Transportravaganza!

Trip Start Sep 15, 2007
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Trip End Dec 15, 2007


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Thursday, October 18, 2007

my journey from yichang to chengdu took place all in one mammoth day and involved bus, boat, more bus, taxi, and train. everything went as smooth as can be, much to my own surprise. i thought that the day had started on a rocky note...i had purchased my own ticket directly from a ferry terminal instead of buying it through a hotel or travel agent...which introduced some communication difficulties while eliminating commission fees. outside of the terminal a woman who spoke a bit of english came up to me and started asking me if i was trying to book a cruise. i explained that i wanted the 'one day' boat as there are many tours that take 3 to 4 days stopping at all the sights along the way. the 'one day' boat is a hydrofoil ferry service that stops at a number of towns along the river between yichang and wanzhou...my guide book had mentioned that service all the way to chongqing was less frequent because the new expressway between wanzhou and chongqing had opened up, but from what i saw it's now impossible to go any further than wanzhou on the hydrofoil. instead, there's a direct bus connection from the ferry terminal that goes the rest of the way. i wasn't sure at first if the woman who was helping me actually worked for the ferry terminal (she wasn't dressed in a uniform of any sort) and so i was sort of constantly waiting for her to ask to be paid for her help, but she never did and so i can only assume that she does work at the terminal to help western tourists buy tickets. she had a little book full of english words (some of them wrong) and she continually asked for my help in getting her english right. the ferry terminal where i was buying the ticket is not the terminal from where the hydrofoils depart...that terminal is just on the other side of the three gorges dam (so the hydrofoils don't have to go through the locks) which is about an hour's bus ride from yichang. once i'd purchased my ticket (which departed at 7:50 the next morning) i tried to confirm how to get to the proper terminal. the woman told me that i should come back to the terminal we were at for 7:30 and someone would show me where to go. i was really confused because i knew that 20 minutes wasn't enough time to get where i needed to go. what eventually became apparent (with great difficulty) is that the time of 7:50 was when the bus left from this terminal to go to the hydrofoil terminal where it would meet the boat. that the hydrofoil tickets from yichang include a bus ride to the hydrofoil terminal is the sort of detail that i really wish guide book researchers wouldn't overlook. my rocky start came when, at 7:40 as i was sitting alone of the ferry terminal, no one had yet shown up to show me where the bus was. i began to wonder if there had been some sort of total communication meltdown and whether my ticket was actually a 270 yuan decorative souvenir. just as i was beginning to think ill of her the woman who had helped me buy the ticket came around the corner, all flustered at being late. she apologize profusely and then escorted me to where the bus would pick me up...just on the other side of the building where i had been sitting. it was all smooth sailing from there. the bus went right by the dam, which i could only catch a glimpse of from behind at the top. it looked like an imposing bridge of several kilometres...i imagine that the view from the other side is much more impressive. i transfered from the bus to the hydrofoil, which was comfortable enough but in a bit rougher shape than i had thought it would be...the word 'hydrofoil' just sounds so high-tech. it was easy enough to get up and watch the river and the gorges go by from either of the side door areas or the middle of the ship, all of which were open air. the ride to wanzhou took about six hours and we arrived at 4:30 pm. the bus to chongqing was waiting for us and after a small stop at the wanzhou bus station took us down the nearly empty expressway. we arrived in chongqing by 8 pm and i took a taxi from the bus station to the train station. the taxi driver used the meter without me even having to ask. i had decided to try to get an overnight sleeper ticket on the train to chengdu right away if i could. often trying to buy a ticket only a few hours before the train leaves doesn't work out very well...but there was no one in line at the train station ticket office (mind-blowing for china) and there were still sleeper berths available on the train i wanted. to top off my stress-free day, i ate at a small restaurant with a non-english menu at the train station, successfully explaining in mandarin that i didn't eat meat and that the tofu dish she suggested would be great, spicy was ok, and could i please have rice as well. i didn't say any of this very grammatically, but the series of words i knew worked nonetheless. what i got was the best mapo tofu that i've had in china so far...the sauce a perfect balance of sweet and hot. it would have been nice to spend more time in chongqing. my impression as the bus arrived at night with the city all lit up was that it's a kindred spirit to shanghai, which is to say extremely developed and modern with a bit of a buzz to it.

as for the yangzi river and the three gorges...i was very happy that i decided to only spend one day on the river. i enjoyed it a lot, possibly mostly because of the new form of transportation. the gorges were beautiful, but i couldn't imagine spending 3 or 4 days floating through them. it would be pretty boring, even with the side trips. maybe the rising river had already worn away some of the gorges' majesty, but i wouldn't rate them as among the most amazing things i've seen in china. pleasant, certainly...unmissable, not at all. soon enough the entire gorges tourism industry will be dead. when the river is backed up to its highest level the gorges will all but disappear and most of the side attractions will be underwater. it was strange to see all the abandoned settlements along the river bank, the soon to be drowned evidence of the chinese government's callousness and corruption.

my arrival in chengdu didn't go as well as the day before. i had arranged for the hostel i was staying at to pick me up at the train station, but no one was there. i called them and after listening to a small hushed conversation between two employees in mandarin they apologized and asked if i could take a taxi to the hostel which they would pay for. their pamphlet said that a taxi should cost between 6-8 yuan on the meter, as the hostel was quite close to the train station. but i couldn't find a taxi driver who would use the meter...i was quoted 50 yuan (!!!) by a bunch of drivers standing around who had decided to gang up on me...none of them would take me for any less. one man walked up and said that he would do it for 20...i followed him to his rickety moped and promptly told him that there was no way i was getting on that thing with him. i walked back to the taxi stand getting increasingly frustrated. another men walked up and said that he would do it for 30...i gave in and followed him. it turns out he wasn't even a taxi driver...he brought me to his car. not being a taxi driver meant that he only had a vague idea of where the address i provided him with was, and so he had to stop and ask for directions 3 times in 10 minutes. when we finally got there he jumped out and began to impatiently ask me for his money. i handed it to him and said in english (i'm ashamed to say), 'choke on it'. i went into the hostel and explained to them what had happened...although i lied and said it only cost me 20 yuan, fearing for my respectability should they knew how much i actually paid to go such a short distance. they were honestly surprised (even by 20 yuan) and i heard from others afterwords that the taxi drivers in chengdu were some of the nicest they'd dealt with in china. i must have just been unlucky. the hostel gave me 10 yuan which i agreed was fair. while i was checking in i was greeted quite enthusiastically by tam, who was still in chengdu, and so i very definitely have some company for tibet and nepal. and the reunions didn't end there as the next day maggie and evan arrived in chengdu as well. it was great to have the opportunity to spend more time with them before our paths become uncrossable. tam, maggie, evan, and i, as well as this couple greg and elizabeth who we met in the hostel (they just finished teaching english in korea for a year and a half...we all picked their collective brain about their experience) went out for lunch at this wonderful vegetarian restaurant in a monastery. the food was delicious (all manner of fake meat as usual) with the only strangeness being the jug of 'grape juice' that we ordered...it tasted like melted grape popsicle and had a strangely dense consistency. in general, the food in chengdu (and i imagine sichuan as a whole) has been the best i've had in china. tam and i went with two women we met in the hostel (one swede, one norwegian) to another vegetarian restaurant which was also excellent. another fun food experience was when tam and i were wandering around in what's left of the old parts of chengdu. we came across a food stall and decided to go in (we didn't notice the full spinal cord and various skeletal limbs hanging out front until after we'd ordered). we explained that we didn't eat meat and the man who owned the stall took me into the back and started pointing and vegetables and waiting for me to approve of them (or not). we ended up having stir-fried lotus root and daikon radish with chili and some cabbage and egg soup. it was really good and i've decided that letting people make whatever they want for me once they've understood the no meat deal usually works out well.

i went to leshan, which is a town about 100 km south of chengdu, with the norwegian woman that i dined with...i think her name is suleika (or thereabouts). i kept wanting to call her 'svetlana' for no particularly good reason. i was confused when on being asked where she was from by a chinese person she replied 'belgium'...but apparently she's from norway, speaks norwegian and dutch, and lives in belgium with her family who doesn't speak norwegian. i guess it's complicated. leshan is home to the world's largest buddha...and not surprisingly it's very big. it's also home to the world's longest buddha related line...everyone (about 95% chinese tourists) waiting at least an hour to shuffle down the cliff-side to go from the head to the feet. did i mention that the buddha is massive...70+ metres high. i would love to have been part of the conversation where the details of the impending buddha carving were being discussed. i imagine there would have been a lot of 'wait...how big?' the park-like grounds surrounding the buddha site where also very interesting, and surprisingly lush. the vegetation around chengdu has the beginnings of tropicalness. to get to the buddha we had to take three buses...one from the hostel to the bus station. one from the chengdu bus station to the leshan bus station, and the third from the leshan bus station to the buddha itself. as we exited the buddha grounds we were approached by several women all promoting buses straight back to chengdu from the gate. eager to avoid any extraneous bus riding, and seeing that it was the same price, we agreed. after waiting for a little while, an suv pulled up and we were instructed to get in. there were two chinese tourists also waiting for the 'bus' so we didn't feel too sketched out. the truck brought us to an expressway off-ramp. we got out and waited in the middle of it for the bus to stop by and pick us up. nothing is ever simple in china. tam had told me that buses leaving from the buddha to go straight back to chengdu drop you off at the far south of the city and so were not as good a deal as they seemed. i asked the bus woman where the bus would drop us off and she told me the central bus station. that she was lying didn't actually surprise me in the end.

the hostel told tam and i that there were no tibet permits being issued anywhere in china until the 23rd of october. after discussing it with many people in the hostel (many of whom had come from tibet or had been there at some point) we decided that the whole permit mess is a scam, and that we would attempt to enter tibet without any. the permit for tibet is expensive and only gives you access to lhasa...to go most other places in tibet requires separate permits that you have to arrange from lhasa. and according to everyone we talked to since the opening of the train line there is no one in lhasa checking for permits. the only conceivable difficulty would be purchasing the train tickets, as traditionally the permit would need to be shown to the ticket agent. to fly to lhasa this is still in force. however, tam and i quickly discovered that buying train tickets is terrifically easy. we enlisted the help of a chinese woman we met at the hostel to buy the tickets for us (just in case) and we went to a ticket agent near the hostel instead of the train station proper. it was obvious that the woman was buying the tickets for us as we were standing two feet away and were constantly conferring about the details of dates and berths. the woman selling the tickets didn't even blink and it was clear that tam and i could have purchased the tickets ourselves. when i was in beijing i met a woman who had purchased a train ticket to lhasa from the actual train station without a permit without difficulty. greg and elizabeth, who are planning on coming to tibet as well in the near future, followed our lead and purchased their own tickets without a permit. essentially a permit is not required to enter tibet via lhasa by train...and since the permit only really covers lhasa anyway, it would be incredibly silly to pay for nothing. the train trip is 45 hours long, and we switch to the high altitude train (piped-in oxygen) at xining, about a third of the way there. tam and i are both very excited about our impending journey, the longest by train for both of us on the highest train line in the world (passes 5000m).
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