I was hoping to leave to go traveling for a few days on Sunday morning early but come Sunday morning I really felt sick and in no mood for a long bus. I rebooked the ticket for Monday and so Monday morning arrived at the bus station for 8am to catch the bus, I knew it was long, around 12 hours, but when Elaine asked as I boarded it turned out to be longer.... I didn't know then just how long this journey would be!
I got on the first bus from the bus station at 8am from a nearby town of longgang and as I was getting on Elaine asked what time we arrived tonight. Tonight the bus driver said??? No way! Tomorrow morning! At some time... Urgh! Not a 12 hours bus after all! I was already at the station with a ticket so decided to just do it, no more messing around! And so got on the bus and away we went, all two passengers and the driver!
Or so i thought! We got around the corner drove two streets over and stopped... Everybody off he said! I left the bus and borded another bus, an old style sleeper bus, (many beds all lined up down the bus) and with a few more people, maybe 8 or so now! we continued this way slowly adding more and more people from beside the road and headed into a lot of random towns picking people up and what not, by 12.30 i had been on the bus for 4.5 hours and was just north of wenzhou 80km away from home! An awful average speed of less than 15 miles an hour!
Then we turned a corner in the middle of nowhere and stopped next to a huge group of 50 or so people who all piled into the bus! there was not enough space on the bus for them all and so they were sat in the isles and sat anywhere they could! The bus driver came on and took a look, decided it was stupid and 15minutes later another bus pulled up, all off he said again and so i got out of the bus and was pointed onto a third bus! This one was thankfully much newer, but not a sleeper bus, and of course no onboard toilets! As i boarded it was already pretty full but a Chinese guy was signaling me to come and sit next to him, i did and got chatting a bit, he spoke no English so was down to my Chinese again but i did ok, he was going home for the tomb sweeping festival and his parents were in zhangjiajie, the place i was heading to, but he lived in zhejiang now, quite near me, and owned a factory making shoes and things... Random! Very friendly though and we set off chatting away.
At about 4pm we set off from the north of zhejiang, for real this time! And from then made pretty good progress, we stopped every 3 or 4 hours for a bathroom break and a chance to strech our legs, sometimes in pretty nice and now motorway services, and sometimes in some really small places! One memorable stop at about 12.30am was in the middle of nowhere a random restaurant in the ground floor of an isolated house, as soon as the bus stopped two girls rushed out and were noisly sick just outside, everyone disembarqued, trudged through the restaurant area (a few dirty tables) out through the kitchen and through the garden into the 'toilets' a big hole with planks over it... a Very... Rustic and... Hmmm... Social... Experience?
This third bus had a tv at the front and some big speakers and so to entertain the guests played a constant playlist of 20year old Chinese standup comedy, hopeless for foreigners but right through the night at full volume was this comedy and Chinese people laughing along with the tv, hardly easy to sleep! in early morning around 3am to give you a chance to sleep they switched to Chinese electro dance music, also at full volume, although by that time I actually did manage to sleep, for about 4 hours at least!
one interesting technique I noticed was for some reason whenever we stopped the bus driver would let the whole bus roll, or enlist a push, before bump starting the bus to get it going, one time I could have sworn we would smash into a parked truck as we rolled across the car park trying to get the engine to kick in!
Morning came and I started to see signs for zhangjiajie so knew we were close, we approached the edge of a small town and I waited for the bus station, soon I still had not seen the bus station and apart from the usual dropping off of a few people nobody got off!
The houses started to thin out again and I got a little worried and so went down and asked the bus driver when we would get to ZJJ; "ZJJ" he exclaimed, "we passed that 20minutes ago!" I started discussing with him what we were going to do, where was the next stop (1.5 hours) and then sometime get a bus back, or find a taxi by the road! I wanted a taxi but as we got further and further out with still no taxis, (at 5am no wonder...) And so I started to worry, suddenly the bus driver started honking and slammed on the brakes in the middle of nowhere!
He jumped out and motioned me to follow him, I did and realized that he had flagged down a bus going the other way, back to ZJJ! He helped me with my bags and with a smile I was on my way again!
After another 45mins or so I made it back to town, found a little cheap hotel near the bus station, a super cheap family run thing, and got an hour or so sleep!
A long day, bus a long way! More than a thousand miles, nearly all the way to Chongqing that we flew to last year! And it only cost £35! Not bad, and a real experience!
I got on the first bus from the bus station at 8am from a nearby town of longgang and as I was getting on Elaine asked what time we arrived tonight. Tonight the bus driver said??? No way! Tomorrow morning! At some time... Urgh! Not a 12 hours bus after all! I was already at the station with a ticket so decided to just do it, no more messing around! And so got on the bus and away we went, all two passengers and the driver!
Or so i thought! We got around the corner drove two streets over and stopped... Everybody off he said! I left the bus and borded another bus, an old style sleeper bus, (many beds all lined up down the bus) and with a few more people, maybe 8 or so now! we continued this way slowly adding more and more people from beside the road and headed into a lot of random towns picking people up and what not, by 12.30 i had been on the bus for 4.5 hours and was just north of wenzhou 80km away from home! An awful average speed of less than 15 miles an hour!
Then we turned a corner in the middle of nowhere and stopped next to a huge group of 50 or so people who all piled into the bus! there was not enough space on the bus for them all and so they were sat in the isles and sat anywhere they could! The bus driver came on and took a look, decided it was stupid and 15minutes later another bus pulled up, all off he said again and so i got out of the bus and was pointed onto a third bus! This one was thankfully much newer, but not a sleeper bus, and of course no onboard toilets! As i boarded it was already pretty full but a Chinese guy was signaling me to come and sit next to him, i did and got chatting a bit, he spoke no English so was down to my Chinese again but i did ok, he was going home for the tomb sweeping festival and his parents were in zhangjiajie, the place i was heading to, but he lived in zhejiang now, quite near me, and owned a factory making shoes and things... Random! Very friendly though and we set off chatting away.
At about 4pm we set off from the north of zhejiang, for real this time! And from then made pretty good progress, we stopped every 3 or 4 hours for a bathroom break and a chance to strech our legs, sometimes in pretty nice and now motorway services, and sometimes in some really small places! One memorable stop at about 12.30am was in the middle of nowhere a random restaurant in the ground floor of an isolated house, as soon as the bus stopped two girls rushed out and were noisly sick just outside, everyone disembarqued, trudged through the restaurant area (a few dirty tables) out through the kitchen and through the garden into the 'toilets' a big hole with planks over it... a Very... Rustic and... Hmmm... Social... Experience?
This third bus had a tv at the front and some big speakers and so to entertain the guests played a constant playlist of 20year old Chinese standup comedy, hopeless for foreigners but right through the night at full volume was this comedy and Chinese people laughing along with the tv, hardly easy to sleep! in early morning around 3am to give you a chance to sleep they switched to Chinese electro dance music, also at full volume, although by that time I actually did manage to sleep, for about 4 hours at least!
one interesting technique I noticed was for some reason whenever we stopped the bus driver would let the whole bus roll, or enlist a push, before bump starting the bus to get it going, one time I could have sworn we would smash into a parked truck as we rolled across the car park trying to get the engine to kick in!
Morning came and I started to see signs for zhangjiajie so knew we were close, we approached the edge of a small town and I waited for the bus station, soon I still had not seen the bus station and apart from the usual dropping off of a few people nobody got off!
The houses started to thin out again and I got a little worried and so went down and asked the bus driver when we would get to ZJJ; "ZJJ" he exclaimed, "we passed that 20minutes ago!" I started discussing with him what we were going to do, where was the next stop (1.5 hours) and then sometime get a bus back, or find a taxi by the road! I wanted a taxi but as we got further and further out with still no taxis, (at 5am no wonder...) And so I started to worry, suddenly the bus driver started honking and slammed on the brakes in the middle of nowhere!
He jumped out and motioned me to follow him, I did and realized that he had flagged down a bus going the other way, back to ZJJ! He helped me with my bags and with a smile I was on my way again!
After another 45mins or so I made it back to town, found a little cheap hotel near the bus station, a super cheap family run thing, and got an hour or so sleep!
A long day, bus a long way! More than a thousand miles, nearly all the way to Chongqing that we flew to last year! And it only cost £35! Not bad, and a real experience!
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