Goodbye Beijing

Even her friend, who first met me at the subway station since she was busy, gave me the obvious advice, "Never travel anywhere for a girl." He had come to Beijing the previous year to follow his girlfriend, and they broke up, but he wound up staying for lack of anything better to do.

I met Audrey, a Chinese girl, in Phuket as I was vainly trying to find a boat to India. After the first few days searching for the boat I just spent about a week straight with her, and things were great, to make a long story short.

Audrey said she wanted me to come see her in Beijing, a thought that didn't really appeal to me at first, but then I realized I wasn't going to be sailing to India, so why not? Even if things didn't work out - and they didn't - the only way overland to anywhere but Australia was back through China.

Audrey flew back to Beijing. I took a bus from Phuket to Surat Thani, and overnight train to Bangkok, killed a day in Bangkok until my night train to Laos. I spent the weekend in Laos, then rushed my Chinese visa through on a Monday, $160, and got on a bus on Tuesday afternoon.

The bus, as I wrote about, was awful. The train, as I wrote about, was far worse. But all the while, the thought of Audrey kept me cheerful. I figured I'd get to Beijing and things would be rosy, but I guess I forgot that our time in Phuket together, though just part of my normal life at this point, was a vacation for her.

She was busy beyond belief planning some huge press conference for work. I didn't get to see her much except in the evenings, and even then she had to do late work and whatnot. The third night she finally sat down with me and told me things wouldn't work out like they did in Thailand. I wasn't surprised, but I was interested.

Audrey gave me an ever-changing list of reasons why. First excuse: she didn't want her boss or friends to think bad of her for seeing a traveler who might not be around in a month. Lots of ex-pats in China told me that was a very Chinese perspective to take, but she had already told me her boss wanted to meet me and take me to dinner, and I met her when she was with her friends in Phuket.

The last one I got was that she just wasn't over an Italian boy who had treated her like shit before she left for vacation. She'd referred to him many times in Phuket as "that Italian asshole". I guess I should've know if she was referring to him at all, it was a bad sign.

The rejection hurt, but not because I had traveled all the time to get to her. I'm traveling anyway, so it's not a big deal. It was more because I had convinced myself things were going to be great, and I was wrong. I liked her, but it wouldn't be the end of the world. I told myself the worst part was that she didn't even give me a chance to spend time with her once I was in Beijing - we didn't even get a date together. Maybe she was worried about me leaving, but she didn't even see how things would be if I had stayed.

I moved into a hostel for another four days, wondering if we'd get a chance to talk again - everything had been rather hasty and she was still legitimately busy at work- and wondering if I should go straight to Urumqi and Kazakhstan, or if I should try to deal with the cost and hassle of Tibet to get to India.

I gave up on India and got a train to Xi'an, where I'd relax a couple days and visit the two Irish guys I met on the bus to Kunming.

It snowed the last two days I was in Beijing. It was nice to see, but slippery to walk in. I got a lift of spirits from having dinner with a friend from Korea on Saturday night. I bought a 1st class sleeper on Monday morning, and was gone in the evening, wishing it hadn't been such a pathetic visit to the city again, but glad to be moving on.