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Gilgit to Kashgar: cont'd

Jim and I were oblivious to their discomfort: we were once again mesmerized by the landscape as the jagged Karakoram range gave way to the vast windswept Pamirs. If there had been a soundtrack, it would have been something like the Carmina Burana: gigantic and relentless and mysterious.

What we were also oblivious to was the fact that Kashgar was not one day away, but two. Once again we were dumped out in front of a hotel that wasn't expecting us, although luckily it had a spare room. No luxuries: tired women dabbed at the carpets with mops dipped in bowls of dirty water. The toilet ran all night and the bed collapsed. The one luxury they did provide was a giant thermos of hot water, which I think was for tea (not provided) but which we used for Koolaid cocktails and for bathing, since by that time we had gone days with icy cold showers. We joined the Darlingtons for what we considered a feast of a dinner. They picked at it and complained.

The next morning when we rejoined the Darlingtons for the last leg of our journey, it was clear that they had "talked us over" and found the words to ask us to please find another way to Kashgar. The one who sat on the transmission hump had an aching back and they had really paid for a luxury ride.

Jim and I are normally sensitive, courteous people. We thoroughly understand a couple's need for privacy and comfort. But there in a place called Tashkurghan on a vast desert plateau on the edge of the great Takla Makan Desert, we were like crazed cats digging our claws into this last flying carpet of Western Civilization. Did we act crazed? No. We smiled our big Yankee devil smiles and calmly problem-solved the situation… not how we would find our own way to Kashgar but how we could indeed all fit comfortably in their car.

I spied a little fold-down seat over the left rear bumper in the back where the baggage was. Jim volunteered to sit there and voila there was room for us all. The poor Darlingtons gave in.

The rough ride rattled Jim to the core, but he never peeped a word of complaint.

We finally got to Kashgar and faced our next challenge of getting a room. There are basically two choices here for travelers who don't want to sleep in sleazy fleabags: the Seman Hotel (which used to be the Russian consulate) and the Chinibagh (which used to be the British consulate). We followed the Darlingtons to the Seman. While they went off to examine their reserved room, we were basically shooed away by the desk clerks. They didn't give any hint of knowing English but the message was clear: no rooms… not for one night much less for 3… not anywhere… not anywhere at all in Kashgar.

My  Yankee smile vanished. On came the tears. What the hell were we supposed to do now?

Meanwhile, the Darlingtons returned to the front desk with their guide. They were in a huff about the quality of their room. We whispered to their guide (a sweet slip of a girl named Cherry, who spoke decent English) that we'd be willing to take their rejected room. But that was not to be. Somehow the Darlingtons were cajoled into realizing they had no other choice. So then (mustering the smile) I promised Cherry that, if she found us a room, I would send her a little micro-recorder like mine, which she had admired during our drive. She was inspired by this challenge and did manage to get us a room — for one night only, then maybe, just maybe, they'd find us a room for the other two nights. I could never quite figure out whether there were actually no rooms or if the desk girls were so flummoxed by their giant sheets of hand-scripted room logs that they simply didn't have a clue what was available or not.

I guess if we'd been the prepaid Darlingtons we'd have been outraged at the quality of the rooms too. The plumbing leaked, wallpaper peeled at the seams, bed linens were frayed. For two nights we had a room without plumbing and had to use unisex facilities down the hall. It was smelly because many of the foreign tourists were not in the habit of putting their toilet paper down the very flushable squat toilets. But in the evenings after 7 and until 1 AM, the hot water came on and the Italian tourists swarmed in, scrubbing children and clothes and their soap made the place smell wonderfully clean. That was all we needed: hot water and the fragrance of soap and soft beds without bugs.

The Darlingtons were done with us, finally, but our angel Najeeb would return.

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