silk road

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Hi guys


I ( Hagit ) have decided to share with you my thought and feeling after a month on the road in order to help you understand a little more about the experience that we are having; the happy times and the difficult ones 。

getting ready to the trip

the months of mental preparations before the trip， both by Yaron and by our friends helped me adjust to the idea of leaving everything behind and going to a long trip for the first time in my life 。

I was a little scared but knowing Yaron has traveled before gave me comfort 。

relationships

many people warned me and prepared me for many fights and argues with Yaron " it isn' t easy to travel for long time together。。 " " you will wont different things" " don' t worry about fighting - you will argue - just like at home" 。 well， as for now ， we still haven' t fought and since back home we don' t argue either it isn 't surprising 。actually - I really enjoy traveling with him; I am glad to have this amazing experience with him. Yes, it can be a good test for relationships, we are taking it easy, try to do what fits us both and don't argue on nonsense. For now- it works great for us. We are a good couple- maybe we should get married 😊 。 the only thing that has changed between us is that we began to discuss our digestion systems and toilet outcomes. we NEVER shared this information before. The toilet is a main issue here and we disccuss it a large portion of the day 😊

finding a place to sleep

after every long bus drive or train， comes the moment in which we get of and now have to find a place to sleep for the night 。 It sounds easy， but。。。 "life is like a box of chocolate - you never know what you are gonna get 。。。" Yaron has learned the right way to do this - he sends me upstairs to check the room 。 So I will not be able to complain later 。。。 many times the room stinks ， the toilets are located right under the shower ， there is " PATERET" everywhere ， the sheets are dirty and so on 。。。 most of the times， I block it out of my mind and accept the room。 At night we pull our sleeping begs out，and comfort ourselves by saying " it is only for one night 。。。". The only other big problem is that many times we get only 2 small beds that cannot be connected and 2 cannot sleep on a single bed (we tried).

living out of a bag

The next thing after accepting a room in the hotel/guesthouse is to empty the big bag on the floor just because the towel has found its way to the bottom of the bag 。It isn 't that annoying but when you wake up in the morning and have to pack it all back again （every morning when traveling from place to place ）it can be frustrating sometimes 。。

Adventures

My father calls us the "China expedition team". It is a great name for what we are doing. Everyday is a new adventure. Things that look simple to you like- buying bus/train tickets, ordering food and better yet - get the same as you ordered, are difficult and complicated around here… we use the phrasebook but it is still funny to order vegetable soup and to get only Chinese cabbage in water. Someone told us to smile when it happens and don't get mad- so we try to follow his suggestion..

How do we know the place is good?
if the room doesnt stink we lick the town. if the food doesnt appear after 2hr then it was teasty. if the park we just paid for has clean toilets then the park is buitiful!

For conclusion

I enjoy the trip like nothing I can compare it to. We are doing amazing stuff, being in amazing places, eating local food and hope to not see it again too shortly (if you know what I mean). And above all - being together, getting even closer to each other, developing the intimacy you get after being a long time together and having many excitements together.

Hagit


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A word from Yaron
What Hagit is saying is that it is a lot of work bringing you such nice pictures. but as the saying goes

a bad day fishing is better then a good day in the office

。 for those of you who read all the captions on the photos there is a funny story on one of the captions below to reward you for the effort。

Yaron



P。S。 click on the map link on the beggining to see the 3 cities we were in this week

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Photos

Things you find in the market
This is a strewbarry drink but what are the fungi things floating arround?

Things you find in the market
pigions for sale in the Turpan sun

Things you find in the market
classic spieces photo...we acctually found a spice we didn't know befor. later we had it in some soup and decided we didn't like is (sorry - no way we can have the words to explain the taste...you got to be here to try)

Things you find in the market
in Turpan we finaly found real (central Asian) bread fresh from the tabbon

Things you find in the market
eggs

Things you find in the market
suger crystals

Things you find in the market
one thing you can always find is rice. it you don't want rice how about some rice noodles?

eatting out
after our stomaches got back to normal in Chengdu we returned to eating local food. in a Sachiun resturant we had fried eggplant (right) and broiled mushroom (left). if the food picuters get your mouth wet then forget it - any meal in the GIRAFF in Tel-Aviv is better then what we eat here :)

eatting out
these are boilled dumplings with green vegtable things inside. you dump it in the red plate befor eating. all resturants give tea with the food but in this place we got a very watered-down chicken soup instead

eatting out
in Dunhuan we eat at the night market. this place cooks the food in a iron bowl over a fire. the bottom dish (with beef balls, vegtables and 2 kinds of rice nooldes) is our dish. we eat it with local pita bread - cost 1USD

riding the train
our first long train ride was from chengdu to Jiayuguan - 36hr! we got 1st class tickets i.e. you get a small room with a door with 4 beds. luckally we were the only 2 in the room so we had 36hr by ourselves do pass. Hagit in a typical position. she read HIMNON LA-SIMCHA by Shifra Horn from cover to cover on the first day. can you see the TONS of food on the table. another passtime ...

riding the train
Yaron in a typical position sleeping with the IPOD

riding the train
or just thinking about life over some coke

riding the train
the part of the silk road near Jiayuguan is narrow with the tibetan platue rising to the south. (near meens the last 10 hr of the ride)

riding the train
on our second long ride (11hr night train from Dunhuang to Turpan) we took 2nd class (hard sleeper). there are 6 beds in each compartment and no door which makes it much more noisy and crowded

Jiayuguan fort
Jiayuguan is located in a statigic place. to the south the tibetian platue. to the north the start of the great wall of china and the gobi deasert. to the west nothing but deasert and to the east startes "classic" china. this is the only pass the silk road can pass. what a good place to put a fort!

Jiayuguan fort
surrounded by mountains - Jiayuguan is the only place that the silk road has one single passage (see map next)

Jiayuguan fort - silk road map
Jiayuguan fort is the only place the historical silk road has only on passage - almost at the eastern end on the road. farther east is china...

Jiayuguan fort
Hagit reading one of the historical plaques that commemortes something or other (ask her what it says and she insists it is the original recipe for chineese cabbage)

Jiayuguan fort
entrance to the central court

Jiayuguan fort - hoonymooning
back due to popular demand - Hagit dresses up again in a loacal outfit

Comments

[R Eldar]

Toyuk
I see you found it even though it wasn't in my blog ;) Keep on exploring! We are all jealous here. It's been almost exactly a year since I visited this exact same place!!! How time passes... R.