The road to Ali passed through yet more incredible scenery, going over high passes of nearly 5,000 metres before plunging into deep gorges. The bare rock was a myriad colours ranging from deep purple through mauve, red, orange, golden, yellow, silver and white. We scraped our way past a number of huge lorries and some way before Ali we passed a convoy of police cars, an ambulance and two fire engines with lights flashing and sirens blaring going in the opposite direction. Looks like we missed a bad accident.
Ali (in Chinese, Nari in Tibetan) is a very modern city. Tensing took us for our permits to stay there and the permit to pass into Xinjiang Province in a huge police station and we went up and down lifts and up and down long corridors until a man came up to us, lead us to a room and all the paperwork was completed in about 30 seconds. Looks like he was the Chief of Police and he went out of his way to be friendly and polite.
We then toured Ali looking for a tyre repair shop and an optician. Tensing asked a rather afluent-looking Tibetan who was loading his ultra-expensive 4×4 with electronic goodies where the tyre could be inflated and was given detailed instructions. He then asked where we could find an optician and with a broad grin the guy said “Are you blind? Its in front of your likba sa go ju (fucking) car. And it was, although it didnt have a sign. The optician was very helpful and made me up a very adequate pair of glasses in one hour. In the meantime, we found the tyre place and got the rather low tyre pumped up and tested. It was said to be ok and the tyre man resolutely refused to take any payment.
In the evening we went to the Muslim restaurant near the hotel and shared a large plate of stewed goat meat with peppers and tomatoes. Delicious.
