An unforgettable bus ride to Zhaoxing.
Trip Start
Sep 21, 2006
1
70
101
Trip End
Ongoing
Sanjiang,
China
Sunday, September 23, 2007
For the first hour or so I thought that the road was in construction but I soon realized that this narrow dirt road was only going to get worse. It was actually more of a tractor trail than anything. At some point, my body was only in contact with the seat about half the time. I always wanted to take a parabolic flight to experience gravity zero, like the astronauts do in their training, and here I was, floating in the air for 65 yuans only !!!
In the window of my hotel room in Sanjiang.
Countless landslides had cut the road width down to a mere 2.5 meters (7-8 feet). Often the bus could barely pass. I could see sections of the roads that had been taken down hundreds of meters below by the landslides.
No one seemed to worry about that but me. That's until we saw a minivan that had tumbled down into the river some 100 m below. The driver stopped the bus, and I heard a loud "OOOOHHHHHH" so characteristic to the Chinese people. The water level was up to the side window and was running through that minivan ferociously. It was in such a bad shape that it's hard to imagine that anyone could have survived the initial fall. Everyone stood in silence looking for signs of survivors. A few minutes passed and we were back on our way to Zhaoxing. No one seemed to even think back about it. They simply seemed to think that those people got unlucky. That's just part of Chinese fatality.
There's no such a thing as a bus too full in China. Buses in rural Guizhou are few and far in between so people take advantage of them. We picked up everyone who flagged us and soon enough we were packed like animals. Talking about animals, there had to be at least a dozen chickens inside the bus (who by the way seemed comfortable for they know how to fly...) and a couple more dozen pf ducks and geese on the roof. Someone also took a hot water tank on board as well.
After a couple hours nearly half the passengers were throwing up, in little bags, through the window, anywhere they could. The locals live a rather sedimentary life in the mountains and motion sickness is very common, not mentioning the effect of gravity zero..
In Sanjiang - Dog meat - Take 1
.Just when I thought it couldn't get worse it started to rain, which made me worry even more about landslides. But that was not going to be my main concern for too long. I was sitting next to a window that was loose and flapping continuously so hard that only Ozzy Osborne could make me forget about it (thank God for the iPod). A few minutes into the rain, water was coming through the window seal. The dust layer that was covering the bus had turned the rain into a mud concoction that was generously sprinkling all over me. The bus was packed to the rack, I had nowhere to go.
The road quickly turned into a mud trail. A construction truck ahead of us got stuck in the mud and was completely blocking the narrow road. Luckily there was a construction site not too far away and they sent a bulldozer to widen the road so we could finally get through. We ended up losing about one hour which is good given the circumstances I suppose.
After four hours of this incredible journey, we finally arrived to a small village called Long'e where we stopped for 15 minutes. It was so funny to see the kids staring at this strange looking foreigner that I was
In Sanjiang - Dog Meat - Take 2
. They pointed fingers at me as if to say look at this weird thing, and ran away from me as fast as they could. I could sense that they were really scared of me. Most of them had probably never seen a non Chinese person before. I could have walked around dressed in a monster suit and it wouldn't have made a difference. I will never forget the expression on their face when they ran away.Happily, the breath taking beauty of Zhaoxing was quickly going to make me forget about this ordeal. And at the end, the stories of the most miserable experiences we have are the ones that we end up cherishing the most.
Andre.
