The Road to Golmud

Itamar is insomniac, so he offers to buy the tickets to Golmud. 210Yuan ($30AUD). We meet at Tashi 2 Restaurant which opens late, monsoon rain keeping everyone in bed. I also want to have my last bag of Lhasa-fried-potatoes, but the vendors aren't open yet. An uneventful trip to the bus station, we get on and wait as a huge row erupts between the driver and a group of random.

In the bunk next to us is Wayne, a Chinese-speaking American. He explains that the driver sold an old man a "ticket" (at a discount price), the woman with the legitimate ticket got on, asking the old man to move out of her seat. He said that he wouldn't move unless the driver refunded his money. The driver refused.

The whole bus joins in the argument. In the end, the old guy ends up on the floor. Wayne asks the woman in front if she could move one of her kids to the eisle opposite, so that he can stretch his legs out. I paid 50yuan for this floor space, I have a right to it!" She starts screaming at him. The driver tells her to move the kid. She keeps screaming. The driver tells her he will throw her out unless she shuts up. She shuts up.

The road is good. The bus is fast. Wayne has been travelling for 30 years. Aside from teaching, he writes and paints. Has a very negative view of the Chinese: they first care about themselves, then their family, then friends, after that they have no empathy whatsoever. I try to prod him in regards to the Confucian and Buddhist traditions. Says that Mao destroyed all that. I'm not convinced...

We stop at a set of roadside restaurants. I ask a few people if we can eat, they say "yes". In the end, the driver slurps down his noodles and asks us to leave half way through our meal. A few more people get on the bus. I now have a Hui Muslim girl next to me in the eisle. Wayne can forget about stretching his legs.

The landscape is wonderful, crystal-clear lakes, glaciers sliding of mountains. We stop at a 5200m pass. I have some amazing conversations with Itamar: travel, philosophy, religion, Zionism... we get on well.