The Hotel on the Roof of the World (2 page)

Mr Li, from Hebei province in China, was our man in Chengdu. He spoke fluent English and French, had a university degree in mathematics and had a knack of being able to get things done in the most difficult of circumstances. He was hopelessly over-qualified for his job but considered himself extremely fortunate to be in the employment of Holiday Inn Lhasa without being required to work there. His only concern was that his papers were still registered in Tibet and he lived in fear that one day he might be called up. ‘I don't want to go there,' he kept repeating, lifting his eyes to the heavens. If there was anything I could do to help him have his papers released he would be most grateful.

Despite Li's enthusiasm for Chengdu, the only point of interest that I could see was the car-wash on the way in from the airport. This was a relatively new concept in China. About two thirds of the way into the city from the airport all cars had to pull off the road into the five lane car wash. Each lane was manned by six people who carelessly sprayed the car with fierce jets of water and scratched it a bit with spiky brushes. Chengdu taxis are not the most robust vehicles in the world and at best you get soaked, at worst the car splutters to a halt with a flooded engine a hundred yards further down the road. Our taxi needed a push to get it going again and although I didn't understand the taxi driver's exact words I certainly understood the gist of what he was saying about the new service. The cost for this obligatory car wash was one dollar. It was explained to me by the cheerful Mr Li that this was a new policy to keep the city of Chengdu clean. This seemed fair enough until Li told me that this was the only car wash in Chengdu, and cars can enter the city as filthy as can be from any other direction.

Checking-in at the Jin Jiang hotel I met two Canadians completely covered in luminous waterproofs.

‘Going to Tibet?' one enquired.

‘Good luck!' added the other.

Greg and Dave were a two-man mountaineering team en route for Everest, but instead of being at base camp where they had expected to be now, they were drowning their sorrows in the lobby bar of the Jin Jiang hotel. In return for a rather large fortune paid to the Chinese Mountaineering Association they had found their path to Everest blocked by insurmountable piles of red tape. Greg kept showing me the very costly permit which gave them permission to climb Everest. However, the Mountaineering Association had overlooked the fact that they also needed a permit to enter Tibet.

Their argument, that as the mountain was in Tibet, they could not possibly climb it unless they were allowed to enter Tibet, had not convinced the man at the airport. As he was the one wearing the uniform, it was his word that counted.

We commiserated together over dinner. I thought it would cheer them up if we tried the legendary Sichuan cuisine, renowned for its spices and fire. We were joined by Mr Li who assured us that he knew the best place in town: one of the restaurants along the large open sewer which he had mistakenly identified as Chengdu's main river. I knew that Sichuan food was piquant but the chef's idea of hot was clearly different from mine. Li devoured his bowl with enthusiasm. I watched the sweat pour off Greg and Dave after their first spoonful of soup, letting off steam in answer to their day's frustration. My reaction was no better and soon we were reduced to nibbling raw cabbage – the only ingredient not to have touched the caustic sauce.

With my mouth still on fire I accompanied Li for the customary evening stroll from the Jin Jiang hotel up to the Chairman Mao statue. Mao stood in the twilight with his arm in Communist salute. Lining the road in front of him were hundreds of street vendors flogging paintings to eager tourists. Capitalism hard at work below the great Communist hero.

One night in Chengdu is always too much and so it was with some relief that I was woken by the phone ringing at four o'clock the next morning. ‘Your taxi,' said Mr Li over the phone in a surprisingly cheerful voice for such an early hour, ‘it's taking you to the airport.'

Some people panic about flying CAAC, about seeing military on the streets, martial law, tanks… but I have always maintained that the scariest person in China is the Chinese taxi driver.

They spend their nights chewing garlic plants and practising malodorous grunts.

Never, never, sit in the back of the car. Firstly this annoys the taxi driver intensely (and you want to keep him as relaxed as possible). Secondly, he will spend long periods of time driving at 80 mph down small roads, with his head completely turned to the back of the car so that he can grunt something incomprehensible to you and breathe garlic in your direction.

So, instead, make a quick move for the front seat. If you are fumbling around in the dark for the seat belt, don't bother. There isn't one. It is with some trepidation that you must then prepare yourself for the drivers' death race to the airport.

With one hand on the horn and the other at three o'clock on the steering wheel, so that he could swerve violently to the left or right with the minimum of effort and control, our car broadsided out of the Jin Jiang hotel car park, scattering early- morning road sweepers in its wake.

Grey-clad cyclists on lightless black bicycles appeared from nowhere out of the grey background mist. We swerved to the left to avoid a certain collision, to find ourselves head on with an approaching car; we swerved to the right to find a man with half a pig on the back of his bicycle staring aghast at us just a few feet in front of the windscreen; an oncoming truck swerved to the right, we swerved to the left onto the hard shoulder, the man with the half pig vanished behind us in the mist, a motorbike without lights appeared coming straight at us on the wrong side of the road… and so it continued until we reached the safety of the airport. The usual time for the airport run is thirty-five minutes but if you have one of the death-race team you can make it in as little as sixteen.

Once at the airport you are faced with the crush of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of passengers cramped together in a small room, all shouting at the tops of their voices, waving yesterday's boarding passes and ticket stubs at whoever they can. As there is practically permanent fog over Chengdu, flights can be delayed for days – with the consequence that if your flight actually does leave, you often find that it is packed with the passengers of the previous few days and you are left standing there to try again tomorrow.

The only calm that can be seen at the airport is in the airport staff who happily sit in their uniforms behind their desks, reading newspapers and drinking from their jam-jars of tea apparently oblivious to the screaming and chaos all around them.

It is here that you learn your first few words of Chinese. No such thing as
mañana
exists in the vocabulary of these people. Here it is simple
may-oh
which means no. It is a wonderful word which occurs with increasing regularity the more questions you ask. It means that there are none of what you are asking for, there never have been any, there never will be any and why did you bother to ask?

Which brings us to the second word encountered:
putchidao
. This means don't know. So after you have received the first negative answer
may-oh
and you politely enquire where you may find a better answer to your question you will then be told
putchidao
.

It is very important not to lose your temper at this stage. I have often laughed at other foreign passengers hopping up and down from one foot to another, slamming the counter with their fists, doing facial impressions of beetroots as they contort themselves in rage. Of course it is a completely worthless exercise as the result is still a calm
may-oh
from the airline staff.

I have to admit that I once sunk to these levels and even now it embarrasses me to think that I forgot the system and joined the ranks of the ignorant foreigners who push their blood pressures to the limits.

I was coming back in after a long break.
Cccccrrrrrggggkkkhhhpt
all around me at the airport, people pushing and shoving with their days-old boarding passes in the usual airport battlefield. After forty-five minutes in the melée I managed to squeeze my way to the check-in counter and lift my bags onto the scale.

‘May-oh.'

I could not proceed as my luggage was overweight. An expressionless uniformed staff waved me away to the excess baggage counter.

‘May-oh.'

I could not pay for my excess baggage as the person who had the key to the drawer where the receipts were kept had not turned up to work.

‘Putchidao.'

No one knew when he would arrive and they went back to yawning, slurping from their jam jars and reading newspapers. Back to the check-in counter.

‘May-oh.'

I could not proceed as I had not paid. I returned to the excess baggage counter and, disturbing someone from his read, managed to persuade him to take my money and write the amount down on my ticket.

Back to the check-in counter. The officer took my ticket but,
‘mayoh'
, I did not have an official receipt so could not proceed further.

Back to the excess baggage counter. The man with the key to the receipt drawer had arrived! But,
‘may-oh',
he could not help me because I did not have my ticket.

Back to the check-in counter.

‘May-oh.'

I could not have my ticket back until I showed him the receipt for excess baggage. My plane was due to leave in 15 minutes and at this moment I completely lost control. The anger of a patient man…

The swaying, noisy mob parted around me. For a brief moment they were silent, all heads turning to look at this strange, screaming foreigner. But they had seen this many times before and lost interest after a few seconds, returning to their aimless pushing and shoving. The officials remained as inscrutable as ever and did not even look up from the counters where they stayed securely with their jars of tea.

It is at times such as these that you wonder if it was not easier to travel in the days of the ancient explorers, who crossed the Himalayas with great caravans of mules, camels and yaks, with men carrying months of supplies and equipment over treacherous mountain passes with dwindling supplies of fuel and food.