I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but airlines in China bring it. Full meals, weird ginseng pills, drink, after drink, after drink, and I'm talking about full bottles and cans, not little four oz. cups like you find on American airlines. The staff are friendly and dedicated, and most of them are at the very least bilingual. China Air and China East? Two thumbs way up.
I really wish I could say the same thing for the country's bus system. As an observer, I don't want to do anything that might perpetuate negative stereotypes, so I'll try to recount our experiences as objectively as possible and let you draw your own conclusions...
With very few exceptions (I'm thinking of taxi rides with durations of less than 20 minutes) EVERY minibus or bus ride we've taken has been delayed by some sort of car accident or another. We've seen head on collisions, read endings, and no less than three buses overturned on the side of the road. (It doesn't help that all Chinese roads, including the highways, have have no shoulders and sheer dropoffs into the adjacent fields on either side of the road. Thus the preponderance of overturned buses and the delays resulting from the fact that in the event of an accident, there is no room for the affected cars to pull off to the side of the road to let other traffic pass. Accidents paralyze traffic in either direction until they are resolved, and in our limited experiences they are alarmingly frequent.
Our bus from Lijiang to Dali encountered three accidents in the space of an hour, and the third (an overturned bus, surprise, surprise) kept us stuck on the side of the road for well over an hour.
Fortunately, we stopped in a relatively scenic section of the Yunan Province. We finally had descended from the mountains enough to see our first rice patties, and I spent my time trying to snap the perfect picture of traditionally clothed women harvesting the crop with awesome looking sickles. Unfortunately, upon reviewing them on the bus (many minutes later once we were finally on our way again) they all appear to show an indistinct indigo blue blob hunched over in a field of green. Oh well, maybe Chris got some good ones, he's got the better camera.
A typical Chinese Bus "Ride"
As promised, an indistinct, indigo, blue blob
Some things you might want to bring with you on the "3.5" hour bus rude from Dali to Kunming:
Extra batteries for iPod, iPhone, etc...
Several books
Toothbrush/toothpaste
A change of clothes
Headlamp or other independent source of illumination
If all started so promisingly. We caught a shuttle to the Dali bus station, and had only a brief wait before our Kunming bound bus pulled up. We had paid a little extra for the "express" bus so it was our roomiest ride yet. The bus was half empty so we each had seats to ourselves.
Then, as we left Dali. We realized that the bus would only be about half full allowing us to each have a seat to ourselves. Leaving Dali, we soon pulled onto one of China's virtually brand new highways, and were soon chugging along at close to 100 km/h. Our bus fortunes were definitely looking up...
After less than half an hour on said highway we got off on a local backroad. Apparently the highway was a little too brand new to the point were it wasn't quite "completed" yet.
What I thought would be a slight detour turn into close to an hour and a half of bone jarring, ass shattering ruts and potholes. Yes, the only road to Kunming, the largest city in and capital of the Yunan province seemed to be this muddy, unpaved and cratered monstrosity.
Our driver valiantly tried to keep up the pace, agressively passing dirt trucks, mini buses, and private cars, but our km/h had plummeted precipitously to around three or so. Little did I realize then that I would soon be pining for those days of three km/h like you wistfully remember trick or treating, summers at the beach, college, or anything else that you lacked the foresight to appreciate at the time.
Soon, surprise, surprise, I was writing in my journal on the side of the road as we attempted to wait out some unseen traffic stoppage on the far side of the distant horizon.
Again, a typical bus "ride"
After about an hour we heard the sound of engines starting and hurried back to the bus. I shudder now thinking of the naive feeling of excitement and optimism that gripped me as I took my seat. I was impossibly young and callow on that fateful July evening. If I met that Ben today, would I even recognize him?
The bus soon stuttered forward and over the course of the next forty minutes or so, we proceeds to travel maybe half a mile in distances that ranged from one half to two bus lengths at a time.
After one particularly long pause our driver gave up, put the bus in park, turned off the ignition, and opened the doors. Urgent pressure in my bladder combined with the sudden cessation of the conditioned air soon drove me outside the bus.
Remember back to my list of things to take on this bus ride. Notice that I did not include a strong bladder (not that they're optional or portable, but they certainly help!) or extra food. You don't need the former because there will be frequent opportunities to relieve yourself on the side of the road (provided you're comfortable doing that), and you wont need the latter because the locals are so used to this sort of thing happening that every quarter mile or so a quasi-permanent lean-to like shack has been erected selling such delicacies as cup o noodles, bottled water, and strange individually wrapped dinner roll things complete with single servings of apricotesque spreadable fruit flavored paste.
Nothing but the finer things on Chinese buses
This time we stayed along the side of the road for over two hours, but at least I was sort of sated and I didn't need to go to the bathroom.
When we finally started rolling (again in tiny fits and starts with frequent comes stops in between) we soon encountered what I can only assume was a disabled bus (my Mandarin consists of hello, thank you, and I don't understand). Regardless of the exact scenario, additional passengers were soon streaming onto the bus. What was once my only consolation about this godawful journey through the bowels of rural Yuman province, my solo seat, was shortly taken by a mercifully silent bus refugee. I say mercifully silent because his brethren were not so taciturn. The back of the bus was soon a cacophony of different mandarin conversations between our new passengers. My iPod had shut down during the last stop, so I lacked any refuge from the noise.
As of midnight, I estimated that we had traveled maybe two miles in four hours. My new seatmate fell asleep almost instantly, and I spent I good while ruminating on the perceived injustice of the fac that the bouncy road that knocked him into me constantly did nothing to disturb his slumber, while it was more than enough to keep me from getting comfortable, much less asleep.
We finally pulled into Kunming in the pouring rain around 3:30 in the morning, 10 hours after we left Dali. Of course, every other Kunming bound bus had been in the same situation as us, so literally hundreds of passengers were disgorged at the same empty intersection in the middle of the deluge. Competition for cabs was scarce, but we managed to snag one and spent several quasi restful hours in a Chinese business class hotel before trying our luck at the Hump Hostel, a local backpacker haven.
I was excited, because my Grandmother flew supplies over the Hump as a WAC during WWII, and I was thrilled to be in the same city she must have stayed in over 60 years ago.
"The Hump"- Not as dirty as it sounds
Unfortunately, modern Kunming is a charmless and sprawling city of several million or so. That congested feeling of breathing congested air is back, and when we tried to buy train tickets for Chengdu, we waited in several different chaotic "lines" before deciphering enough of the departures board to realize that the only tickets available for the next several days were 22 hour rides that put us into Chengdu at two in the morning. After our bus experiences, we decided to shell out for the flight. No one who endured it with us could blame us.
So. as I write this, we are Sichuan bound! Spicy food, Pandas, sacred mountains, bamboo forests, and temple to temple treks await us on the final leg of "Little Trouble in Big China: One Month Across the People's Republic."
Talk to you soon!
Ben
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