China is....

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It's been exactly one week since we left the cozy confines of Hong Kong and crossed into mainland China at Shendzhen. Under the stern gaze of the Chinese Police we nervously handed our passports and tourist visas to the immigration officer. At this point, we had no idea what to expect...

As we made our way through the Shendzhen train station we knew we needed to catch another train...most probably to Guangzhou, a major centre a couple hours inland where we could probably catch a train to anywhere in China....this is when we encountered our first problem...All English language and signage stopped. Most importantly, this included the train schedule and all people working the ticket booths....

There may be no more helpless feeling than standing in the middle of a train station, staring up at a giant 60 foot digital schedule and seeing nothing but Chinese....We waited in line for 20 minutes....took our turn at the front and asked the lady if she spoke English...the only response we got was a loud smattering of Chinese back at us...we shrugged our shoulders, she turned back to a co-worker and starting yelling to them in Chinese. Nobody came to our rescue. Eventually, she understood our crazy gesturing and my feeble pronunciation of "Guangzhou". Frustrated, she took our money, printed off a couple of tickets and motioned us on our way. We looked at our tickets and thankfully we could see a time and what seemed to be a Train number....and then off we went.

Our travel plan was to train it to Guangzhou, take an overnight sleeper train to Changsha, then bus or train it to Jishou and then bus from Jishou to our destination, Fenghuang in the Hunan province. We choose Fenghuang because our Lonely Planet travel guide called it "a funky riverside town with oodles of charm." Sounded good to us! Little did we know it would take us over 30 hours of travelling to get there! It may look kinda close on a map, but China is...BIG.

So, we arrived at Guangzhou and found our sleeper train to the wintery city of Changsha. Unfortunately,we arrived in Changsha at 5:00am....It was pitch black outside and -10 degrees, we ambled out of the train station, only to be accosted by about 10-12 taxi drivers, all yelling at us...us having no idea what they were saying, them no idea of us.... somebody grabbed my arm, I aggressively shook them off, more yelling, more gesturing on our part...Finally, one female taxi driver was able to understand that we wanted to go to Jishou. She motioned to us that we had to leave, and we think she may have said "bus." She quickly whisked us away to the bus station and charged us about 10 times what we thought it would cost. Thouroughly rattled, we were quickly ushered out of the cab and onto the dark, semi-deserted, downtown street. As I grabbed our bags, the taxi driver dragged Shannon to the entrance and was making various pointing gestures. With 4 bags hanging off my back and neck, I was confronted by 3 men trying to sell me something....apparently the taxi driver gripped Shannons arm tightly and motioned to her that we should stay away from the guys who were in my face. Good idea.

So there we were at the closed Changsha bus station at 5:20am, waiting in the freezing cold with a few other lonely souls. Our waiting room was not inside, it was just an open air room with a roof...at this point we still had no winter clothes and we were bundled up in everything we had....we sat there in misery for a good hour hoping somehow somebody might speak english and be able to help us either get a bus ticket to Jishou or (my idea) drive us to the friggin airport and take the first plane out of there....I sat there thinking that we were not in a tourist town, in fact, we were the only tourists in sight and may have been the only ones to arrive in months or years the way people we acting towards us...it was winter in Changsha....I was angry "What the hell were we doing?". Shannon was less angry, since I was filling that role, she busied herself with finding us some oranges and trying to look at the bright side...later that day she said she was only being positive because it was the worst time/place she'd been in in her life!

The lights at the ticket window eventually came on and we were able to secure a ticket to Jishou at 10:30am....still 4 hours away....So we suffered in the bus station and eventually were led to our bus...the staff were very helpful, realizing our predicament....Looking at the map, Shannon and I both figured Jishou was about a 3 hour trip....The bus left on time and we made our way out of the city, through the country and into the rice paddy covered mountains....

I had my first laugh of the day at about the 6 hour mark of our trip, when our bus stopped at a small residence/store on the side of the road. Our driver got out and washed the bus. Soap and everything. Spic and Span. 6 hours into our dirty, rainy, grey trip, he figures its time to clean er' up...now that was funny..."Only in China," I thought...at dusk we finally pulled into Jishou. Shannon and I both had eagle eyes looking out for a hotel, any hotel....thankfully, a few doors down from the train station, where the bus dropped us off, we found a hotel and managed to fumble our way through check in. We were led up to our glorious, warm, safe, clean, hot shower, hotel room....heaven...after that day, the Jishou Hotel felt like the Presidential Suite at the Banff Springs hotel...We finally had a place to put our jackets, if we had any.

We gathered ourselves and knew our next task would not be easy. Finding somewhere to eat and ordering. We headed out into the big, bad world again and found a streetside foodstall with a nice Chinese couple who whipped us up some sort of rice/tofu/vegetable mixture that we ate ravenously....people stared at us... teenagers giggled as we walked past them....Clearly, white people with no jackets were not a common sight in Jishou. Laying in bed that night we dreaded waking up and facing the next day. In my mind, our main battle would be finding the bus station that could take us to Fenghuang. I found it ironic that the reason why we didn't know where the bus station was was because the bus dropped us off at the train station!

The new day brought new hope and things began to fall our way. We were successful in reaching Fenghuang without incident. The hour long bus trip from Jishou was a breeze and we arrived safe, happy and renewed. We then discovered a beautiful, genuine, ancient town and met some great people along the way. I believe Shannon is getting excited about showing you the photos and writing about our whirlwind 3 days in Fenguang! Stay tuned.....

Cheers,

Greg

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Comments

[DARLENE]

GREG, THIS IS ANOTHER OF THOSE TIMES IN A MOTHERS LIFE WHEN SHE'S GLAD TO HEAR OF THESE TRIALS "AFTER THE FACT".PLEASE COME HOME...............LOVE YA.MOM

[anonymous]

shannon's worst time and place ever
So Shannon's worst time and place ever was sitting beside you in China... wow... I would have thought it would be those 10 days of complete silence, fasting, chores and lack of luxurys... but hey...sitting beside you.... she's right....BRUTAL!!!! Jodi