China Internship 2012: Night Train, Stone Forest and Jehovah's Witnesses

I haven’t been able to blog in a couple of days due to internet connectivity problems, but I figured I had better get everything written down before I forget it even if I can’t post it straight away.

We didn’t do much on our last morning in Yangshuo. It was still raining pretty heavily and we had to pack up to take the bus back into Guilin. We went to a little store to stock up on food for the train and back to our great eggplant restaurant for lunch. The lady recognized us and was very glad to see us back. We had a different eggplant dish – with meat this time – and some green beans and meat. Both were very tasty but could have used a bit less salt.

Eventually the time came and we headed out to the bus station in the rain. I was very happy to have the rain cover for my backpack and my dad was happy to have his raincoat. It wasn’t too windy either, so our umbrellas worked fine. The bus to Guilin was straight forward and we took a taxi to the train station as planned when we arrived. I got a bit concerned, as the meter was up to 73 when we got off and we travelled quite a way, but apparently I was looking at the wrong number because it actually only came to Rmb 18 (about $3). I guess I shouldn’t have worried!

We were quite early for our train and it ended up being about an hour late, but eventually we got on. Some grandmother was sleeping in Ter’s bed but the train-attendant told her we were foreigners and she had to move… at least there were no babies peeing on the floor this time. We played a game of chess, read our books, ate our noodles and slept pretty well despite the man in the bed across from me who was snoring like crazy!

We were about an hour and a half late getting into Kunming yesterday and the instructions for getting to our hostel relied more on luck than anything else, but we found it eventually. It’s a lovely place and the staff is very helpful!

We set out for lunch and in search of the bird & flower market. It took us quite a while and I was getting very hungry but we eventually made it to both. We had some buns and dumplings for lunch and wandered through the market looking at knickknacks and what I hope were a gazillion pet stores. They had everything from birds to rabbits and from meal worms to guinea pigs.

When the stalls got a bit redundant, we headed off in search of a park and ended up finding a different one with a gathering of deaf people and many, many games of go and Chinese chess.

Eventually we found the actual park we were looking for and spent a little while there before returning to the hostel for a rest and then dinner. We ate at a little hole in the wall place and had our typical tomatoes and eggs on rice as well as a mushroom dish Kunming is apparently famous for.

When we got back to the hostel we took our chess set down to the common room and each won a game before a Chinese guy decided he should be playing against me instead. I was slaughtered very quickly!

Today was a definite adventure. We got up around 9 and had breakfast at the hostel (banana chocolate pancakes for me and oatmeal for Ter) before heading out to The Stone Forest. Saying we were unprepared is an understatement, because it took us almost 4 hours to get there. First we had to find the bus stop to get to the East bus station. We had a map but the numbers at the stop we thought we were supposed to be at didn’t include the one we were supposed to take. Luckily, just as we were about to turn around, the bus pulled up and we got on. It took over an hour to get to the bus station, which was also quite unexpected! Ter got chased for a couple of minutes by a lady asking him for money (which we later discovered was for using the bathroom) but we managed to find the East bus station without too, too much trouble.

When we got there, we figured out how to get a ticket and find the bus (with the help of a French family) and had another hour and a half (this time expected) to travel before we made it to – surprise, surprise – The Stone Forest Hotel… Not quite where we expected to get off. Everyone else on the bus seemed to vanish, so we decided to start walking toward the strange stone looking structures in the distance. As we got closer, there were lots of tourists and a ticket booth so we thought we were in luck. However, as Jim and Tang Liang would tell you… you can’t go assuming things.

We bought out tickets and tried to get on the golf carts everyone else was getting onto but the lady kept telling us our ticket was wrong. So, we walked away from the crowd and tried to walk over to the stone structures instead, even though there didn’t seem to be anyone over there… this didn’t work. So, we walked back and eventually managed to find someone who spoke enough English to tell us we had to buy another ticket to take the golf carts to the real stone forest. The rock structures here weren’t much of anything. Why the two tickets didn’t come together in the first place is beyond me, but anyways…

So, we bought the ticket and headed off towards The Stone Forest. Pretty much everyone else just stayed on the carts for the whole tour but we opted to walk instead – perhaps our first good choice for the day. We only had a few hours before the last bus back to Kunming so we didn’t have a ton of time, but we wandered in and out of the amazing rocks and took lots of cool pictures. Ter even tried climbing some at some point – Don’t tell the UNESCO heritage people! My dad also got to experience Chinese people running after him to take pictures with him – twice!

By 5:30 we made it back to the hotel, which was coincidently also the bus terminal, and bought our ticket back. When we got back into the city we still hadn’t had any lunch so we grabbed a few small buns before taking the second bus back towards the hostel. I’m not entirely sure how, but somehow my dad figured out where we were supposed to get off and we made it to Mama’s for dinner – noodles and deep fried fava beans.

It may have been a crazy day, but as my dad said: “At least we haven’t seen any Jehovah's Witnesses!”