Sept 2 & 3 On our way to China

We received our certificates showing we had passed our Thai course 1 and could move on to basic reading and writing or conversation2! While we don't plan to do that we might get a Thai tutor once a week for 2 hours so that we can learn words and phrases that meet our specific needs.  We have found that speaking Thai for our public transportation needs has led to being taken less for a tourist and less haggling over price.  We dropped off the family jewels to be out in our neighbors safe and then they kindly took us to the airport. The
nice thing about the Chiang Mai airport is that you can get a massage so I had a foot massage and David had a neck and shoulder.  The flight on China Eastern to Kunming was a short 1 hour and 20 minutes on a small plane.   The time change for all of the travel that we will be doing this month is only 1 hour so this is wonderful. China is 12 hours ahead of Eastern Time, 15 ahead of Pacific.

We stayed at the Empark Hotel which is fairly close to the airport. We were up and standing at the breakfast buffet waiting for it to open at 5:45 am. We arrived at the airport by 6:30am for a 7:50 flight. It took a few minutes to find the right counter to check-in. We waited in line and then at the counter there seemed to be a problem.  They would only check us and our bags to Xian which was the first leg of our trip to Xining. We would not move and just kept repeating that our reservation was to Xining and we needed to check the bags all the way through and get our boarding passes for the full trip. We remained quiet but kept repeating the request to the various airline staff that came over.  We were finally taken over to someone who could check the bags through and give us boarding passes for both flights. It appears that the problem was no ongoing seats available.  The fist flight to Xian we were upgraded to first class which was wonderful after having to beg to cut into the security line and then run to our gate.  We need to allow more time to deal with the language issues as no signs in English so you have to keep asking different people and you can be directed.

We arrived at Xining which is located on the eastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the upper reaches of the Huangshui River  at an altitude of about 2,200 meters (7,200 ft).  The city has a history of over 2100 years and was a chief commercial hub on the Hexi Corridor caravan route to Tibet, handling especially timber, wool and salt in ancient times. The trade along the Hexi Corridor was part of a larger trade corridor along the Northern Silk Road.  Our bags arrived with us and after an unusual taxi situation where the driver was looking to add additional people and luggage we arrived at our hostel Yellow House.  So far we have not found the English speaker that should be on premises but the staff are helpful at trying to meet our needs when we show them papers with Chinese script. We can not communicate in Chinese at all and Thai is no help. Our first mission was to try and get some medication for altitude sickness.  We had the names of Diamox and the Chinese herbal medication Hongjingtian written in Chinese. We went to the first pharmacy down the road and showed our papers. They did not have the Diamox but had the Hongjingtian, herb botanical name Rhodiola Rosea, golden root, a traditional remedy. As we continued to try and ask where we could get the Diamox we were told to sit down.  We then realized they had sent someone off for an English speaker.  A lovely young lady came in and interpreted for us and we were told you can't get Diamox here. We then asked the young lady she could be our guide for tomorrow when we wanted to go shopping in the market for jackets, gloves etc. She said she couldn't because she was working but she took us next door where she teaches English and she asked if any of the other teachers there would be available. Unfortunately not, but they did have an idea for acquiring the Diomox and sent us off to the Qinghai Red Cross Hospital which was within walking distance.  We then spent more than 1 hour with a very persistent young nurse who when she saw our Chinese words worked very hard and used her phone to call an English speaking German doctor that then would give her instructions and she would call him back when things were not moving the way she wanted.  So David now has a medical card for the hospital, we have visited the emergency room, and were then taken to the pharmacy store room to acquire a similar product to Diamox and given the dosage by the German doctor.  We bought our medical needs for about $50. We profusely thanked our young nurse and headed back to the hostel to use the internet to check for drug interactions with our current medications. We stopped at a restaurant that was full of families for dinner. No English menu but managed to find someone who would point to things that are not spicy.  As I had turned up my nose at this picture of a whole chicken, including the head on the plate, we ended up with 2 vegetable dishes that were delicious and then a rice dish with very small chicken pieces basically for flavoring. They did not have bottled water but we were able to buy water next door and drink it there. After using the drug checker for methazolamide  (took us awhile to find the name of the key ingredient in this Nearmox) and reviewing the herbal option Hongjingtian we decided it was time to go to bed.  We had walked almost 1 1/2 miles today, including many stairs, and at this new higher elevation were tired. David took the full dose for the Nearmox and I took 1/3 the dose as I have had a skin reaction to sulphate drugs in the past so need to check for a reaction first. We put in our ear plugs and hoped for a good nights sleep but there is a construction site across the road that looks like it might go all night.