Chengdu: Just getting there - a whiny post

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Deal flends and feller travelers,

I've had some rough days lately.
Since China's so big you have to dedicate some days just to traveling, i mean - busses and trains.
Like me, for example.
I've got this crazy traveling idea: I wanna go to Chengdu in Sichuan and see the Panda bears!

Sooo, I've got a free preperation for the ride to Beijing.

I've been recomended by the lady from Shangri la traveler club (my hostel in Shangri la) to go to Penzhihua and from there to take a train to Chengdu.

Ofcorse, the 12 hours bus is a sleeper bus, so i got squooshed with my two small bags in a short "bed", but at least i've made a Chinese girl-friend (not girlfriend, i'm not there yet...) who tought me a little bit about Chinese calture and some words and sentences.

Don't get me started with how hard the Chinese transportation works to get you to places in the most uncomfortable time... The bus to Penzhihua leaves Shangri la at 17:00. Why so late, you ask? Ah, just so I can get to enzhihua on time, at 5:00 in the morning, so I won't miss the train to Chengdu at 12:00!

And if you ask why 12:00, it is just so I will get to arrive in Chengdu right on time not to find a hotel. At 23:40, that is.

And for your information, sunrise here is about 7:40 or something. If you go out at 8:00 in the morning, the sky is still dark bluish with the moon, stars and everything. Like 5:30 in our counties. Counties, Alek... So, you see, I had to wait for two hours in some restaurant in the train station of Penzhihua just so it won't be too dark and dangerous to get my wallet out and pay for my train ticket, and then 5.5 more hours, just reading, since Penzhihua didn't offer me any exciting activities.

Oh, by the way: Ant Eva, His Days and Nights by Amnon Dankner - highly recomended! I can't believe this is what I write from China, but yeah...

And the trains here are not the loxurious trains we have in Israel, where you attach your laptop and feel like you're on an international flight. h, no. They're full! And people rub into you whenever they go to the bathroom, since there's not enough space for all the people, and ofcorse, some people didn't get the ticket in advance, so they had to stand.

After getting tired of sitting for 8.5 hours I got up for one hour and gave my sit to a nice lady that gave me a Chinese fruit which I couldn't get if it was a pear or an apple before. Well, if you have to stand in a train in China (and you do. You spend a lot of time on them and your ass is getting sour in the middle) - the smoking section near the toilets is THE place to be. Even if you don't smoke. Hey - The train stinks anyway (no such thing as smoking area on public transportation in Israel and the States for a reason) - At least there you get shoved and rubbed less. Only by those people who need to use the tiolet or clean it.

So the train-ride, as you can read, was vret pleasant. I got to read a lot since I wasn't witting near the window, and do a lot of social passive smoking, which was far better than actually getting to Chengdu.
All the hotels that were offered to me so late at night only started from 80 Yuan and when I got there they refused to have me. Yup. They were either full or just Bitchi. Number two's my guess.

Chengdu's nothing like any city i've visited in Yunnan. It's big, some people in hotels are sociomat (at 1:30 AM not to accept someone with 3 heavy bags is mean, even if you were just sleeping and you don't get what a visa-extention is and you don't speak English and you're f**king stupid and don't like to help people). In Yunnan so many people were so nice and helpful. Yunnan was Vietnam in comparison. So the two nice ladies that started as hostel-agents and eventually went long distance with me to help me find a hotel (only at 2:00 AM was this mission accomplished) and carried some of my bags for me were hugged and tipped in the end.

My hostel was one of the nicest indeed. Some heat and a mineral hot&cold water machine almost got me to stay another night. However, since I have paid 100 Y last night and i'm not a tourist but a backpacker and there's a big diference, i am gonna find one of those LP recomended BP-hosterls tonight and go to see Panda bears tomorrow. Then i'm probably gonna split to Beijing, since i'm tired of having to work so hard to explain myself all the time everywhere so I really wanna mark my Vs and make it to S.E.A and India already.

Even though nowhere in SEA was the food as great as Chinese food, and especially here, in Sichuan.

That's it for today, since i really have to hurry and grub this backpackers-hostel.

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Comments

[noam]

china
sisterish what´s the value of the chinese currency? sorry to hear they were not nice at the beginning...some people are like that. the not accepting people happends when they r full here but they r trying to be nice though... smoky place on the train is the place? is it a bar? here in ARG there almost no trains, just busses, but the best busses ever...semi cama (150 maalot) or cama (175 or something) are big and with meals and everything (but it´s not so good usually) and sometimes even wine! hope the panda bears were worth it! love, your brother