Alas!

So anyway I walked around and played with the GoPro for a while.

Took some footage of what it can be like to be old next to an escalator:

Then I ambushed some people who were going to rub the lion’s head at Odeonsplatz for luck:

And finally I tried the integrated intervall function:

Seemed to work just fine.

Soundtrack: X – “Los Angeles”

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Saw dudes in the water:

Weird rock formations on the riverbank:

And a late autumn that suddenly returned:

But the best thing – my birthday present:

I have always wanted to be able to shoot video like this!

Soundtrack: Desireless – “Voyage Voyage”

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2010-09-19 on larger map

I wasn’t going to walk today. I wanted to take it easy and rest up in my hotel room. But first, I had to take care of my visa extension.

“You can apply for a visa extension in every city (市)” I had been told in the police office of 乌鲁木齐市 (Ürümqi city) a few weeks ago.

So…

• 石河子市 (Shihezi city)
• 奎屯市 (Kuitun city)
• 乌苏市 (Wusu city)

It looked very easy on the map, but fate would have it otherwise.

…

This morning I entered the local police station – passport, photograph, money and documents in my hand. 马哥 (Big Brother Ma) and 李哥 (Big Brother Li) were with me.

When I walked up to the counter and stated my claim, a large police officer rushed forward. Without even looking at me, he extended his hand toward my passport and started barking at 马哥:

“Who is this? Where is he from? What is he doing here? Where is he going?”

I was starting to feel annoyed, but beggars can’t be choosers, and I wanted my visa extension, so I just played along.

Then they dropped the bomb: “It is IMPOSSIBLE  to extend your visa here!” they said to us, and our natural question was:

“But… why?”

“Because 奎屯市 is a 县级市 (county-level city) and not a 地级市 (prefecture-level city).”

“???”

“YOU CANNOT APPLY FOR YOUR VISA EXTENSION HERE!!!”

Um… ok. So we left the building and started heading back for the hotel. I felt low-hearted. But I had to document this day in the blog somehow, right? So I took out my pocket camera and snapped a picture of the police building.

This was when things got worse.

A car screeched to a halt and a man in a black coat jumped out, rushing toward me with his finger pointed at my camera.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” he screamed, and from the look on his face I might as well have taken a picture of him wearing a bunny suit on the loo.

So I was dragged back into the police office, where the bulky officer asked about what happened and then started to work himself into a full-blown rage.

Being one half Magyar, it doesn’t take much to get me mad either..

Long story short, they screamed at me for a while, then demanded the camera and tried to erase the picture, which they failed at. I eventually did it for them, not without explaining to them that I found it only understandable that they were unable to operate a simple point-and-shoot camera.

They were policing a place that called itself a city but in reality wasn’t a city at all, right? It was just a bunch of barns and a few sheep they were administrating, wasn’t it? Mr. Peasant Police?

When I finally got released, we had screamed at each other at the top of our lungs, they had suspected me of being a spy, and I had sworn to leave this unwelcoming place as soon as possible, and never to return!

马哥 and 李哥 were helplessly trying to ease out the situation, and I could feel a tiny part of my heart being very sorry for them.

…

When I had packed up all my stuff and was ready to leave the city, some more friends had arrived.

“Do you really have to go?” they asked, “but what about our dinner tonight?”

Hm…

Maybe I shouldn’t have exploded like that? Wasn’t this also a reason why I was walking after all – to learn how to control my temper?

I thought for a while and made three decisions:

1) I was still going to leave 奎屯. A man must stand by his word.

2) But I was going to take a bus back tonight to have dinner with all my friends here. They were more important than this situation with the police.

3) I was going to apologize at the police office. Even if they were behaving like idiots, that was no reason for me to behave like one also.

…

So eventually I got back on the road:

马哥 and 李哥 didn’t want to leave me alone like that, so they walked the first half of the way with me:

We saw weird old slogans under a bridge:

“中国共产党万岁” = “Long live the Communist Party of China”

“…主席万岁” = “Long live Chairman…”

I had only seen one of these one time before on the walk. They were relics from a time when the country was in a state of violent eruption, where the pillars of confucian culture were demolished by angry mobs, and families were divided and washed away by wave after wave of political terror.

Creepy.

We had lunch in a roadside restaurant, then I continued on my way to 乌苏 alone:

Everything would be better there: I would leave the police troubles behind me, get a nice hotel room and figure out a way to get my visa extension. Let bygones be bygones.

My feet were hurting beyond all description, but I was actually walking and singing at the same time, something I hadn’t done in a long time.

Life felt good when I walked into 乌苏:

“乌苏欢迎您 – 携手共列文明城市” = “Usu welcomes you – join hands to start building a peaceful and civilized city together”.

Good idea.

I took a video of myself walking, when I realized that the road was full of interesting vehicles:

Then a police car stopped me.

“Go to the police station to register!” they yelled across the street.

“My hotel will register for me!” I yelled back. I knew the procedures.

The city center was just like any other place…

…so I went to the biggest hotel I could find.

I hadn’t even started checking in, when a police car pulled up and I was being questioned.

One of the two officers was a stunning beauty who looked like she had never smiled in her life. There was something eternally cold about her, and in my mind I dubbed her the ice princess.

Another police car appeared, two more officers got out, and everybody started gathering around me. They carefully inspected picture after picture on each of my cameras, while I was answering questions to the ice princess’ expressionless face.

Then they followed me up to my room to inspect the rest of my stuff.

“Are we all done and okay now?” I asked them when they looked like they were done. They nodded and mumbled a half-assed good-bye.

Then they were gone.

I walked across the room and looked at my spying equipment. Then I let myself fall flat on the bed.

What the hell had I gotten myself into here?

…

Later that night, when I was having food and drink with all my friends in a yurt on the outskirts of 奎屯, all of the bad things were forgotten:

I could feel the warmth of spicy food, drinks and friendship unfold inside me, and I knew that it was a blessing to have all these friendly people around me.

“I have behaved like a fool today!” I said at the dinner table, confident that all the troubles were behind me, and that I was much wiser now than I had been in the morning.

Silly me.

Silly me.

Silly me!

Soundtrack: Junior Murvin – “Police And Thieves”

—total: 4927,5km

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2010-09-17 on larger map

Who would have thought that this was going to happen during this year’s little summer vacation? (If you have no idea what I am talking about, please refer to the beginner’s guide and the advanced formula.)

…

Well, today I found out about yet another way to walk 50 kilometers in one day: take a buddy along and involve him in a discussion:

“what if we could walk all the way to [insert name of incredibly far place] tomorrow?”

Voilà. All you need.

…

We got up at 5:30 and started stumbling through the unknown:

Slowly, ever so slowly, the dark curtains of the night pulled away, and we could actually see the sceneries we were walking through:

辉辉 (Huihui) got his first blister before the sun was up, and I told him it would probably not be his last one today. Being a born optimist, he just laughed.

We took some pictures on a bridge…

…and found an empty house by the road:

I was trying a completely new technique concerning my footwear today:

Sandals + socks + inlays. This worked surprisingly well. I still got some pretty bad blisters, just not as massive as they would have been otherwise.

We had lunch in a small settlement called 安集海 (Anjihai):

This place is known for one thing:

Chili peppers:

I picked some of the little monsters and put them on the caboose to dry:

We had walked more than 25 kilometers at this point, and it was still early in the afternoon. There was a certain notion of confidence in the air:

Then suddenly two of 辉辉’s blisters broke, and he got a very funny look on his face:

“FINALLY I know the feeling of real walking!” he said and laughed.

And I think he was right:

Having walked too far to turn back to 安集海, and not yet far enough to arrive safely in the next settlement today, we decided to split up at this point. This way I would make some more distance while he took some time to rest his feet and enjoy the scenery:

I put in some music and passed a minor traffic accident that had caused a major traffic jam, which went on for miles and miles:

It was mostly huge trucks just sitting there, and I felt strangely superior to them, pulling my little caboose down the road, almost as carefree as a bird, had it not been for the pulsing pains in my feet:

At one point I was on top of a slope, and the road lay there in front of me, straight like a bowling alley, merciless and ridiculously long like most roads in the gobi desert:

Suddenly I heard laughter behind me, and when I turned around I heard it again from in front of me: 辉辉 had hopped on a tractor and already caught up. We continued walking together, sharing the pains and the joys of a godlike day on the road.

We decided to stop at the magic number:

50k. There it is.

It takes a long day to walk up to those digits.

I asked 辉辉 to take a video of me crossing the 50k line:

Then we continued to walk in silence.

The lights of the oil refineries were glowing in the distance:

As the city came nearer and nearer, the dark curtain of the night slowly lowered itself over us again:

We walked a little more, and then some more, and then some more, and then we finally found a gas station that rented out beds.

Walking the 50k had been a feat of strength, a true rampage, and maybe even a heroic deed.

Only we didn’t look like heroes.

We were covered with dust, limping on both legs, and almost too tired to eat.

A pitiful sight we were, 辉辉 and I.

Soundtrack: Bad Brains – “I Against I”

—total: 4897,2km

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Yesterday, I had promised 李娜 (Li Na) to take a picture of her:

Hope I did her some justice:

…

辉辉 (Huihui) took me to an elementary school in the afternoon:

We were going to talk to the kids about physical education, but I was invited to watch the girls’ dance practice. I shot video after video everywhere we went, and eventually compiled them into one clip:

I realize that this video is pretty long, but I just loved the dance routine too much and couldn’t make myself cut any part of it! :)

…

冉老师 (Teacher Ran) then opened up the inner sanctuary for us:

His art department:

I marveled at the expertise and the devotion of these little children:

One boy had made a comic drawing on the classroom wall that could only be described as epic:

This “fresco” featured scenes and details from movies and computer games he obviously enjoyed. I especially loved the way he had subversively drawn over the switchboard:

…then there were the clay figures – mostly scenes from the countryside:

And from computer games:

Who would have thought that CS could be so inspiring?

There was one clay figure I particularly liked:

To think that it was an elementary school child who had carved this expression into the old person’s face!

Dear 冉老师:

Thank you for what you are doing!

Soundtrack: New Order – “Blue Monday”

—total: 4802,8km

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My friends 辉辉 (Huihui), 祁师傅 (Master Qi) and 李娜 (Li Na) got me into a car and drove up to the 天山 (Tianshan) mountains today:

It was very beautiful up there…

…where the sheep walk in the middle of the road…

…and the cows…

…and the shepherds…

…enjoy the daily luxury of a sight that money can’t buy:

We passed some kids who spread their arms as wide as they could as soon as they saw the camera:

And we passed some cows that were totally oblivious to our presence:

I took a time-lapse of the lake from a different perspective:

We hadn’t come here for this though. What we were looking for was these guys:

康家石门子岩画 – The Rock Engravings of Kangjia Shimenzi.

They date back more than 3000 years, but have only been discovered about two or three decades ago.
The engravings cover a relatively small surface of plain rock…

…and they depict mostly human bodies in an artistically exaggerated fashion:

I wasn’t sure if this ancient artwork was meant to hint at sexy time (or the joy of procreation) but some of the figures sure did look like they were massively hung:

Or maybe they were just wielding some sort of ancient magic sticks?

…

Too bad some idiots had scribbled over large parts of what was left of the engravings:

I turned around and looked at the scenery opposing the rocks:

Had the vegetation changed during the last three millennia? Was the shape of the hills still the same? Did the air have a different shade of blue today?

In my imagination, all this didn’t matter. I was looking at the exact same sight as the rock engravers did. There was a sheep bleating in the distance. Another sheep answered. A bird circled over the hills. Everything was very quiet.

I stood there for a long time.

…

When we came back into town that night, we played a few games which I wasn’t very good at:

At the same time I somehow managed to come up with a half decent time-lapse of the sun setting over 石河子 (Shihezi):

It had been a good day.

Soundtrack: Burning Spear – “Marcus Garvey”

—total: 4802,8km

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2010-09-09 on larger map

I got up at six and started walking a half hour later, when our part of the world was still completely covered in darkness:

People were just getting up and starting their day:

And there seemed to be less cars on the road than usually, which made walking a bit easier:

Sometimes I could see the mountains in the distance:

It was pretty tough though.

…

I took a rest around noon, when I spread out a bit off the road and slept for a beautiful two hours:

I was wearing sandals again, this time with socks:

…but I could only stand it for a few hours, then I switched back to my boots.

One time in the afternoon, I sat down in a small restaurant to have lunch, when this guy appeared and started asking me all kinds of questions. Where was I from? Why did I walk? How did I like the noodles?

I was bothered as hell at first, but after a little while it became quite clear that he was a very likeable fellow, so we sat and chatted for at least an hour, after which he insisted on paying for my dish:

Thank you, 石先生 (Mr. Shi)!

…the rest of the road was pretty tough. My feet were hurting badly, and I kind of just floated by:

I witnessed something weird near this house:

Some people apparently wanted to make this lady get into a car, which she refused. So three guys and one other lady pushed and shoved her until she finally was in the back seat, from which she tried to flee through the car window. She was screaming and cursing all the while. After they had driven off, I asked the remaining two people: “What just happened?”

“Nothing happened.” they answered.

“But it looked like something just happened!”

They smiled: “Nothing happened.”

I chose to get back on the way.

…

When I finally made it to the small town of 玛纳斯 (Manas), I was more than tired. I got a room in a very tall hotel building, some police appeared and asked all kinds of questions (I was inclined to answer: “nothing happened”), and then I crashed on my bed. The sun was just about to set outside of my window:

It was so beautiful I almost forgot the pulsating pain in my feet.

Well… almost.

Soundtrack: Barcode – “A Wider Shade Of Pain”

—total: 4783,4km

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2010-09-08 on larger map

Bad health or not, it felt good to be out on the road again.

The earth was beaming with sunlight:

And I had my 月饼 (moon cake):

Yummy!!

I was about to take a shortcut at some point, but these friendly Uighur folks came running across the street to warn me that I was going in the wrong direction:

Thank you, Mehmet!

Besides that, it was mostly just quiet walking.

I was passed by what seemed like at least a dozen trucks full of 武警 (armed police) once:

They can be described as a branch of the military that is responsible for homeland security:

We all feel pretty safe now, don’t we?

I stopped to buy a nice seedless watermelon somewhere:

Then I carried it to a little guesthouse in the next settlement.
I got a room, spread my bamboo mat on the bed, put the watermelon on a plastic bag and sat down:

Then I fell asleep.

Soundtrack: Specio & Ekoue – “Fr2Quence Bitune”

—total: 4746,9km

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2010-09-03.kmz on larger map

I got up in the early morning hours and started walking.

It felt nice, because the air was fresh and there were not many cars around on the country road:

I passed some parts that looked like a strange planet:

And some structures…

…that seemed like they were from a different time and age:

I shot a short time lapse on my lunch break:

And a video of a flock of sheep that crossed paths with me:

Really A LOT of sheep:

When I got to 呼图壁 (Hutubi), I wasn’t feeling very well. I sat down on the curb and immediately fell asleep right there on the asphalt:

Anyways it was good to be in a larger settlement once more:

I was greeted by 周彦 (Zhou Yan), a friend of 申叔叔 (Uncle Shen). He rallied a bunch of friends and insisted we go out and start drinking – at 4 in the afternoon:

As the night dragged on, my vision turned into something like this:

…but it was only in the early morning hours, when I found myself in a karaoke joint where someone had just turned on the crazy frog song and kept screaming “dance! dance!” – that I realized something very important:

Someone needed more to drink.

Soundtrack: Snoop Dogg – “What’s My Name”
—total: 4723,8km

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2010-09-02.kmz on larger map

I eventually dragged my sorry ass out from the castle and started walking again.

One thing about 昌吉 (Changji) that really surprised me was its cleanliness – very unlike some of the other cities I’ve come through on my way from the capital.

Apparently, this is due to an effort to transform 昌吉 into a tourist destination:

Me personally, I’ve always liked the colorful everyday life on the roadside better than any of the big monuments:

Here’s a part of today’s walk at 10x speed:

(Spoiler alert: you can hear me heavily curse at a driver at one point!)

…

The heat was even more merciless than the days before. It apparently climbed to about 37°C in the afternoon:

I was miserable.

Good thing my shoes didn’t give me too much of a problem, even with the blisters I already had:

I was cooling off in the shade of a tree, when 安老爷子 (Grandpa An), an old 回民 (Hui – the Chinese Muslims), ran into me and started a conversation. A little while later, we were hanging out at his place:

Tea and 馕 (nang), and some friendly people. What more could I ask for?

They put large chunks of rock sugar into their tea here:

At first I didn’t like the idea of spoiling a good green tea with this, but then I discovered that the taste was actually very good!

安老爷子 introduced me to one of his four sons, who all live in the same village:

And when I told them that I enjoy taking pictures of old things on the way, they came up with this ensemble:

(From left to right: Russian tea kettle, Arabian incense burner, Chinese tea kettle.)

Oh, and here is a picture of 安老爷子:

He lost one eye and three fingers when he was seven years old. This was in 1949, and the war had just been over for a few days, when the little boy found the remnants of a bomb outside and thought they were fun to play with.

…

I continued walking later in the afternoon, when some of the heat had moved on to scorch another part of the earth:

By this time, my feet were hurting pretty bad, so when I got to a small guesthouse on the roadside, I figured it was a good idea to call it a night.

Also, a large flock of what I thought were vultures circling over the road made this decision a bit easier for me:

Actually, I just learned that they were black kites.

When I got assigned a bed, I immediately crashed on it and fell asleep for an hour. I think I might have caught a cold.

I went out to find some food later, so I tried this average-looking Muslim restaurant:

“You can also sit in the backyard, it’s nicer there!” they said.

…I couldn’t believe how right they were:

They had everything – chickens, geese, ducks, cats and dogs, and even a few pearl chickens:

I don’t know if you remember, but being a rather silly person myself, I am always looking for goofy animals. I found a few of them here:

…they just started going nuts after my friend 马军刚 (Ma Jungang) had turned on the radio.

Maybe they didn’t like the song?

Anyway, this is 马军刚:

He is a very kind man. We chatted for a while, and I learned how he was planning to turn his roadside restaurant into a 农家乐 (country guesthouse), complete with food, lodging, and a karaoke-machine!

One thing that I liked particularly about 马军刚 was the fact that had the ability to be an epic goofball:

…like many of the best people I know.

Soundtrack: Chef – “Chocolate Salty Balls (P.S. I Love You)”
—total: 4697km

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