As it is so cold, we are re-arranging the itinerary and are driving to Xian before catching a night train to Beijing whenever we can get tickets, which will probably be in a couple of nights time. It is a 700km drive from Lanzhou to Xian.
In Beijing, we will be saying a farewell to Dave and Meg and they have decided it will be a fancy dress do. I am not sure yet whether the Chinese are accustomed to this old British tradition which, let’s face it, is usually an excuse for men to dress as women. I’m looking forward to it, though I haven’t fathomed what I will be able to get hold of.
The drive was always going to be long one, and we are held up early in the journey by an upturned truck that was full of potatoes. We stop for a late lunch at Qingyang, which is bountiful and cheap (30 Yuan between seven people). As we leave Qingyang, it is starting to get dark. We soon run into a traffic jam consisting mostly of trucks. The cars, and some buses and trucks, ignore the traffic jam and try to overtake everyone in the opposite lane causing jams the other way too. This is despite the presence of police shouting out warnings for them not to. We don’t move for more than an hour.
There is a trade reliant on traffic jams in China, as soon as the traffic stops, ladies with large boil in the box noodles emerge onto the roads with thermoses, selling them at about a pound a pot.
After a while, Big John and I suggest turning around to go back to Qingyang and there is general agreement. John and I walk to a petrol station down the road to see if there is space there to turn around, taking the opportunity to pick up some beer. JC decides we will give it a go when we start to move again. However, when we do move and overtake vehicles to get in the petrol station, we end up causing a new blockage to vehicles coming the other way. There’s a truck coming out of the petrol station blocking us getting in and the driver doesn’t seem to know how to get out of our way. This prompts JC to shout out ‘if he doesn’t know how to drive his f****** truck, then I’ll do it for him!’ Suddenly the driver rediscovers his steering wheel and gear lever, Kevin having calmed JC down to stop him going toward the truck.
When we pull into the station, most of the group decide to follow myself and John’s lead and buy beer. When we pull out, traffic has started moving again we decide to go for the next inhabitable town 180km away. Realising that we will be on the truck until at least midnight, a party is initiated, mainly by jovial and the now shouting Joost. Joost is thirty three years old, possibly even more silly and childish than I am, and he used to run several companies apparently.
A couple of hours later, we stop at another petrol station with a shop, which we hadn’t found so many of in China so far. We clear it of beer. On board, even retired solicitor Stephen and his ageing hippy wife Barbara are dancing away, having put some of their favourite Funkadaelic on the truck stereo system.
Having filled myself with beer, I need the loo. The Chinese are not bashful when it comes to toilet matters, with public toilets often having no barriers between them. Once, having gone into some facilities that actually had doors, I saw a man who didn’t bother to close it as he squatted down. In my inebriated state I decide that instead of asking to stop for a toilet break I would open the back door and pee from the back step. I leave my scent in a mile long trail along the road....
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| plastic face karnt smile the whites out |
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