July 4th—What a difference a day makes!

We took the one hour bus ride into Xining and said a sad good-by to our friends at Kumbum. Taking the bus in foreign cities is always such an experience – at least once! We traveled through hillsides and small villages, picking up and dropping off people carrying everythey but pigs. One good thing about not having luggage was that we traveled light!

Found out today that our luggage is probably still at LAX. Meanwhile, we have our driver and Tashi ready to roll, and Jamin, our travel connection, getting ready to go out of town. The driver, Mr. Lee, was getting increasingly irritated and anxious. I hadn’t met him yet, but he seemed pretty uptight The four of us sat around a somewhat dark café this morning – dark because all the electricity is out, a fairly common occurance – trying to make phone calls to Hong Kong, Beijing, Los Angeles and India. Finally got through to India. Seems that our beads couldn’t be sent because of a bad rainstorm there, but will arrive Friday night. I promised Jamin that we would leave on Saturday morning, no matter what. Jeffrey had the swell idea of calling my daughter Leslie. Funny, she said “Mom, you sound a little bit stressed”.

Now, I was planning on roughing it, but that was supposed to be in Nangchen, where I would fashionably don my new REI ‘wear for 10 days and not stink’ clothes. And those cool underwear that say on the label something like “17 Countries, 17 Days, 1 pair of underwear”.

I, however, am still in the same clothes I wore to the airport 5 days ago and they are not the “wash and wear and no stick kind”.

Jamin sat back in his chair and suggested we made a “b” plan. This didn’t seem to be working out. “No, I said firmly. It will all work out”. Somewhere inside of me, I knew that the very miracle of us being here in China spoke volumes more about this journey than these immediate circumstances. Tashi, bless his heart, looked me straight in the eye and said, “It’s going to be OK”. He was right. I felt like I was in one of those children’s movies where the heroe and/or heroene has to go through all of these hurdles before reaching some great goal. Well, I wasn’t any heroene and all I knew how to do was pray as hard as I could.. I knew Leslie will get right on it – she is efficient and assertive and, besides, we have travel insurance and, if nothing else, they will get on it.

Oh, and at the end of my conversation with Leslie, I said “Please e-mail me as soon as you know something – NO! there is no electricity in town. I can’t even get e-mail!”. We all burst out laughing! What else can you do? Was this some kind of cosmic joke?

Then we trudged off to the camping stores. We bought 2 sleeping bags and I bought a warm jacket – all for about $100. I’d waited to purchase a jacket until we got to China, since everything seems to be ‘made in China’. I found my perfect jacket, took it home and guess what? It was made in Portland, Oregon!

So, we checked into our new hotel, aka guest house. We are on the 14th floor overlooking a pretty lake. The smell is terrible from the sewers The air is layered in dust and smog and cigerette smoke. Everyone smokes. Jeffrey is a trooper and somehow we manage to put on a smile, grab a cab with Tashi and head for the Tibetan market to see what we can find in the way of beads – just in case. On the way we stop for Chinese food – delicious! Lots of beads at the market,. We even find elastic for the wrist bands. Bought a pair of pants and a lovely skirt, a necessity apparently for women on long trips as the only facade of modesty while peeing on the roadside. And did I tell you how absolutely wonderful, open and kind these Tibetan people are.

So, here we are. It’s about 6 or 7. I rarely know what time it is or what day it is. My eyes are burning from the smog, my nose is recoiling from the smell. Xining is one place you can erase from your 10 top places to visit before you die. But it is also fun and a great adventure. The people are so friendly – maybe because we are the only westerners we have seen here. Sort of a fun curiosity.


Oh, my, I just realized that there are fireworks going off outside. I can hear them, but unfortunately, the air is so thick you can’t see anything.

P.S. Still no electricity, it will be an interesting evening. Darn, and my camping headlight is in my luggage!

P.P. S. I will never take Mercury in Retrograde lightly again!