The Kung Fu bus to Shangri La
Trip Start
Apr 04, 2004
1
12
34
Trip End
Jun 07, 2004
Lijiang,
Yunnan,
China
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
18th May 2004
Rosie and I kiss goodbye as friends might do before I board the bus. Her offer to supply me with all I may desire in return for marriage does not grab my appeal. I suspect that she like many others is looking for an escape route. Besides, it's pointless marrying me, I'm skint. There are no hard feelings, and she understands that I am moving on. Having spent more than a month here.
I've been on so many buses in China it's hard to count. But never one like this. It's a sleeper bus. I find a bunk at the rear centre of the bus and soon regret it since it's over or behind the rear axle. Like a diesel-fired trampoline. Inside the bus begins a Kung Fu movie at full volume and everybody lights up a cigarette together. My neighbour offers me a can of orange drink and I am immediately suspicious of the contents. Are they trying to drug me, rip off my wallet and disappear into the night ? I stuff my wallet down my pants so that its lodged securely under my nuts and try to breathe as best as I can despite the smell of unwashed feet, stale tobacco and exhaust fumes. I realise I shall not likely sleep through the Kung Fu, but I must have done somehow.
For I wake up again at 4am, bouncing. The road must be very bad and the bus's suspension no better. At 6am we arrive in a desolate place that calls itself Shangri-La. Officially known as Zhongdian. Just about the last outpost before straying into today's ( disputed ) definition of Tibet.
It's never how you expect it to look. I begin to walk trying to fathom the map I have, turning it around and around. It looks like the bus station is at the opposite end of town to the place I want to stay. I check into a clean and warm double room with TV and hot shower at the Tibet Hotel. The entrance lobby is spacious and grand. The place is not within the budget bracket but I rationalise it on the basis I may not see a hotel room again for quite a while. The occasional splurge I'll enjoy all the more. Then on day two I change my mind and move back into a dorm. Which feels more like my normal habitat these days. They supply electric blankets and the shower block presents no real problem other than the outside temperature coming as a bit of a shock when making haste to leave. After all, we are now 3,200 meters above sea level.
I venture out in the rain to see what's happening in this far flung place. Visiting the Zhongdian main tour office to get my name down for a standby flight to Lhasa. I have to leave a deposit with a man named Chen. The 1,000 Yuan deposit has to come from the bank which involves me going there in person to make a counter withdrawal. I see a girl begging in the street. Her pitiful request for money is written in Tibetan script on the back of a piece of soggy cardboard. She is motionless staring down at the pavement in front of her. It sticks in my mind even though she's not the only one doing it .
Next ; Leaving Shangri-La
