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March 15, 2008 (CHINA) The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round... And Round... And Round...
We arrived at the Laos-China border at around 10:00 am, and after being stamped out of Laos there was a short walk to the China border crossing where I was stamped into the country for the seventh time in my life (and at five difference crossings.) If the armed Chinese soldiers and signs saying things like, Frontier Defense of China (see photo to the left) didn't give away that I was back in China, then the pushy "queues" certainly did. Nevertheless, China is one of my favorite countries to travel in, and I am looking forward to entering the country through the 'back-door' in the Southwestern province of Yunnan.
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At
11:00 pm last night, Neil, David, and I
boarded a 35 hour sleeper-bus from Luang Prabang,
Laos to Kunming, the capital of
Yunnan Province in Southwestern China. It is
as long a bus-haul as I have ever been on, and the bus
was hardly conducive to a pleasant ride. I was crammed
in the very back of the bus with a sliding window to my
right, David crammed against me on my left, and only 5
feet 6 inches worth of room from head to toe. I have
always had a problem getting sufficient sleep, and the
ubiquitous bouncing - a result of being directly over
the back tires - made it difficult to pass out for more
than one or two hours at a time.
Before
re-boarding the bus, we were given an hour and a half to
order food and relax before continuing the journey. We
ate along with the rest of the bus at a small Chinese
restaurant serving the standard dishes - braised
eggplant, egg and tomato soup, diced chicken with
chilies, white rice, and jasmine tea - but by far the
most memorable part of the layover came when I asked
where the toilet was. I was directed to the third floor
of the adjacent building, which seemed strange at the
time because there were only two floors to the building.
I figured my Mandarin was rusty and I heard incorrectly,
so up I went. Sure enough, the third floor of the
staircase opened up on the roof of the building where
the makeshift bathroom (shown to the right) was located.
The urine (and whatever else the toilet is used for)
goes down a drainage pipe to the back of the building...
Classy, huh?
After
eating, it was back on the bus to finish off the
remaining 20 hours of the journey. The worst part of the
bus ride wasn't the whole being uncomfortable aspect -
although the smells only got worse and the cramped
feeling only increased the longer the ride went on - but
it was the actions of the other Chinese on the bus:
people were smoking like chimneys and there was the
ever-present hocking sound accompanied by the sound of
spit hitting the floor. I have never understood why
some Chinese - people who are normally so intent on keeping their
homes clean by taking off their shoes and constantly
mopping - see nothing wrong with spitting every other
chance they get. The fact that it is done in the aisles
of a bus is disgusting, and entirely inexcusable.
Stopping people from spitting everything is the kind of
thing Beijing is working overtime to correct in time for
the Beijing Olympics (August 2008), but it is still the
norm to walk down the street and spot 1-2" globs of spit
on the ground.