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Wednesday 2004-03-24 - Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Jabs - do I need any?
I searched the internet for what vaccinations are currently needed for all those countries we’re going to travel through (Syria, Turkey, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and China). It appears that DTP is needed for all, and mine has expired. Typhus is listed for all the countries, too, if your stay is longer than two weeks. Well, apart from Iran and China it isn’t; but adding it all up is of course considerably longer than two weeks. Malaria should be considered as well for some areas of Turkey and Iran; and hepatitis everywhere (but I already have antibodies for that).
Then I needed to find a phone number for the AMC vaccination clinic (the most convenient one for me: in Amsterdam, and easy to get to with tram and metro); finding their phone number was (still) not easy. When I finally had a number it was late; I tried it anyway to check if it was the right one.
(For those searching for the phone number: last time I looked it was 020-566.38.00 to make an appointment, or 0900-95.84 for information.)
Thursday 2004-03-25 - Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Arranging for my vaccinations
Called the AMC vaccination clinic (in Amsterdam). Next week, early Tuesday morning. That suits me fine!
Shouldn’t forget my feet
After a winter wearing boots, they aren’t in too good condition. And I like to have them taken care of before a trip where I’ll do a lot of walking. Called for an appointment; I’m all set for Monday morning.
Sunday 2004-03-28 - Amsterdam, the Netherlands
My feet should be OK now
I had my feet done; my funny big toe nail won’t plague me any more. Now I just need to take good care of my feet…
Monday 2004-03-29 - Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Two jabs, a prescription, and good advice
I went to the vaccination centre of the AMC (one of the university hospitals in Amsterdam, which has a tropical diseases department). Yes, I did need DTP and typhus. Malaria is a smallish risk (I always take care to wear long sleeves and socks in the evenings anyway, and use an insect repellent.) So, no prophylaxis needed but (on request) I got a prescription for a cure for the unlikely case I do manage to catch malaria: better safe than sorry.
Other things to be aware of: a traffic accident might land you in hospital - and that carries the risk of hepatitis B; for a longer trip a vaccination would be indicated, now the advice is just: be very careful. Hepatitis A is no problem: I have antibodies. Another risk to be aware of is rabies which occurs in most of the countries to be visited. “Be careful around dogs, and tell your fellow travellers as well!” Sure, doc. Will do.
Oh, and next time I’ll need a new “yellow booklet” for my vaccinations: this one is full now!
Somehow a visit to the AMC always makes me feel a little festive: this is when a trip “really” starts. I celebrated by treating myself to an extra-nice sandwich for my (belated) breakfast.
No problem with either of the jabs all day, I didn’t really feel anything at all.
Friday 2004-04-23 - Amsterdam, the Netherlands
New bags
The tendinitis in my right wrist hasn’t completely healed yet so packing/unpacking a backpack and hauling the duffel bag didn’t feel like a good idea: I’ll need to favor my right arm. After finding out (from calling Bever, where I bought it many years ago) what the volume of my backpack was, I went shopping for wheeled luggage.
First stop (yesterday) was at the luggage store in the Kinkerstraat in Amsterdam. They didn’t have a small backpack with wheels (they could order one but then they’d need a down payment — and I’m not going to pay for something like that when I haven’t seen it first!). They did have big bags on wheels: a cheap one (don’t risk that on a 2-month trip) and a Samsonite which looked OK. Not much choice though.
Then I went to a store on the Nieuwendijk (also in Amsterdam). Lots of choices, and very nice and knowledgeable service. I got a nice large Samsonite bag, and a Delsey backpack small enough to be acceptable as carry-on luggage on the planes but large enough to pack all my films and whatever else I must have with me; even small enough to (just) fit inside the large bag to get it all home.
Happy with my purchases, I took advantage of the nice weather and walked home. The bag is easy to walk with, and stable even on uneven pavement.
Wednesday 2004-06-16 - Bukhara, Uzbekistan
Ouch!
First plan for today is to try and deliver the portraits I took of people here in Bukhara two years ago: the bread-selling women, and a family near Chor Minor. Carla and I go out before breakfast: last time I brought them photographs I was treated to a nice breakfast - and I don’t need two! When we arrive at the spot where they were yesterday afternoon, as usual, we see only the men though (it seems their sons and husbands sometimes take over). Since I’d rather give the pictures to the women, we walk back to the hotel and have a nice buffet breakfast there.
The women will probably be back later in the day, so our next target is Chor Minor: this building, of which the Tadjik name means “four minarets” is worth a look anyway. Its original function is not exactly clear: the four towers definitely aren’t minarets (no one can stand inside to call for prayer) and it’s too small for a mosque anyway; but it might have been a tomb, or maybe the entrance of a (now completely disappeared) caravanserai. Whatever it was, it’s a charming building, beautifully restored, and I’m looking forward to see it again.
On the way out, in the hotel lobby, I suddenly hear (feel?) a distinctive ‘crack!’ from inside my body somewhere and find myself rolling onto the floor… I must have missed the small step in the lobby. The ‘crack!’ was my right foot, I think - it hurts! A man from the hotel comes running and helps me up. At least I can stand on it, but it’s very painful. Quickly, he puts me in a chair and examines my foot. I can wiggle my toes, everything seems in the right place, I can stand on it. “OK!” he declares. Reasoning that it will probably get very thick if I don’t walk on it, I go out with Carla anyway, walking very slowly now.
Keeping it on ice
We walk back to the hotel, as much as possible along the main road because the better pavement is easier on my foot. In the hotel I find there’s a thick blue swelling on it now, and I hold the foot under the cold tap for a while, while Carla goes in search of help which appears in the form of Beatrice, an American staying and helping in the hotel who turns out to be a fully-qualified physician, working for the WHO. Her conclusion: is it’s not broken (it doesn’t “feel” broken to me), but probably a dislocated foot bone which simply snapped back into place. “It will stay stiff for seven weeks” is her verdict. Great. She also arranges to put ice on my foot: she “steals” some small water bottles from the freezer in the kitchen. I lie down with my foot up, an ice bottle held in place with a towel wrapped around it.
Around lunch time, she knocks on the door again, asking if “the patients” would like some soup and salad; a little later she appears with a tray with two bowls of soup and two carrot salads! The soup feels good in my still a bit wobbly insides — and the ice feels very good on my foot — but I’m worried it will get very stiff if I don’t exercise it. A short walk to the Synagogue nearby (we’re right in the middle of the old Jewish quarter of Bukhara) feels doable; I put on my good walking shoes now to support my foot, and take my monopod which doubles as a walking stick. On the way out I check with Beatrice: “You won’t hurt it,” she says, “and if it hurts, just come back.”
Thursday 2004-06-17 - Shakhrisabz, Uzbekistan
Healing water
After a night of tossing and turning (I keep losing my ice bottle when I turn around) we have to get up early for breakfast at six: president Karimov will visit Bukhara with other leaders from the region (among them president Putin of Russia) and the city will soon be hermetically closed: we have to be out before that! Although our target today is Samarkand, we won’t go straight there but via Shakhrisabz, another city that was once on one of the branches of the old Silk Road where there are some nice historical sites. The two-and-a-half hours we get for lunch and site seeing is too short to see everything (especially at my current snail’s pace) but it’s worth while.
Together with Carla I go to one complex of mosques and tombs along the main road; when I was here three years ago. the buildings were closed while they were being restored and I could see only the outside; the restoration is finished now. The mosque (Ku’k Gumbaz Masjidi, built 1434-1435) is of a very special style: inside, there are only tiles on the lower walls, and above that all decoration on walls and ceilings is painted: mostly blue and white with gold accents (here and there replaced by yellow but the gold is real). The decorations are very refined and I’d never seen this style before. Across the beautiful courtyard are two tombs side-by-side; Gumbasi Saidon Maqbarasi, built in 1437, has the same type of decorations; the other tomb next to it is older (Shayx Sham Siddin Kulol Maqbarasi, 1373-1374) and has plain white walls. A friendly girl leads us around — not that she wants to be a guide or even earn anything: she studies philology but merely wants to practice her English a bit. One of the tomb stones in the Gumbasi Saidon mausoleum has a small depression in the top, highly polished by many hands since the water that’s standing in it is supposed to have healing qualities, she tells us. I take her at her word and put a few drops of it on my foot.
Behind this complex (where we also buy a few souvenirs at the stands in the courtyard) is another one, in rather worse repair but with a nice, shaded courtyard. A few men sit around in the shade; one of them, with a long white beard, deaf and nearly blind, is 120 years old, the others tell us. I can take a picture of him, he doesn’t mind; I doubt he’s really 120 years old (I doubt he quite understands my question), but he’s definitely very old. Then it’s time to (slowly, slowly) walk back to the bus.
Friday 2004-06-18 - Samarkand, Uzbekistan
Taking it easy
I want to give my foot some rest and Carla would like a day of rest as well so after our early-morning visit to the Registan for more pictures and an excellent breakfast at the hotel we install ourselves in the hotel courtyard and stay there most of the day. I’m catching up with my travel journal after getting behind as a result of the long travel days and my health problems. Meanwhile, my foot is turning all kinds of red and light and dark purple: my favorite colors but not under my skin! Every now and then I take a little walk around the courtyard to keep my foot exercised a bit while most of the day I just spend writing, drinking tea and (later) beer, and snacking on the fruit and nuts on the table. Every now and then there’s a loud ‘tock!’ when another ripe apricot falls off the tree onto the sunshade. Dinner is a portion of five delicious mantis (a kind of dumplings filled with finely chopped meat and onions) and a local Samarkand beer at the Chorsu cafe.
Saturday 2004-06-26 - Kashgar, Xinjiang (China)
Foot and mouth disease
Traveling for 65 days over bad roads, eating non-familiar foods, getting used to local water (and just when you are, you’re moving into a different country again) … things happen to your body. And sometimes we’re just tired: this isn’t the most relaxing of trips (not that we were looking for that when embarking on this); a tired body is less able to fight off infections. Here’s the balance (in no particulaar order) after traveling some 50 days with our little group of 12 — not naming names…
- The usual ‘traveler’s disease’ of course (diarrhea, sometimes vomiting): we all get our turn (or turns)
- a corner broken off a tooth
- two teeth (at once) coming off a denture
- a broken crown
- a tooth filling falling out
- various nose colds and coughing (most of us, taking turns — it seems to ‘bounce around’)
- swollen legs
- a sprained knee
- dislocated foot bones (that’s two of us!)
- contused ribs
- blisters — not just on feet, also a big one as a result of a 2nd degree burn
- insect bites (a lot)
- fistual (or some such) on a finger, surgically removed in hospital
- big infection on a leg — also treated in hospital
And through all of that, we all keep moving…
Wednesday 2004-07-07 - Xi’an, China
Handicapped in China
There’s no way I’m going to walk back all the way with my by now tired and painful foot. A taxi would be nice — one of those little open red carts we’ve seen even nicer. But apart from ordinary taxis there’s nothing near the Drum Tower. I decide I can still make it to the Bell Tower; but there’s nothing there either, nor along the main street where we see only buses. Finally, we turn right and at the next corner we find a (very) little red cart.
The driver turns out to be handicapped, with two crutches propped up beside him in what is essentially little more than a motorized wheelchair with a backseat that will hold two passengers (just). I show him the hotel card: yes, he can take us there for 10 Yuan, he says. That’s probably too much, but I agree without bargaining: let him have a good day — I’m certainly not going walk much further. So we squeeze ourselves into the little seat and off he goes. We have to hold on to our hats, but it’s fun! He’s fast and very agile in the busy Xi’an traffic, narrowly but surely avoiding taxis and bikes; when the light changes at one crossing even zooming diagonally across to the parallel road on the left. At the same time he takes care to avoid potholes and bumps in the road, giving us a smooth but nonetheless exciting ride back to the hotel — and a very different view of Xi’an.
Our fun drive in the back of a motorized wheelchair makes me think about the position of people with a handicap in China. We’ve seen other carts like this one (most a little larger) serving as taxis, some with a sticker on it with the international “wheelchair” symbol on it; but not all of them carry this symbol — maybe not all of these taxi drivers are handicapped but some clearly are: it looks as though they can get a special license to operate a taxi like this and thus obtain an income.
I don’t have any more hard facts but did make some more observations which suggest that in China handicapped people aren’t totally left to their own devices (as is the case in many other countries I’ve visited). Whether they have (or can have) some sort of social security isn’t clear to me though. I’ve seen people begging, too, although this is officially forbidden. On the other hand, on the corner near the hotel last night was a street musician: a Chinese albino, obviously blind as a result of his condition, drawing quite an audience with his music. Again, at least that’s a way to obtain an income — but could he live on it? One more observation: the sidewalks along (at least) the main streets in every Chinese town and city we’ve been in now are not only paved nicely with tiles, but also have ridged tiles to guide the blind, as well as curb cuts in the sometimes very high curbs: something that wasn’t the case yet in for instance Kashgar two years ago. So maybe things aren’t yet as good as they might be but there’s definite and visible progress. Still, by the time we’re back in the hotel I’m left with more questions than answers about what it’s like to be handicapped in China.
Thursday 2004-07-08 - Xi’an, China
Last train ride
By 14:00 we’re back in Xi’an, in time for a late lunch of sweet and sour pork with a very good draught beer. Then we go to the supermarket to get some snacks for on the train, and go and pick up our luggage from the hotel storage room and repack a little.
A little before five we walk to the station where we’re allowed into the soft-sleeper lounge again, and can go onto the platform before the masses — thankfully because it’s very crowded here. We find the train for Beijing already waiting; it leaves at exactly 18:00 but by then I find my luck has run out: I have the middle bed on the right — and just don’t manage to climb into it with my still painful right foot which I just don’t dare set on the narrow steps of the ladder (not without my sturdy walking shoes on, anyway). Someone has a brainwave: we swap beds and now I have the middle bed on the left which I can climb into because I can set my right foot on the lower bed, and my left one on the ladder.
Monday 2004-07-12 - Amsterdam, the Netherlands
How about my foot?
Back in Amsterdam, alas. Early — as early as possible — I called my doctor for an appointment this morning, since my foot still hurts, and there’s still some swelling as well that never quite goes away. Maybe some physiotherapy can help. I can get an appointment for later this morning.
“In view of developments, let’s have an X-ray taken,” she says. When I look doubtful, she explains that sometimes a crack in the bone can be seen, even after 4 weeks; she gives me a referral. When I get back home I phone the hospital for an appointment: this Wednesday.
Later in the day, I bring my film rolls to the lab: 60 rolls in all!
Wednesday 2004-07-14 - Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Good news and bad news
To the radiology department in the nearest hospital in Amsterdam to have an X-ray taken of my foot; camera around my neck which I plan to deliver at the photographer’s to be thoroughly cleaned after all the desert dust it had to deal with: you can never completely clean that out with a little “blow brush”.
I have to wait to hear how the picture has turned out. When it’s done the assistant tells me the good news is the picture turned out well — but she has bad news, too: my foot is broken. I’m gobsmacked! I walked on it for four weeks, and never suspected that — a crack is the worst I considered.
She sends me straight on to the emergency ward, where the doctor takes a look at the X-ray, and tells me “If you’d come here immediately we’d have operated”: the bone parts aren’t even joined up properly! In fact, there’s a gap of over 4 mm. My mouth drops open: it certainly didn’t feel like that. He sends me on to the “plaster room” to have a walking cast fitted. An hour later I’m outside with my foot in a (walking) cast, and still a little dazed: I had never believed it was broken! The emergency room arranges an appointment with a surgeon in hospital for next week.
After waiting for my cast to harden completely, I go straight home, and call the photographer’s shop to say I won’t be bringing the camera today after all. Then I call my parents: I won’t be over this weekend after all: a disappointment to my mum whose birthday it was last Monday.
Now, I need to learn how to walk with this stiff thing at the end of my leg…
Wednesday 2004-07-21 - Amsterdam, the Netherlands
“You’re a tough one!”
I’m back in in Amsterdam hospital to have a surgeon have a look at my broken foot. An assistant talks to me first, and hears my story, how I hurt my foot, and how I walked on it for another month. “Not a good start,” he says. Then the surgeon himself, a big gentle man, joins us, also hears my story, and tells me “You’re a tough one!”
He also explains about the risks of an operation which he prefers to avoid. Just to make sure we understand each other I explain how I missed doing things during the trip, such as the visit to the largely unrestored 10km stretch of the Great Wall near Beijing: I want to be able to do that next year, I say, not just walk in the city on nice, smooth pavement. That doesn’t change his mind: he doesn’t agree with the doctor of the emergency ward last week that an operation would have been necessary: “Let’s see first whether it starts to heal by itself now the foot is supported by the plaster,” he suggests. He gives it four weeks, so he can see me again after his vacation. In fact, I can go on vacation myself, he says — I’d planned a week with my parents in Germany — after all, I can walk on that cast, though not quickly or for very long. The prospect of going on vacation with my aging parents cheers me up though.
Wednesday 2004-08-18 - Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Four more weeks…
Back in hospital in Amsterdam for my checkup. First I see the surgeon again; I tell him I can walk but sometimes it still hurts. “Let’s see,” he says and sends me to the plaster room to have the cast taken off, and then on to radiology for a new X-ray. Then back to the surgeeon with fresh X-rays.
When I’m back, he calls me into his office where I can see the X-rays myself: it’s clearly visible a little bit of cartilage has formed in the gap between the bone parts, but there’s no ossification yet. Still, the fact that there is cartilage now indicates it’s started to heal and obviously the support of the plaster has helped. At least the prospect of an operation has receded. So… back to the plaster room for a new version — which is a different model and hurts when I stand up. Off it comes again, and a new one is fitted, more like the previous model. This one has to stay on for another four weeks.
Wednesday 2004-09-15 - Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Feeling naked
Back to hospital again — straight to the plaster room this time to have the cast taken off, then on to radiology again for yet another X-ray, then to the surgical department, where I talk to the surgeon’s assistant, one I haven’t seen before. He wants to hear my story first and I tell him it seems to be slowly getting better — but I’m obviously not there yet: it still hurts every now and then, especially when I walk more than a little. Then he looks at the X-ray and declares he’s satisfied: there’s ossification now and the original 4mm gap even seems to have become a little smaller. Looking at my sturdy hiking boots, he tells me I can go without a cast now, just wear those shoes, and gradually walk a little more. (Gulp!) Do I have to wear them inside, too? “See how it goes,” he says, “and come back in two months.”
Now while that’s encouraging, not having that sturdy cast around my foot I suddenly feel very naked and vulnerable — and extremely aware that it hasn’t quite healed yet.
Afterwards
The first few days I have to literally think with every step I take to carefully place my foot — otherwise it hurts again, almost as much as in China… Gradually it goes better, but I usually feel no warning signal when I put too much load on it: It will just hurt the next day! So, obviously I’m very careful. I do increase the distance I walk, but when it hurts the day after, I give it a rest again for a day or two. And I’d love to visit my parents but don’t dare, since I’d have to travel by train from Amsterdam to Groningen: especially the thought of getting on and off the train (without the support of the cast) scares me right now.
Sunday 2004-11-14 - Utrecht, the Netherlands
Almost back to normal
Yesterday I felt extremely tired, but I went to bed early and when I got up today I felt fit enough (and my foot felt good enough) to face a major undertaking with a not-quite-healed broken foot: I’m going to the “HCC dagen:” a big three-day computer fair organized by the HCC, the largest computer club in the world. Always great fun, lots of bargains, and interesting discussions. I actually have a shopping list for some small hardware and accessories - but is my foot up to it? Just to be on the safe side, I take along not only a backpack and a small trolley but also pain killers in case I have to quit and head back home sooner than planned.
Surprisingly, the train to Utrecht is quiet, and it doesn’t look crowded on the fair, mainly because it’s set up with a lot of room: there are actually quite a lot of people around but because it’s so roomy I can walk quietly without being crushed or having to jump out of the way; my foot certainly agrees with the relaxed stroll this allows, and I’m enjoying myself enormously. Even better, I get everything on my shopping list, and for a good price. That includes a headset which will enable me to get started with Internet telephony.
I end up spending well over four hours there, with only two breaks to have something to drink and eat and rest my foot; by the end of the afternoon, both my feet are hurting, but that’s pretty damn normal, especially considering I haven’t walked much the last few months! I’m expecting my broken foot will hurt tomorrow, though…
Monday 2004-11-15 - Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Setting up Skype
I’m stiff and sore all over after my adventure yesterday. That’s OK. Even better, the fully-expected pain in my broken foot never appears — has it finally healed now?
In spite of my sore muscles, I crawl under the computer desk to plug in my headset (correctly, after a lot of fiddling) and install the Skype software: now I can exchange phone calls with other Skype users all over the world - for free. I also create a profile and register at the Skype user’s forum so people may find me; I include a link to this blog as well. When it’s all working I go to bed, tired but satisfied.
Wednesday 2004-11-17 - Amsterdam, the Netherlands
So has it healed now?
Today is the big day - back to the hospital here3 in Amsterdam. I’m very optimistic after last Sunday’s experience. For some reason it’s extremely crowded today at the surgical department, so I have to wait for a long time. At last I can talk to the surgeon himself, and I tell him it feels a lot better now, and how I walked for hours last Sunday. He sends me back to radiology again, for a new X-ray, then back here.
Another long wait … then he calls me into his office to look at the X-ray. Good news and bad news: the good news is that it’s now “fixed” at one side of the bone. The bad new is that not only is there still a gap at the other side, but that some osteoporosis has set in in my foot: “it looks like a foot of a bedridden patient,” he tells me. It turns out I’ve been too careful, and actually haven’t put enough weight on it! And if it breaks again, he’ll want to operate, he adds. Darn — if only that assistant two months ago had told me to ignore it when it hurts and walk anyway… I’m getting orders now to put full weight on it: give it six weeks, then I should be in the clear. No new appointment; but of course I can make one if it doesn’t feel good by the start of next year. But with the half-bad news, my good mood has disappeared. Knowing that the prospect of an operation still hasn’t gone doesn’t help.
Suddenly walking feels tricky again. On the one hand I’m very aware again that it hasn’t healed completely, and — especially with that osteoporosis — there is a real risk it’ll break again; and I’m not exactly looking forward to an operation with the associated risks. But on the other hand I have to walk on it now, or it won’t heal. So, OK. I walk home from hospital instead of taking the tram, stopping along the way for a tasty Turkish lamacun to cheer myself up a little and have a rest at the same time.
Saturday 2004-11-27 - Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Back together again, and making plans
Our second reunion for the 65 days across Asia trip, this time at Carla’s place in Amsterdam. I figure out the shortest route and walk over there in just half an hour — good practice for my foot! We’re all there (even Thom, who arrived back from Egypt late last night!), and the “family” feeling that resulted from traveling together for over two months is immediately back. We exchange presents, and photos that we ordered with each other. Carla prepared snacks and a meal with an Uzbek theme (really delicious plov!), and I was able to make small contribution by bringing the herbs-and-spice mix that I was given by a friendly and hospitable local on my first visit to Bukhara; it turns out not to be just good on cucumber but also on the plov.
Unavoidably, we talk not only about our past trip together and earlier adventures, but also plans for next year. We’d already heard from Marie Josee, our travel companion (who seems to be in Damascus right now), that the Chinese are working hard on the railroad to Lhasa; in fact, it looks like they’ll be finishing it even before the planned date. This railroad is expected to make much of original Tibet and Tibetan culture disappear at an increased pace, mostly by a greater influx of Han Chinese; meanwhile we’ve seen the breakneck speed of renovation in Kashgar, and I expect the same to be happening in Lhasa as well — so I’m not surprised to hear the “four girls” want to go to China and Tibet; they want to organize it themselves. I also want to go to Tibet for the same reasons (like now, before it’s all gone), but I prefer an organized trip (no hassle about transport and lodging, more time to explore) and so does Carla who would like to go as well. We also have the same preference for overland travel instead of internal flights; we’re planning to go to the Vacation Fair in Utrecht in January and we’ll likely be able to agree on a trip and go together! And with a bit of luck (September seems to be the best time of the year) we’ll meet the girls there, too! Nothing firmly decided yet, but Tibet is looking extremely likely now.
Monday 2005-09-19 - Bejing, China
Mask
On the way back from the Imperial Palace we decide to have lunch near Qianmen (south of Tian’anmen square), where Carla and I had lunch last year. I’m not hungry since I already had a bowl of noodles at the Forbidden City so I only have a beer while Carla and Gwendoline share a dish of sliced duck with onions (a kind of long, thin leek, actually).
From our table at the window we watch Beijing coming by.
I note a man coming from the underpass wearing a green surgical mask: not such a bad idea in Beijing with its polluted air, where the sky is rarely blue because of the smog. The sight of the mask reminds me of a comment from a Chinese I noted on an online forum that the TV news coverage of the SARS epidemic was rather biased: we were shown images of people walking around in masks, as if that was all because of the epidemic, while in reality it was already quite common. That brings to mind how the Chinese have had several campaigns to promote hygiene, for instance to discourage spitting in public: it used to be quite common just a few years ago but it’s rare now; no doubt the SARS epidemic helped bring that message home.
Having just arrived at this point in my musings about Chinese hygiene, I see the man unhooking the mask from his right ear, holding it aside, spitting a thick wad onto the pavement, and smoothly putting the mask back into place. It’s an exception. Really.
Wednesday 2005-09-21 - Beijing, China
Great effort on the Great Wall
Today is the big day. Last year when I was in Beijing I wasn’t able to do the hike along the Great Wall because my foot hurt too much (I only later found out it was broken). Now, with an ankle sprained not a week before we left and a heavy cold still bothering me, I’m not exactly in optimal condition for this undertaking, but I’m not to be deterred: I promise myself to do this and I’m going to: you really haven’t been to China unless you’ve visited the Great Wall, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987.
The alarm goes off at 5:15 in the morning: we have to leave at six! The stretch of the Wall we’re going to walk, from Simatai to Jinshanling is about a three-hour ride from the city, and we’re soon in the middle of the rush hour. It’s amazing just how big this city is: it takes very long before we leave it behind us and see fields from the bus windows. Not so much afterwards, though, a little after eight, the engine suddenly starts to make a funny noise and the driver stops the bus along the road near what amounts to a truckers cafe: some plastic tables and stools outside where simple meals are served. The driver starts checking the engine, borrows a bucket of water at the cafe, brings it back, and declares it’s good to go, so we all get in again. He turns the key and … nothing. All out again. It seems the starter engine is broken. Are we really going to walk on the Great Wall today?
The driver arranges alternative transportation for us (mobile phones are ubiquitous now in China) and not too long afterwards a car and three micro buses arrive, and on we go — with just over an hour’s delay. After we turn off the main road, at 10 km from Simatai, the landscape gets more beautiful; we’re riding through a river valley now. At the entrance we buy our first ticket (30Ұ; every stretch that’s accessible requires a separate ticket, we’ll have to buy a few more). Our hike starts at 10:30.
I’m actually rather worried, my cold makes me feel rather weak, and my sprained ankle is still painful and I worry about making it worse. But Marie Josee promises she’ll stay at the back of the group, and that’s reassuring. Across a little bridge over the river and then up we go along a bit of “fake wall” to one of the towers. I take out my GPS to record where we start: N 40.66188, E 117.27609; elevation 306m.
The first stretch of the wall here is fully restored but it’s quite steep down to a (metal) bridge across the river where we have to buy our next ticket to be able to cross (5Ұ), and from there up a steep incline again. This is especially hard because there are very high steps on the steepest stretches, almost too high for my short legs: I have to literally push myself up and tire quickly. I’m soon the last of the group. But after the restored stretch ends it gets even harder: it’s still just as steep here but now on the broken stones and rubble it gets hard to keep my left foot horizontal to spare my sprained ankle. A good thing I took my monopod which doubles as a walking stick: I really need it here.
All around me is my reward: a landscape of endless rolling steep hills and low mountains, mostly untouched, over which the Great Wall snakes from hilltop to mountaintop with a tower on top of each. And all that in glorious sunshine with a blue sky. With still a long way to go, I can’t stop every moment to take pictures but I still take quite a few. Still, the enormous scale of this defense wall in the landscape is hard to capture in pictures. Tourists are coming by the bus full to look at the wall, and a few of them even walk to a tower and back, but it only really sinks in when you actually feel it with your feet, going from hilltop to hilltop, up and down and up and down. Hikers on the wall are from all over the world, but the only Chinese are their guides. At what I think is the highest point I take another measurement with my GPS: we’re now at N 40.67046, E 117.26532; and 502 m high (later I see the next tower is just a little higher still, but not by much).
Marie Josee worries about my slow pace and asks if I want to go back — but we just left the hardest part behind us: no way am I going back to walk those steep stretches again. So on we go and luckily we hear of an easy shortcut below the wall that will save us a several towers. We decide to take it. All over the wall are Mongolians selling books, postcards, T-shirts and other souvenirs: the Mongolian border is nearby. They can be quite bothersome though: if you don’t say “no” firmly enough they’ll come after you and keep following. When we want to take the shortcut, a Mongolian woman comes with us, and shows the way (obviously hoping to sell us something) — a good thing though since it’s only a narrow trail, at places hard to see, and not at all as “easy” as the people telling us about it suggested. Just when I think we’ve had the hardest part, already close to where the path joins the wall again, I suddenly find myself stretched out along the path flat on my belly! There was a tree root in the shadow that I missed completely… Marie Josee comes running back, and the Mongolian woman wants to pull me up and starts dusting me off. “No, wait,” I gesture, and just sit up first, putting out feelers in my body to see how it feels: no alarm signals come back. Then I allow the two women to pull me up and slowly I stand: I can still walk, but my legs are quite shaky.
The woman offers to take my backpack and camera bag, and Marie Josee starts bargaining with her — she asks 50Ұ: far too much, 15 would be OK. At first she refuses, so Marie Josee takes my bags but later she agrees after all. She helps me over all the difficult spots, too, giving me a hand for support or to pull me up: of course she’s earning some money but she is genuinely caring. After the shortcut, the wall seems easier; I stop every now and then to take pictures again. The Wall and the landscape are still breathtakingly beautiful and impressive.
We have to buy another ticket for the last stretch of the wall and Marie Josee nearly starts a fight with the woman selling the tickets: last year she was in the same spot selling fake tickets but after some to and fro it turns out this time the tickets are for real — and needed.
A little before the point where we have to leave the wall the woman says she has to go back now: the border closes at a certain time and it’s a long walk back. But the last stretch is restored wall again and easier to walk on although I find the inclines harder to walk down than the steps. But Marie Josee is now carrying my bags and I can manage on my own. We find Henk, Carla and Gwendoline have been waiting for us (the ladies are quite tired as well) and with our little group we walk down to the parking place to meet the rest of the group.
We find our driver with a new bus — and just two of the group: the rest has not appeared yet! First we all sit down to have a drink (Marie Josee treats me to a beer) and wait. But soon we get restless: where can they be? If they walked on, they’ll find they can’t go further at one point but will have to walk a long way back: we may be in for a long wait… When they finally appear we hear their story: they did indeed miss the road down to the parking place and walked on to the next tower, spotting us through their field glasses and deciding to wait for us there; when they could no longer see us and we didn’t appear it dawned on them they were too far and went back. Lucky for them (and us) they didn’t walk any further!
Back in the hotel at 9:30 after a long drive through the falling evening, I go out with Carla and Gwendoline to ‘our’ neighborhood restaurant where for a change I have a good appetite: the chicken with cashew nuts is delicious!
Only then, back in my room, I finally take my shoes off and inspect my toes which started to hurt after my fall and are hurting even worse now. There’s nothing to see though: no swelling, no bruise: it can’t be too bad. Hopefully it will be better before Nepal!
Thursday 2005-09-22 - Beijing, China
Recuperating
I promised Marie Josee I’d take it easy today, and I do: I need it. I sleep late. My toes still hurt and my sprained ankle is still a bit sensitive so I wonder about my plans for walking around Xi’an tomorrow. After breakfast in my room I check out and sit in the lobby of our Beijing hotel writing, and drinking endlessly refilled jasmine tea. Then lunch at the neighborhood restaurant (mutton with onion) and some pictures of street scenes. Opposite the hotel I taste, then buy, some unknown fruit which the fruit seller tells me is called hang zhao (I hope I got that right). They’re shaped like a date but taste a little like an apple — very nice.
Saturday 2006-09-02 - Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Lots of paper and a blister!
I have a lot of errands to run today; on Saturday the shops are open in Amsterdam but tomorrow only a few in the city center will be open.
First I bring back the little battery tester I had borrowed from the photographer’s store. Next, I still need a spare battery for my watch. When I find a jeweler’s store that has one I ask if they can also clean my silver necklace and earrings from Nepal; hey can, but it will take a fe minutes, which I spend for my next errand: rubber tips for my monopod (also used as walking stick) which I find in a hardware store nearby. Next on the list: a lot of photocopies.
Carla lent me her “Nagel’s China” — a thick book that is both encyclopedia and travel guide — printed in 1968: just after the cultural revolution in China, when the country slowly opened up to foreign travelers again. She’d been there with her husband in the early seventies. The book is of course too precious (and heavy!) to take along with me, but some sections about Beijing in particular (like an extensive one about the Ming tombs) have good information. That means I’ll take along photocopies — and lots of them. Other information for when I’ll be on my own in Beijing as well as some parts of the manual for my new camera get the same treatment. When I’m done I take a little break with a big glass of fresh orange juice.
Finally, I need more writing materials and plastic envelopes to write my stories and store my collectible and ‘photocopyable’ artifacts (things like beer labels and courtesy shampoo and combs you get in hotels).
When I finally get home after more than four hours, I find my little toe hurts a little. On inspection, it turns out to be blister! Clearly I’m out of training (though I grow blisters all too easily).
Wednesday 2006-09-06 - P’yŏngyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
To the hospital
After a delicious lunch and a short visit to the monument to the Founding of the Worker’s Party (more good sculpture but otherwise uninteresting) we’re treated to a tour in the Hospital of Korean Medicine in P’yŏngyang; this small hospital, concentrating on traditional Korean medicine serves several important functions: science, treatment (free), training of doctors, and exchange between the DPRK and the UN security council.
Rather surprisingly, we are shown various treatment and diagnostic techniques. (Some of us wonder whether we’re seeing real patients or actors but it would be a really elaborate setup for a small group of foreign visitors — we see no other tour groups; I just can’t believe this theory.) For diagnosis, the patient is assigned to one of four “body types” (at least that’s how I understand it); one of the intake techniques used is taking the patient’s fingerprints — directly into a computer system, using a touch-sensitive pad and a program that graphically prompts for each of the fingers. Echography is also being used for diagnosis.
Some treatments are surprising for us westerners but we could learn something here - they don’t poison the body with chemicals when not needed; for instance one lady with a gall bladder problem is being treated purely with a course of acupressure and massage; she’s getting 40 massages of 30 minutes, and no medicines at all. The massage seems to be targeted to stimulate the body to “heal itself” and looks very relaxing, too. Treatment of broken legs with acupuncture is somewhat less surprising to me given that in the West bones are often helped to heal with electrical stimulation — but there is no cast. We are shown many more things and treatments, all in all a very interesting visit (and not something you’d expect to see on a visit to a foreign country; they ‘re obviously proud of their medical techniques).
Tuesday 2007-04-10 - Al Khuraybah, Yemen
They bite!
Where the lower part of Wadi Do’an is dry, the farther we go up it becomes more humid and green - now we see a string of palm groves again. We end up in Al Khuraybah where we are going to spend the night in Hotel Ribon — actually a funduq: simple lodging in people’s home.
To my surprise they have prepared a single room for our group: 12 mattresses neatly arranged on the floor; I had expected separate rooms for the men and the women. On each mattress is a pillow and a sheet; most of the windows can be opened and have a screen against mosquitoes; there are also two fans on the ceiling: we won’t be bothered much by insects here. In the hall are two bathrooms with shower and toilet. All in all, simple but functional and clean.
We put DEET on our small areas of bare skin (face, neck and hands) and head downstairs to the restaurant. We can sit inside or outside, it makes no difference: since there is more water here, there are mosquitoes everywhere — there’s no escaping them and they are especially nasty here: they simply avoid the little areas of skin covered in DEET and go for the rest, biting right through our clothes, even socks! Our bedroom may be mosquito-free (our hosts even sprayed it for us), but we already get an ample portion of bites before retiring for the night.
