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Part IV of the backdoor route into Yangshou.
Our saga continues. Last time I left you in Zhaoxing, that Lijiang wannabe of a village. After an early morning tour of the village, we were ready to move on. In fact, we were ready to move on even before the tour. But time must sometimes be killed.
Our objective today was Longsheng. We wanted to get there in order to see the nearby terraces the next day. It was clear from the beginning that this day would be one of travel. There was no sightseeing planned. Just get from point A to point B in the quickest way possible. We did not foresee what this day had in store for us.
The nine o'clock bus passed by on schedule and scooped us up, on the way to Sanjiang, where we would have to transfer for the bus to Longsheng. The LP states that the road takes four hours. Fair enough. The ticket guy came up to us and asked us for 22Y. For those of you thinking that paying less than the equivalent of $3 for a bus is a steal, think again. It was Ayelet who first noted our impending plight. "We're being charged about 5Y per hour of travel". What's wrong with that? Plenty. You see, busses in China charge roughly according to the distance travelled and the level of comfort. For a long-distance express bus, expect to pay between 20 to 25Y per hour of travel. Regional busses charge 10Y per hour. The fact that we were being charged so little meant that the distance was quite short. Not more than 80km. But it takes four hours!
Our fear was soon validated. Turns out that road work was being done. The Chinese have an interesting way of doing roadwork. First, they decide to upgrade or rennovate a road. Next they tear up the entire existing road. They've never heard of doing things in sections. It doesn't matter whether it's 10km or 1000km. Only then do they get about to the task of construction. What they had done here was reduce an entire major road to what was effectively rubble. We found ourselves riding a slalom of dynamited rock slides, construction trucks, gravel mounds and pot holes. Not unlike one of those old Atari computer games where you have to move left and right to avoid obstacles while looking out for oncoming traffic. Fun fun fun!!!
We finally made it after four hours, not before passing, at one of the rest stops, what hands down wins the title of worst toilet in China. I'm thinking right now just how explicit I should be in my description. You know what? If you're not into explicits, just skip the following paragraph. No nightmare material after that.
Winning such a distinction means that this has to be the absolute worst hellhole mankind could ever think of. And it is. You go down a dirt path behind a building, finding a wooden shack perched above the town's river. In it there are two planks (one for each foot), with a gap in between. It wasn't the smell. That's something you take for granted here. It was the sight. Just before you get on with your business, you can't help but get a peek of what lies below that gap in the planks. What shocked me was that something was moving down there. In fact it was not one single thing but rather thousands of them. An open septic tank full of maggots lay beneath me. They seemed to quiver and tingle with joy at the prospect of my prospective contribution to their sustenance. This was just too much for me. I bolted out of there. Any business of mine would have to wait for the next stop.
Back to the bus. We made it to Sanjiang. The place was a furnace. We couldn't wait to get out of there. Luckily, we were just in time for the two o'clock bus to Longsheng. Two o'clock came. Two o'clock left. We were still stationary in an impossibly sun-baked warm bus and were the only ones on board. At some point we inquired and were told that due to a lack of passengers, the two o'clock and three o'clock busses had been consolidated. This was nothing new for me. You need a bit of patience in China with things like this. We got off the bus and waited. Three o'clock arrived and our driver still showed no signs of waking from his slumber. When we asked again, we were told that people still hadn't arrived and that the bus would perhaps leave at four. At this point we had had enough.
When learning a new language, there's always that magical moment when you get absolutely pissed off at something and just have to speak your mind. Suddenly, you find yourself holding your own in an altercation. You now know that whatever happens hereupon after, you have mastered the essential basics. Today would be the day.
Maybe the Chinese were going to take this lying (or slumbering) down, but we had a destination to get to, and there was no assurance that come four, it might not change to five. I mustered all of my Chinese and started explaining to the bus attendant that this was a bus service, not a taxi, and that it doesn't matter if there are not enough people. If you publish a schedule you have to stick to it. We needed to be in Longsheng and it didn't matter if the rest of the people in Sanjiang didn't. She replied that there was nothing she could do. I couldn't get an answer from her as to how many people a bus required in order to leave. For all I knew, we would end up staying the night if we didn't do something. After half an hour of angry discourse involving the raising of my voice during which she played stupid (I'm not sure it was all acting), I looked up the word for manager in the dictionary, and demanded to see him. She eventually directed me to the office. Stating my case once again, I reminded the manager over and over again that he was running a regular bus service and that a schedule is a schedule. He finally gave the go ahead. I think he just got tired of a Laowai shouting at him in broken Chinese. What can I say, in China it pays to be a nag.
What appears in the LP as a two and a half hour ride, turned out to be four. Same deal as with the morning's ride. They had reduced an entire highway to not much more that a country lane. But this time, to make things interesting, we had a bus which was determined not to comply with our driver's wishes. Three times during the ride, we got off and waited while the driver popped the hood to check why the motor was comatose. At some point, we also experienced a flat tire. As we rode on, from malfunction to malfunction, we picked up passengers on the side of the road. Soon the bus was packed full. Turns out people were waiting for the bus. Some of them for a few hours.
A word of advice now. Remember when we were kids, we were told never to stick our head out the window of a car? Well, in China this is doubly true. You see, you should never ever stick your head out of the window downwind of a Chinaman. Why? Well, you just never know when he might feel the need to expectorate unto his ambient surroundings. What can I say, when you spend eight hours on a bus, one way to pass the time is to come up with these asinine euphemisms. In plain English that means to spit out the window. Anyway, just don't. Really. I leave the rest to your imagination.
We finally reached Longsheng in darkness, coated in a crust of dust and sweat after being tenderized by eight hours of constant pounding on the road. We found the closest hotel possible, showered and went to bed. Sometimes Bad China Days just happen.
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