Dunhuang is a city set up for tourism. Brand new train station and airport, a wide, welcoming roadway connecting them to the city’s center, a thriving outdoor city market, open at night, signs in English, food of all types, sand dunes and Buddha caves and even a glacier you can visit, with hotels available in all price ranges, from 5 star down to no stars, spread out in every direction and all very accommodating except for one small detail: all the beds are way too hard. How do I know this? I spent the better part of a morning and afternoon surveying them. This is a fact: Chinese people like hard mattresses, or no mattresses at all, just an inch and a half thick, dense plastic pad covered in a sheet on a metal bed frame. Some hotels I’ve slept in it felt as if I were sleeping on a box spring, covered with a thin pad. This is usual, this is accepted, Chinese travelers expect this. Lest you think I’m a lightweight, I have spent time sleeping on pavement alongside highways, in drainage pipes, on rock ledges, on banks of river gravel, floors, roll out, spine-breaking hotel beds, surfboards, hammocks made out of vines and all manner of collapsed, foamy, guest couches, backseats of cars, a bathtub once, and even on the hood of an abandoned backwoods Buick, as well as so many other bone-bruising places, but these days I really do prefer a nice soft bed. So, after another night spent sleeping on a thinly covered bag of bones, I set out to find a western mattress, armed with the translation software on my tablet. After checking the Internet, I headed for a hotel that promised a soft mattress but it was being remodeled. I soon discovered the info for Dunhuang was way out of date and set out on my own. I had great, translated conversations, me via tablet and most of the staff using iPhones, checked so many beds for softness, in all price ranges, was treated with great care, offered a lot of deals, made a friend at a luxury hotel who actually joked with me, and she insisted on carrying my bag, but even there, the bed was hard, so I kept walking down the street in the brisk air, everyone saying hello, hello, hello. In every hotel I went into I noticed a curious thing. The staff all smiled at me in a knowing way, or at least I imagined it as such, as if they were all in on some private joke of which I was unaware. Like whenever I took a shower it was being beamed live to some secret hotel worker’s website, and everyone knew it but me. And this was how they dealt with the abuse encountered in their profession, some naked laowai cam capturing all of our private moments, stripping us of our presumed superiority, an act of covert equalization. Then I stumbled on a place that wasn’t on my radar. It was just about two years old, had just barely an Internet presence—mostly in Chinese, was called an International Business hotel, the staff spoke a little English, it contained a restaurant named after Mao where in the elevator there was a poster showing all the servers wearing replica uniforms of Mao’s army, and alas, the room was big, super clean, with a soft bed big enough for three people. I happily signed up, dumped my bag, grabbed my camera and headed to the Mao restaurant. I thought it would make a great photo op, but the servers were not dressed as Mao’s army, but instead, in what looked like leftover prom gowns, and even though the menu contained entrees named Mao’s chicken and Grannies’ pork feet, it just wasn’t interesting enough, so I bowed out and escaped back into the waning daylight. I went to a coffee shop and checked out the wifi. I found a promising restaurant possibility and tried to get directions there, and while the staff was very helpful, I just didn’t get it. I left and flagged down a cab. Trying to communicate my destination, there was a tapping on the window: it was a worker from the coffee shop making sure the cabbie knew exactly where I was going. This same thing happened again and again and gladdened my heart. Dunhuang really knew how to take care of its visiting tourists and I truly appreciated it. At the night market, I asked again for help finding the Oasis Restaurant. The vendors conferred, drew others into the discussion and then lit up in recognition, then took the time to make sure I was pointed in the right direction. The market runs north to south and the Oasis Restaurant is at the south end. They serve flavored coffees and spicy cheeseburgers and pizza and also speak English. It had been years since I had a pizza, so I took a chance and believed the teenage boy working there who assured me it was very good. I passed the time looking out the window at the night market and soon it was there, a thin-crusted wonder piled high with toppings. I ate, greedily. He was right; it was delicious. Upon leaving, I asked him to point me towards what was called ‘Mexican Reason Street,’ and without hesitation, he offered to take me there. I said it was not necessary, but he insisted, saying it was difficult to find. Just like that, we were on our way, and so, three cheers to the ‘Oasis Restaurant’ and to the lad who led me to the colorfully named street. Later that night, I bought a bottle of locally produced wine and sat in my comfortable room, watching old black and white images of WWII on Chinese TV with the sound turned off, drinking a fruity, feisty red wine made from grapes grown in an oasis in the Gobi Desert, a short distance from the Mongolian border as the crow flies, in a summer resort town fading in early November, a million miles from everywhere, beaming out signals of my gratitude, like the red lights atop tall radio antennas, blinking on, blinking off, again and again and again. Dunhuang: The Friendliest City Part 4
2 Comments
Andy Monaco
12/1/2013 10:28:31 am
hmmm... pizza
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Mary
12/3/2013 04:50:29 am
ee .....that pizza sure looks good..Yum...sure glad you finally found a soft bed my back hurt just thinking about a metal bed with a pad. Sounds like a fun city thanks for taking us with you!!
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