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Strangers In the Night
Monday, August 29, 2005-10:53 PM
Three cups of Dico's coffee kept me wide awake the entire final night of my summer travels. I had a flight from Urumqi to Guangzhou at 9:30 the next morning. Even if I could have fallen asleep, I wasn't going to risk missing my flight for a quick nap.
The corridors of the Xinjiang Hotel are pretty quiet in the dead of the night. On the fifth floor, men of various ethnicities take advantage of the privacy by making quick runs to the common bathroom without getting entirely dressed.
The next morning I went to the lobby to check out. That early in the morning, the staff is still sleeping, and anybody who wants to check out has to wake someone up.
I was too shy to wake anyone up myself, but a taxi driver lingering in the lobby waiting for business did it for me.
The last week or two I had been anxious to get back to Guangzhou. I was in a strange mood, not eager to make a stunning impression on everyone I met and not wanting to come across as too indifferent either.
A man, presumably Pakistani, was sleeping in the lobby probably in a similar situation as me, not wanting to wake up the staff himself to ask for help.
He got up when he heard the taxi driver and I speaking.
As I quietly walked out of the lobby with my taxi driver, he asked for my help translating. I love being able to translate for people.
My services as a translator really weren't necessary. All I did was ask the cost of different rooms in the hotel (having stayed in the hotel three nights I knew the prices before I asked anyways) and then tell the lady he wanted a room with a bathroom.
As I walked out he gave me a firm handshake and expressed sincere thanks.
It's too bad you can't become lifelong friends with everyone you meet when you're traveling. You meet so many people, have conversations, exchange business cards or email addresses, say goodbye, and, even in the rare circumstances that you follow up with an email or two, eventually you're lucky if experience is even a faded memory five years down the line.
My flight was an hour late, but I didn't care. It took me about five solid days of traveling to reach Urumqi from Guangzhou, the difference between arriving at two in the afternoon and three couldn't have registered less with me.
The flight was so smooth I could have built a ten story card house on my tray table. Sunny, a Hong Konger who had visited Urumqi with friends, sat next to me. He's another one of those people who came in and out of my life in the space of a few hours.
My visa expires tomorrow. Once again I'm crossing the border to Hong Kong. After that I only have one more entry on my current visa. I'm running out of visa pages as well. I need to book a ticket back to the U.S. soon.
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