A Slow Boat Through China

Neehow (hello, in Mandarin). I feel just about as filthy and tired as I have all trip. But, thankfully, we're leaving in about five hours to catch a train to Hong Kong. Speaking of thanks, we had a pretty eventfull Thanksgiving. Contrary to my hopefull musings last time, we never had a chance. The bus from Songpan left on time and was the nicest bus we had been on so far. But about five hours into what was supposed to be an eight-hour trip, it breaks down. SO we're stuck on the side of the road in a terrible position, blocking traffic at a bend in the road. After waiting for about 2 hours, during which I think I heard approximately 200,000 car, truck, motorcycle, motor-rickshaw, and bicycle horns go off (yes, even the bikes have horns here), another bus finally pulled over for us. So our not-so-merry band of about 20, who had enjoyed the luxury of spreading out in a 50-seat bus initially, had to cram, luggage on laps or on whatever aisle space was available, into a completely full bus. (by the way, bikes do not have horns here. they have bells, whcih they use to great effect, unless you hear 100 going off at the sametime, from all different directions). But squeezing onto this bus was not the bad part. It was only when we got stuck in the WORST TRAFFIC JAM EVER that things took a turn for the worst. The road was only two lanes, one going each way. Cars stretched as far as the eye could see. THis is the good part: in China, it's common for vehicles to pass at basically anytime, even going around sharp blind curves or in heavy urban traffic. It can be a bit hair-raising, but still okay. But when there's a miles-long jam and cars are still passing you, including big trucks, then things get problematic. The vehicles doing the passing get stuck in the other lane, stopping opposing traffic, and causing other vehicles in the opposing lane that are stuck to attempt to pass.... and then you're fucked. Excuse the expression, but there is no other way to put it. It was a Tragedy of the Commons, with no end in sight. Meanwhile, we're stuck watching the first half of some cheesy Hong Kong film ('Love is Love,' in Cantonese, with Mandarin and English subtitles) at least three times because the driver didn't have the second DVD and just kept playing the first one over and over and over...Finally we got through it, with no clear sign of what the problem was, other than a busload (literally) of cops by the side of the road, and arrived in Chengdu at 7pm, thirteen hours after we left Songpan and a cool five hours late. A nice Thanksgiving dinner was out of the question, since veryone felt awlful, but we did manage to rally and went to an expat bar for bad hamburgers and worse mashed potatoes. But it wasn't all bad, since my friend tom and I had recruited an international crew to dine with us, none of whom knew about our tradition of gorging and thanking God for our good fortune. Which we did.

I won't bore anyone with Chengdu stories (I'm sure I just did enough of that); suffice to say we lounged alot in our nice hotel, ate some Western food for the first time in China (chinese fast-food chicken sandwiches; tasty, and less then 50 cents each; and we had McDonald's the next day); checked out the Panda breeding ground (very nice); and lounged somemore. Then we were off on the boat. We took a three night (supposed) trip down the Yangzi from Chongqing to Wuhan. One look at the boat and we knew were going to regret it. It was dinghy, dirty, smelly, crowded, noisy, and cold. In fact, it reminded me of Chinese city. But the time passed quickly enough, thanks to a couple good books and a lot of gin rummy (I lead Tom, 1055 to 655). The morning of the third day (three day- four night trip), we saw some spectacular scenery at the Three Gorges (which, by the way, are set to be flooded in about 2008 when the Chinese finishes its mammoth three Gorges Dam), but we were definitely ready to get off at this point. I was enjoying a nice sleep, in anticipation of disembarking at 10pm on the next day, when CLANK! The boat broke. So we had to get off, and wait in the cold (it was 1am when it happened) for a bus to tak us from Yichang to Wuhan. We arrived at 7am, after a very crowded mini-bus trip, and immediately went to the train station and purchased tickets to Hong Kong, leaving the same day at 630pm. There were no 'hard sleepers' available, only 'hard seats,' so we're in for a another night of little or no sleep (veryone fights for what little space they can get in hard seat). We heard Wuhan wasn't a very cool place, so we decided not to stay a night, and have just been walking around all day (which is whay, upon finding a cheap Internet place, I've typed such a long entry. So we're off in a few hours ton the relative calm and peace of Hong Kong (never though i'd write that), thanks to the kindness and generosity of one Tom Forrester, a man I have never seen nor met before, but who is a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend...and lives in Hong Kong and it letting us stay with him. So tune it next time for the crazy exploits of the three Toms as they lay waste to Hong Kong!