China- Hong Kong - Taipeh - Amsterdam - Prague
Trip Start
Feb 29, 2004
1
32
33
Trip End
Nov 24, 2004
Taipeh,
Taiwan
Saturday, November 20, 2004
It wasn't quite over yet. Just getting on the nighttrain in Guilin that would whisk me to Shenzhen on the Hong Kong border in time for my flight home was just too simple. So I overstayed during my goodbye dinner with the Dutch girls, and missed the train by three minutes (not helped by the Yangshuo - Guilin minibus that managed to leave town, and then decided that they wouldn't make enough money and drove back to see if there were more people to pick up - damn capitalism).
But just then the great Asian hospitality programme started up and a kind Chinese guy who was on the minibus helped me get a 80% refund on the ticket, and find the night bus to Guangzhou. Remember that after the last nightbus in Vietnam I swore never to use one again? Well here was my punishment for being late, and stupid. After a terrible night - all roads in China seem to be perfect except for the one between Guilin and Guangzhou - I awoke bleary-eyed in a Guangzhou bus station, managed to stumble out and walk towards a building that looked like it was the train station (no guidebook, no signs, maps or English-speakers around, so I had to guess). It was.
Half an hour later I was pouring boiling water onto my breakfast noodles on a high speed commuter train to Shenzhen, where I spent my last yuan on green tea and walked across the pedestrian bridge into Hong Kong. The border here is scary; huge new fences with barbed wire surround a deep moat that runs along the border - it's clear that China is not quite the 'One China' that they like to brag about. Immediately after entering Hong Kong, you can feel an air of civilised normality lacking in mainland China, it's little things like a bike parked against a tree, well-dressed people and less general pushiness that make arriving there a pleasure. It's a short train ride into Kowloon, where I spent a few hours wandering around busy Causeway Bay before I headed to the airport and boarded the EVA flight to Amsterdam via Taipeh and Bangkok.
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Next up: home again.
