08 Jul 11: Li Jie– Zhouqu - Wudu, China

Zhouqu! The great thing about Zhouqu is that it resolves the dilemma of dust and mud. You don’t have to choose, you can have both. In fact you can have heat, dust and mud. If there is a city one would not wish to be, it would be here. The whole town is a construction site with not a single road, area which is not being demolished and rebuilt. Some cities are only polluted; here you can add the heat, the noise and the ugliness of the new. The future will be bright and ugly.

The police work well here in China. We were waited for on our arrival and descent from the minibus in Zhouqu. The policeman in civil was waiting and we were asked to follow him in a small van to a hotel opposite the police station. Soon after an English speaking policewoman joined us in the hotel lobby for the “interview”. Photocopies of passports and visa checks in the most polite way. The lady policeman then accompanied us and paid for the dumplings, then showed us to the bus station. We were advised to be careful for the journey

I had a haircut, short this time during the 3 hours of bus waiting. The whole staff and their friends turned up to see the foreigners and took the souvenir photos after.

We are off to Wudu and would like to try the same scenario, that is, drop off at a small village.

Noise!! This is another cultural issue. In this bus, the driver is like mad crazy with the horn, the screen is projecting a Hong Kong movie loud enough for everyone to follow, passengers talk among themselves from the back of the bus to the front ones, others scream in their phone, while my neighbor blows his chewing gum in my nose and the other can spit his phlegm out of the window. In this cacophony some can sleep.