Day 20: Panzhihua (攀枝花)

Sleeper Bus

Still on the filthy sleeper bus that smells like urine and stained sheets covering our beds. The driver is driving like it is a race car rather than a full size bus as we descend about 2000 meters down the mountain. Each bump you have to hold on to your bed or you might get thrown out of it. We also would make random stops such as adding water to the engine, picking up random products for shipment and hosing down the bus at 1am.



Arriving at Panzhihua (攀枝花)

The bus got in at about 3am, but they let us “sleep” till dawn. At dawn we took a bus for an hour to the train station only to find out that our train had been canceled and the only tickets left for other trains were hard seats, the lowest class, and it was a 15 hour train arriving in Chengdu (成都) at 4am. We decided a lot of times buses are actually faster and might be better than the hard seats. An hour bus ride back to the bus station we find only 1 bus with seats available that would be a 15.5 hour ride arrive at about 5am. We then decided to look for a car or minibus going that way, but the only cars available wanted about $300+ for a day drive there.



Bus Station Security

While looking for a car, Charlotte ran into the bus station security who suggested flying for about $115 each. At this point that sounded great. They booked the tickets for us and we went to eat. Still not feeling well and not knowing where the next bathroom would be (always an issue in China) I passed while Charlotte ate some spicy Sichuan buns. Returning to the security room and telling them where we had been, they both started shaking their heads and said never eat at that type of place with ground meat, because you don’t really know what you are eating and always ordering things with large pieces of meat so you know its probably the animal you requested. I laughed at this information; Charlotte did not and threw out her remaining buns. We hung out with the security guards, who were really nice, in their A/C room until about 2 when a courier brought us our tickets, only to find out that they spelled my name Mapthias and it would cost us $3 to fix it. We corrected it and off to the airport we went.



Flying in China.

As we left for the airport it started raining. When we got to the airport, which is at the top of a mountain, the flight was delayed. Waiting for the flight I had to use the bathroom which is always an adventure. I went in and the first two stalls were occupied. In the US and most countries for that matter you would know this by trying a door and finding it locked and move on, not in China. All three stalls were slightly ajar, however when I opened them there would be a guy squatting going to the bathroom looking at me (they were never embarrassed at all). Finally the 3rd stall was empty and I checked and the doors did have locks, the other guys just didn’t feel like using them. This stall however had a large window to the parking lot which was maybe 50 yards away with just some grass between the building and parking lot. Standing up the window came down to about my waist. Squatting (it was an Asian style toilet) it was about shoulder level. Again not knowing my future bathroom conditions this was as good as anything, but very tricky.



Not Flying in China

When I returned we found our flight was canceled, not because of weather, but because they had no planes at that airport! Again amazingly none of the Chinese people seemed upset about this. We got a bus back to the city where we had to track down the travel agent which gave the directions “we are on so and so street, between 2 big buildings,” not very helpful. They gave us a refund on the tickets after we paid $6 cancellation fee each and give the guy about a nickel so he could photocopy our passports.



Maybe a Train?

An hour later, now ~7pm and no sleep for ~34 hours, we are back in the train station. This time we actually found 2 “hard sleepers” at 1:45 am that were available. People around us were mad because “of course its available for the foreigner!” We then found a sketchy hotel across the street and we got a room to shower and use the internet. We both fell asleep, missed our alarm clock and our wake up call was an hour late about 10 minutes before our train left. We packed up in record speed, threw the key at the front desk as we ran out the door and got to the train station just to see the train leave. At this point I had a near breakdown (Dorney Park style, a reference only Brian and Scott will get) in front of a bunch of Chinese onlookers in front of the train station dropping my bags and then dropping to my knees exhausted. I have to give Charlotte credit because normally this would be when she is ready to pack it in and fly home, but she was stronger than I was and got me back up. Dejected we gathered ourselves and went to the ticket office and they scolded us for missing the train, but they did refund the money. Our options now were at noon the next day there may be a flight, there was a 15 hour bus or an 11 hour train with standing room only tickets (we didn’t even know these existed before). We picked the train because the bus station was an hour away and the plane was unreliable. We walked back to the hotel and got our room back and slept to the next day.