Erenhot
Under the Weather
Here's a good joke: someone cashed-up/job-free/21st Century enough to be travelling for five months pulls up to a blog and says, I'm just not feeling it this week.
Welcome to Erenhot, where something like homesickness rode the coattails of boredom.
Erenhot is also known as Erlian or Ereen. None of these names mean excitement.
We were there four days, waiting for the detour we were told we'd have to take through Beijing for our trip to China's westernmost region. With our bikes shuttled off in advance of our passenger train, no backpacker presence to pass the time in English, no challenge to stand in front of and no gourmet croissants to sit before, the dictates of our wider plan had returned us to a small town whose biggest drawcards were a taxi backseat currency exchange and a midnight rainstorm lightshow of exposed wiring sparking over the hotel carpark below our window.
Others can have their high idling. I don't need a lot of external stimulation and I'm usually fairly content in my own head. Erlian was different. I arrived from Mongolia word-averse from too much reading and writing. I wished for TV to carry the hours. I thought of home.
Poor, poor, pitiful me. Mired in fewer underachieving days than I'm told you'll find in the average work week.
And how did your intrepid hero survive?
He kept the kettle whistling, warm thoughts close and Cat Power on rotation. He waited it it out like any other cold snap.
Here's a good joke: someone cashed-up/job-free/21st Century enough to be travelling for five months pulls up to a blog and says, I'm just not feeling it this week.
Welcome to Erenhot, where something like homesickness rode the coattails of boredom.
Erenhot is also known as Erlian or Ereen. None of these names mean excitement.
We were there four days, waiting for the detour we were told we'd have to take through Beijing for our trip to China's westernmost region. With our bikes shuttled off in advance of our passenger train, no backpacker presence to pass the time in English, no challenge to stand in front of and no gourmet croissants to sit before, the dictates of our wider plan had returned us to a small town whose biggest drawcards were a taxi backseat currency exchange and a midnight rainstorm lightshow of exposed wiring sparking over the hotel carpark below our window.
Others can have their high idling. I don't need a lot of external stimulation and I'm usually fairly content in my own head. Erlian was different. I arrived from Mongolia word-averse from too much reading and writing. I wished for TV to carry the hours. I thought of home.
Poor, poor, pitiful me. Mired in fewer underachieving days than I'm told you'll find in the average work week.
And how did your intrepid hero survive?
He kept the kettle whistling, warm thoughts close and Cat Power on rotation. He waited it it out like any other cold snap.
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