We’d done the filming of the travelogue (motorcycle journey from Shanghai along the Silk Route/Road to Xinjiang) and were going to head for Islamabad to fly back to London.
The Chinese driver then told us that he couldn’t take us down the Karakoram Highway to the Chinese border with Pakistan. The road is strewn with frequent rockfalls on that last stretch, and the chassis of his minibus is too low as some of the rockfall are fairly huge boulders.
This was a 37-day film shoot, pre-negotiated at USD250 per person per day (yes, per person per day), with the authorities that looked after sport and travel activities, so I’m not sure how we could suddenly be abandoned like that to make the rest of the journey on our own, at our own expense. They should’ve foreseen that the last stretch entailed going down the Karakoram Highway, and made arrangements for a vehicle that could cope with the conditions.
We didn’t want to argue with the driver, as he was not working for himself, so we didn’t want to make life difficult for him. He was an affable chap, and we’d got on with him all the way. Being from the West, and being a film crew, we could afford to dig into our corporate pocket for that extra stretch.
A bit random all the same, to spring it on us like that last minute.
Anyway, a replacement had to be found for the minibus.
Along came a Tajik driver of a normal size bus, a battered old rattler that was to take the five of us, our 54 boxes of filming equipment and ten personal luggage bags down the rock-strewn Karakoram Highway.
After agreeing to a price, he then wanted to know when he should present himself at our hotel the next morning to collect us. Here’s the conversation that ensued:
Me: Come at 5am.
D(river): Beijing time or Xinjiang time?
Me: (Trying to make life easier for him) Which one do you use?
D: I use both. Beijing time or Xinjiang time?
For some reason, the driver wanted the time to be pinned down not just to 5am, but 5am Beijing time or 5am Xinjiang time.
Obviously, the locals carry two sets of time in their heads: one for official/work life (e.g., 9am start for going to the office), and one for personal life (e.g., eating noodles at 3am Beijing time which is really earlier in Xinjiang).
In the end, I thought it’d solve the problem if I suggested we compare our watches there and then, which showed the same time (6.30pm), and go by 5am on our respective watches for him to turn up the following morning.
Still he asked, “Beijing time or Xinjiang time?”
(Tashkurgan, Xinjiang, S.W.China, 1988)
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