Backpacks and Bra Straps (13 page)

“I can’t believe he threatened to call the police and you just said, ‘Yes. Go for it!’ You really are crazy,” I told him a bit later.

“But you saw how well calling his bluff worked.” Ammon seemed pretty pleased with himself. “The police and the political systems are often corrupt in these countries, and locals will do pretty much anything to avoid them. I knew he was just making empty threats, especially ‘cause he was obviously transporting drugs.”

Ammon was checking over his shoulder often to make sure he didn’t come back to run us over or something. Because the driver knew where we were headed and might still decide to get back at us somehow, we decided to stay at the nearest affordable hotel we could find instead. We met Pierre from Belgium, the first traveller we’d seen in weeks, right at the hotel’s front door, and we happily invited him to come to our room to share our melon. Bree finally cut open the delicious fruit we’d all been dying to eat with a tiny pocket knife. It made a juicy pool on the table, and its black seeds were nestled in delicate pink flesh. I couldn’t wait to press a cool, wet piece to my cracked lips.

Pierre nodded appreciatively as he bit into a large slice, water dripping down his dirt-encrusted wrists. “Mmmm, wow. This is delicious. Where’d you get it?”

That was a long story we were too weary to tell, but what a day that was! In the end, though, we not only kept the melon, but we were able to share it with a fellow traveller…

Trucker’s Purgatory
17

F
rom Osh, we planned to re-enter China at a remote western border crossing – the lesser used of the two crossings into China from Kyrgyzstan. After a long night of talking with Pierre, we woke up early in the morning to meet our pre-arranged ride in front of the hotel. We’d been told we would have a private car, but there were already three other travellers inside, their bicycles tied to the roof. As I climbed into a cramped seat between Mom and Bree, I said hello. They simply nodded and mumbled in Spanish, as they didn’t speak English.

“This is the same type of Russian jeep as Bimba’s,” Bree said, reminding us all of our Mongolian adventures.

I sighed. “That’s great. They’re the ones that always break down.”

“Stop being so pessimistic,” Ammon said from the front seat.

“Actually, I think that’s just us and our luck,” Bree said in defence of the jeep, a make and model she’d somehow developed a fondness for. I couldn’t help but give the group an annoyed “I told you so” look when we had to stop at a repair shop even before we’d gotten out of town, a look Bree missed ‘cause she was distracted by whatever was coming through her headphones, as usual. My smart-alecky behaviour didn’t always sit well with the family, but what can you do? The repair stop delayed us an extra hour, and the jeep was basically a junker anyway, with its broken door and window handles. Along that same pessimistic vein, I wondered if it might someday even be possible to hire a car with air conditioning as I wiped a trickle of sweat from my brow.

Ammon had stayed up all night listening to Pierre talk about his travels through the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. “Seriously, you’ve gotta understand,” Ammon said admiringly. “He’s my new hero. He’s been through all the ‘Stan countries and to the parts of Africa that nobody goes to, like Chad and Cote d’Ivoire and Nigeria. He’s totally nuts, man. And here we are, practically touching Uzbekistan. It’s so close that it’s within spitting distance, and it’s the closest I’ll ever be,” he said, with the same note of longing in his tone that we’d heard every other time he mentioned Uzbekistan.

“Well, why didn’t we just go there then?” Bree said.

“Because I’m stuck dragging you guys around with me.”

“Never mind Ammon, Bree. He just likes to blame it on us,” Mom said, casually opening one eye. “We talked about going to Uzbekistan, but decided against it for lots of good reasons. Don’t forget that Ammon planned most of this part of our trip.”

“Okay, fair enough,” Ammon said. “It’s also because we have to be in Nepal in time for the trekking season. I’m aiming to get there right before the crowds start flooding in,”

“And then what?” I asked. “Where are we going after that?”

“Yeah. All we ever hear about is Nepal and India. What comes after that?” Bree repeated. We’d originally thought we’d spend the second half of the year heading to Australia. Ammon had always wanted to go there, too, but after chatting with other travellers, even more options had come up.

“I don’t know. Ask me after I get us to India.”

“I thought we were going through Southeast Asia, and then heading to Australia,” Mom said.

“Yeah, but where else could we go?” Bree was almost daring him to suggest an even more audacious idea.

His face lit up with a mischievous look that disappeared almost as quickly as it had surfaced. “Don’t ask me until we get to India. I don’t know anything yet,” was all he would say. He always gave the same answer.

“You still alive back there, Mom?” Ammon asked. Mom had fallen silent with her head resting on her fist, a gesture she made only when she was really exhausted or not feeling well. Retreating to a silent place within was a long-time coping mechanism for her.

“I just feel a bit nauseous, and I’ve got a really bad headache, but I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.” Mom’s wan appearance seemed to mirror the desolate and lifeless road, and it wasn’t long before Bree started feeling nauseous again, too. Despite two family members not feeling quite up to par, we had no choice but to push on to Kashgar, located in the far western portion of China.

The scenery along the way featured numerous high passes and stupendous views of Tajikistan’s Pamir Mountain range. The mountains were barren and brown, but the deep grooves etched in their sides exposed their age and added a unique kind of character.

Gorgeous scenery aside, this segment of the trip didn’t go as smoothly as we’d hoped. It was supposed to be a seven-hour trip, but we were already well into our tenth hour on the road. Large semis transporting scrap metal had rocked down these roads for many years, leaving car-sized potholes that nearly swallowed us whole. Something broke off the axle and had to be fixed before we could go on, too, causing even more delay. The passing of every extra hour left us feeling more uneasy about whether we’d make it in time to cross the border that day, and eventually it got so late that it was clear that we would have to find somewhere to spend the night. Wherever that somewhere ended up being, I really hoped the place would have some basic amenities – something we couldn’t always count on. A shower would earn extra bonus points, but I’d happily settle for food and a toilet with a lock after an entire day on the road. Just as we finally seemed to be making good time, a roadblock with a long line of parked vehicles appeared just ahead of us.

“Is this the border?” I asked hopefully. “Is that why everyone is stopped?”

“I have no idea, but according to the map and the last sign I saw, it looks like we’re nowhere close to the border,” Ammon said. “I don’t know what this jam is about. It’s too dark to see the map or read the road signs properly, of course, so we could be almost anywhere.”
‘I don’t know
’. Oh, how I dreaded hearing those words!

We couldn’t see each other in the dark, but the energy in the jeep was tense. When an official of some kind opened the door, reached in, and asked for our passports, we refused to hand them over. When both the driver and the official persisted, Ammon insisted on going with them to accompany our vital documents. I couldn’t imagine what would happen to us if we were ever stranded without them.

In the meantime, Mom and Bree ran into the dark field to relieve themselves, probably from both ends, given how poorly they were feeling. I worried (of course) that they wouldn’t be able to find our car again when they came back from the make-shift toilet. With so many vehicles stuck in the bumper-to-bumper traffic as the “officials” checked for documents, everyone’s headlights were switched off. Only rows of red taillights glowed in the darkness, and most of the vehicles were the same model, making it even harder to relocate ours.

As I sat alone in the car for what seemed like ages, the chill of the night made me shiver, and my heart started pounding as I began to worry again.
What if they can’t find their way back to our car? What if traffic starts moving before they all get back? Where on earth is Ammon, anyway, and what’s happening with our documents?

The mysterious officials wanted money in return for giving our passports back, but Ammon’s ferocity and stubbornness matched theirs, and thankfully, they weren’t willing to use force to extort money from us, only intimidation. We finally got back on the road and reached the border area of Irkeshtam around midnight, feeling distinctly dehydrated and exhausted. My face was crinkled and caked with dirt, and my body felt constricted beneath my skin.

Waiting in the freezing cold car while the driver went to find someone who would put us up for the night was torturous. It seemed like forever before he returned with two girls who had a room to rent. They simply stared at us for a while, seemingly oblivious to how urgently we needed water, toilets, and rest. However, there was nowhere else to stay in this remote truck stop. We were lucky the driver had been able to find us a place to lie down for the night that even had a roof.

My teeth were chattering as I begged them to show us the way. “Can’t you see that we’re freezing and they’re sick?” Eventually they took charge and showed us to a breezy attic. We climbed up the outdoor wooden steps, which were wobbling dangerously beneath our feet. I looked down through one of the spaces where a staircase slat was missing entirely. With no handrail to grip and carrying all my baggage, I feared I might lose my balance and fall through one of the loose or missing steps. The room was nothing more than a square box with a bunch of musty blankets piled onto wooden planks where all seven of us would sleep together.

There was no electricity, and we struggled not to lose the flashlight in the dark. We showed the girls our empty bottles as a way to ask them to please bring us water. They brought some and one of them showed us where the outside toilet was – right back down the same creaky, unsafe staircase we’d just come up.

The outhouse was one solid mud structure with a single door, no roof, and half-a-dozen open holes placed randomly in the earth. Under different circumstances, it actually would’ve made a nice toilet experience, given the fresh night air and the glittering stars overhead. Unfortunately, Mom and Bree were desperately frail and still nauseous, despite the fact that we’d hardly eaten or drunk anything all day.

“They should have paid us to stay here. This is worse than sleeping in the stables,” I said when we got back, feeling worried about Mom and Bree and shivering from the cold.

“Good. Bree should be quite comfy then,” Ammon said. She just looked up at him mournfully. Lacking the energy to make even a feeble comeback, she simply collapsed onto the giant communal bed.

The sounds of loud air brakes and engines woke us early. This settlement was like a truckers’ purgatory with nothing around but dust and huge trucks carrying scrap metal across the border. There was certainly no place we could buy food or water, so it was bound to be another long, exhausting day.

The three Spanish travellers left on their bikes as we set off on foot, fully loaded as usual. Luckily, we were very close to the border. Once we were stamped out of Kyrgyzstan, the armed border guards assigned the few pedestrians to ride along in the cabs of a randomly chosen semi. With no other way for us to cross the seven kilometres of no-man’s-land separating the Kyrgyzstan border station from China, the truck drivers had to take us for free. The close mountain backdrops were gorgeous, but none of us dared take out our cameras with so many stern officials around.

Before we reached Chinese Customs, we had to go through a number of police checkpoints. Each time we did, they had us fill out forms with the same information – Name. Birth date. Nationality. Passport number. Expiration date. They were all within a couple hundred feet of each other, and sometimes we’d walk only a few feet before they’d stop us and make us fill out still more forms. I hardly had the energy to lift my pen anymore, and standing while I wrote was exhausting.

“This border is by far the most messed up one I’ve ever crossed. I don’t know what system they think they’re using, but we must’ve gone through a dozen passport checks in that seven-kilometre stretch (4–5 mi),” Ammon said without exaggeration.

“Well, I, for one, have had it. I’m going to use my initials instead of my signature from now on.” Bree’s hand was cramping from writing out her full, twenty-two-letter name every time, along with all the rest of the same information each checkpoint required.

The border was only open a few hours a day, so it tended to get really backed up. Once we hit the massive truck line-up waiting to go through Chinese Customs and Immigration, we grabbed our packs, thanked the trucker who’d taken us this far, and walked to the customs station, where we filled out yet more forms.

The questions about our health were the ones we most dreaded, and the ones we didn’t feel obligated to answer honestly for fear of being turned away. Too exhausted to stand, Mom pretended to be bored and tired when she sat on her backpack in line. She would smile up at the guards, hoping they didn’t see through her facade.

When we were asked to step up and stand in front of a seven-foot-high thermometer while it took our temperatures, my heart started pounding. The guy directly ahead of us had been dragged off to a back room when his temperature registered too high, and we never saw him again. Bree and Mom passed easily enough, and I hoped my racing heart wouldn’t set off any alarms. I let out a massive sigh of relief when it dinged and let me move forward.