After leaving Gaochang, I walked the same road I had come in on. I was again taking photos. I could not resist, but I was more watchful. I was still tired from walking in the heat of the desert afternoon. I had recovered from my dehydration, pounding two liters of water, but my energy was still sapped.

Still taking photos

As I got closer to the police station where my interrogators had come from, the event which I talked about in the previous post, I put my camera away. I began to think about cutting around the back of the village to avoid passing in front of the station. The paranoia was returning.

As cars drove up behind me, I began to turn back and try and wave them down. Even hitching a ride in the bed of a three wheeled cart for half a mile would allow me to avoid exposing myself to a chance for more interrogation.

I was only a few hundred feet from the police station. I turned around. A long sedan was approaching. I waved. It slowed down.

There were two Uighur men in the back seat, along with a Uighur man in the driver’s seat. “Where are you going?” I began as I always do with hitchhiking in China.

“Turpan” the driver said.

“How much.”

“Thirteen kuai.” He said. Not even two US dollars. Two kuai less than the bus.

I got in, blasted by the air conditioning. The driver sped down the village road, and we passed the police station in a blur. I sighed, relieved. We slipped onto the interstate, and the Flaming Mountains appeared.