Backposting - Jun30-Jul 3 - another transit blog for an out-of-city experience

The wheels on the bus go round and round...

We bought our bus tickets to Sanjiang the day before leaving, and man, was I ever happy to be able to see a written schedule that I could refer to prior to purchasing - even though I still don't know what all the different columns meant, and why they have variable pricing on them. Maybe some are non-stop? Who knows. There certainly aren't classes of ticket the way there are for trains. Anyway Y27 to Sanjiang, plus Y2 of insurance I accidentally bought (this be when language snags tend to bugger you up), made for cheap tickets on what was supposedly ("but the Lonely Planet guidebook said...") about 5h by bus. We had seats 5+6 on the 7:10AM bus, as the later (last one in the morning), more preferrable 7:40am bus was already sold out.

We get on a small-ish greyhound-sized beast in the morning to find ourselves separated by the aisle, and, fools that we are, sit dutifully in our assigned seats. G's big bag fit above the seat, and our two daypacks underneath, but there ain't much in the way of what you might call "leg room", so even when we pulled out of the station mostly empty, G stayed put in the aisle seat, next to a random chinese man (a furious smoker, unfortunately... despite the no smoking sign, which NO one, anywhere in China, ever seems to listen to). We pull up for gas bfr leaving the stn, and our ticket/money/conductor guy hops onboard. We have our numbers counted as we pull out of the stations, presumably to ensure that the bus doesn't claim more $ from the station than the stn collected for them, and we're OFF.

The driver of the bus yells 'move on back'...

Or so we thought. IMMEDIATELY after leaving the station -- no, no, literally, not even 5m from the parking lot -- we stop, and about 5 more people get on . This process repeats until we leave Guilin, pulling up at random non-bus-stops to pick up passengers, shouting out the window as we roll past city bus stops "Longsheng! Sanjiang!" and stopping for ANYONE who'll flag us down -- us = a BIG ol' long distance bus, NOT a taxicab, people! We even had a guy and his friend on a motorbike hail us, and had the ticket lady (a new one, now, who we'd picked up on the way) shout out as we drove past "meet us at the next intersection!", at which point we stopped, the man on his bike hopped off, unloaded his boxes and crates of baggage and got onboard.

'move on back'...

Did I mention that since these buses tend to stop in a lot of smaller towns and villages, people tend to bring a LOT of VERY large baggage? Did I also mention that we picked up enough ppl that the aisle was filled with people sitting on small wooden stools, or occasionally on barrels or cooking oil drums, just for kicks. I don't quite understand why ppl don't just GO TO THE BUS STATION, but hey, the chinese don't queue (except for Mao), so who says they should get on a bus BEFORE it starts moving. At least the chickens didn't get on the bus (at least not on THIS bus) -- a woman we picked up had a large rice bag, with holes in it, with her -- just wear and tear, I figure. Then the bag moved. Then, I realized it was "chickens in a bag", which I've since come to realize is the best way to transport small livestock in China, apparently. The only more entertaining alternatives I've seen are, (1) chicken in a small plastic (LDPE) grocery bag, with head and feet poking out either side. However, this is only effective for shorter, non-bus distances, I suspect, and (2) just strap 'em onto the back of your bicycle and go. I saw a man cycle past with 2 in the basket on the front of the bike, and I suspect at aleast 5 strapped to the back -- no, no, not in a box, or crate or anything. No, no, just plain tied to the back rack of the man's bike, and cluckin' and movin' about. If you thought strapping milk crates to the back of a scooter was a challenge, you ain't seen no chicken bike.

Anyway, this woman's chickens wind up in the side compartment of el autobus, she sits on the baggage at the front of the bus, just behind the driver, and we're off again. Pit stop for food and bathroom about 1h out of Guilin, which we probably hadn't actually left until 8am at the earliest. Lots of smoking (thankfully sitting next to the window made it much more bearable). Lots of spitting out the window at high velocity. Especially the bus driver. Man, that guy must've spat at least once every 15 minutes, on average, and I don't evne think I'm exaggerating. He must've drank some of the green stuff by accident (MI2 reference, kids. And that's monkey island, NOT mission impossible. ew). Get to Longsheng around 10:30am, and the bus mostly empties, though not for too long, as we continue to pickup at middle-of-nowhere village/highway "stops", more akin to hitchhiking that bussing. Variable fares are paid to the conductor once you've sat down, which, admittedly, is mostly impressive because, as I mentioned before, the aisle is FULL of people, so the ticket guy getting to you to take your money is sort of an 'adventure'.

The people on the bus go up and down...

HOWEVER, here's the real kicker about this bus ride... about 10 min out of longsheng, the road turns into absolute crap -- ABSOLUTE worst "road" I've ever been on. This is why the short distance between Longsheng and Sanjiang takes THREE very painful hours, and we arrive at 1:30pm, about 6.5h after leaving the bus station in Guilin. This road is more mud, dirt and rocks, and LANDSLIDES, than actual road, and is approx. 1 lane wide the whole way, along a cliff's edge, which makes for some very scary bus passings, esp. when what you're passing is a fuel tanker. There was definitely more than one occasion where I was seriously scared that the bus would get totally stuck in the mud/puddle/ditch (like Lola, but bigger, and bus-ier), and we'd be stuck in literally the middle of butt-nowheres.

Speaking of butt-nowheres, some of the people we picked up/dropped off... I have NO idea where they were going -- sometimes, you'd spot a village on the other side of the river, but other times, it really made me wonder... "why are you HERE?"

up and down...

Anyway, point being, this was the worst EVER "road" and, thus, the slowest, most painfully bumpy THREE hour bus ride EVER -- at least until the ride back, but I'll get to that soon enough. For now, suffice it to say, we were tossed about like so many rag dolls and we were lucky enough to be sitting near the front of the bus -- reminded me of the old school bus days, when we'd race to get the back seats s.t. we'd be flung well and up in the air when we hit the inevitable post-winter-in-Ottawa pothole -- yeah, THIS was not at all one of the times where that would've been a "fun" idea.

This also made me extremely glad that I don't get motion sickness quite the way I used to as a kid -- else it'd have been me throwing up out of the bus window, instead of just chinese men spitting.

The wipers on the bus go swish, swish, swish...

Finally, we get to Sanjiang, ask about the bus to Chengyang. Apparently, they get this one from foreign tourists often, so they throw a slip of paper out @ us that reads, "for buses to Chengyang, go to the other bus station" -- I ask for directions, and we grab lunch at a nice enough little place next to the bus stn bfr heading out: "take the main road, turn right, walk across the bridge, it's right there" which we also reconfirm with our friendly noodle restauranteur, and off we go. AVAST. Have to ask again once we've crossed the bridge, as the bus stn is tiny and hard to pick out in a crowd. Buy tickets @ Y3.5 each, and hit the bus to Linxi, leaving in 0.5h, which will drop us off on the way. Again, we appear to be in the minority, getting on at the ACTUAL bus stn, as we fill up IMMEDIATELY outside the bus station. Again, I fail to understand why people wait literally two steps from the station to get on -- I wonder a bit about issues of legality and the like, but, honestly, it makes me happier that buses always leave the city FILLED (to the brim, as it were) -- better for both owner and earth.

Am thankful, truly, for the paved road. Narrow, single-lane, cliff's edge, sharp blind corners which we take at full speed -- the sonar method, as it were: we honk loudly as we speed around the bend, listening for a response, but never once slowing down. Still, it's paved, and I love it. Dropped of at Chengyang in the pouring rain and the adventure begins.

The wheels on the bus go round and round...

On the way back, we stand poised in the bend of the road, in front of the tourist sales stalls, and the bus comes whipping around the corner, early -- I wave it down, and am admittedly quite pleased with myself for doing so. I actually quite enjoy this whole flagging-down-passing-vehicles business.

Standing room only, not unexpected. I'm standing next to the front stash of baggage, clinging 1-armed to the top luggage rack, not ideal to grip, as we whip around curves at ~60kph (though, I suppose I can't be certain of our speed, what with the broken spedometer and all). We paid Y4 a piece, it seems that buses are ALWAYS more expensive on the way back -- because you have no options, buggers.

Standing on this bus, I was reminded of Brian's comment and think to myself, thankfully I have a lower centre of gravity (woo, physics!) - Brian would've fallen over for sure -- maybe I'd make a decent snowboarder.

Never again will I complain (not that I ever really did) about standing in public transit in Canada -- it's easy to stay standing in city buses, and cdn. buses could never be this crowded. Anywho... with the occasional bit of building up that right arm muscle when we rounded a corner especially quick, we were back in Sanjiang in a record 25min.

Skitter to the other bus stn to find out when the bus to Longsheng leaves -- in 10 min, the bus girl says, buy your tickets on the bus. It was lunchtime, but since the the girl says it's unknown when (if) the next bust leaves, I con G into just buying snack food, and hopping on the bus just as the driver revs his engine to go.

The people on the bus go up and down...

I didn't think it possible, but the bus ride back to longsheng was definitely worse -- bumpier, way more $ (Y20 ea), and, though the bus was half-empty for much of the ride, all I could think was, can we PLEASE get there already?!?

In longsheng (AT LAST), we hit some lunch bfr finding out 5pm bus to Ping'an -- glad we didn't wait for another bus in Sanjiang, or we'd never have made it to this, the last bus out to Ping'An of the day. The Ping'an bus is fully tourist decked out - English maps, English service - even though we're the only tourists on the max.16-person capacity minibus. We leave the station and... can you guess what happens next?

The driver of the bus yells 'move on back'...

Yes, kids, that's right, right outside the stn, EVERYONE (and their kitchen sink, or at least enough baggage to legitimately qualify) awaits. We load up (at least no cat-in-a-bag, as was bumped about on the last bus we were on), and G and I help a woman protect her poor breakable boxes of stuff (glass, methinks) from being sat on multiple times. Wow. I think after all the pit stops, we fit 45-50 people on that bus -- granted, about 7 of those were kids, and therefore, take up less space, but let's not forget the boxes, the baskets, the veggies, the glassware, the chicken-in-a-bag, and best of all, the stop where we pull up by the river and wait for the 3 people wading and fishing in the water to climb onboard -- as G put it, "just what we need" -- wet chinese men and 2 buckets/baskets of fish to leak all over the floor of the bus.

Actually, though, I really loved it. Everyone was laughing, smiling, chatting, taking care of someone else's kid on their lap, eating, whatever. Everyone knew everyone, or at least acted as if they did. And though I couldn't understand much of it (dialects! I shake my fist at you!), every so often I pick up a phrase or word -- half cantonese, half mandarin. Never thought it'd be so helpful to know both -- though it messed with my head a lot to know both, since sometimes I get confused hearing things that I understand, but being unable to figure out what dialect it resembles, and why I understand it.

That bus ride (Y6.5, 2h) was absolutely one of the highlights of my whole trip to China. Especially the fish. Awesome. It was the first time I'd actually seen a bus driver be picky about where you put your baggage ... fish water is not so easy to clean out of carpet, hm.

... all the way to town....

The way back was less of an adventure, less new, fewer entertaining people, but I mention it briefly for different reasons. We hopped the bus from Ping'an, the only folk on it a couple of locals and 3 canto speaking tourists, our age-ish, who I laughed at for doing a full analysis of which direction the sun was going to be coming from on the way back -- the beauty, though, being that I understood cantonese, so caught that they were off to Guilin, same as us, but were planning to hitch at the intersection of the highway, instead of travelling all the way back to Longsheng. So, I decided to get off with them, and again, hail a passing bus into Guilin -- saves time and $ (30 min, Y5 + 1.5h, Y15) -- plus, I got to hitch a bus from the highwayside. Awesomecross. Truly.