Day 1, 7/5: Luoyang (700 ft) - Kashgar (4000 ft)

Today the journey began. As an adept procrastinator, so packing was done at 12am the night before. My pack was very heavy, approaching 100 pounds. Three days ago, my stomach started acting weirdly. Although I’ve been dieting carefully ever since I came back to China on June 12, I still couldn’t pull myself away from delicacies like hot pot, barbecue, cheesecakes, etc. The consequence — I needed to go to the bathroom eight times, daily. Even my throat started hurting from the high-calorie food I ingested over the last two weeks.

Paranoid with a body that is “collapsing down,” I departed from Luoyang to Xi’An. Traveling with a giant duffle bag through an extremely crowded train station can be awkward — we constantly bumped into people, got stuck at security gates, and said “excuse me” at least 50 times. When we boarded the train, there wasn’t even a spot to place such a huge pack. So I stood in the back of the cabin and guarded my duffle bag for two hours.

You cannot blame me for overeating this.

After arriving at Xi’An, I finally hopped on the plane to Kashgar in Xinjiang Province. Chinese airlines are stingy, and they required a 1000-yuan fee to carry our luggage, even though they were not overweight by much according to international standards.

Leaving my apartment. A little annoyed for some reason I don't remember.

The plane to Kashgar was probably the most turbulent aircrafts I’ve been on in my life. For a few moments, I almost thought my life would end with a nasty crash. After five hours of constant paranoia, I landed in Kashgar, the “most western” city in China.

Some mountain... (Photo Credit: 林子)

Every local I’ve met there have greeted me with kindness and hospitality, starting with the taxi driver who drove us from the airport to our hotel. He was a very talkative guy, introduced us to some famous locations in Kashgar along the way, and offered to wait outside the hotel in case he didn’t drive us to the right location. I was concerned, however, that our duffle bags would fall out of the taxi because he didn’t close the back cabinet.

Visiting Uyghur teahouse. (Photo Credit: 夏婷)

We arrived at the hotel at 8 p.m., when we were already supposed to attend a team meeting/dinner. After hurrying, we got to the restaurant at 8:20, only to see all the food already ravaged by our teammates. Fortunately (or not), that didn’t bother me, because my stomach still did not feel too well, so I couldn’t eat a lot anyways. However, my self-control malfunctioned, and I ultimately ate a cold, refreshing melon. The fruits in Xinjiang are famous for their juiciness and sweetness, and they lived up to their expectation. The melon was different from anything I’ve tasted before; not only was its sugar content rocket high, it had a special fragrance not found in any other melons elsewhere.

Can't recognize what fruit this is but it's so good!

At around 9 p.m., police started patrolling on all major street, and you can hear sirens all the way until midnight. When we returned to the hotel, we needed to reorganize our duffle bags, take out our gear and equipment for the following two days, and prepare to ship the bags to basecamp. As everybody brought their big luggage pieces down, I started introducing myself to and chatting with some of my teammates. I was so happy to learn that there’s another climber who is also 18, just two months older than I am. For once, I found someone in my age group on these climbing expeditions.

Pose.

The sky doesn’t get dark until 11 p.m. at Kashgar, mainly due to the fact that the city follows Beijing clock, despite a two-hour time difference. Sitting in front of all the puffy bags while watching the sun set, I could not wait to start this wonderful journey.