a kiss with a fist is better than none

The short version: I’m going to India on Saturday! Two weeks there, where I intend to visit Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer and then back to Delhi to pick up my long-ago-booked flight to Bangkok on Sept 17th. That gives me a comfortable amount of time to get ready for my flight back to the UK in the wee hours of the 23rd – and hang out with Kirsten, and go to Chatuchak market one last time, and generally enjoy one of my favourite cities for a few days before it’s back to the rain and the grey and imminent winter. (And a whole lot of people/things I’m looking forward to.)

The (stressed, emo) long version:

So I mentioned how China has been driving me crazy in its spare time, yes? It obviously determined not to let up in my final days.

I got a bus from Xiahe to Lanzhou on Saturday morning, as the internet had told me I could fly from Lanzhou to Chengdu that evening. The internet lied, it turned out. First flight to Chengdu was Monday. I went to the train station and got the same story. I wanted to find out about other flight options, so I hauled my heavy stuff a couple kilometres up the road to the internet cafe, enjoying a newly formed large blister on my heel, and got a computer. I looked for some flights in the coming days. I found one for the next day. When I got back to the ticket office, that flight too was a lie of the internet. No one at the ticket office spoke ample English for me to say “I want to get to Chengdu, can you look up the various options?” Back in the internet cafe, I found that when I clicked through to try to buy the tickets, they vanished like a game of whack-a-mole. (I’d not been trying to buy them earlier because Air China won’t let you book online with a credit card not registered in the country of your booking, so I assumed its affiliates would be equally stupid.) Back in the ticket office, the Monday direct flight was gone, so I got a Tuesday flight.

There’s nothing to do in Lanzhou and no hostels – well, none that admit foreigners – but I got a nice hotel room for 13-14 GBP a night. Expensive for me, but hey, great value, and I did enjoy that room. I went off on a day trip on the Sunday, chilled on the Monday.

On Tuesday I got to Chengdu – I love flights, maan, so fast and easy – and hooked up with the second pair of people I’d been talking to about Tibet, after the first pair abandoned me for a group they met in Chengdu. We had a meeting this morning. Turns out a group of 9 can’t be worked out price-wise, due to needing an extra vehicle, so the other 8 gleefully split into two 4s – apparently people they met the day before are worth honouring more than someone they’ve been speaking to for several days – leaving me unable to go to Tibet.

Today was my last chance to book, really, once you factor in the days it takes to get the permit, the upcoming weekend when nothing can be done, the days waiting for a train, then the 10-day trip itself, then getting from Nepal back to Bangkok. And I can’t go alone for cost reasons. (Believe me, if I could…)

“You know, these things happen for a reason,” one of them said lightly.

Yes, I’m sure there’s a greater force engineering my travel misfortunes, not just bad luck. And, even if there is, this is meant to make me feel better how?

She then told me that I have a “strong attitude” because I was angry-upset at what happened, so she wouldn’t really want to travel with me anyway. (This remark didn’t actually upset me – I’m a terrible person for being a snarky Brit? brb LOLing forever.) I guess someone who’s said how they’ve been trying to organise something for 2 weeks, who’s been let down twice now by people who seemed keen to organise together, should be, what, singing a happy little song at it all falling through? Forgive me, you little twit, but no. (While I didn’t insult her at any point, I did tell her that the above things-happen-for-a-reason remark is incredibly patronising, which prompted her critique on my personality.)

I hopped straight onto the internet to look up how I’d get to Delhi, as the cool thing about Chengdu is it’s the popular traveller gateway to Tibet AND an international airport.

One thing I’ve recently found about China: same-day and next-day flights don’t really exist. This is strange to me.

But Air Asia’s website said they did have a flight tonight to KL, which’d put me in the exciting LCCT for 12 hours til another flight to India, AND Air Asia’s the cheapest option. Hooray! Except you can’t book online if it’s <12 hours til the flight. So I went to the reception desk to see if someone could contact their Chinese call centre - turns out the number on their website is wrong. The guy at reception called the general ticket booking office they use, and was told that if I went to the airport, I'd be able to buy the ticket there (unless it sold out in the meantime).

Well, it didn't sell out, but according to the ticket office at the airport, you can't buy an Air Asia ticket <24 hours before its departure. The incredibly helpful, nice people at the desk (<-- not sarcasm, this time) tried to find me other same-day options, but they all meant spending an extra 200 GBP.

I spent most of the bus back to the city centre in tears.

But I've got flights booked now, leaving late Friday night for KL, hanging around there during Saturday morning, getting on another plane Saturday afternoon to fly to Delhi. It's still the cheapest option - not super-cheap, but hey, it'll get me there faster than pretty much any other option too! - and I get to spend a couple of weeks in India after all, which according to Tori and her mother contains a lot of awesome things. Currently trying not to dwell on the above - it's in the past, while the future is far more fun - or on how I'm not going to Tibet, how I spent ages faffing about getting that expensive visa extension for nothing - with varying success. I wanted to blog about it just this once because while I prefer to record - and focus on - the interesting, enjoyable stuff, I felt like being honest about some of the background shite of travel.

But, to end on an up note, here is an awesome ceiling:

Original Ming-dynasty paintings of the 64 hexagrams used in the I Ching, in the Fu Xi temple of Tianshui, the town I visited on my day-trip out of Lanzhou.