Carpets and Scams

Today was an interesting day. We knew that we had to leave our hotel room because the entire place was being overrun by college students taking some sort of big exam. However we were relieved to find that we could get a room at the same hotel different building, for the price we had fought and lost over 2 days previously. This room was as nice or nicer (Sara: i dont think it is nicer, it smells like a swimming pool) than the other and we didn'd complain, except our window looks out over the hotels laundry facility. After a brunch (we're inbetween Beijing and Xinging time right now (you have to ask what time things happen at because it could be either time)) we put our deposit down to cross the Torgurat pass on Monday, hopefully we or they find two more people to share the cost with us by tomorrow when the paperwork needs to be filled by. Then we went looking for the bus station to buy a ticket to go to Karakol lake (3400 meters) on the way to Pakistan. We found the bus station but not the ticket office at first. We ran into some Taxi drivers to insisted in no english that you need to take a taxi to the lake and it would cost us 1000 Yuan a massive over charge. We escaped into a hotel where we think an Indian man assisted us. He spoke to a local women who took us around the other corner to the ticket window, no bus to Karakol from there. So when we didn't understand this at first we went back to the hotel and got translation through the Indian man. The scamming taxi driver offered to take us to the correct bus station for only 400 Yuan (almost 60 CAN). A ride in a taxi anywhere in town costs 5 Yuan, the train station 15 km out of town costs 10 Yuan to get to and this guy wanted 400!! He was yelled at, laughed at, and kicked out of the hotel. We left a couple of minutes later with directions to the other long distance bus station in Uiger. We had to try a couple of taxis before we got one to take us for 5 Yuan, the first time this had ever happened to us. We bought a ticket for tomorrow morning, Sara is concerned with when we know when to get off (Karakol lake isn't a stop) and how to get back (again because Karakol lake isn't a stop). We've been told that if you're on the road by noon you should have no trouble catching a bus or other vehicle back to Kashgar. Sara: I guess we will find out, im going to be really mad if i can't get back on a bus to Kashgar on Thrusday afternoon...and there will be repercussions to pay.... i insisted on doing things the easy way but Tyson wouldn't budge!

We picked up some nan bread (not the same as the Indian kind) and went carpet shopping. The nicest carpets were the silk ones, very expensive. The second nicest ones were the Afgan carpets. The local Uigur carpets did not really turn our fancy at all. We spent a couple of hours in a somewhat dimely lit room filled with carpets and an old man flipping through a couple of hundred carpets. The original stack was probably 3 feet high. We narrowed it down to three different but nice carpets. Then we asked the price. The price was much higher than we were willing or able to pay when you also factor in the cost to ship it home. We gave our price that we could afford to pay, apologized and left. The owner did come down in price, but even then we were so far apart and we were already at the higher end of what we could pay. We looked in a couple of other shops for smaller rugs but nothing was nice or it was way too expensive. So our carpet dreams ended.

In other sad news the camel safaris around Kashgar here are like you ride for no more than an hour maybe if you're lucky two. And during that time you are not out in the middle of the desert, you are on the edge close enough to smell the irrigation. Not the type of camel trip I want. They say there is good desert near here, but at the good desert there are no camels. We're going to go to another area for dinner tonight where there are other travel agents, but if we're going to do a camel safari it is going to be in the middle of the desert and will last most of the day. Sara: I have pretty much had it with deserts, i keep telling Tyson lets just relax and read and chill out, but he insists on go-go-going and laying down money as if we have a stash of it growing in the back of our hotel. If we can't find that Sara says we could do it in Morocco.... (not this trip and not the one after (Hawaii) but maybe the one after that). Sara: No, morocco would not be till im at least done travelling Western Europe and the places I want to go, Hawaii isn't even a trip plan its just a standard thing to do, it will be Hawaii, then my trip plan which has no intention of putting in another desert, or any other eastern/ souteastern countries in it.. I would like some decent food on the next trip thank you :). She said we could go to Morocco soon, she's mean. We'll just have to find someone to take us to the desert here for the day now. No we won't .. im done with the desert.
Tyson and Sara