day 311: [under the transmitter] – 马莲井 (malianjing) = 31,5km

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When I woke up, I was feeling a lot better. I hadn’t gotten that much sleep though, and so I was very much hoping for a better rest tonight. I had heard about an old mine of some sort that lay a day’s worth of walking ahead. I was going to ask for a place to sleep there. So I got on my way:

…I never found out what had gone wrong with my stomach the night before, but anyways since it seemed all good now, I decided to go back to my regular diet of beans and cookies and congee, and throw in the occasional apple every once in a while:

Well, here I am trying to sound like I have a choice what to eat, right? Fact is though, I only have the contents of my cherished caboose, so freedom of choice remains an illusion. It’s always beans and cookies and congee, I can only choose their order of appearance.

…

There aren’t even any good places to take a rest next to this road, so I usually just try to find some shade under the caboose:

As you can imagine, today’s way was pretty tough:

At some point towards the end, I came across another camel herd – only this time, they were resting next to a water hole…

…and there didn’t even seem to be any people around:

I bothered them for some time trying to take pictures…

…then they obviously thought I was being too annoying, so they left:

Me and the caboose only had a couple of kilometers left to the place with the mine, and it was in fact quite a nice way to walk, since there was some vegetation in the area…

…and when the evening light finally struck on the land…

…it turned it completely golden:

Celestial.

It was about seven in the evening when I arrived at 马莲井 (malianjing), the place with the mine:

How spooky, I thought when I looked over what seemed to be just ruins, but then a door swung open somewhere and two guys appeared, one tall and slender, the other short and fat. Both of them seemed to be special people. The tall guy introduced himself as 牛先生 (Mr. Niu):

The short fat dude took off before I could ask about his name.

牛先生 was very friendly and welcoming, gave me a candle and showed me to a little room where he told me I could stay overnight:

“We have visitors all the time! You know what, this used to be a gold mine!” he told me, and he seemed very excited to tell me, “and now that the mine is out of service, the two of us live here to safeguard the place! It’s an important job!”

“Actually, there isn’t anything valuable left here on the premises, but you know how it is: if there is nobody to watch over a place, then it usually gets trashed all too quickly!”

“We are here all year, even in winter, when it’s miserably cold outside! There is no electricity, but we do have running water, and we get supplies delivered to us all the time. Or we can go to pick them up ourselves, too!”

….

“Yes, it can be quite boring out here, that’s the thing.”

…

“Me and the other guy are not friends. We are just colleagues.”

…

“Actually, we don’t get along too well.”

Soundtrack: Psy 4 De La Rime – “Inaya”

—total: 3753,1km