The Crossing into the Mainland

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The next morning we started the trek to our first destination on the mainland- Guilin. We caught the ferry to central, then another ferry to Kowloon. Then we changed our money to Chinese yuan, and walked to the train station that would take us to the border. We got out of Hong Kong all right, but in entering China, I got through quickly, and when I turned to wait for Lex to get through I was bustled along by an official who declared "no waiting allowed", I tried walking a few steps then waiting, but I got told off so many times that in the end I hid behind a pole so the official couldnt see and waited. I waited for about 10 minutes and still Lex hadnt come. I was starting to worry- maybe something was wrong with her visa? Or maybe she had just lost her departure card and that was holding her up. In the end I went back to try and sneak a look while the official was looking somewhere else, and couldnt see Lex anyway, not at the counter or in the line. So I assumed thta maybe she had gone past me somehow while I was hiding behind the pole. So I kept going along out of customs, trying to dawdle and look around occassionally, but always being pushed along. In the end I made it all the way out, looked frantically around and couldnt find Lex. I walked up and down, but still couldnt see her. I waited 10 minutes, and she still hadn't come. I was starting to wonder whether she had looked for an internet cafe, or maybe headed to the busses we needed to go to. I was starting to wonder how I was going to explain to her family how I managed to lose their daughter, and wasn't even sure what country I'd lost her in. It got to the point where I was thinking I'd wait another 5 minutes then maybe look around the busses, when I finally saw her come out. Omg, the relief. I had been so worried, I honestly didn't know what I would have done if she hadn't come. So the first thing we did was come up with an emergency plan if we got lost, bought sim cards and swapped numbers, so hopefully nothing like that would happen again.

Apparently she had just been delayed because she had lost her departutre card and by the time she filled one out a huge line had formed. She too had waited around a bit, but had been pushed along, so assumed I would have been too. Even an hour or so later I was still in a bit of shock from the whole incident. It's easy enough to look after youself, if you know what you're doing, but not knowing where someone is or how they'll react to the situation or what they'll do, well it can be a bit scary. Anyway, after that we managed to find a bus to Guangzhou. We arrived about 4pm, and bought our bus ticket to Guilin, which wasn't due to leave until 10pm. Despite occupying ourselves with a long dinner, and reading, 20 questions (and in my case buying a packet of disgustig coffee flavoured biscuits and eating them, and shuffling cards aimlessly for 30 minutes), the time still passed really really really really sloooooowly. After after 4 hours of waiting, luckily a local who spoke English (the first who spoke a word since we arrived on the mainland) came and talked to us, and we spoke about university, the school system, the lack of oppurtunity to travel for chinese residents etc etc. He was very nice and helpful in helping us interpret the announcements for the busses. Our bus ended up being over 30 minutes late, and despite never calling the bus, at about 10:45pm, a man walked into the bus station saying something in Chinese. Apparently our bus had been waiting for us, and for quite some time... oh well, not out fault, we even had a local to help tell us if there was an announcement.. at least thank god they didn't leave without us. I did not fancy our chances of finding a guesthouse that time of night with none of the taxi drivers speaking english and we not really sure where to go. And I was so sick of that bus station and its metal chairs. It was quite cold too.

The bus was warm, and smelt like noodles and old cigarettes. I was given a mattress towards the front of the bus in the middle (there were three mattress in each row, and aisles in between them). It was hard to sleep for quite a few reasons. Firstly, heaters came through the floor and cool air from above, but unevenly, so one side of my mattress was too hot to sleep on, and the other was very cool and required a blanket. Secondly, some local guy was given a matress in one of the aisles nex to my bed, so i couldnt turn over to that side because there was no room. Thirdly my legs were too long to be stretched the whole way on the mattress, and after a days of ferries, trains and busses, my legs were rather uncomfortable in a bent position. Forthly, the bus did very sharp turns and it was hard to stay on the mattress when it did. Fifthly, the bus kept stopping to let people off and lights went on,.... i could go on. In short it wasn't quite the best night's sleep I'd had.

According to Lonely Planet, the overnight bus to guilin was supposed to be 13 hours, so from that I estimated we'd be arriving sometime around midday. Anyway, at 6.30 I was shaken 'awake' (I use that term liberally because that suggests I was truly asleep) by some guy saying two things over and over "guilin?", "yangshuo" and pointing outside. From this i gathered that we had arrived in Yangshuo, and that the bus wasn't actually going to Guilin after all. Luckily Lex and I were planning to catch a bus straight from Guilin to Yangshuo once we arrived, because I was already feeling a bit annoyed at the dodgy conditions, and that the space I had paid rather dearly for (180 yuan, quite a bit!), had been partly taken up by some dude sleeping in the aisle. Anyway, so it was still dark when we arrived in Yangshuo. I found the map hard to read, and despite some very friendly and helpful locals who tried to help (and didn't ask for any money in turn for the favour- what a refreshing change!) we were still wandering around for some time, trying hotel after hotel which were trying to charge us 100 yuan or more a night. In the end, after dawn breaking and at least getting to appreciate the beautifual sillouettes of the mountains against the sky, we finally found a place that was 40 yuan a night. We took it, but the morning was noisy with construction outside, and cold, with the hotel trying to make us pay more money to get the remote to the air conditioning (the only source of heat), so in the morning we left and found a new guesthouse, recommended by Lonely Planet- Monkey Jane's....

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