Bagged my first peak

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I never would have imagined myself going to a place called “base camp” by my own choice and on my own dime. Base camp means cold, and I like warm. Base camp means mountain, and I like sea. Base camp means uphill, and I’m more of a coaster.

But there I was, trudging along the top a 3000-meter mountain pass, head down against the icy gale hammering hailstone pebbles into my forehead. I was about 130 km and nine days into a 168-km, 14-day test of my physical and mental endurance. I had passed all the stages of exhaustion and had entered absurdity and resignation. I started singing ““”We’re Off To See The Wizard.”

We were headed to Tavan Bogd, a group of peaks in Mongolia’s section of the Altai mountain range. Tavan Bogd means “five peaks,” and the itinerary from Mongolian Expeditions had us climbing Malchin, at 4051 meters the lowest of the five, the following day.

Gundei, our guide and one-third of the “us,” didn’t know that I had already decided to beg off the climb. “I don’t have proper climbing shoes,” I would say. “And my legs are too fatigued to haul my khushuur-enhanced butt up there.” The best laid plans…

About two weeks earlier I had sent an email to Batbayar, owner of Mongolia Expeditions, asking if his company had any trips to the west that I could join. He called about 30 minutes later. “You’re in luck,” he said. “We have a trip going in a few days, and all except one of the confirmed guests canceled at the last minute.” He was willing to give me a big discount on the price – after all, any money I paid would be money he wouldn’t be losing on the trip. I reviewed the itinerary. “I’m not exactly a mountaineer,” I said. “No problem,” he assured me. “There’s an easier hiking option if you don’t want to climb the peak.” I agreed to go.

A few days later I was standing outside the Golden Gobi guest house at 3 am, waiting for my ride to the airport. Donna, a remarkably fit 50-year-old Canadian and experienced climber/trekker/mountain-sports person, and I would take a three-hour flight west to Olgii, the low-slung capital of Bayan-Olgii province.

BO is home to a large Muslim Kazakh population stranded here during one of the many sudden border changes in the area over its history. They live in perfect harmony with Mongolians as well as Tuvans and other minorities. The Kazakhs look like…well, Kazakhs. Their hair, eyes and skin are lighter than Mongolians’. Their cheekbones aren’t quite as high. They are taller and bigger – as are their gers.

I’m not going to give a day-to-day travelogue, cuz that’d be boring and too long. The heavily edited version:

– drive west from Oglii to Khurgan and Khoton twin lakes. at a petrol station, meet two cars at the tail end of the Mongol rally. stop along the way to meet a family who hunts with eagles in the winter. hold an eagle. they’re very heavy and have sharp, sharp claws.

– camping and easy hiking along lakes. go swimming in freezing water. vodka, beer and singing by a bonfire. (37 km in 2 days)

– hike to the mouth of the White River valley. from here our driver and Russian van will be replaced with two Tuvan camelmen and their camels. (23 km)

– hike up the White River valley. go over a 3500-meter steep mountain pass during a brutal 8-hour hiking day. consider throttling guide, who rarely chooses the trail in favor of difficult “short cuts.” come up with the idea for “steppe aerobics.” (40 steep km in 2 days)

– arrive in camp 7 early enough to attempt a “shower” in (believe it or not) a shower tent. the hair wash was great, but the sudden winter gale that sprung up as soon as Donna finished her shower kinda ruined the overall effect. woke up the next morning to the remains of overnight frost and hail. sat through a snow squall during breakfast. made snowmen. it was cold.

– hike to camp 8, near our camelman’s ger and the entrance to Tavan Bogd Nat’l Park. enjoy a much-needed rest day. share a liter of fermented cow’s milk (the local spirit) with our camelman, named Olonbayar. “Olonbayar” means “many celebrations.” (16 km)

– hike 17 km to camp 9, Base Camp

Which brings you up to date.

As we started a long, gentle decent toward base camp we saw the peaks glowing in the distance. The clouds over them had parted, revealing a bright blue sky and shockingly bright sunlit snow. Hail was still falling all around us, collecting in the depression of the path. (This pic doesn’t do it justice.) I was reminded of a scene in The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy and her companions had fallen asleep in a field of poppies – a trap by the Wicked Witch. But the good witch Glenda made it snow, waking them up. In the distance shone their destination, the Emerald City.

They ran through the snow along the yellow brick road towards the glimmering green spires of Emerald City.

We walked (no energy to run) along the white hailstone path towards the glowing blue and white of – let’s call it Sapphire Mountains.

Did I mention that I was a bit out of my head by this time? (I blame altitude sickness.)

By late afternoon the sky had cleared and the sun was shining. But clear skies mean cold nights, and that night was freezing. Worst of all, we were out of vodka. Thank god for Gundei, who had been rationing beer.

In the morning we woke up relatively early and started for the peak. It was an hour-long hike to the base of the mountain. And somehow during that time Gundei and Donna convinced me that I could, in fact, summit. No problem. Feel free to quit anytime. Just see how it goes. Etc.

Halfway up Donna almost quit. The climb was *very* steep, and there was no path. We were scratching our way over rocks that often moved or slid down as we scrambled over them. It was irresponsible and dangerous – at any time I could have loosened a boulder that would crush my finger or break an arm or leg. But by that time my competitiveness had reasserted itself. “I’m gunna bag this peak!” I declared, glaring up at yet another false summit. I may as well have scratched my balls and spit. I was being a dumb man.

Happily, Donna found a path (still very tough, but safer) and we followed it to the top.

We spent about 30 minutes at the peak (not the actual peak, which was a further steep, snowy 100-meter climb – too dangerous for our lacking-in-equipment selves, but close enough). Then I sent Gundei and Donna down ahead of me. I had to pee, and was determined to cop a squat with my butt facing China. Gross? Not really – we had spent 2 weeks relieving ourselves behind rocks. Immature? Probably – but not nearly as gross or immature as, say, pressing your bare penis against monuments and large buildings. (You know who you are.)

The descent was like skiing, but on rocks instead of snow. The technique involved stepping with your heel and letting your foot slide down as long as possible. It was kinda fun. I had to stop twice to empty my shoes.

We rolled back to base camp around 5 pm. Our prize for summitting was marmot – shot by our camelman the day before and boiled up by our cook. (Marmots, by the way, are carriers of Black Plague. Gundei assured us that care was taken to ensure that this was a healthy marmot. Besides, Malchin hadn’t killed us. Why would a marmot?)

A few days later we drove back in to Olgii, where we were promised a hot shower and a *bed* in a ger. The shower was more of a trickle, but it felt so good to wash off a thick layer of accumulated shit – we felt sure that over the previous 14 days our panting mouths had inhaled cow, sheep, goat, yak, horse, camel and human shit, and that it was also embedded in our hair. We *smelled*.

As for the bed, it was wonderful – though after the two bottles of vodka with dinner, I could have slept – well, in an icy tent in a place called “base camp.”

Back from western Mongolia

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I just got back to UB after a two-week trekking and camping trip to western Mongolia. I’ll write all about it by tomorrow, but I wanted to drop a quick post to answer the “where the hell are you” emails that have clogged my Inbox during my absence.

It was a last-minute decision to join a trip organized by Mongolia Expeditions, an “adventure travel” company. On August 8 I flew to Olgii, the capital of Bayan-Olgii province in western Mongolia. On August 21 I flew back, having spent exactly one of the intervening nights in something other than a tent.

At the moment I’m rather hung over (lots of farewell vodka last night) and sleeepy. So instead of writing I’m catching up on my photo-uploading (China’s done – now I’m on Mongolia).

Also, BTW, here in UB I happened to run into Karly, one of the Australians I met waaay back in Krasnoyarsk, Russia. She has recruited me to join her on a Gobi tour (finally!) starting Monday. Then we’ll cross back into China and travel together to western China (Urumqi, Kashgar), etc. It’ll be good to have someone to share the difficulties of travel in China. Yay.

OK now I gotta run to take a shower and meet Donna (the Canadian who was also on the western Mongolia trip) and Batbayar (the owner of Mongolia Expeditions) for dinner.

The nomadic sloths

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Last night I returned from my Ger-to-Ger (G2G) trip smelling of sheep, horses and sour milk.

As the bus rolled west towards Ulaan Baatar from the hills of Terelj National Park, a dramatic thunderstorm rolled east, dropping gallons of water that turned the streets of UB into muddy streams.

I was joined on my 6-day/5-night holiday by Bjorn and Kjersti, a lovely Norwegian couple. I use the term “holiday” deliberately, because we spent a good portion of the trip lazing around. The idea of Ger to Ger is for you to stay with real nomad families as they go about their everyday activities – milking cows, herding sheep and goats, and so on. The families are not there to entertain you, though in theory there are activities planned – crafts, horse riding, playing shagai with the kids.

In reality, a typical days goes like this:
– wake up around 8:30
– eat breakfast
– hang around doing nothing for a few hours
– eat lunch
– hang around
– get invited by wife of the family to “herd sheep” or do crafts
– pack up tents (which means the kids pack the tents and we stand around)
– horse ride/ox cart to next ger
– drink milk tea
– pitch tents (again, the kids insist on doing most of the work)
– eat dinner
– in bed by 9
– rinse, repeat

After five days of this we started referring to ourselves as the sloths.

Yes, it was interesting to observe the dynamics of the four different families we visited. Yes, we had one ~10km horse ride and another 23km ride between gers. But six days was enough. Neither my Lonely Planet guide nor the language section of the G2G guide gave us the right words to have a meaningful exchange with our host families. There was a lot of awkward smiling, amusing miming and long, long silences.

Some highlights and observations:

– we were picked up from the local bus stop by two boys, roughly 11 and 15 years old, in an ox cart. We spent a good portion of this first ride debating whether they were scammers bringing us someplace else, or if they were really family members of “Chukha” the man who was supposed to collect us. (they were the real deal)

– we helped some of Chukha’s boys (he has 4 daughters, but many nephews/friends/random local boys helping him) “herd” sheep and goats from one side of a mountain to another. To get them to stop climbing the wrong hill we howled like wolves. The animals froze. As we approached we baa’d like sheep. The animals followed us. Pretty cool trick.

– one morning we watched Chukha slaughter a sheep. that afternoon we were treated to a large bowl of boiled sheep entrails as a snack after a 10-km horseback ride. for dinner we joined various neighbors around another bowl of grilled/boiled mutton – just reach into the bowl, grab a hunk, and tear into it with your teeth. after dinner were toasts with a variant of aimag, the local rot gut. Normally made of fermented mare’s milk, this version was made from cow milk.

– hunting for wild strawberries during a rest stop on our 23-km horse ride to the second ger. mmmm, so sweet.

– happening upon a wedding during our ox cart ride between the 2nd and 3rd ger. wedding ceremonies are community celebrations, complete with mini-nadaams: a horse race, wrestling, etc. Not only is the community celebrating the (presumed) continuation of the Mongolian people, but also a continuation of their traditions and way of life. It seemed the perfect way to celebrate a wedding: the bride and groom were guests of honor at a community party.

– the madly in love, happy couple who hosted us at the last ger. And their baby son was adorable.

– on the way back to town to catch our bus to UB, something went wrong with a wheel on the ox cart. So what do you do – change the tire (so to speak)? Nope – you stop at the nearest ger and borrow the ox cart of a “neighbor”. that’s the nomadic culture.

There’s a lot more, of course, but since I lost a day to technical problems (I started writing this post yesterday. in the middle my computer froze, necessitating a 3-1/2-hour stay in a local tech shop reinstalling XP) I’m a bit behind.

More in a bit (plus photos!)

Change of plan

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I got voted off the Gobi.

Yesterday around noon one of the people on the Gobi trip called to say that, “Sorry!” there wasn’t enough room for me on the Gobi trip. The max number for a tour is 6, and the guide wanted to treat the kid as a person (fair enough). So the rest of the group (who are all staying at a different guest house than me) had a meeting and decided I was out. Fuckers.

That means I spent the day yesterday scrambling to find another trip to join. So today I’m going on a 6-day/5-night trip to the nearby Terelj National Park with Ger-to-Ger. Unlike other local tour operators, G2G says, it gives travelers an authentic experience (no English-speaking guide or “western” food), focuses on sustainable tourism, and gives 85% of the so-called “community fee” directly to the families.

So I and two others will take a local bus to the park (no private jeep), where we’ll meet a guy who will bring us by ox cart to the ger (called a yurt in other cultures; it’s a felt nomad’s home) of a nomad family who will let us camp in their yard. The next day we move to another family’s ger, etc. for 6 days.

The trip I’m going on is called “Nomadic Challenges” or something. It’s going to be like an episode of the Amazing Race – we’ll compete with each other in dung-collecting, water-hauling, etc. The only difference is that there’s no $1 million prize for the winner.

We’ll also learn how to do some other basic things in a nomad’s life: milk a cow, saddle a horse, sew traditional clothes. We’ll travel mostly by horse (Mongolian saddles are wooden, so that should be fun) though there’s one day of trekking as well.

Anyway, that’s what I’ll be doing for the next few days. I’ll still get to the Gobi – I’ve got a few people looking to hook me up with a group when I return to UB – but it’ll just be a bit later.

OK…time to saddle up…

I’m already in a better mood…

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Greetings from Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia. HooRAY. Arrived early yesterday afternoon from Beijing, and I already feel the difference. China and I were just not on the same wavelength. We’ll see what happens when I go back in a month or so.

One piece of exciting news is that I’ve published another story – this one about last year’s trek in Burma/Myanmar. It’s in an online travel mag called The Expeditioner. It’s not the NYT (and doesn’t pay as well), but I think it’s more my style. Plus Matt Sabile, the man behind the website, edited very lightly – this story is in my own voice, whereas the NYT piece was in NYTspeak.

And speaking of exciting treks, I’ve been on one and will leave for another tomorrow. On Sunday I visited the Great Wall, hiking the 8 km section from Jinshanling (about a 3-hour drive from Beijing) to Simatai instead of the Disney-fied section at Badaling. The way was very steep and mostly unrenovated – I sweated bucketloads. At every watch tower (the only place to rest in the shade) extremely annoying women shoved bottles of “ice watah!” in our faces and generally harassed us to buy stuff…no matter how many times we said “no, no thank you, please go away, please get out of my face” etc. Other women would hike along with you, telling you about “short cuts” and, at the steepest bits when you had to concentrate on where your foot would go, they’d step directly in your path and offer their hand, to “help.”

But despite this nonsense, the hike was beautiful.

Tomorrow I leave for a 14-day trip to the Gobi Desert and central Mongolia. The tour is organized via the Golden Gobi guest house here in UB. I’ll be with 5 other adults: two French dudes, a Swedish woman, and a French couple, plus their 10-year-old son.

I’m pretty sure there’s no WiFi in the Gobi, so you won’t hear from me again until at least August 12 (though I’ll probably post again before I leave).

OK, I need to go make some preparations for the trip.

The shortest longest eclipse

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I haven’t really posted much about China. Yeah, I know. Between the Great Firewall, slooooowwww connection in Shanghai, and a lack of a computer, it’s been painful even to check email.

There’s much to say, but I shant say it now. Because I know what you’re wondering: How was the eclipse? So I’ll postpone more general China posts and tell ya.

This eclipse was unlike the other two I’ve seen. Of course, the other two (Hungary in ’99 and Ghana in ’06) were also different from each other. As I told a TV reporter from a local Wuhan news network (!), eclipses are like children (I suppose): You love them all equally, but as individuals.

In the days leading up to July 22, the SEML (solar eclipse mailing list) was manic with worries about a storm (’tis the season) and extraordinarily detailed weather reports from Jay Anderson, the eclipse-chasers’ Al Roker (sans annoying cheeriness and yoyo weight loss).

As it turns out, people’s fears were justified: Shanghai got rained out. As you read before (in my NYT article), I was joining Rick Brown, a native NYer who runs eclipse tours on the side. He had arranged a private viewing area at the Wuhan Bioengineering University. (A big huge THANK YOU to Rick for inviting me to join them. Fun times!)

Though we didn’t get rained out, we did get cloud cover that seemed to thicken right at totality. In other words, we saw the early stages (where the moon slowly moves across the sun) fine, because the sun’s rays were strong enough to pierce the thin clouds. But when the eclipse went total, we couldn’t see my favorite part: the firey black hole in the sky.

However, about a minute before totality ended, the clouds thinned and – gasps, cheers and roar of the crowd – we saw it. I grinned like an idiot and stared. Al Drew, a decorated officer and ex-Special Ops in the US Air Force, ex-test pilot, and current NASA astronaut who flew STS-118 and spent 13 days in space (including 10 on the International Space Station), was flabbergasted. “There it is!” he chirped, like a wide-eyed child who’s meeting a real live astronaut. “That’s it! Is that it?” (He was much more eloquent when interviewed later by the swarms of local media, which was thrilled to have a real live astronaut (and a black man to boot!) in their midst.)

So yes, even if you’ve been in space, and spent your down time on the flight deck of the space shuttle, with all the lights turned off, watching the stars and the earth – even then, a total solar eclipse blows your mind.

I was disappointed, of course. But we still saw all the key moments: the odd underwater light, a 360-degree sunset, the edge of the moon’s shadow hurtling towards us as totality neared its end, the diamond ring, and then the truly remarkable speed at which late dusk returns to mid-day as the moon moves away from the sun.

I do not regret traveling all this way to see it. Neither did Al, who flew from Moscow (actually Star City, where we met via Esther) via Beijing on a 36-hour turnaround for the occasion. It’s funny – any “New York Times writer” fame I might had had with Rick’s crowd was quite easily trumped by “real live NASA astronaut!” So while Al patiently dealt the the swarm of tour-groupees and local media I got to take in the whole scene.

Of course, spending 36 hours with Al was fascinating in its own right. We drank Tsingtao by the Yangtze, discussed everything from US foreign policy to farting in a space suit, and ate a lovely meal at a table for 10 in a local restaurant that was roughly the size of hangar.

So yes, I’d say that the eclipse was a success.
——-
Now I’m back in Beijing and leaving for Mongolia early Monday morning, having cut short this leg of my China time. I’m still getting too frustrated here to have a good time on my own. I’m hoping that a month of cheering up in Mongolia will provide me with a good reset with China. I’ll try again when it’s cooler and when I haven’t been ripped off as I cross the border. Reset my Chinese karma, if you will.

I’m back, baby!

/ ckoukkos / Leave a comment

This is my first post written on my brand new Asus Eee 1005HA. I couldn’t bear life without a netbook anymore, so I just took the subway to Beijing’s “e-mall,” found the Asus booth, and said “I one one of those.” Definitely the easiest sale of my sales guy’s career.

Yes yes yes I have much else to write about. The eclipse, for instance. And…why am I in Beijing instead of Xian, as promised? You’ll just have to wait for me to type it all out on my new little thing. (So far it’s good enough – not quite my Mini, but still.)

As for the ill-fated Mini, a giant shout-out to Esther, Owen Kemp and some dude called Aleksey at HP Moscow for trying their best to get me my much-desired HP. In the end, I was thwarted *by* Russia (rather than *in* Russia) – or at least by the customs office. Special mention goes to Al Drew, of whom you shall hear more later. Al, who was coming out to see the eclipse with me, had volunteered to be my computer mule. He quite patiently and cheerfully awaited a computer-handoff that never occurred.

OK, I’m off to 1. configure the shit out of this computer and 2. write a more interesting post.

Hot and sleepy in Shanghai

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This is my second attempt at a post from Shanghai. I hope this one doesn’t get eaten by the Great Firewell as well…

Imagine a spoof on a high-tech sci-fi movie. Above you tower outrageous, flamboyant steel-concrete-and-glass high-rises, all marked by an absurdist flourish – a pincer-like peak, an incongruous swoop of concrete halfway up, a bulbous pincushion balanced at the top. Below you crawl narrow alleyways of the old city, laundry flapping in the breeze, the chiming of bike bells you hear only after the rider has practically knocked you over to get by, delicious scents wafting out of tiny storefronts. That’s Shanghai.

Also, it’s 37 degrees (around 100). *Everything* is concrete, so walking the streets is like walking in a pizza oven. The humidity is around 85 percent…so really, it’s like walking around a Bikram yoga studio. And there are no benches to sit and rest *anywhere*, except in the subway. So guess where people sit and hang out? Oh – and green spaces? Nope – paved over. Even the famous Yuyuang (sp?) Garden is paved. So yeah. It’s hot.

The good news is that yesterday I ran into a French couple I had met in Beijing (not the French daughter-father team, another set of Frenchies). We and a few others from the hostel went to a fantastic show. There Be Powers, a Brooklyn-based self-described “ghost punk” band, was headlining. But the band that had invited them over to China, a local band called Carsick Cars, was the highlight. People kept comparing them to Sonic Youth, and it’s not an onfair comparison. They’re playing in a Chinese rock music festival (?!) in New York this October or November (can’t remember for sure). I don’t know about the other bands, but Carsick Cars is definitely worth it. Rock and roll!

OK. There’s a line forming behind me for access to the free machines. I’m gunna run. BTW the plan is to take a train to Wuhan, leaving here tomorrow night arriving on Tuesday. I spend one night in Wuhan, up early for Eclipse Day (yay!) on Wednesday, and then (I hope) take a train to Xi’an. After that, it’s back to Beijing to catch a train to Mongolia, hopefully arriving there before August begins.

OK, I’m about to hit the “publish” button. Wish me luck….

I need a computer!

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I’m sitting here at the Internet-connected computers at my hostel – the Qianmen Hostel in Beijing. I’m by the door out to the noisy, hot street. The air conditioner next to me is leaking, so one of the staff is mopping around me. Behind me, other guests are coming and going through the door, sometimes bumping me with their backpacks as they pass.

This is no way to write anything interesting and/or thoughtful!

So I’ll stick to banalities for the moment.

Despite the leaking air conditioner, this place is really lovely – an old wooden building with rooms set around a cool inner courtyard. The staff is friendly and cheerful. They serve a huge, cheap breakfast with good coffee. Good stuff.

While here I met a gaggle of Brits – 5 just-graduated women and one early-30’s man – who invited me out with them last night. We went to a lake district north of the Forbidden City, where a huge number of loungey bars have opened up. The setting was nice, the bars were basically interchangeable, and the “we’ll just go out for a drink or two” turned into a sleepy 3 am cab ride back to the hostel. Good times.

Today I leave for Shanghai but overnight bus. If my miming and the bus-ticket vendor’s broken English have the same meaning, then it’s a sleeper bus – meaning I’ll have a bed (short and narrow, but still a bed). If not, it’ll be 15 hours being crammed into an Asian-sized seat, with Asian leg room. But heck, the ticket was cheap – 266 yuan (about $47) vs the 655 yuan it would have cost for the train.

Ugh, this is boring, right? Yeah. I’m going to end this torture now, and hope that my HP Moscow/NASA connection comes through in a few days.

Ha HA. Welcome to China (version II)

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Greetings! Surprised, some of you? Well, DrC, my dear and clever friend, sent me his proxy info to help me (as he put it) get around the “Great Firewall of China.”

To catch everyone up, a few days ago I sent this note to a few friends and family:

———–
So, I’m spamming all 33 of you because, as readers of my blog and/or followers of my Facebook, I thought you’d be interested to know that yes, I’m in #&$*(%ing China, and no, neither Facebook (expected) nor my blog (unexpected) are available. So expect silence for a few weeks.

In case you’re wondering, I am not amused with China so far. I have gotten ripped off every 3 hours or so, on average, since I arrived on Saturday afternoon. The first thing that happened: my bus left me at the border. It just took off without waiting for me, leaving me in the middle of laughing cabbies – they were all in on the scam – to insist that I pay 100 yuan (about $18) for a 5-minute cab ride into the actual town. And that’s just the beginning. Ooh, what a story – from Saturday morning at 7 am until Monday very-early at 3 am I’ve been fighting with Chinese bullshit, scam artists, shoddy transportation, and jerks. Grumble.

Happily, I finally made it to Beijing (last night at 3 am) and am staying at a lovely hostel within spitting distance of Tianamen Square. Also, the French daughter/father travelers I met in Vladivostok are here until tomorrow night, so we went out for cheap and delicious Peking Duck this evening. But really, that’s the only pleasant thing I have to say so far.

Anyway, I don’t want to complain too much. But I wanted to let you know that I am safe, but I won’t be posting for a while.

The rough plan is to stay here until Thursday, then to Shanghai (Ollie plz put me in touch with your cousin!) for the weekend, and then to Wuhan on Monday for the eclipse on Tuesday the 22nd. Then up to Xian, I think, then I go to Mongolia soon after (still hazy on details). I will try again to post, from a different internet cafe – maybe one that can get around the filtering (though I doubt it).

OK I’m off to sleep, in a bed, for the whole night, for the first time since Friday. Yay!
———–

Things have, in fact, turned around since that first frustrated missive from here. I haven’t gotten ripped off since (!), and a few things have gone well: I visited the Forbidden City and the Gate of Heavenly Peace, which were both very interesting (if hot and crowded, to paraphrase Tom Friedman). I’ve gotten used to China – the culture shock coming over a land border from Russia, I think, was greater than it would have been had I come from the US on a plane.

Most cheeringly, thanks to Esther I might get a replacement for my hopelessly broken HP laptop (it would have cost more to fix than I paid for it). Esther, being Esther, is arranging with (ahem) the managing director of HP in Russia to find me one and send it to China with one of her NASA astronaut friends, who I met in Star City in May and who’s coming to see the eclipse with me next week. As Coline, the French woman I befriended in Vladivostok, said, “It’s nice to have connections.” Indeed!

OK, I’m going to wander Tienanmen Square for late-afternoon light. More later (yay).

[Thanks DrC, and Esther, and the rest of you who sent me words of encouragement after my China email. I have the greatest friends in the world! ]