Writing My First Book

Writing a novel was like losing my virginity. I spent a large part of my life hoping I would do it, made a few false starts, and when I finally did it I realized it really wasn’t that difficult; and now I can’t wait to do it again. I will not extend the metaphor to actually publishing a book and getting paid for it; that would be creepy. My point is, if you’ve ever wanted to write a novel, go ahead and do it.

I am an unpublished author, so I’m hardly qualified to give much advice on writing a book. However, I think I have a few things to share, because unlike a lot of people who only talk about writing a book I actually did it; and I learned a few things along the way.

In my opinion there are three components to a novel – story, message and language. These things are fairly straightforward. The story is what happens in the book, e.g. man loses love of his life when he’s young because he’s poor, then sets out to become rich and claim his love, he succeeds but because of fate it all ends tragically. The message is the lesson or moral of the story, or maybe perfectly portraying a place and time for posterity, e.g. be careful of what you wish for, money can’t buy happiness, life is cruel, the ‘Roaring Twenties’, etc. The interesting thing about the message is that it can be left for the reader to determine regardless of what the author intends. Language is the actual words, sentences, paragraphs, and imagery the author employs. Great books, or dare I say ‘classics’, do all three very well, or ever just one or two of these things magnificently and do the other one or two well.

My book is called The Turtle Eggs, and it can be downloaded here from Scribd for free. I am working on finding an agent and a publisher, so if you enjoy the book please pass it along to your friends; and if you are in the publishing industry please offer me a big fat advance and 3-book deal! Here’s a description of the book.

They are the turtle eggs, thieves who stole vast fortunes from China’s booming Wild West economy and found refuge in the United States. Sean Lockhart, a black sheep from one of America’s most prominent families, a China hand, a businessman, and reluctant spy, is charged by two governments to help bring the Turtle Eggs to justice. Greed, betrayal and vengeance unfold from New York to Beijing and the steppes of Mongolia as Lockhart chases blood and treasure to right a terrible wrong.

I didn’t set out to write the great American (or Chinese) novel, I set my sights a lot lower. For me it was all about finally ‘doing it’. To simplify things a bit, I picked a genre and stuck to it, because by doing that you pretty much determine what kind of book you will write. Sure, I’d love to be able to write The Great Gatsby, but I wanted to start a project I could actually finish and be satisfied with. I was realistic enough not to swing for the fences my first time out.

I chose the ‘thriller’ genre, because that’s the kind of books I love to read and movies/TV shows I love to watch. After 30 years of books, TV shows and movies; from Johnny Quest to the Bourne series, I internalized the genre’s form from osmosis. If you want to be a good writer, then you must be a great reader. Study books, films and TV shows in the genre. If you want to write a spy novel (usually a sub-genre of a thriller) then you sure as hell better know what kind of car 007 drove and what kind of gun her carried – more often than not an Aston-Martin and a Walther PPK.

Novels that fit neatly into a genre are almost always all about telling a story. The language needs to be just good enough to carry the story and the message is frequently secondary. In general, thrillers are fast moving, so they use punchy language, and usually the message or moral of the story is ‘good triumphs over evil’.

So when I set out to write a thriller I concentrated on the story; I wanted to write a ‘ripping good yarn’ or a ‘romp’. I crafted a storyline; i.e. what happens first, second, third… until ‘The End’. This is the most important step, if you have ever told a story in your life, then you know it has a beginning, middle and end. If you are not too familiar with this and need to know more, I suggest you study the story arc and know it well. If you break from this format, you might produce something interesting and exciting, but more likely you will write yourself into circles and confuse readers.

After you create your story line, populate your story with characters. These are the active people that actually do things in your story. I have no great wisdom to share about creating characters; in fact I probably have a lot to learn. But with a thriller it’s kind of obvious what kinds of characters need to be involved, the hero, the damsel in distress (or someone else who needs protection), the villain(s), and a whole bunch of supporting characters that either help or obstruct the hero and villain, i.e. sidekicks, mentors, allies, henchmen, etc. And of course, never forget to include a heroine, femme fatale, or tart for strictly prurient interest; thrillers should have some gratuitous sex as well as violence.

A thriller by definition should move as fast as possible; otherwise no one is thrilled. So when I wrote my book, I wrote short chapters and I tried to end each one with a hook to the next chapter so I cold create a ‘page turner’. If you need to study this technique I suggest you read Alexander Dumas’ The Three Musketeers; it’s a long adventure story originally published in serial form in a magazine. Dumas got paid by the word as his story was printed issue after issue; therefore he really need to keep is readers on the edge of their seats so they would ‘tune in’ for the next chapter. By the way, Dumas became extraordinary wealthy because he was great at doing this.

This reminds me, having a few good influences is important; we should all study from the masters. When creating the characters and the story my main inspirations were Magnum PI and Fletch because I wanted my protagonist to be a slacker and a wise ass. I then drew from a few authors for writing style, Dan Brown and John Grisham for fast-paced conspiracy stories, and Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard for quirky characters, snazzy dialogue and gritty violence.

Of course, I was also inspired by living in China, which I is the backdrop of my story. Also, while my life in Beijing is not nearly as interesting as my protagonist’s, nor do I want it to be, I also drew a lot from my own life in order to personalize the main character and include a lot of small details that I hope add flavor to the story.

It took me about two years to write, 2008 was the busiest year of my professional life, but 2009 wasn’t - hurray for recession! During both years finding the time to write wasn’t hard because I truly enjoyed the process. I usually wrote in the mornings before work and the weekends. My writing sessions last anywhere between 30 minutes to 4 hours, and I usually edited what I wrote over the last day or two and before writing a couple of pages. I found it useful to keep of log of how much I wrote on a weekly basis and after several months I reached a target of about 30 pages a month.

Like blogging or my work as PR consultant, writing a novel was a regular exercise in stretching my imagination and playing with words while maintaining discipline of serving a final goal – completing the story. One of the most important lessons I learned was I got better at writing the more I did it; because of this the second half of the book was much better than the first. This lesson prompted me to rewrite huge parts of the first 150 pages.

It is important not to fall in love with your writing; this prevents much need editing from being accomplished. An important lesson I learned was how to take criticism on my work. This is a fine balance of throwing my ego out the window but also sticking to my guns when something was important to me. I am grateful for all the advice I got from friends and family that read the book, but I did not make every suggested change.

I think this is all I have to offer on the subject of novel writing. If you ever wanted to write a book I can’t recommend it enough. I do hope I get published and even get some money for my efforts; that really would be a dream come true. But no matter what, writing and finishing The Turtle Eggs was a rewarding experience just by itself and I will write another one.

Rawalpindi or Bust: Part II – There and Back Again

If you have read Part I, you know after I survived the travails of floods, highway robbery, and Xinjiang public transport I was more than ready to jump on the Karakorum Highway and get the hell out of the PRC, if only for a brief respite. Before I made it to the boarder I stopped at Lake Karakul for a night to sleep in a yurt and to race ponies, very badly I might add, and had a fine time in a makeshift third-world alpine retreat. It was fairly smooth traveling into Pakistan; the only hiccup was having to rouse red-faced Chinese border officials from their afternoon baijiu-induced siesta to stamp our papers so we could be on our way. It was accomplished with my best diplomacy.

I’ll never forget entering Pakistan; it was one of the friendliest greetings I’ve ever received from a man with a machinegun. After our jeep drove for about an hour through the no-man’s land separating the Chinese and Pakistani border crossings we were stopped at a checkpoint by a uniformed pudgy fellow lazily holding an assault rifle, he spoke immaculate English. He looked at the Kiwis’ and Limeys’ passports and heartily welcomed them to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan with a big smile and a firm handshake. Then he came to the last passenger in the vehicle, a lone humble American. He looked at me, took my passport, thumbed through the pages thoughtfully and scanned my visa to enter Pakistan and frowned. Then he said, “No, no, no… I’m sorry my friend. But you cannot enter.” My eyes lit up, I did not have a return entry visa into China, there I was in the middle of the Khunjerab Pass and it seems I didn’t have papers to go forward or back. Fear must have galloped across my face, because the border guard began laughing mightily and tossed my passport back at me, then said “Just kidding my friend. Welcome to Pakistan!” I’m sure that joke never gets old.

After crossing the border and spending the night in a quaint guesthouse we made it a little further down the road to some town that’s name escapes me. We spent a few days there basking in the mountain grandeur. Sixteen years after the experience I don’t think I can do the scenery around Kasmir justice, but in truth, it is absolutely stunning. At about 4 miles above sea level at night the stars are so big it looks like you can reach up and touch them, and the moon glows so bright you can literally read by it. The mountains are like none I’ve ever seen before, they are far more imposing then their Himalayan neighbors; stone skyscrapers jutting straight from the earth and capped by jagged and menacing snowy peaks.

The fierceness of the land is in complete contrast to the hospitality and warmth of the people living there. I found the inhabitants of northern Pakistan to be unfailingly polite, soft spoken and quick to smile. Negotiating for gas money or a fare when hitchhiking or taking a taxi is a good example of how friendly the people are. It usually goes something like this:

The author (waving down a taxi): “Hi, I’d like to go to the market bazaar, how much?”
Driver (smiling and wobbling his head in contemplation): “You say my friend.”
The author: “OK, how about 100 rupees?”
Driver: “Oh no, no, no… I’m sorry. Try again.”
Author: “Ummmm, OK. How about 200 rupees?”
Driver (smiling): “I can not.”
The author (amused and frustrated): “300?”
Driver: Yes, my friend, get in!”

They’re no fools, they’ll get a decent price or their effort, but they are also charming enough to make you feel good about it. I find this to be in stark contrast to Chinese drivers, who might as well put a HAZMAT warning and a jolly roger on their vehicle door to fairly warn passengers about what to expect from them; as a rule they are stinking scoundrels.

Not only is the landscape amazing and the people friendly, but the food is pretty memorable too. Compared to Chinese food, Pakistani fare is very basic and nothing to brag about. I ate chicken jalfrezi whenever I could get it; in addition to that I ate mountains of chapatti and dal (flat bread and lentils). I remember two amazing things about eating in Pakistan; the first is the mangos. They are the sweetest most flavorful fruit I’ve ever enjoyed in my life; other fruit are literally and figuratively green with envy by their Epicurean perfection. The second thing is the tactile sensation of eating with your hands, dal and chappati are usually eaten communally out of a big bowl with the right hand (the left is used for various wipings and other dirty work). It’s hard to describe and should just be experienced, but for me there was something primal and innocent about eating on a daily basis with your hand and having the warm food drip down your fingers and forearm, it was a sensation so reminiscent of early childhood a flood of good feelings swelled inside me. I have not felt a similar joy from mealtimes since I wore a bib and pajamas with feet. What would Freud say?

It wasn’t all some kind of mountain paradise, the Kasmiri neighborhood is not Shangri-La, there were some inconveniences too. For example, on my birthday I think I got a nice dose of the crabs. I wish I could say it was from a romantic encounter, but in fact it was from nothing more than mere bed bugs at a hostel that will not get my business again. I write “I think” I got body lice because in fact it was never proven. A room full of us lay in our separate bunks, then one of us started scratching and swore his mattress was infested, and then another and another, until we all jumped out of bed and were scratching ourselves furiously swearing we were covered head to toe with the creepy crawlies. The next day we got ointment from a local drug store and spread it around from head to nether regions and felt better for it. None of us ever found the corpse of a single offending bed bug, and until this today I wonder if I suffered from a psychosomatic case of body lice.

As if infestation wasn’t enough, then there were the guns. Like most Americans I enjoy firearms, especially if I’ve been drinking. But there’s something altogether disconcerting about how commonplace they are in Pakistan. I’m not talking just about the Western badlands bordering Afghanistan where the Taliban and the remnants of al Qaeda have taken up residence, I mean every town and city in the country.

Here are three examples. On my way to Rawalpindi, my bus pulled over in a village for a rest stop, as soon I stepped off the bus I saw the sign for a gun store. Well of course I went and checked it out, it was very small but it had a good assortment of pistols, shotguns and Kalashnikov assault rifles. I walked in just in time to see a man buy an AK-47 and a few hundred rounds of ammunition. Cool, I do like to see people exercising their Second Amendment rights, no matter what country they are in. However, I was less pleased when I saw him get on my bus. In another incident I was relaxing on the roof of my hotel in Rawalpindi and catching some rays when I heard from the building next door the distinct sounds of a pistol with a silencer attached to it being fired and breaking glass. For all I knew it could have been a political assassination and as luck would have I would get caught up in it. I duck walked to the stairs and got the hell off the roof, later that day I mentioned it to the hotel proprietor and he assured me there was nothing to worry about. Apparently the owner of the townhouse next door was an army general and sometimes he took a little target practice in the backyard, but being a good neighbor he used a silencer so as not to disturb anyone too much. The last example was Pakistan’s Independence Day, celebrated every year on August 14. I thought I was enjoying fireworks, but then I saw the locals actually just like to fire their rifles in the air to celebrate life, liberty and the pursuit of firepower. This was especially worrying because I was watching this from a rooftop.

Since I’m taking inventory of all things distinctly Pakistani, and I’ve mentioned the people, the scenery, the food and the guns, I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention the hashish. Booze is hard to find in the Islamic Republic, however some excellent refined hemp products not so much. The hotel I stayed at in Rawalpindi put a sizeable chunk of powerful black hashish on your pillow every night like a mint. Drugs are illegal, and I can neither confirm nor deny the quality of the hash that was freely distributed in my hotel and readily available as I traveled in Pakistan. But everyone I knew who tried it really liked it, I’m sure it took the edge off being subjected to bed bugs and the ever-present automatic weapons, it probably also made the daily meal of dal and chapatti taste like a turkey dinner.

Once I arrived in Rawalpindi I thought I’d be there just long enough to pop over to the neighboring capital of Islamabad (the two cities are really one and the same disheveled megaplex) to visit the Chinese embassy and get my work visa so I could head back to Beijing and start my new career as a high school teacher. However, it didn’t work out so well. When I arrived at the embassy with all my paperwork conscientiously prepared by my minders at the school I was promptly informed that a week earlier a new regulation had been passed and I needed yet another piece of paper. When I left Beijing 30 days earlier I had all the necessary documents, however now I was one short. Despite all my protests and pleading, the embassy officials took no mercy on me and didn’t care that I had crossed diluvian Xinjiang, braved brigands and God-knows what else so that I could get my working papers and go back to Beijing and teach their nation’s children. They demanded I contact my school and get the necessary papers.

Let me summarize the situation for you. It’s August 1996, I’m in Rawalpindi and expected to call a high school in Beijing during the summer to find someone who knew who I was and understood what papers I needed and fax them to me. Also, I had four working days a week to accomplish this herculean task, because Friday in the Islamic Republic is a holiday. Basically, I was fucked. It took me roughly one month of explaining, cajoling, screaming, and pleading before everyone involved were found, made to understand the situation, and actually took action. I thought the floods were bad enough, but Chinese bureaucracy turned out to be a far more daunting and unnatural disaster.

I spent a month in Rawalpindi loafing; it was fantastic. I read a lot; I finished the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy in about four days. I also read the story of Led Zepplin The Hammer of the Gods. I don’t know why, but I always remember the books I read while traveling. I also went to the movies a few times a week. The best thing I saw was Bruce Campbell in Evil Dead III: Army of Darkness, to this day it remains one of my favorites, not only for its own merits but also because of the circumstances in which I saw it.

Two things stand out in my mind about going to the movies in Pakistan; the first is that it seems only men were allowed in the movie theater. I don’t know if there were theaters or show times only for women, or if sharia prohibited women from going to the theater, but every time I went it was me and a couple hundred men who acted like sex-starved teenagers. Whenever a beautiful woman came on screen a bevy of catcalls and whistles followed with hormone-charged glee. I was embarrassed for them, these were grown men. The other distinct memories I have are of two interesting people I met at the theater. The first was an Iranian who told me the US Army trained him to fly helicopters in the 70s and he later flew missions for the CIA after the fall of the Shah. He invited me to go back to his tent in a refugee camp on the outskirts of town; I politely declined, that seemed like pushing my luck. The other incredible character was a cross between the Artful Dodger and an urban version Mowgli from The Jungle Book. This prince of the street urchins couldn’t have been more than 14 years old, he was dressed in ragged cut off shorts with no shirt or shoes and filthy dreadlocks down passed his shoulders. The amusing little brat chain smoked while he kicked my ass in Street Fighter II a dozen games in a row, ragging me in Urdu the whole time. I remember having the distinct impression that judging by how the other beggar children differed to him I was in the presence of their gang leader and he wasn’t someone to be taken lightly; there was something noble about him.

Once I got my paperwork it was time to head back home to Beijing. I was already a week late for my job so I was in a damn hurry. I very well might have set a world record for traveling between Rawalpindi to Beijing overland on public transportation, I made it in roughly five days. I only slept one night in a hotel and that was because I got to the border late and I had to wait for it to open in the morning, the remaining nights were spent on a couple of buses and the train.

While on a bus somewhere in the vicinity of Kashmir I had a thought-provoking encounter with a fellow passenger. The bus was fairly empty and a young Pakistani man sitting across from me struck up a conversation. He asked me where I was going, I explained I had a job waiting for me in Beijing, we discussed China for a while and then I inquired about his destination and plans. He told me he was a ’freedom fighter’ and was coming off the line, so to speak, from Kashmir. Well, it’s not everyday you meet someone who’s job description is ‘freedom fighter’ or ‘jihadi’. This was five years before 9/11, before al Qaeda was a household name in American and before there was a ‘War on Terror’. We didn’t discuss his political or religious beliefs, but he was a likable enough chap, seemingly honest and friendly. In short, I was a little wary but enjoyed his company nonetheless. He didn’t leave me with the impression that to him I represented ‘the Great Satan’, I probably didn’t. Kashmir, Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, etc. all have a lot less to do with each other than many TV-watching or newspaper-reading Americans will ever understand. At that point in time he was probably indifferent to America and to me as an American. I wonder what he thinks now.

Rawalpindi or Bust: Part I – On the Road to Kashgar

In the summer of 1996 I experienced one of the great adventures of my life, so far. After studying one more semester of Chinese in Beijing, I graduated from my US university in absentia and secured a job as an English teacher at a prominent local high school. There was only one problem; I needed to leave the country to change my student visa to a work visa. After having many good times in Uighurville I really wanted to go to Xinjiang and visit the fabled oasis town of Kashgar, however I feared leaving the PRC for a visa run to Hong Kong would seriously cut into my small traveling budget. But someone told me if I needed a visa all I had to do was pop over to Pakistan from Xinjiang. Well, why not?

Little did I know that two months on the road through Xinjiang into Pakistan and back to Beijing would entail encounters with a natural disaster, a questionable case of personal infestation, a bureaucratic paper chase that would make Kafka’s head spin, a religious experience of sorts, and a humorous encounter with a militant Islamist. All of these things happened 14 years ago, but it seems like yesterday. It’s truly wondrous how short life is.

When I boarded the train from Beijing to Urumqi I was well prepared for a 3+ day ride across China deep into the Gobi desert over parts of the ancient Silk Road. Unfortunately, it took me over sixty days before I ever set foot in Urumqi, and that was when I was doing my best to travel 2,417 miles overland on public transportation in 5 days to make it back in time to start my new job. So the only part of Urumqi I saw was a shanzai Hard Rock Café, where I stopped to catch a meal before getting on the train. It was memorable, because as I sat eating my meal the track lighting over the restaurant’s extensive buffet exploded, dropping shards of colored glass into the dishes below. To my horror, the staff then promptly used their fingers to pick out the glass and continued to serve the food.

After two days of hard-sleeper (think of a cattle car with bunk beds) I woke up one morning and the train wasn’t moving. OK, I think, no big deal, we made a stop. So I rolled over and went back to sleep. I woke up again an hour later and we still weren’t moving, this seemed strange. Then I found out we were in Lanzhou and the train wasn’t going any further; massive floods occurred over night and washed away roads, bridges, train tracks, phone lines and in some cases complete villages. It seems an act of God was about to severely put the kibosh on my vacation.

As I exited the train the first thing I saw was a large crowd of confused and irritated passengers milling about outside the train station. The railway personnel announced that refunds for the uncovered distance from Lanzhou to Urumqi would be promptly distributed to all ticked passengers, but of course there was a hitch. Only one window was open at the ticket office where the several hundred (maybe more than a thousand) passengers could go to get their refunds.

So, picture mid-morning in a desert city in July and several hundred unhappy Chinese asked to line up outside and collect their money — a riot was brewing. Pushing, shoving, cursing and spitting ensued with peasant enthusiasm; and that was just the women and children. Then I witnessed a lesson in Chinese crowd control I will never forget. Two uniformed officers stood at the front of the window, turned on shock clubs, then proceed to walk in a tight straight line; passengers got inline, out of line, or shocked. I saw one of the cops chase an elderly woman and threaten to zap her, it seemed to be in good fun though, she was laughing.

Well, so much for taking the train. Although I wanted to stay and witness the incredible scene that was unfolding at the train station, I decided to forfeit the 200 kuai I had coming to me and hop a sleeper bus to Kashgar; good riddance Lanzhou. For those Americans who have never taken a sleeper bus through the boondocks of China, let me draw you a picture. Imagine the Joad family on a Greyhound bus filled with two levels of chez lounges bolted to the floor; sometimes there are chickens on the bus, occasionally there are other bewildered foreigners, but there’s always some queasy passenger puking out the window. Once, on the way to Xishuangbana, I had a window seat, and the puking passenger sat next to me and leaned across my lap out the window to vomit steadily for several hours.

After about 20 hours of a blessedly uneventful ride through Gansu and into Xinjiang I woke in the morning and found that the bus was not moving. Oh no, not again I thought. Yep, sure enough, all the roads were out, and we couldn’t go any further. I found this out by having a remarkable conversation with the bus driver on the side of the road:

The author: So, what’s up? Why have we stopped in the middle of nowhere?
Bus driver: There’s a flood, roads are out, and we can’t get through.
The author: Yeah, I hear the flood’s a disaster; my train couldn’t get through to Urumqi from Beijing, that’s why I got on the bus back in Lanzhou.
Bus driver:(incredulous) What? You knew about the floods?
The author: Uhh… yeah.
Bus driver: You mean you knew that the roads, bridges and railroad were washed out by the floods and you didn’t tell us?
The author: Uhhh… I figure you knew about the flood. You mean you didn’t know, no one told you? Don’t you have phones or radios?

The bus driver walked off in frustration, he’d had enough of the know-it-all foreigner.

Actually, it wasn’t all bad. As luck would have it the bus had stopped at Turpan, a picturesque oasis city famed for its grapes, Emin Minaret, and the nearby Flaming Mountains. If you are ever going to be half stranded in Xinjiang and surrounded by a flood stricken disaster zone you could do a lot worse. I settled in for about a week or so, took in the sites and enjoyed myself.

I ended up meeting groups of other travelers, and when Turpan got a little old and Kashgar beckoned us, we planned our escape. Well, easier said than done. In our first attempt, a group of about 15 travelers rented a bus and headed for the aptly named city of Toksun (read ‘Toxin’) where we heard people were able to forge the flooded river, however we didn’t get very far. Half way there traffic literally got bogged down in the remains of a flooded village. Our merry little band of travelers spent half a day surveying wreckage of a flash flood hitting a village of mostly wooden structures. I recall the townsfolk taking it pretty well, the parents and grandparents sat around taking it all in and waiting for relief to arrive while the kids played joyously in the sandy mud. But after hearing more water was on its way after severe rains north of our location, our bus driver decided to make a hasty retreat out of town.

We tried again two days later, and this time we made it to Toksun, but not after ditching the bus in impassable traffic a few kilometers from the river and hitching rides on donkey carts – the preferred mode of transportation in many parts of Xinjiang. When we reached the river our jaws dropped. Some brave souls were crossing a roughly one hundred yard chest-high torrent while thousands of onlookers stood along the banks. The remains of the highway bridge could be seen half-sunken upriver.

Not to be daunted, we fearlessly plunged into the river and carried our backpacks over our heads. Ok, I was daunted, fearful and just plain scared shitless, but if about half of the people in the bus I came in were doing it, so would I. I almost lost my footing on a few occasions and visions of floating far downstream raced through my head, but I made it to the other side bathed in putrid river water, cursing my stupidity and happy to be on the other side.

Yet again we were lucky! Just as we climbed up the bank of the river a sleeper bus for Kashgar was preparing to leave, and it had several seats available. I, two Kiwi geologists, and three Brits piled into the bus; nothing could stop us now, and we’d be in Kashgar in little over a day. Several celebratory beers were drunk, and then I took a nap.

When I woke up the bus wasn’t moving. We had made it about five hours out of Toksun and into the mountains before being halted by a rockslide that was at least two stories high. One of us climbed the rockslide, peered over and saw cars there. So our band of intrepid Anglo-Saxon explorers said ‘fuck it’ and we climbed the rockslide determined to hitch a ride west. This was done over vehement protests by the bus driver who swore it wasn’t safe. “What if someone came down from the hills and robbed you?” We laughed off the warning about brigands, surely everything would be alright. No matter what, we were not going back to Toksun and the river.

When we got over the rockslide we immediately asked anyone with a car if they would give us a ride to Korla, a large town about halfway to Kashgar, or at least just a place to pick up a bus. Unfortunately no one was all that interested in giving six strange foreigners a ride. It got later, then it started to get dark, and the prospect of spending the night in the mountains without a sleeping bag or tent started to fill our thoughts. We all wondered if we should have listened to the bus driver’s ominous warnings.

Thirty minutes later a big flat bed truck came by and agreed to take us to a bus stop about an hour away, the driver and his buddy did us this kind favor for the exorbitant fee of 500 kuai. This is when I learned if you depend on the kindness of strangers you also have to factor in their greed.

We were dropped off at a crappy little town in some God forsaken part of Xinjiang, and we were thrilled to be there. After some nourishing noodles and beer we began thumbing on the side of road, eventually a bus to Korla picked us up, however there were no empty seats available, we would have to stand or sit in the aisle for eight hours. I struck up a conversation with a few of the locals, a couple of guys sharing a large bottle or baijiu, and I got stinking drunk and passed out on the floor of the bus. Given the situation, it seemed the smartest thing to do.

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the Gobi without any water after a night of drinking Chinese grain alcohol? The hangover was unmerciful. Worse yet; our bus wasn’t moving. We had hit another flooded river. Passengers from hundreds of cars on both sides of a small shallow river threw large rocks into the river to create a passable place to cross. It took all morning, but eventually, very slowly, cars started to cross the river. Yet another obstacle met and overcome and done in true socialist style too, with people patiently moving the earth with their bare hands in collective fashion to accomplish a shared goal; Mao would have been proud.

We made it to Korla; after a rockslide, brigands, and two flooded rivers we were halfway to Kashgar. The only memorable thing about Korla were the goat fat sandwiches I ate. It was the only thing available besides noodles and I was sick of noodles. My traveling companions were impressed by my intestinal fortitude. It is true; my small intestine is the thing legends are made of.

We then found a bus to Kashgar, and this was possibly the worst bus ride of my life. The bus was not a sleeper bus, nor a comfortable tourister, it was basically just like a yellow school bus – padded benches, kidney jarring shocks and noisy air breaks. I hadn’t really slept in two days, I reeked of river water and baijiu, and my last meal was goat fat on unleavened bread and a warm Coke. Now I had 30 hours on an uncomfortable bus to look forward to. Frequently I nodded off sitting upright and every time we hit a pothole my head crashed against the window or medal back of the seat in front of me. We hit a lot of potholes.

I remember that about ten hours into the ride I considered shocking myself unconscious with the electric shock club I purchased from one of my drinking buddies the night before (after seeing how effective they were in Lanzhou I had to have one). I thought about it for hours, but I just couldn’t come to terms with dying from a self-induced cardiac arrest on a shitty bus in the middle of the Gobi Desert; I’m better than that, right?

I think we were as happy as any travelers on the Silk Road ever were to reach Kashgar. We all promptly showered and slept for hours. Over the next week, I explored the amazing town, especially the incredible Sunday bazaar with a medieval atmosphere in the ‘Old City’. After spend many long tortuous days trying to get there the city lived up to the dream. Like the market surrounding the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, the open air Kashgar market had an ageless, mythical quality. An amazing assortment of hats and daggers, silk and wool clothes, as well as an abundance of raisins, melons and other fresh produce were negotiated over by hawkers and buyers in traditional Uigher, Tajik, Uzbeck, Kazak and Kygher clothing, in addition to plenty of faded blue Mao suits. I remember after buying several hats and a massive dagger I haggled for an hour with a vendor for a set of Soviet night-vision goggles. But then I figured crossing into Pakistan armed to the teeth and carrying night-fighting equipment might not be a good idea.

I have read reports, like this and this and this, that sadly Kashgar is becoming a shadow of its former self, the ‘Old City’ is being bulldozed over and replaced with tacky high rises and that all this is being done in the hallowed name of ‘progress’ or ‘harmony’ or ‘safety’... whatever. The argument that the traditional wood and brick structures would not survive an earthquake is dubious, they have stood for hundreds of years, a much better record than many buildings built by Chinese construction crews in recent years. In truth, it’s simply being done to help ‘Sinofy’ an ethic Uighur city. I understand the Party’s urge to pacify its frontier but I won’t defend their heavy handed policies - better results could be achieved with a far more enlightened approach.

I’m sure in the American Old West; places like Deadwood, Carson City, Tombstone, Sioux Falls, Dodge City, etc. were once also thriving melting pots of indigenous peoples and the prolific Americans marching westward. Those were special places at an incredible time in US history, but they have largely been homogenized by a single modern American culture. If the Party has its way, the same thing will happen in China, from the buildings to the people inside them, one Chinese city will look pretty much the same as the next. Culturally, China will be poorer for it. It’s tragic, and I’m glad to have seen the real Kashgar before it’s gone.

Please stay tuned for Part II of Rawalpindi or Bust as the author makes it across the Karakorum Highway only to be trapped in Pakistan by a paperwork snafu and unable to secure a visa to return to Beijing. The tall tale involves encounters with guns, drugs, body lice and an assortment of lively characters.

For more blogging on Xinjiang, I suggest you visit Far West China.