China sucks bottom :(
Trip Start
May 30, 2006
1
15
78
Trip End
May 31, 2007
Beijing,
China
Thursday, June 29, 2006
that is not what we were saying at 4am this morning, as we collected our soaked bags from the underbelly of the 'bed bus' in the rain, having left my coat on it, and tried to get a taxi driver to take us to the hostel...
A cold shower later and i was ready to take on the world... after some sleep... and possibly another shower (this one warm)
so why the glum faces as we arrived in one of the worlds most historic and interesting capitals? I hope your sitting comfortably and i will tell you a tale, which starts about 3minutes after the last entry:
7.45am and the train arrives in to the border station of Zamiin Uud. It's only 35 minutes late which is practiacally early by the standards of these laid back people. however, when we got the ticket, we'd kinda been told we'd be there by midnight. Hmm.
As we disembarked, Helen was accosted by a little man, who coincidentaly looks like my brother's mate Ev but mongolian, shouting 'China!' 'China'. Hel shouted 'Yes!' so he followed us saying 'hirry' which i guess meant hurry. apparetnly this guy would take us to the bus station in Erlien on the Chinese side of the border for 50y (3.50) so we hurried as best we could, but atthat time in the morning a 25kilo backpack somehow feels like 50.
in we jumped, only to realise this guy was a loon. i'm serious. a complete fruit. we sped out of the station, sideways through the sand at the same time as 7 other like minded nutters and at break neck speed headed toward the border just in tome to join a massive stationalry que. Being british, i knew how to handle this.. get out the book. stretch the legs.apparently thats not how its done here. no. apparently its quite cumstomary for drivers to just leapfrog 2o jeeps and position themselves in a gap that i would struggle to see with out my glasses on. in the que, our 4 seater jeep acquired a an additional 5 poeple. 4 of them a lovely mongolian family, whose children were learning English. We are now imortaled in their lives as we took centre stage in all their photos and home movie.
After about 4hoiurs in this van, we made it to the mongolian border. stamped visas and generally got said by too in a slightly less chearie way than when we arrived. Butthat didn't matter, because a mile up the road i could see a huge rainbow which meant that China really wanted say hi to me!
after another breakneck sardine trip up the wrong way of the road playing chicken with overloaded juggernaughts, we gotrto the Chinese bit. 5yen for an arrival card (11p) which i thought was a cheek, especially as it wasn't in english. No-one was waiving at me either nor saying hi.
The customs people looked quite excited to see the two tall westerners though. Especially Helen. We found out why. 5 minutes later all helens luggage was over the floor and they were about to start on mine. It took Helen an hour to pack that bag.
We emerged 10 minutes later a just a latex glove from a full cavity search after i convinced the guy the pills in my bag were for medicinal purposes (they are).
back in the jeep, we acquired yet another body to carry to china. yay. nothing like travelling in comfort! the driver than dropped us in the middle of the town. This was not the bus station.
we got there though. tahks to another taxi. and to the niget sleeping bus. it would have been great if i was shorter. and i'm not. so it wasn't. didn';t stop me sleeping tho.
and so we arrived. i guess we were just tired.
i'll upadate you on what China is really like when we find out... were in Tianamen squarte at the moment, but its that hazy i casn't see the other side. although i probably couldn't anyway cos the number of folk that want to take my pic cos i'm tall and blonde(ish)
although i di just buy a 2gig memory stick and hgalf a dozen batteries for my phone for just 32 pounds! (be 80 odd at home)
