Chapter 212

Distance covered: 615 km (total 10 282 km)

We got up, packed, and drove to Dulan to have breakfast at the same dumpling place we went to yesterday. Then we hit the road, going southeast through the Tibetan plateau. Huge snow-covered mountains appeared, sheep got replaced by yaks, and we reached altitudes of over 4000 m. I took the wheel for the first three hours or so, then the girlfriend, then her dad.

I had been to a different, but nearby area of the great plateau and the northern Himalayas in 2009, and it was wild as hell, with narrow gravel roads snaking up and down the mountains, and it took two full hard bumpy days to cover just a few hundred kilometers down to Sichuan province, packed in a minivan with a bunch of Tibetans drinking rancid butter tea from Thermos bottles. Now, there are smooth two-lane highways and long tunnels, and we could cover a lot of distance at a more than reasonable speed.

Above some of the villages were a walled temple with a golden roof, an undeniably beautiful piece of architecture, but also one that reminds us of the creepy theocracy that the Greater Tibet was until it got liberated. The integrality of the population lived in serfdom, tending the herds and toiling the fields and getting scraps from the elite monk class in return. There were also instances of sexual slavery, and no, I don’t think ALL of it is propaganda from the Chinese to justify bringing them roads and electricity and opportunities to do something else than live and die at the whim of a bunch of crimson-robed overlords.

And even if we omit the political aspect, at this point it might feel like beating the brittle bones of a long dead horse, but I’ve always found and will always find obscene that you have ridiculously luxurious and opulent religious buildings surrounded by slummy looking farms. Especially when it’s for a religion that supposedly pushes asceticism and parting with material possessions. Buddhism sucks.

At one of the 328 509 618 picture stops we had, I took a pack of salami and a beer from the icebox. It’s apparently not a very good idea to consume alcohol at a high altitude but hey, *whistles innocently*. I haven’t felt the effects of altitude much, aside from being short of breath faster.

We arrived in the small town of Jiuzhi in the late afternoon. We got inexpensive, but beautiful and enormous hotel rooms, and for once there was zero problems with getting me in. We all had to go get covid tests done though. Or at least it seemed, we got to the brand new clinic (they were still unpacking medical equipment from cardboard boxes) and the guy in charge, clad in a hoodie and sweatpants to ensure he looks really official and professional, looked to be making up stuff on the spot rather than enacting clear policies. In Caucasian-Chinese slang, this is refered to as yinggaishuring (*).

So we got throatfucked by those long Q-tips and paid 65 yuan each for the pleasure, and then went to eat at a muslim restaurant of peace. The meal was fantastic.

I checked my e-mails, for the first time in a few days, and one from my dad was ominously labeled URGENT. It’s some kind of document from the Canadian government I need to fill regarding my non-resident status for tax purposes. I printed the PDF at a neighboring copy shop manned by five or six sisters (Tibetans, like other ethnic minorities, are not subjected to limits in number of children) and then was about to fill it and scan it, but I didn’t have my Chinese tax number handy. I fired up the website and the app from my provincial tax bureau, but having been programmed by the severely mentally handicapped nephew of the nepotist in charge, who just hammered randomly at his keyboard while drooling, it didn’t work. Great. I called my dad’s phone using Skype, we tried to figure it out but eventually just settled on solving the problem when I’m home in a few days, the document is not due for two more weeks.

(*) Yinggaishur is Chinese for “probably”, which is a very frustrating thing to hear when you’re looking for a clear-cut answer or, if not possible, at least a “I don’t know” or “I’ll confirm”. Barstool specialists of Chinese culture would tell you it’s related to the fear of losing face (fuck do I feel dumb aligning those words together, it’s so infantilizing), I’d say it’s more due to rigid hierarchical structures and, paradoxically, a total lack of accountability.

- So, what documents do I need to bring? Passport, work permit, one recent picture?

- Yinggaishur.

- ... Goddamnit.

(and then you either look for the info from another source and find out you also need to bring some other obscure documents, or you make the trip for nothing)