Chinese Conspicuous Consumption

There has grown up, in some of the larger cities of China, the practice of hiring fake foreign servants - thus saying "I am so rich, I can afford to employ foreigners to do things for me". This has led to a whole industry of foreigners, mostly students filling these roles; agencies specialising in providing people to fill the jobs; and agents who find people jobs play acting these jobs. Thus if I were signed up with one of these agencies, I might get a call from the agent saying - tonight you are an Indonesian chef. And I would go along to a rich Chinese's party (typically) and play act being an Indonesian chef. Generally, but not always, you need no knowledge of the role being acted. Sometimes though the actor is expected to put on a highly credible performance, and persuade the audience that they are, in my example, a real Indonesian chef. These acting roles pay well enough that if you are a regular on the circuit, you can earn a good living by western standards, let alone Chinese ones. This practice has been spreading westwards (from the capital to the provinces). It has reached Chengdu, but not yet Xining.  It is of course a form of prostitution, but it also strikes me as peculiarly Chinese.

There are of course other things that can act as warning signs when one is in a strange place. One I recently encountered was taking a taxi to a place in Xining. I got into the cab and negotiated the destination. Then I noticed the steel tube behind the passenger side front seat. This tube, apparently was welded to the floor, but was secured to the side of the car using the bolt that holds the seat belt in place. It became evident that this piece of tubing was not only holding the passenger seat in position, but was also holding the side of the car in. There was a gap at the base of the door frame, between the door frame and the floor of the car. And as far as I could gather this was a perfectly legal taxi - his licences were up to date; he was using the meter; and, by Chinese taxi driver standards, was a perfectly competent driver.

The other warning sign I have come across, was in talking to the only Russian traveller I have encountered on my travels. This is a doctor from St Petersberg, of mixed Belarous(?)/Ukranian origins. One of her grandfathers had sought asylum in West Germany; had been enticed back by stories of what was happening to his family; to be slapped into a camp in Siberia for a good number of years. Her parents, her father particularly, had gone through the break up of the Soviet Union, and persecution for being Ukranian. She had encountered difficulties in getting qualifications because of the remnants of the Soviet bureaucracy and its insistence on controlling the exact residence of all its citizens.

So when a person with this background describes Chinese bureaucracy as "without common sense" (incidentally the best definition I have come across of bureaucracy); and describes Chinese control of its subjects (but especially control of people visiting the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR)) as "very Soviet"; I tend to take more notice of her comments than those of some other (particularly American) travellers. This was all prompted by the recent changes to the regulations concerning who can visit the TAR. It has been the case for a long time that to visit the TAR, you need to be a member of a group; have a driver, car, and be part of an organised trip. However, when I set off, a group could consist of one person, though the rule about being a member of an organised trip were taken very seriously. The rules have been changed eight times while I have been in Xining, and now a group has to be of at least five people; and they all have to have the same nationality (or rather the same national passport). This has made it very difficult for backpackers, and independent travellers of all sorts, but doubly so for such a rare traveller as a Russian. She has had to completely alter what she is doing.

It's raining in Xining

Today, like most of the last three days, has seen steady, relentless rain in Xining. It is promised to be much the same for the next few days. I'm not mad keen on cities; Chinese cities especially; and Chinese cities in the rain most particularly. Things can only get better - I start my trek on Monday, and Billy Connelly's proverb will start to come into play - "There's no such thing as bad weather; just inappropriate clothing". I have been warned by someone who lives here, and has travelled fairly extensively in this area, that this trek will be tough - partly because it is still early in the season. I have been thrown by knowledge of the trekking season in Nepal - which is in its prime during May and August. Here, some 1250Km further North, there is still snow on the hills to a comparatively low level - about 5800m. Doing my trek does mean that I won't be publishing anything until at least 2012-06-03. I am currently dividing my luggage into two parts - to take on the trek, and to leave here at the hostel for the duration of the trek. It is looking as though I can exactly split my luggage - so I'll be carrying less than 10.5Kg.

In between the rain I managed, yesterday, to get to the Tibetan Medical Cultural Museum. This is a splendid brand new museum, a fairly long way out of Xining, containing a great deal of the medical aspects of Tibetan culture. It does also hold a new Thangka - the largest in the world. It is 640+m long (for comparison - the Bayeux tapestry is about 70m long), and has to be displayed as a serpentine path, doubling back on itself multiple times. It has been done by some of the world's greatest Thangka painters, and is undoubtedly a masterpiece. It displays the history, chronology, creation myths, religious stories, and many other aspects of Tibetan culture. Walking the Thangka is a slightly frustrating experience - one keeps thinking, somewhere after the half way point "I must be getting very near the end" continually. The creation of the Thangka is very much Chinese inspired and does both have curious omissions and some delightful "Chinglish" in the display captions. The lineage of a certain office contains (to use computer terminology) a "off by one" error, though other comparable lineages are complete. The best display caption was the one describing a panel showing the "38 Dainties". This was curious, because adjacent captions were correct, but this was the only incorrect caption. It should have read of course "38 Deities".

No matter how good a display, and how great the Thangka; nonetheless it is a museum, and a tourist attraction.  I find this very sad, because the contents of the museum are actually very sparse, considering the breadth and width of Tibetan culture. Also, the Chinese have managed (for me) to completely kill the culture in putting it in a museum. The nearest comparison I can think of is Westminster Abbey. This can be considered a museum; it certainly is a major tourist attraction; but the crucial difference is that Westminster Abbey is also still a functioning Christian establishment, fulfilling its original and intended purpose. This keeps it alive, in a way that Buddhism, and Tibetan culture is not within this museum.

It's still raining.

Nature in China is BIG


Today I visited Kanbula National Park, which is a place unlike any I have ever visited before. Although the park itself is very big, the Chinese are busy creating a tourist spot out of the main feature of the park - the geology and the lake. The Chinese have adopted their usual brute force approach to tourism but on this occasion it actually works. The park is about 48 square kilometres and is basically a chunk of mountains surrounding the very large and deep lake. The mountains go straight down to the lake. The basic idea of the tourist spot is to carve a road round the lake, and drive buses round three quarters of the lake, coming down to a boat to cross the lake. The last bit of the road and the boat trip are not yet in place, but are likely to be within weeks. As the mountains plunge straight into the lake, which has been formed by a hydroelectric scheme and dam, that for about 25 years was the largest in China, this means carving the road up and over the mountains. At present the bus journey starts in the car park at an altitude of about 2200 metres. It then goes up and up. The road has 20 kph speed limit signs very frequently. These are redundant given that there is an alpine style 180o turn every 300 metres or so; at the higher levels, the buses engine is labouring due to lack of oxygen; there are multiple minor rockfalls left over from the coming of spring; and the driver has to swing very wide to properly attack the blind bends, and there is some two way traffic.

On the initial part of the journey I had been trying to estimate how high we were, and how high we were getting. My figures were generally higher than those quoted, as I have been able to calibrate my estimates against those in guidebooks. My estimates were based on the apparent distance we had climbed from Xining; the fact that we were higher than most of the surrounding terrain; and we appeared to be reaching the snow line, compared to mountains some distance away. Also at the first stop it appeared that some people were getting breathless on prolonged exertion, though not on minor exertion. Anyway at the first stop, a substantial viewing point, I realised that in getting out of the car I had managed to leave my camera in the car. It had fallen out of my travel bag as I sorted myself out. So all I had was my mobile phone. I had never used this as a camera before. The conditions were so bright that I could see neither the controls for the camera, nor the preview of the picture. So I had to press a few buttons at more or less random and see if I got any pictures, and if any of them were worthwhile. Not an ideal learning opportunity. This is from the mobile phone, but only after considerable manipulation of the colour balance to get it looking approximately like reality. I do think any camera would have had problems with colour balance - the colours were so unusual, and the sun so bright.

The problem with my phone was neither the start nor the end of the problems I encountered on this visit. When I arrived at the ticket office there was some kerfuffle involving my driver and his certification as a guide (either non-existant, or long out of date). As a consequence I was sent from one ticket window to another and back to the first. I still don't know what the exact issue was. Anyway, when they finally came to sell me a ticket, they asked for personal identification - so I produced my passport. On examination of this I got a pensioner's discount of 25% - a reduction from 137Rmb to 102Rmb - a saving of about £3.50, so worth having. However, I am obviously officially old in both England - my bus pass - and China.

Equally, when we got to the viewing spot, there were a whole series of walkways laid out, forming a circle and a natural walk to see the landscape. I walked this circle and returned to the bus. As I got near the bus one of the passengers was urging me to hurry to rejoin the bus. I thought nothing of this and we started off up hill again. However, when we got to the next stopping point, and I was as usual the last to leave the bus, every passenger (and only one of them, the Chinese guide for the Chinese group I was sharing the bus with, had any English) solemnly told me "20 minutes". They had obviously been briefed by the guide, and I had equally obviously overspent my time allotment at the previous stop. I had not been hurrying, nor dawdling, but just completing the circuit at what I thought a reasonable pace, and trying to get my mobile phone work as a camera.

Anyway, back to the colour balance problem. The lake was turquoise and curiously opaque - it was impossible to get any real impression of depth - though I later learnt it is about 32m deep. (Talking of real impression; my current lesson in Mandarin is about real and not real. As one example they use rocking horses, and real horses. So the lesson is very nearly, but not quite, about the  metaphysical value of rocking horse shit.) One of the geological features - called in China red-cloud landforms - are very red. The whole landscape is vibrant with colour, and there is considerable wildlife - most of which I could hear, but not see. In order to get the pictures balanced, I had to add in a lot of green, and some red.

The bus ride continued to higher and higher vantage points, each turn of the road revealing new vistas of geological features, terrain and amazing beauty. We topped out at just over 4000m, where again there was a vantage point.

The hydroelectic scheme, and dam is big - the scheme capacity is 1.25GW. But oddly enough in forming the lake, near the headwaters of the Yellow River, it enhances the landscape, and makes it a very entrancing place indeed. If only all Chinese developments had this effect.

Varying activities


I have been sitting like a lemon in Xining. I had found a really good hostel, where most of the staff spoke good English, and the rest some English; it was cheap enough but with everything I wanted; parks, shops, and the city centre within walking distance; and a constant flow of travellers at least half of whom speak English and a great proportion of whom are really interesting people. So what have I been doing? Not a lot more than if I were sat on my boat in Aylesbury. I have been doing two Chinese lessons a day; meditation; browsing the internet; and visiting places of interest in Xining itself.

The only thing I have been doing that I could not do in the UK is sort out some activities and trips and the next stages of my journey and today was the first fruits of that labour. I hired a car and driver to take me to Shaqing Si (monastery) and to Youning Si. The former is a vast sprawling complex of small buildings and temples, with a few score monks wandering about. The temples of the Youning Si monastery are embedded into the side of a mountain, amid dense green forests. The setting alone creates a spiritual, even mystic, atmosphere. The monks here live seem to live a relatively solitary existence, spending most of their time tending to a single temple, a walk away from any of their peers. There is also a substantial community of nuns based here. I had gone there today because there was supposed to be a puja on. There was certainly something going on - a procession of monks and nuns taking a path up into a wooded hill. They were then chanting their prayers and their practice, but there did not seem to be any communal meditation - everybody seemed to be doing their own practice spread out through the woods. There were probably about 200 people involved. By the time I managed to get to the start of the path they were well under way and there was a sussuration of voices coming from all over the hill side. I did not join them - by the time I reached there they were well distributed and well into their practice. There was one nun on a slight peak who vocally outmatched all the other practitioners put together. She was very loud. As you may be able to see from the photograph she was aware of me taking the picture, even though I was about 3/4 mile away.

In the first monastry, some monks were busy putting out offerings - which obviously consisted of the monks foodstuffs. There were huge baskets of fruit, but more peculiar to a western eye were the cases of pot noodles; the cases of soft drinks; and the cases of some sort of tinned grain.

This trip out did show me some things that are new in China/Tibet and some that are the same. New(ish) vehicles driven by tibetans all seem to have battery powered, gold coloured, prayer wheels on the ledge above the dashboard - this is new, such things were not available when I was last here. They are much more effective than having a working fuel gauge in a car. The majority of cars that regularly go up onto the plateau have been converted to run on gas, and this conversion process seems to mess up the fuel gauge beyond recall. The first quarter of my journey today (of about 280 Km) the fuel gauge's lowest segment was flashing indicating very low on fuel. Then for the second quarter of the journey the gauge (an electronic linear display) was showing no fuel at all in the car. The driver then filled up, and the gauge continued to insist that there was no fuel anywhere on the vehicle. The majority of Chinese lorries are now modern lorries - there are still a few of the old reliable blue lorry with a cab and bonnet, but not many. Parking tickets have come to China - when we returned to the hostel, all the cars on one side of the street had a ticket which in common with all Chinese documents had a large official stamp over part of the ticket. The tractor that lit the fuse of the economic growth of China, is still much in evidence in rural areas. The first monastery I visited, which is exceedingly remote, even by the standards of this region, was the first one I've been too, to have pictures of the Dalai Lama on open display. Normally they are there, but on the inside of a cupboard, or positioned so they can be easily swept up with rubbish if need be.

This trip was also very much among peaks that are above the permanent snow line - one whole line of mountains that must have been about 6300 metres.

I have also sorted out participation in a high elevation trek along part of the Kora route round Amnye Machen. I have only been trying to sort this out since before last September. It finally came together about eight days ago. It is not what I wanted to do, but it is the nearest approximation that I am likely to achieve to what I would really like to do. I have also got a trip out tomorrow to a nature reserve, and I have been sorting out my likely activities after the trek. I am probably going to a place deep in Kham, which I can use as a base to do five or six things. I will then have to get to Kunming (method still not clear) to catch the overnight bus (the train line was washed out in 2002 and has never been replaced) to the Vietnamese border and hence to Hanoi. I'll probably spend a couple of days there before catching the (three day) Hanoi-Saigon train and then spending a couple of days in Saigon. Then onto Cambodia and Thailand and beyond.

Communications Lessons

As promised I have drawn together the lessons learnt from trying to access data while travelling. Unless you are  interested in this sort of thing, it is not the sort of thing you will be interested in, so I have written it as a question and 20 answers on a Q&A site.

Here is the link if you are interested.

Where are your songs, Joni Mitchell, now we need them again (and again)?



This article contains amateur levels of discussion on politics, sociology, philosophy, ecology, futurology, and spirituality (using amateur in the worst possible sense). The reader is warned to have a mental bucket of salt on hand to throw over statements that get too crass, or contentious.

I had arranged with the travel agency upstairs, to make a trip out to visit Qinghai Lake with a driver and car. As we travelled I started to gain some of the intensity of feeling about the area I have previously felt on my earlier trip.

The Qinghai Lake trip was both a disappointment, and a showed me a little more of why I am doing this trip. The lake is one of the world's largest bodies of inland salt water, is one of the largest bird breeding and roosting areas in the world, home to literally billions of birds, is the place where SARS (I think) and H5N1 bird flu (certainly) viruses first made their presence known to humanity. It is a remarkably beautiful place, though like all inland water scapes, can be a bit boring. The best analogy I know to how it looks is Poole Bay, with the cliffs replaced by snow capped mountains. For centuries, at least, it has been one of many profoundly spiritual places for the people of Amdo, and the whole of Tibet.

The Chinese have been expanding their population at a rapid rate over the last century and more and their current path in providing for such an expanding population has been phenomenal economic growth. This in turn has generated a substantial middle class, with both disposable income, some free time, and the ability and willingness to spend money on taking the family out for the weekend or to some tourist attractions. One of the government responses has been to greatly increase tourist services and attractions, in particular within the areas of China that have very low population densities - Qinghai prime among them.

So where I was delivered on my day trip out was the new tourist attraction of Qinghai Lake. In one sense this was fair enough - it was certainly where the vast majority of Chinese visitors would want to end up. It is an important site - it has been nominated a tourist site of national (and international) importance. However, at least in the short term, it is unlikely to become internationally recognised - it is too focused on meeting the needs of the internal Chinese Tourist industry, and the floods of new internal tourists. This is of course sensible for what they are trying to achieve.- all the facilities that can be provided for tourists. These extend to a new dock, and marina. Several really quite large cruising vessels - though all of the "yogurt pot" variety - a term I have taken from the Inland Waterways of the UK, where it is a derogatory term for fibre glass cabin cruisers. The vessels on Qinghai do fit in this category, but some of are very big of their type. Other features are the quad bikes for hire; the tandems for hire; the electric vehicles to ride round the site; and lots and lots of other tourist benefits.

BUT - and this is where my head and my heart start to ache - they have turned the whole of Tibetan culture, religion, life style, and farming methods into exhibits in a craft museum. It was this realisation that made me start thinking about what is going on culturally, governmentally, and globally. There is no right or wrong in these situations, but there are only problems arising from the solution virtually the whole of the human race has adopted - growth, both technical and economic; consumerism, the global market place and so on. While these are providing an increased standard of living for huge swathes of the world population there is no clear path forward to prevent the despoliation of the planet. Certainly, the argument of some, to return to a simpler world; a world of less need; and older, simpler, values cannot happen. Who is going to be the one to say "I'll throw away all my comforts, and technological toys - and would YOU mind telling the families in China who work in a factory making the gadgets that they are going to be out of a job". I certainly am not going to say this - though I have simplified my lifestyle considerably by living on a boat; my love of gadgets and communication has been shown by my intent to blog on what I am doing. This has shown me their importance, and I don't want to give up more.

Why all this navel gazing. Simple. In spite of all the tourist developments and clash of different interests: I felt something about this landscape, mountains, lake, every aspect of it, that spoke to me to a degree similar to that I felt when I first visited this part of the world. I have realised that what I feel is a visceral attachment to the actual land. Though Tibetan culture is entrancing, and beautiful; though Tibetan Buddhism is one of the great world resources of spiritual insight and mind training; though the fauna and flora of this part of the world is unique, varied and surviving under unimaginably hostile conditions; these are all icing on the cake; for me what matters is this piece of land. I can only talk in metaphor (not my natural method of description) and only in rather trite metaphor at that. The way it feels is that there is a hole in my heart that is filled when I am in this landscape. When I am not in the landscape the hole is there, but it is barely noticeable - the vast majority of the time totally imperceptible. Moreover, I feel, in the piece that fills that hole, the effects of man on the land as twists at my heartstrings. I feel a part of this land, and this land a part of me. It is natural to feel that I would not mind dying in this land if it were my time to die. If I did die in this land I would like to be returned to the land by having a sky burial - though I understand this is an honour reserved for very enlightened folk, so probably no luck there. (A sky burial, for those unfamiliar with the term, is "burial" by being butchered at a high pass, or high peak, and then the pieces left on poles or rocks to attract and feed the vultures and eagles and other carrion birds).

Of course, all this introspection leaves me with a bit of a puzzle. I have heard of spiritual attachment to the land as part of some of the great reservoirs of spirituality - particularly in shamanic traditions. The well known traditions where this is a substantial part of the tradition are (some) North American Indians; the Maori; and Australian aboriginal tradition. In all commentary I have seen (discounting the 95% that is kooky; or a con; or just plain barking), this part of these traditions is recognised as a corner stone of the tradition. However, it is also described as arising from multi-generational, deep cultural absorption from living within and being part of the landscape, and cannot be transferred or synthetically generated. Nobody can, in this sense, become an Indian, or a Maori, etc. But I am not a Tibetan. I have no Tibetan ancestry (that I know of for at least seven generations). I have no cultural, ethnic, linguistic, educational links of any kind, except those of very recent adoption, with Tibet.

None the less, I assert that I am a part of this land, and this land is part of me.

So what does this great revelation mean? Absolutely nothing. When I am away from this area I never think like this, the concepts are rather shaky. The link has no great cosmic significance. It has no meaning. It does not provide purpose, or meaning to life. It does not affect my behaviour, my ethics, my view of life, the universe, and everything. (Though it has been influential in feeding into my impetus to come on this journey).

But I feel this land.

The Horror! The Horror!


This blog is unsuitable for those of a sensitive disposition. It contains descriptive material that may cause some people to feel actively nauseous, not to say severely ill. You continue at your own risk to health, sanity, and sense of decency.]

Let me paint you a picture of a normal Saturday morning in a large town or city. There are lots of people on the street, some busily doing their necessary weekend shopping; others strolling and doing shopping as a pastime; and some activities have sprung into being precisely because it is the weekend. Oh look - over there somebody is trying to draw attention to a wedding fair. You have those in your country as well, so I expect you have a good idea of the picture I am trying to draw. If you just let me have a peek at your picture.....mmmm..... not exactly what I have in mind.....

[Note to those with cast iron constitutions that have reached this far: I am only describing the on-street advertising designed to draw people into the weddding fair. I am not describing the event itself, as I am either not man enough, or too much a man to venture into such surroundings.]

....Let's see what we can do to adjust your mind to reality. You are imagining a table to hold the leaflets, and a couple of photo stands to hold pictures of the gowns and so on. This really doesn't give us enough scope to draw people in, though the photo stands are a good idea. You were imagining a stand to take 4'x2'6" photos - throw those out and replace them with decent sized stands - 18'x 12' - yes that's about right. Now throw that table out - lets have some really decent infrastructure to support pictures of the fair, and some examples of the merchandise. How about an 25m long double barreled inflatable triumphal arch - yes that's much more like it. Now, we've really got space to hang photos, pictures of the merchandise, samples of the bouquets, example wedding dresses hung in transparent display wardrobes; and pictures of everything on offer in the fair.

...So how are we doing: mmmmm....your picture is still really rather dull isn't it. What's the problem? Oh I see, your imagination is just not up to the task - it's the merchandise - your view of it is boring isn't it (no offence, but you'd never make it in the marketing business). What can we do about your picture - oh you have seen documentaries about Roma weddings, and wedding gear - now that is much more like it - just make it a triple order of gypsy ornamentation on every item - yes much better. Now all we need to do is add a sensible amount of decoration and frills and furbelows, lace and lavender, ruches and revants, sequins, icing, arches of flowers and tucks and twizzles. Now we're getting somewhere - are you sure you don't want some extra lace there? What's that - you are worried about the size of the bouquets - quite right, they are a bit cramped - they are only a couple of feet across - far too small. Throw them out and replace them with those over there that are a reasonable size - yes dustbin lid size is so classy isn't it? And they will allow us to add some more loops of flowers, and lace, and sequins. Do have a bit more decoration on everything - there's no such thing as too little decoration. How about some icing on the bouquets - so elegant?

So what does the picture look like now? I don't know, there is still something amiss with your picture.......let me have a think for a minute.....Oh it's obvious, it's the colour scheme. You in the west think that white is quite a good idea for a wedding. Well it is popular here too, but it is also regarded as the colour of death. So we'll allow you one white dress, but you are going to have to adjust it a bit. How about this black foot wide lace? Yes if we do that as a triple spiral zigzag all the way from the ground to the bust - yes that takes the edge off all that nasty whiteness. As for the rest, well the colour that is lucky is red so everything will have to be red. But don't worry, anywhere in the red spectrum will do nicely, and it does support decoration ever so well. Let's put on some more sequins and lace just to make sure. Now we can do everything in this nice range of analine dyes - acid drop pink; ultra violent purple; silly scarlet; maundering mauve; - what - you want to mix the colours up - oh I'm so glad you're starting to get the idea - yes two pinks, purple, red, and  orange fit so well in the overall oevre don't they........


[This advertisment was visible from about 800m away (a very busy city,divided into city blocks, by road intersection, does tend to break up sight lines). It took about 45s to negotiate just as a pedestrian, and it was visible by osmosis at the back of the neck as I withdrew.]

But I survived

The Horror! The Horror!

What is he wittering on about, this time?


Chinese apartment blocks are not the same as English blocks of flats. Those apartments I've seen so far fall into a similar pattern. Each apartment is (by British standards) a fairly conventional living structure, bedrooms, living rooms, kitchen, bathroom, and utility rooms spanning two or (more usually) three levels.

Each such apartment just happens to be a part of a tower block. However, being part of a tower block, the apartment is subject to a number of constraints that affect the layout of the apartment. The basic unit of the floor plan of the apartment is a quarter of the tower block. There is no requirement that an apartment have the same number of quarters on each of its floors, so the "ground" floor might be 1/4 of the tower block; the middle floor 3/4, and the upper floor 1/2 of the block. The exception to this is often the penthouse which is centred on the building, but the top floor, or two floors is only 1/4 the tower area. The central core seems to be minimal - the lift(s); sometimes corridors to the four quarters of the tower block; and sometimes there will be a stairwell up or down or both. These corridors and stairwells will be concrete and so are liable to be structural as well. Every apartment will connect to the core at one point (and usually only one point).

It is not even clear that there are common risers and fallers within the core. The Chinese are fond of the design philosophy that says "right, kitchen there; waste water will need to go there; so where's a long enough bit of straight pipe to join here to there". To their credit they do try to contain such intrusions into living space to high up corners of rooms.

So why all the architectural critique? When I had returned to Xining and spent some time talking to SnowLion Tours; they recommended a different hostel to that I had been using. Turning up at the hostel, I was a little surprised to find that this hostel was in a tower block, and indeed occupied floors 14-18 (the top floor) of the building. They had taken all the apartments throughout these floors and knocked them into one rabbit warren of a hostel. Of course there is no guarantee that floors in one apartment are at exactly the same height as those in a neighbouring apartment, so suddenly you have a lot of very deep steps, and high lintels. Oh well, how could that possibly make life difficult. It does mean each group of bedrooms tends to lie within one original apartment, and that a few rooms share a bathroom; and that there are a lot of bathrooms. It's totally crazy, random, and great fun.

The hostel is run by someone who has spent at least a few years in Europe, and has got a very efficient, no doubt profitable business running here. I am going to be here for a while, to enable me to sort out what next, and how.