Into xinjiang, p.12
Into Xinjiang, page 12
“If I’m not coming back I’m going to need these things,” Lisa said as she picked up a couple of books and a photo of her parents from the living room. Removing it from its frame, she paused to look at it before returning to her bedroom.
The hours passed and afternoon turned into evening. Lisa’s apartment was starting to look less lived-in and more abandoned-in-a-hurry. Dan and Lisa sat and chatted about their pasts. Dan learned that Lisa had lost her mother in a car crash eleven years earlier. She had been fourteen at the time and it had shattered her world. Her father was a lawyer in the US and following the death of her mother he had encouraged Lisa to see the world. She’d been backpacking in South East Asia for twelve months before she’d arrived in China. Lisa had fallen in love with the culture in the south-western province of Yunnan and decided to learn the language. She’d returned to the States and studied Mandarin and Chinese history at university before finding her job as a tour guide for high-paying western oil and gas companies. She was earning decent money but longed to go travelling again. She’d set her sights on South America but found herself stuck working here in western China. It wasn’t what she wanted to be doing and the desolate, sandy expanse of Xinjiang, despite its beauty, was not the lush green, mountainous landscape of Yunnan that had first caught her imagination. She missed the colourful minority cultures, the clean air and the incredible food.
She told him about the time she’d travelled for fifteen hours over mountains by bus to get to a beautiful lake that sits on the north-west Yunnan Plateau. It forms part of the border between Sichuan and Yunnan province – the highest lake in the region and home to the Mosuo tribe, a sub-group of the Naxi people – just one of the fifty-six officially recognised ethnic groups in China today. Dan listened intently as she told him how the Mosuo are famous as one of the last matrilineal societies in the world. Lisa had been fascinated by the culture and after arriving, spent four months living among the Mosuo, learning their language and customs. Dan was genuinely fascinated and could have spent hours listening to her regale stories from the south. As she spoke, he was again struck by the sadness that he would probably never get to visit those places – the places that when he first landed in Beijing he thought he’d see – even if he was ever proven innocent he wouldn’t risk coming back to China. Dan longed to see the green hills that Lisa described, to meet the people Lisa had met and breathe that clean air of freedom once again.
All too quickly the evening became night and it was time to leave the haven that was Lisa’s apartment. Her phone rang, making both of them jump. It was Feng’s brother and he was outside.
“It’s time to go,” Lisa said poignantly.
Dan nodded his head in slow, reluctant agreement, knowing that he probably wouldn’t rest again for several days. They hadn’t even discussed what was going to happen when they got to Kashgar or how they were actually going to get across the border itself. Dan had no idea how long all this was going to take or what Lisa had planned for them. All he knew was that Mr Feng’s brother was driving them to Kashgar in the truck he used to haul scrap metal around Xinjiang. How exactly this was all going to work, Lisa hadn’t told him. But he was about to find out.
“Just remember not to show your face,” Lisa reminded Dan as they left her apartment and walked down the stairs to the door that led into the courtyard at the back of the building.
Filling the alleyway was a blue and grey truck that was old, battered and showing all the signs of a lifetime of toil, plying the sand-blasted roads of Xinjiang. It was piled high with great shards of corrugated sheet metal – the kind of machine that had simultaneously scared and fascinated the hell out of him as a boy. As they approached, Mr Feng’s brother was busy tightening the ropes that held some of the largest pieces of metal in place on the far side of the truck. Lisa went round to see him. They chatted loudly for a few seconds while Dan awaited his instructions.
Lisa reappeared.
“There’s a table at the back of the truck, up against the cab, for you to lie under. It’ll protect you from the metal we’re going to put on top of it. I’m going to be in the cab with him, but you can’t be seen. You’re going to have to climb up the side of the truck and drop down inside. Under the table, you’ll find a mattress that Feng’s brother has put in there for you to lie on. Climb up here,” Lisa said, pointing to a series of footholds that scaled the back of the cab where it met the trailer.
Dan looked at Lisa warily. “Really? Is that the plan?” he asked hesitantly, cautious at the thought of travelling the next fifteen hundred kilometres buried under a pile of scrap metal.
“It is,” Lisa replied bluntly. “If you’ve got a better one you’re welcome to share it now. Get in. I’ll pass your bag up when you get to the top. It’ll be your pillow until we get to Kashgar.”
“OK then,” Dan said, realising that Lisa was not going to take any hassle from him. He got the feeling she would go to Kashgar without him if he didn’t climb into that truck right then.
Dan picked his way to the top of the cab and caught his backpack as Lisa threw it up to him. Dropping it inside a narrow void among the piles of metal in the truck, Dan lowered himself in. The back of his T-shirt ripped on a jagged piece of casing from an old washing machine. At the bottom of the truck Dan found the table Lisa had told him about and there was the mattress he was to lie on until they got to Kashgar. In the dim light, Dan could make out that it was old, thin and stained with large brown watermarks. He had to contort his body to get under the old metal table that was so low there was barely even room to sit up. He pushed his backpack in ahead of him and crawled in. As Dan struggled to get comfortable there was an ear-piercing scraping sound and everything went dark. Mr Feng’s brother was back-filling the void with a large industrial oil drum; Dan could hear more metal being piled on top of it.
Suddenly, he heard Lisa’s voice. It was clear but he couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Dan searched around in the dark.
“I’m here,” Lisa said softly, her voice filling his right ear. “There’s a hole in the side of the truck. You can’t see me and I can’t see you. We’re leaving for Kashgar now,” she continued. “We’ll stop in a few hours for a break so you can stretch your legs. It’s almost eight o’clock. If we stop around midnight, the roads should be clearer and we should be well away from most towns and cities. To your left you should find a bottle of water and some snacks. We’ll stop for more supplies some time tomorrow morning. If you need to speak to me, bang on the back of the truck while we’re moving. I can’t guarantee I’ll hear you, but I’ll try to keep my ears open. Whatever you do, do not bang when the truck isn’t moving. Have a good journey and see you in a few hours.”
With that, Lisa left. Dan could barely stretch his legs out straight and could already feel the large corrugations of the hard metal through the thin mattress below him. This was going to be arduous. There had not been a time since he’d left Beijing that he felt more alone, more on the run and more vulnerable than he did right then. This was as real as he imagined it could get. This was people trafficking. This was almost professional.
As he struggled to get comfortable, the truck started with a violent shake. As they edged forward out of the narrow alleyway Dan could hear pieces of scrap metal moving and falling into place. He tucked his legs up into the foetal position under the table afraid that something would fall and trap them. The truck bumped heavily as they drove off a kerb and more pieces of metal settled into empty spaces. Within a few minutes Dan could tell they were on open highway as the roar from the road all around him became deafening. For the most part the going was smooth, save for potholes here and there that jolted his spine as they sped into the darkness.
A few moments into the journey Dan began to realise that the space where he was lying was getting hot. Not the sort of heat from the desert – he was almost used to that by now. This was different. This was engine heat. The base of the truck was starting to warm up and he searched around in the darkness, trying to find the edge of the mattress. When he found it the metal base of the truck was hot; almost too hot to touch. His fingertips flinched away from it. The mattress was insulating him from the worst of it but that too was starting to get warm. Dan began to panic that the heat would become dangerously high, perhaps even unsurvivable. They had only been driving for around fifteen minutes or so and Lisa had said they would stop “in a few hours”. Before long Dan felt his back beginning to sweat and it soon became itchy on the grubby mattress. His brow began to dampen and felt sweat running into his hair as he lay motionless. He felt scared, disgusting and vulnerable.
Mr Feng’s brother kept on driving, unaware of the trouble Dan was in. They were going at good speed and didn’t stop for over three hours. All the time, Dan struggled to breathe in the suffocating heat of the claustrophobically small space in which he was hiding. He’d drained the bottle of water Lisa had left for him within the first forty-five minutes. It was the closest to death he had ever come.
Eventually the truck swerved to the left and the road became rough and uneven. Mr Feng’s brother braked, and they came to a gradual halt. A couple of moments later Dan heard the click of the cab doors opening on both sides and the sounds of people climbing out. Lisa spoke to him.
“We’re going to take a break. We’re in the middle of the desert so we’re safe here. We’ll just move the stuff off, then you can climb out for a bit.”
Dan could hear Mr Feng’s brother climbing up the side of the truck and this time the scraping sound of the barrel being hauled out was more than welcome. Dan didn’t wait for the all-clear; he writhed his body around and twisted it up into the narrow standing space created by removing the barrel. As he stood up he gasped at the fresh air as it filled his lungs. Weak, he struggled to climb up the side of the truck but found a tiny foothold on top of the table that had been his refuge for the last couple of hours. Scrambling back to the lip of the truck, the cold night air filled his bronchioles with life-giving oxygen. It was beautiful, fresh and clean.
Although his back was stiff, Dan dropped from the top of the truck with the agility of an eager schoolboy. He landed nimbly in the cool desert sand and felt the heat of the truck radiating onto his back. The coldness of the desert night had never felt so wonderful.
“How you doing back there? You OK?” Lisa enquired.
“Not great to be honest,” Dan replied. “It’s roasting hot, dangerously hot. I finished all that water in about forty-five minutes. Have been dying of thirst for the last hour or so. I’m not complaining really, but the mattress isn’t doing much to stop the bumps from the road. It’s like I’m lying on the hot truck bed itself.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s not great. Obviously, had we had a little more time…” Lisa tailed off. She knew the whole set-up wasn’t ideal but there was nothing either of them could do about it now. “If it helps,” she continued, “we’ve already covered three hundred kilometres. We’re a fifth of the way there.”
Dan was surprised they’d covered that much distance. He looked at his watch. Mr Feng’s brother must have been going almost a hundred kilometres an hour since they’d left. Dan looked around for their driver but he had disappeared into the scrub and was only visible by the glowing trail his cigarette left in the darkness.
“That helps to know,” Dan replied. “If I can just get used to the heat or sort it out somehow that would be better.”
“We’ve got plenty of water up front. I’ll give you a new bottle now. I won’t give you any more for the time being if it’s just going to get hot in there but there should be enough to see us through to the next truck stop. We’ll stock up again then. I’ll make sure we stop every couple of hours even if it’s just to give you a new bottle of water. You’ll be OK,” Lisa said.
“Thanks,” Dan replied somewhat vaguely. The thought of climbing back into that void in a few minutes’ time had taken away any of the sincerity he had intended.
Lisa gave him a new two-litre bottle of water that was tepid from having sat in the foot well for the last three hours. She also gave him some more food and a packet of biscuits.
Mr Feng’s brother was back and had stubbed his cigarette out in the desert dust. He looked a lot like his brother, but better built and without the moustache. He was the younger of the two by almost three years, and the dirty white T-shirt he was wearing revealed strong arms and the physique of someone engaged in manual labour. He exchanged a few words with Lisa before she turned to Dan and told him it was time to get moving again. Reluctantly, Dan climbed back up to the top of the truck and slid down inside, being careful not to catch his T-shirt on the jagged metal. Lisa had climbed up behind him and passed the water and food. Dan put them on the floor at his feet and began to worm his way back under the table. He was barely under it when Mr Feng’s brother appeared at the top and dropped the barrel into the gap. Dan heard two or three more pieces of metal being lowered on top of it and found himself sealed in once again. It would be impossible to get out in a hurry if he needed to for any reason. He felt like he’d just crawled into his own coffin, and it was still stiflingly hot.
They pulled back onto the road and before long the droning roar of the asphalt returned. Dan imagined them hurtling through the Taklamakan at a hundred kilometres an hour, alone in the desert night with nothing but endless straight roads leading into the blackness ahead of them. Recalling the map in his guidebook, he knew that they were passing through some incredible scenery. To the north the snow-capped Tian Shan Mountains would soon be coming into view. To the south the vast expanse of the Tarim Basin. Beyond that, the Kunlun Mountains rose steep and high before giving way to the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau.
They were travelling along the northern Silk Route – a series of tracks that had been traversed by travellers for centuries before this truck came tearing through. All journeys along the Silk Route had been dangerous; extreme weather conditions and bandits made these journeys perilous for all who had trodden these paths before them. For Dan, his journey was a matter of freedom or imprisonment, although he had actively sought this remote part of China for the relative safety he’d thought it might offer. In doing so, he joined the ranks of the thousands of travellers over the centuries whose journeys through these parts had been fraught with risk.
As the heat in the back of the truck rose again and his mind wandered way out into the desert night, Dan began to drift off. The steady and constant noise of the tarmac below eventually lulled him to sleep.
A couple of hours later Dan woke, dripping with sweat. He reached for his water bottle in the pitch black and drank around a quarter of it. The truck was slowing down again and he looked at his watch. They’d been going for another three hours and it was early morning. They pulled off the road and into a rough layby.
Before long the scraping sound of metal being dragged up and out of the truck returned and a gust of fresh air filled the void under the table as Mr Feng’s brother lifted the barrel out of place. Dan squirmed his way free and climbed to the top of the truck. His back stiffer than ever, he took a moment or two to stretch it out as he sat and surveyed their surroundings, the gloriously starry desert night overhead easily the most brilliant he had ever seen. He climbed down the truck and dropped into the desert sand again.
It was bitterly cold and the frigid desert air quickly cooled his sweat-soaked T-shirt, causing him to shiver. Lisa too was cold so this would only be a quick stop. She gave Dan a new bottle of water before he climbed back into the truck. This time, the heat from the engine was strangely welcoming and it was nice to be warm again. Yet the mattress was damp and sticky from his sweat and lying back down on it was unpleasant. Mr Feng’s brother replaced the metal and they were off into the desert once more, continuing their journey to the famous market city of Kashgar. Dan wondered how many times Mr Feng’s brother had done this journey and whether he ever needed to sleep. As far as Dan knew, Mr Feng’s brother had been awake for most of the day and had now been driving for almost seven hours.
The cold desert air had woken Dan up and he lay on the mattress staring into the inky blackness, unable to see a thing in front of him. He put his hand up to feel the table above him. The top of it was wooden although the legs were made of metal. He imagined it to be a large old office table or desk. Now it was the only thing stopping him being crushed by the tonnes of metal that lay all around him.
It wasn’t long before Dan began wondering about the next part of his journey again. Where would he stay once he got to Kashgar? How long would he be there before making an attempt at the border? How was he actually going to get across into Kyrgyzstan? Was he going to go via the official route or was he to pick his way through the mountains on foot and slip over the border unnoticed? Was that even possible? If he did that, what would happen at Bishkek Airport when they checked his passport and visa status?
Damn. Visas. Dan realised he would probably need a visa to get into Kyrgyzstan. That meant he would have to apply for one in Kashgar, but that would be impossible. If he was to take the official route into Kyrgyzstan he was going to need a new passport altogether. If he were going to hike an unofficial path into Kyrgyzstan he’d still need a visa to avoid complications when he left the country. But how long would that walk take? Days, probably. Dan’s mind raced and his heart began to beat faster with panic. He hadn’t thought about all of this until now, but it seemed he was going to be holed up in Kashgar for some time. Given that Lisa would also need a visa to cross the border, he hoped she had thought this all through.
Of course she had.
Days ago.
Dan was awake for the entire duration of that leg of the journey before he sensed the truck slowing down again. He felt them pull off the road but this time something was different. There was no rough desert surface. They were still on tarmac. Judging by his watch it was now early morning and the sun would probably be up already. Travelling during the day threatened to be even hotter than overnight and that in itself was concerning.
