shift back and forth as she shakes her head “no” nervously. Flo walks right up to the buffet bar and lifts the lid off one of the pans. It was empty. I ask in Chinese, “What time does breakfast start?” She stutters back, “It doesn’t start until 9:30 [Beijing time],” she stuttered. I don’t think I’ve ever been so disappointed in my life.
We continue on our way to the bus station, where our bus will depart at 9:30 am Beijing time. On the way, I see a huge, round wicker basket with steam coming out of it and hot coals on a grill in front of a local restaurant. I ask the man with bright blue-green eyes standing next to the grill what they have for breakfast and he says, “say moma and tangfan.”
Say means vegetables and moma are steamed buns, so I thought that what he meant was vegetable moma. I tell the French couple this and we get six, but then he says, “Ok, now how much say do you want?” That’s when I realized it wasn’t going to be what I expected. After more yelling and frustration on both sides--it can be incredibly frustrating for everyone when two people don’t share a common language, well at least not fluently (sometimes it will make it worse when you speak their tongue but broken)--we eventually walk away with 6 moma and 1 box of say.
The moma are plain white flour steamed buns, fluffy and warm, but bland. I also got a box of say, which is a spicy tomato sauce with peppers, onions, mutton, and beans to dip the moma in. Mag’s stomach wasn’t feeling up for it.
Say means vegetables and moma are steamed buns, so I thought that what he meant was vegetable moma. I tell the French couple this and we get six, but then he says, “Ok, now how much say do you want?” That’s when I realized it wasn’t going to be what I expected. After more yelling and frustration on both sides--it can be incredibly frustrating for everyone when two people don’t share a common language, well at least not fluently (sometimes it will make it worse when you speak their tongue but broken)--we eventually walk away with 6 moma and 1 box of say.
The moma are plain white flour steamed buns, fluffy and warm, but bland. I also got a box of say, which is a spicy tomato sauce with peppers, onions, mutton, and beans to dip the moma in. Mag’s stomach wasn’t feeling up for it.
After going through the metal detector at the bus station, we wait in the parking lot while two Chinese men with roller bags stare at us relentlessly. I squat down and dip the moma in the spicy sauce and borrow a fork from Mag to eat the say. I drip sauce all over the place and my lips are on fire. It is delicious.
After the bus driver gets up from underneath the bus (he seemed to be doing some maintance work) and gets in the bus, which is the signal that we can start boarding soon, Flo and Mag go into powered-up mode: after a month of traveling across China, they got the bus seat situation all worked out.
Mag grabs my ridiculously large brimmed Chinese tourist hat (bought especially to guard myself from the sun- thanks, dad, for instilling in me a healthy paranoia of sun exposure) and Flo grabs our bags. Mag runs to the front of the bus and grabs three seats in the first row, using my huge hat to save my seat, while Flo runs to the back of the bus and puts the bags in the trunk. We successfully claim our seats in the front and I let out a sigh of relief.
We had been in the back of the bus the whole way here and it was a less than pleasant experience with all the road construction (read: extremely bumpy). A couple people try to take our seats and a verbal fight breaks out between one of the security guards and another man over seat assignments. Finally, the security guard makes all of us fasten our seatbelts and we’re on our way.
Mag grabs my ridiculously large brimmed Chinese tourist hat (bought especially to guard myself from the sun- thanks, dad, for instilling in me a healthy paranoia of sun exposure) and Flo grabs our bags. Mag runs to the front of the bus and grabs three seats in the first row, using my huge hat to save my seat, while Flo runs to the back of the bus and puts the bags in the trunk. We successfully claim our seats in the front and I let out a sigh of relief.
We had been in the back of the bus the whole way here and it was a less than pleasant experience with all the road construction (read: extremely bumpy). A couple people try to take our seats and a verbal fight breaks out between one of the security guards and another man over seat assignments. Finally, the security guard makes all of us fasten our seatbelts and we’re on our way.
The bus flies down the mountain at top speed. The view along the Karakoram Highway is breathtakingly beautiful again, of course. The road is under construction for about half of the journey, where it is completely dirt and gravel. While we are being thrown around in our seats, we traverse through going through a beautiful cavern, deep into the depths of a narrow valley on the base of tall and majestically pointy mountains on all sides. For about 50 miles, the bus driver flies down the cavern on an unpaved dirt road and my head vibrates. I am thrown airborne out of my seat no less than 5 times. We have to get off the bus and show our IDs when we pass through security check-points along the way.
6 hours later we arrive in Kashgar. The bus driver says, “we’ve arrived,” but the bus station is nowhere in sight. He’s dropping us off on the side of some random road in the middle of the city. Luckily we see the number 20 bus, which we know goes to the neighborhood with our hostel.
We get off the bus at the post office and cross the overpass when Mag turns to me, “Have you ever eaten at this place?” She points to a local Turkish chain restaurant called Dil Akar. I said I hadn’t. “How would you feel about fast food? I really want a hamburger right now,” she says. Considering her food poisoning the day before, this makes perfect sense. And considering our epic bike journey the day before, I succumb to the thought of some fried chicken and agree.
Fully aware that the meal will cost twice as much as a normal meal in any other restaurant, I still have a strong desire to eat some Western food, which I haven’t had since May 10th, when I had Panda Express in the Denver airport.
We get off the bus at the post office and cross the overpass when Mag turns to me, “Have you ever eaten at this place?” She points to a local Turkish chain restaurant called Dil Akar. I said I hadn’t. “How would you feel about fast food? I really want a hamburger right now,” she says. Considering her food poisoning the day before, this makes perfect sense. And considering our epic bike journey the day before, I succumb to the thought of some fried chicken and agree.
Fully aware that the meal will cost twice as much as a normal meal in any other restaurant, I still have a strong desire to eat some Western food, which I haven’t had since May 10th, when I had Panda Express in the Denver airport.
So we walk in, sunburn, smelly, sweaty, and exhausted, weary from the bus ride. All three of us order the exact same thing: a spicy fried chicken sandwich with fries and a coke. I get strawberry juice and suck it down almost immediately. I wish there were refills.
It is one of the best meals I’ve ever had: fried chicken with a nice kick, on white bread with mayonnaise, and crunchy fries with ketchup. Flo finishes his meal in about 5 minutes and gets up and orders another one- coke, fries, burger and all. Mag and I each get an ice cream- me a strawberry, her a chocolate.
Turkish music plays loudly in the background. We can’t stop laughing- from the exhaustion, or the fact that we are stuffing our faces, or that we are eating Western food in a Turkish restaurant, I’m not sure which. But in that moment, all is right in the world.
It is one of the best meals I’ve ever had: fried chicken with a nice kick, on white bread with mayonnaise, and crunchy fries with ketchup. Flo finishes his meal in about 5 minutes and gets up and orders another one- coke, fries, burger and all. Mag and I each get an ice cream- me a strawberry, her a chocolate.
Turkish music plays loudly in the background. We can’t stop laughing- from the exhaustion, or the fact that we are stuffing our faces, or that we are eating Western food in a Turkish restaurant, I’m not sure which. But in that moment, all is right in the world.
After that meal, I feel so much better, like I’m a new person. We walk to the Kashgar hostel with a new spring in our step, smiling and relaxed, bellies full with deep fried food and sugar that reminds us of home. Tomorrow we will go to Kyrgyzstan.
No comments:
Post a Comment