Ugly at the Arch

On becoming the dickhead (Xinjiang, China, 2008)

Photo by Zeb Johnson on Unsplash

I’ve long maintained that the trope of the “Ugly American” is both dated and inaccurate, that those of us from the US who travel internationally tend to be nice most of the time. Sure, we can be loud and a bit brash, but when it comes appalling behavior when on vacation, several other nationalities have got us beat, without question.

That said, there are times when the stresses of being abroad a can get to you. Weeks on the road can break you down — especially if you’re traveling raw — to where even the best of us can have a bad day and turn into the asshole we’ve always thought we never could be.

This is such a time.

The three of us had just arrived back into Kashgar after our jaunt up the Karakorum Highway, having dinner and beers at the Chini Bagh’s John’s Café in the single compound — the former British Consulate — where all the foreigners were forced to stay while in town.

We were joined by Simon, a sinewy, towering, bald Englishman who looked a lot like Peter Garrett from the Australian band Midnight Oil. His eyes shone wild as he carried on about a day trip he had just taken to Shipton’s Arch, a rock formation a couple of hours outside of town. Shipton’s Arch, or Tushuk Tash (“Pierced Rock”) as it’s known in Uyghur, is the tallest natural arch in the world, standing at over 1,200 feet, and located in a very remote part of the desert.

“I was just out there today,” Simon said in his lilting Yorkshire accent. “I had the whole place to meself. No one goes there. It’s spectacular. I would highly recommend checking it out.”

He showed us some video that he had shot a few hours earlier with his cell phone camera.

“See! It’s fucking incredible. I mean, look at it.”

I squinted and peered at the footage. It did appear to be a cool spot, but it’s hard to deliver the wow factor on a two-inch screen. I was skeptical, but my two companions were sold. And the next day was special: it was Steve’s birthday as well as his last day in Xinjiang. After nearly three weeks of travelling with us, he was due to fly back to Shanghai, and then on to Korea. It had been an epic trip, and we had to see him off in style.

We made arrangements to hire a Jeep and set out early the next day on the two-hour drive to the trailhead. After a little more than an hour on the paved road, we turned off onto a dried-up riverbed, where the driver switched into 4WD.

We slowly worked our way up the rocky bed until we came to the stone-and-mud hut of a goat-herding family, where we were waved down by a teenage boy. Our driver—an affable Chinese guy in a pink polo shirt—rolled down the window and spoke with the kid in Uyghur. When they were finished, the driver told me that there was a 20-yuan-per-person “entrance fee.”

I immediately balked. It seemed everywhere we went on this trip had some sort of hidden “entrance fee.” Plus, we were paying the café’s travel desk a lot of money for the Jeep and the driver, so the thought of coughing up extra made all of us bristle. Three weeks of hard travel had made us frequent targets for cheats, grifters, and thieves. Our patience was sapped.

I looked the driver in the eyes and said, “No fucking way.”

Whether this registered or not is anyone’s guess, but he waved goodbye to the kid and drove off.

We proceeded on for about ten minutes more until the road ended in a gravel parking area. Ours was the only visible vehicle. This was the trailhead. We got out of the Jeep and the driver pointed toward the starting point—he would wait for us in the Jeep. We thanked him and began our hike up toward the arch.

As we approached the actual trailhead, I heard the whine of a small engine reverberate up the canyon. It was the sound of a motorcycle—a dirt bike. Soon the rider came into view behind us, quickly closing the distance. It was the kid from the goat herder’s hut. He was coming… to collect his fee.

He rode his motorbike as far as it could go, got off, and broke into a sprint in an attempt to overtake us. We picked up the pace, but we saw no need to get into a running contest with this kid.

He eventually passed us, and it was only then when I saw why he was in such a hurry: about one hundred meters in front of us, the canyon narrowed and steepened dramatically. A wooden ladder lay against the face of the rock. Climbing this ladder was the only way you could continue up toward the arch.

By the time we got to the Uyghur teen, he was clutching the ladder like it was a briefcase full of diamonds. He then firmly requested 20 yuan each, about three American dollars. We shook our heads and said no. He gripped the wooden ladder even tighter. It was a standoff and he had us by the balls.

We could have gone easily. We could have just given up the 20 yuan — which was the cost of mug of shitty Korean beer — and been on our way, but we weren’t having it. This was the day we would stand our ground. It was Steve’s birthday. Surrender was impossible! We would draw a line in the sand and fight.

At first I tried bargaining. After a few weeks in China, I had gotten a pretty good hold on the numbers, so I had confidence when it came to negotiating a price. I offered 20 yuan for all three of us. I was sure he’d take it. I’d given him the courtesy of saying it in Chinese, which, even if not his first language, would have been easier for him to understand than English.

He understood me all right, but just shook his head and held firm. I came up to 40, but the kid wouldn’t budge. He insisted on 60 and that was that. This only served to stoke our indignation — mine especially.

I demanded to see some ID. After all, how do we know that he was officially allowed to collect tolls? For all we knew, he could just be some local punk ripping us off. When no official card was forthcoming, I ridiculously threatened him with the police — using my best mime skills to act out reporting him via telephone — as if they’d race out to the middle of the desert over a disputed entrance fee.

He met my eyes and stood tall. Sam joined in as I stammered and sputtered and foamed at the mouth. I tried to grab the kid’s ladder but he yanked it away. I shook my finger in his face and called him an “extorting little fucker.” Following my lead, my two accomplices joined me cornering the poor kid and let loose a torrent of abuse. The boy, however, would not be intimidated. He just stared back in proud defiance and contempt.

It was Steve who caved in to reason. After huffing and puffing and thumping our chests, he yelled out, “Hey Tharp. Let’s just pay the kid! It’s my birthday and I want to see the arch.”

I turned to him in disbelief. He just shrugged and reached for his wallet.

That was that, then. We finally relented and gave this kid his nine bucks, though I did feel the need to dramatically spit on the ground when I handed him the cash, likely a grievous insult in honor-driven Uyghur culture.

What is it about righteousness that can be so all-consuming? All three of us were convinced that we were in the right and that this kid — this goat herder — was trying to rip us off, that he had seen an opportunity to squeeze some foreigners for money and was jumping at it. At no time did it occur to us that EVERYONE who comes to the arch had to pay this little tax to the locals who live on and work the land, who make and maintain the ladders. And 20 yuan certainly pales in comparison to the 200 or more that we had to pay at other sites during the trip, sites run by hordes of uniformed, unsmiling Chinese.

After paying, we continued up the trail — scurrying up five or six more ladders — rattled by our anger and loss of face. We plotted revenge against the kid, even having a serious discussion about pissing on his motorcycle . But our anger quickly gave way to serenity because of our surroundings. We were enveloped in pure silence, save for the light breeze blowing up from the desert floor.

We ascended a canyon of red and ochre, of stone worn into gnarled, psychedelic shapes by centuries of desert wind, only to come across a hole at the canyon’s end.

As we approached the hole, we realized that we were actually on top of a mountain. On the other side was a chasm, a sheer drop of over one thousand feet.

Shipton’s Arch.

English Simon was right. It was absolutely amazing.

The arch only reveals its true size once you are up on it. It looks slightly dramatic from a distance, but you have no idea of its scale until you are right there, almost on top of it.

It is enormous. It ripped the breath right out of us. We were floored. And, like English Simon the day before, we had it all to ourselves. We were at one of the most beautiful sites in the most populous country on Earth and there wasn’t a soul to be seen. Everything about the place simply blew us away, but our euphoria was soon dampened by the realization of the people we had just been thirty minutes before: terrible, terrible people.

Shipton’s Arch is in a very inaccessible part of the desert, and this is why the Chinese have yet to destroy it. They have yet to build a road and a parking lot with souvenir stands, a cable car cranking out awful pop music, and soft-drink advertisements. They have yet to pave a concrete stairway up to the top, with a fenced-off viewing platform and karaoke room. They have yet to open the sieve and direct fleets of tour buses there on a daily basis. They have yet to ruin the place.

Let the Uyghur goat herders maintain their stewardship. And please, unlike us, don’t give them any hassle when they ask for your three bucks.

Consider the alternative.