Many years back in in the far north of China, one morning I hitchhiked from Yinchuan, in Ningxia province to the border of Inner Mongolia.
Nothing but wilderness and crumbling ruins of a wall (part of the series of walls that make the great wall). There were no tourists here, hardly any traffic and the landscape wall all mine to wonder about. I thought about all the people who had traveled though here to the west along the silk route. Places like these where the travelers may have camped – someone makes a fire and that becomes the resting places of several caravan headed in different directions - Persian, Koreans, Chinese and a dozen other nationalities that no longer exist. Wish I could go back in time to find out what stories they exchanged.
These days the nearest I can get to the silk route camp experience is the huddlespaces I find in airports – around power plugs and wi-fi points.
This is one place, strangers are friends – they are happy to talk about their phones and gadgets.
The price of iPhone on their respective countries is often the topic.
Images from Kuala Lumpur budget terminal.
