UFO¡¯s (unidentified food objects)
We don¡¯t seem to get used to the Chinese breakfast (too much garlic on the early morning). But closeby the hotel we find a supermarket so we can arrange a real Dutch breakfast: bread with peanut butter. With a smile on our face we leave Kuche and enjoy our self made breakfast in the car. The roads in China have been pretty bad so far. Sometimes we were lucky to illegally take the almost finished brand new highway. We just followed the road construction traffic and could drive on the beautiful road for some kilometres. Today we do the same. We have a good start with a perfect illegal ride and see most of the other traffic struggling on the bad road. We see a lot of flat tires or cars and trucks with other difficulties.
But at one stage there is no newly build road so we have to take the B-road that is in a very bad condition. And there it happens¡.. First we hear a big bang and a oud crack. Then there is a continuous noise coming from the front part of the car. Michel jumps under the car and sees the steering stabilisor rod is broken. Oh my god, we¡¯re just happen to be in the middle of the f*cking Taklamakan desert. We are not sure of we are able to drive safely without this part so we decide to call some experts in the Netherlands. Andre, the dutch T2 specialist picks up his phone. He knows to tell us that it is no problem to drive without it, but that it is better to have it changed once we get to a VW place.
We decide to find a garage in Korla, the next town on our way to Urumqi. When we find one and drive into the workshop, all personell stops working. This is a VW they have never seen before. They only seem to work on Passats and Bora¡¯s. They inspect the whole camper. They lift up the car and see immediately what the problem is. No sorry.., they tell us, we can¡¯t help you. This is a part we don¡¯t have in our garage and we can¡¯t connect the car to a computer. With the help of our guide/translator Jason we ask them if the can repair it and that they don¡¯t need a computer for it¡ just some welding tools. After some bargaining they tell us they will give it a go but that they can¡¯t give any guarantee. Well.. please give it a go! Half an hour later they reïnstall the steering stabilisor again. It looks good! Jason is amazed how quick we have solved the problem! Well solved.., we keep our fingers crossed that it won¡¯t break again.
We quickly search for a place to stay for the night so that we have some time left to update the website. It is not really difficult to find an internet caf¨¦. But unfortunately it is difficult to find a computer where we can update our website since we need a floppy drive (we write our stories on the HP laptop, put them on a floppy and then it¡¯s just a couple of minutes time to upload it to the website). But most of the computers and internetcafe¡¯s here in China are only used for gaming. So after walking around for some time and explaining one of the managers of such a gaming place, he decides help us. From the server (that has a floppy drive) he emails the documents and photo¡¯s to us. Of course they charge us way too much for this but it seems the only way to get our stories on the Internet. And it¡¯s after 10 pm already and we are looking forward to some food! So fine with us.
Time for some food!
Without Jason it¡¯s quite difficult to find out what¡¯s on a restaurants menu. We decide to enter a busy restaurant, pass all busy tables and point out what we would like to eat. We seem to have entered a ¡®hotpot¡¯ restaurant. Jason has been talking about hotpot already since day 1 so maybe tonight is the night to try it!
Within seconds there is a huge pot on our table, half full of some red boiling stuff, half full of something that looks like vegetables soup. Ahaaa.. this looks like fondue, we know that! And indeed, in the back of the restaurant there are several tables with all kinds of meat, fish and vegetables to put in the hot pot. There is a lot of choice. Difficulty is in finding products we recognise (like chicken and vegetables). Because next to chicken there are a lot of products that could be from the inside of an animal. Apart from that we see cowtongue, frogleggs, small birdeggs and lots more UFO¡¯s (unidentified food objects). Luckily we find some things we know as meatballs and mushrooms.
The whole restaurant is watching us. Are we doing it wrong or are they just interested? We fool around with our choppie sticks and have fun. Then the first man arrives at the tables. He doesn¡¯t speak English but wants to toast his glass of beer with us. We toast and then notice that he finishes his glass in one go. Apparently it¡¯s a custom here and we do the same. But then the next arrives and the next and the next and before we know it we are drunk. Then michel goes adventurous in terms of the Chinese cuisine and comes back with the cowtongues, froglegs and other UFO¡¯s (unidentified food objects). But we can¡¯t seem to enjoy Kermit¡¯s legs
Karaoke
We leave the restaurant singing. On the way back the hotel we pass by a huge KTV discotheque. As we were singing already we enter the place and are have a look around. It¡¯s a huge building with little rooms. In these rooms we see huge TV and Karaoke sets and a few couches. The place is busy and most rooms are occupied by Chinese singing away like fred astaire. We decide it¡¯s not the place for us due to the enormous amounts of ladies hanging around and want to leave. But then we are invited in one of the rooms by a Chinese man. Two man are singing out loud and invite to sit down when they see us. We get a glass of beer and then the songbook is handed over. We only recognise one song (Shalalallalala) what we think is a song of the carpenters. We are handed the microphones and wait. When the song starts it appears to be a Chinese song. Shit¡ what to do? Well¡¡improvise out loud!! We sing Shalallaalallaaa from the top of our longs and laugh.
The men are impressed¡ we hope! When suddenly a few ladies(?) are brought into the room the manager of the KTV place comes in the room as well and asks us to leave. We thank the men and walk away.. still singing Shallallaaaallaaaaaaaaaa. What a day!
UFO¡¯s (unidentified food objects)
We don¡¯t seem to get used to the Chinese breakfast (too much garlic on the early morning). But closeby the hotel we find a supermarket so we can arrange a real Dutch breakfast: bread with peanut butter. With a smile on our face we leave Kuche and enjoy our self made breakfast in the car. The roads in China have been pretty bad so far. Sometimes we were lucky to illegally take the almost finished brand new highway. We just followed the road construction traffic and could drive on the beautiful road for some kilometres. Today we do the same. We have a good start with a perfect illegal ride and see most of the other traffic struggling on the bad road. We see a lot of flat tires or cars and trucks with other difficulties.
But at one stage there is no newly build road so we have to take the B-road that is in a very bad condition. And there it happens¡.. First we hear a big bang and a oud crack. Then there is a continuous noise coming from the front part of the car. Michel jumps under the car and sees the steering stabilisor rod is broken. Oh my god, we¡¯re just happen to be in the middle of the f*cking Taklamakan desert. We are not sure of we are able to drive safely without this part so we decide to call some experts in the Netherlands. Andre, the dutch T2 specialist picks up his phone. He knows to tell us that it is no problem to drive without it, but that it is better to have it changed once we get to a VW place.
We decide to find a garage in Korla, the next town on our way to Urumqi. When we find one and drive into the workshop, all personell stops working. This is a VW they have never seen before. They only seem to work on Passats and Bora¡¯s. They inspect the whole camper. They lift up the car and see immediately what the problem is. No sorry.., they tell us, we can¡¯t help you. This is a part we don¡¯t have in our garage and we can¡¯t connect the car to a computer. With the help of our guide/translator Jason we ask them if the can repair it and that they don¡¯t need a computer for it¡ just some welding tools. After some bargaining they tell us they will give it a go but that they can¡¯t give any guarantee. Well.. please give it a go! Half an hour later they reïnstall the steering stabilisor again. It looks good! Jason is amazed how quick we have solved the problem! Well solved.., we keep our fingers crossed that it won¡¯t break again.
We quickly search for a place to stay for the night so that we have some time left to update the website. It is not really difficult to find an internet caf¨¦. But unfortunately it is difficult to find a computer where we can update our website since we need a floppy drive (we write our stories on the HP laptop, put them on a floppy and then it¡¯s just a couple of minutes time to upload it to the website). But most of the computers and internetcafe¡¯s here in China are only used for gaming. So after walking around for some time and explaining one of the managers of such a gaming place, he decides help us. From the server (that has a floppy drive) he emails the documents and photo¡¯s to us. Of course they charge us way too much for this but it seems the only way to get our stories on the Internet. And it¡¯s after 10 pm already and we are looking forward to some food! So fine with us.
Time for some food!
Without Jason it¡¯s quite difficult to find out what¡¯s on a restaurants menu. We decide to enter a busy restaurant, pass all busy tables and point out what we would like to eat. We seem to have entered a ¡®hotpot¡¯ restaurant. Jason has been talking about hotpot already since day 1 so maybe tonight is the night to try it!
Within seconds there is a huge pot on our table, half full of some red boiling stuff, half full of something that looks like vegetables soup. Ahaaa.. this looks like fondue, we know that! And indeed, in the back of the restaurant there are several tables with all kinds of meat, fish and vegetables to put in the hot pot. There is a lot of choice. Difficulty is in finding products we recognise (like chicken and vegetables). Because next to chicken there are a lot of products that could be from the inside of an animal. Apart from that we see cowtongue, frogleggs, small birdeggs and lots more UFO¡¯s (unidentified food objects). Luckily we find some things we know as meatballs and mushrooms.
The whole restaurant is watching us. Are we doing it wrong or are they just interested? We fool around with our choppie sticks and have fun. Then the first man arrives at the tables. He doesn¡¯t speak English but wants to toast his glass of beer with us. We toast and then notice that he finishes his glass in one go. Apparently it¡¯s a custom here and we do the same. But then the next arrives and the next and the next and before we know it we are drunk. Then michel goes adventurous in terms of the Chinese cuisine and comes back with the cowtongues, froglegs and other UFO¡¯s (unidentified food objects). But we can¡¯t seem to enjoy Kermit¡¯s legs
Karaoke
We leave the restaurant singing. On the way back the hotel we pass by a huge KTV discotheque. As we were singing already we enter the place and are have a look around. It¡¯s a huge building with little rooms. In these rooms we see huge TV and Karaoke sets and a few couches. The place is busy and most rooms are occupied by Chinese singing away like fred astaire. We decide it¡¯s not the place for us due to the enormous amounts of ladies hanging around and want to leave. But then we are invited in one of the rooms by a Chinese man. Two man are singing out loud and invite to sit down when they see us. We get a glass of beer and then the songbook is handed over. We only recognise one song (Shalalallalala) what we think is a song of the carpenters. We are handed the microphones and wait. When the song starts it appears to be a Chinese song. Shit¡ what to do? Well¡¡improvise out loud!! We sing Shalallaalallaaa from the top of our longs and laugh.
The men are impressed¡ we hope! When suddenly a few ladies(?) are brought into the room the manager of the KTV place comes in the room as well and asks us to leave. We thank the men and walk away.. still singing Shallallaaaallaaaaaaaaaa. What a day!
UFO¡¯s (unidentified food objects)
We don¡¯t seem to get used to the Chinese breakfast (too much garlic on the early morning). But closeby the hotel we find a supermarket so we can arrange a real Dutch breakfast: bread with peanut butter. With a smile on our face we leave Kuche and enjoy our self made breakfast in the car. The roads in China have been pretty bad so far. Sometimes we were lucky to illegally take the almost finished brand new highway. We just followed the road construction traffic and could drive on the beautiful road for some kilometres. Today we do the same. We have a good start with a perfect illegal ride and see most of the other traffic struggling on the bad road. We see a lot of flat tires or cars and trucks with other difficulties.
But at one stage there is no newly build road so we have to take the B-road that is in a very bad condition. And there it happens¡.. First we hear a big bang and a oud crack. Then there is a continuous noise coming from the front part of the car. Michel jumps under the car and sees the steering stabilisor rod is broken. Oh my god, we¡¯re just happen to be in the middle of the f*cking Taklamakan desert. We are not sure of we are able to drive safely without this part so we decide to call some experts in the Netherlands. Andre, the dutch T2 specialist picks up his phone. He knows to tell us that it is no problem to drive without it, but that it is better to have it changed once we get to a VW place.
We decide to find a garage in Korla, the next town on our way to Urumqi. When we find one and drive into the workshop, all personell stops working. This is a VW they have never seen before. They only seem to work on Passats and Bora¡¯s. They inspect the whole camper. They lift up the car and see immediately what the problem is. No sorry.., they tell us, we can¡¯t help you. This is a part we don¡¯t have in our garage and we can¡¯t connect the car to a computer. With the help of our guide/translator Jason we ask them if the can repair it and that they don¡¯t need a computer for it¡ just some welding tools. After some bargaining they tell us they will give it a go but that they can¡¯t give any guarantee. Well.. please give it a go! Half an hour later they reïnstall the steering stabilisor again. It looks good! Jason is amazed how quick we have solved the problem! Well solved.., we keep our fingers crossed that it won¡¯t break again.
We quickly search for a place to stay for the night so that we have some time left to update the website. It is not really difficult to find an internet caf¨¦. But unfortunately it is difficult to find a computer where we can update our website since we need a floppy drive (we write our stories on the HP laptop, put them on a floppy and then it¡¯s just a couple of minutes time to upload it to the website). But most of the computers and internetcafe¡¯s here in China are only used for gaming. So after walking around for some time and explaining one of the managers of such a gaming place, he decides help us. From the server (that has a floppy drive) he emails the documents and photo¡¯s to us. Of course they charge us way too much for this but it seems the only way to get our stories on the Internet. And it¡¯s after 10 pm already and we are looking forward to some food! So fine with us.
Time for some food!
Without Jason it¡¯s quite difficult to find out what¡¯s on a restaurants menu. We decide to enter a busy restaurant, pass all busy tables and point out what we would like to eat. We seem to have entered a ¡®hotpot¡¯ restaurant. Jason has been talking about hotpot already since day 1 so maybe tonight is the night to try it!
Within seconds there is a huge pot on our table, half full of some red boiling stuff, half full of something that looks like vegetables soup. Ahaaa.. this looks like fondue, we know that! And indeed, in the back of the restaurant there are several tables with all kinds of meat, fish and vegetables to put in the hot pot. There is a lot of choice. Difficulty is in finding products we recognise (like chicken and vegetables). Because next to chicken there are a lot of products that could be from the inside of an animal. Apart from that we see cowtongue, frogleggs, small birdeggs and lots more UFO¡¯s (unidentified food objects). Luckily we find some things we know as meatballs and mushrooms.
The whole restaurant is watching us. Are we doing it wrong or are they just interested? We fool around with our choppie sticks and have fun. Then the first man arrives at the tables. He doesn¡¯t speak English but wants to toast his glass of beer with us. We toast and then notice that he finishes his glass in one go. Apparently it¡¯s a custom here and we do the same. But then the next arrives and the next and the next and before we know it we are drunk. Then michel goes adventurous in terms of the Chinese cuisine and comes back with the cowtongues, froglegs and other UFO¡¯s (unidentified food objects). But we can¡¯t seem to enjoy Kermit¡¯s legs
Karaoke
We leave the restaurant singing. On the way back the hotel we pass by a huge KTV discotheque. As we were singing already we enter the place and are have a look around. It¡¯s a huge building with little rooms. In these rooms we see huge TV and Karaoke sets and a few couches. The place is busy and most rooms are occupied by Chinese singing away like fred astaire. We decide it¡¯s not the place for us due to the enormous amounts of ladies hanging around and want to leave. But then we are invited in one of the rooms by a Chinese man. Two man are singing out loud and invite to sit down when they see us. We get a glass of beer and then the songbook is handed over. We only recognise one song (Shalalallalala) what we think is a song of the carpenters. We are handed the microphones and wait. When the song starts it appears to be a Chinese song. Shit¡ what to do? Well¡¡improvise out loud!! We sing Shalallaalallaaa from the top of our longs and laugh.
The men are impressed¡ we hope! When suddenly a few ladies(?) are brought into the room the manager of the KTV place comes in the room as well and asks us to leave. We thank the men and walk away.. still singing Shallallaaaallaaaaaaaaaa. What a day!