Make sure you read the previous post here before you start this post. We hopped into the back of the two Tibetans’ white SUV. The one in the passenger seat turned to us and asked, “Do you smoke?” holding out two cigarettes. They were both well-dressed, and, driving this kind of car, well-paid. “No. Thanks.” …
We were in the tiny town of Huangyuan, a little more than an hour outside of Xining. I had been standing on the road for an hour and a half. We had had about ten cars stop and offer us a ride, but all for money. On this trip, we have sometimes had to pay …
We were leaving Lanzhou trying to make an appointment in Huazangsi, an hour and a half northwest along the Gansu Corridor. Lanzhou is a dump of a city in country known for its dumps. It is an industrial wasteland of two million people. This provincial capital is surrounded by desert mountains, and, in the winter, …
Continue reading ‘Red Flags and Lemonade – Failure and Success in Hitchhiking’ »
One of the reasons we chose to try to hitchhike our way across China is because we wanted to meet people and show folks back home the real China, in all its weird variety. When we hitched a ride from Anna, the spazzy girl I mentioned in the previous post, she struck us as one …
Anna was clearly interested in Galen, which made my asking for a ride easy. She had wanted me to ask. While we were weaving our way through the Buddhist caves at Maijishan, we were approached by three young women. This was nothing unusual; we had already twice been asked to take pictures with people since …
Here’s a video Galen put together of our hitchhiking failure:
So, our first hitchhiking attempt was an epic fail. We knew we had to get out of the city, so, looking at a map, I figured that we could take the subway line to the northernmost station and walk to a bridge that would take us where we wanted to go. From there, I figured, …