Our moving hearts have led us to the last part of our trip; China.
Arriving in Guangzhou airport yesterday for a six-hour stop-over, we started to realize just what kind of advenure we were up against. On the airport, everyone spoke English, if somewhat bad at times. That's okay, we are not perfect either. We took a cappucino/double espresso at the airport that costed us more than vi spend on food on a day in Thailand, but except that, all was right with the world. We were given the bill immediatly after ordering, which was strange for us, but we just laughed, said "I guess we're in China now".
Yes we were, and it started to be clear to us by the way people couldn't stand in a line like a civilised person. This was particualary wierd for us since... well, Swedes love their lines. If there's a line to anything in Sweden, like the entrence to Liseberg where I work, you can bet your ass nobody will even look for another open spot - they will just follow the line, and happily so, even though they don't admit it.
So you can imagine the culture shock of China/Sweden in the queing-area. At the airport, the queing area was a race track. In Sweden, queing is religion.
But, since we're not that religious anyway, we attacted the system "when in rome"-style and everything was smoothly done (...at least for us). We found our bags, we found a place to exchange our cash, we found the bus to take us to Changsha Railway station, close to our hotel. The ride there was a piece of cake.
Area outside Changsha Railway station the next day
Not at first. We took our bags and started to ask for directions. Nobody spoke english, but we had the name of the hotel in Chinese letters and a common knowledge of hand gestures, so we thought it would be easy peasy. But after being led to the right hotel chain but the wrong hotel three times, we were just so tired. It was dark and a lot of wierd people outside - the time was about 11 pm and we had no idea of where to go next.
Damn censhorship that stopped us from using google maps offline. Damn us who knew this but didn't printscreen it beforehand. Damn China and the refusal for putting English into the school systems.(?)
We found a taxi, even though I'm a firm beliver of the Anti-taxi-ism, used it basically for looking up the hotel on his GPS. He took us about 200 meter to the same place on the other side of the road from where we started, we paid him 10 ¥ and nothing but our pride was hurt.
Arriving to the lobby, we were greeted by the same smell of urine that in the brief hour we been in Changsha already had become its hallmark. The wallpapers were faded and curly in the ends. People smoked in the reception. The receptionist didn't knew a word in any language we were willing to try. We felt far, far away from home.
Luckily, the room was spotless except for the slight smell of previous smoking. We hadn't eaten since lunch and it was midnight, but we fell down on the bed and fell asleep almost immediatly.
__________________________________
Next day we had dedicated to find traintickets to the following day's transport to Zhangjiajie.
Since we lived by the railway station, at least we didn't have to spend ours stubbornly avoid taxis while getting lost, but just walked over the street and we were almost directly placed in a line to the ticket office. The hall was squeezed with people, many of them smoking indoors and dragging up mucus all the way from their stomages to spit out on the floor.
We were in China alright, since the ticket sales lady didn't wanted to talk to us because we looked foreign and, after we'd queued in half an hour, signed us over to her colleuge even through we had the parleur with chinese phrases all ready in our hands.
The next woman was, luckliy, the first person since arriving we had no problem communicating with.
We got our tickets and felt the acchivement rush filling us up with pride. One task done. Only what seemed like a thousand to go.
We got some lunch point-and-nod-style and it was absolutely delicious. Noodles were freshly made and spiced up with a, for us, unnamed taste that was strong but amazing. Bellies happy, we took to the busstation by the railway to ask around for a way to get to the Yuelu park to see Lushan Temple. Admittedly, we were not crazy exited about this one, but we had some hours to kill.
We found a policeman by the staton who we, as usual, couldn't communicate oraly with, but he did understand the yahoo-ed imaged of the temple and led us to the right bus. A trip was 2 ¥. You couldn't even look at a bus for 2 ¥ in Sweden.
And walk, we did.
Having long legs, our egos boosted when we passed many chienese our age and before an hour, we were at the top of the mountain.
(Overusing the Chromatic feature when photo editing might be my guilty pleasure)
Except the view, we also got to experience the famous thing europees have to face in some parts of Asia: we were a part of the attaction, and people did more or less open attemps to take photos of us, most of them succeded. I guess we have to get used to it.
We might have stared confused at them too..
When we finally found the Lushan temple (there where signs in English around the park, fyi) the time was 6 pm and it was closed. We didn't really care.
We got to the foot of the mountain and ate the biggest bowl of - any guess? - yes, noodles that we had the pleasure of watching the chef making, for the mere price of 12 ¥ a plate. We walked further away from the park and into the dark, following the buses with the number 9 on them to see where they stopped, and got home, all tired but more confident than the day before.
_____________________________________
That is our story about Changsha. It's not a city to vacay in directly - as mention thousand times, communication have to be brought to new levels with printscreened pictures and pointing in a dictionary and with Yuelu Park being the "most exciting" thing to see, one should really consider for example Chongquing for a stopover.
Even so, we were happy with our way. Tickets to Zhangjiajie were merely 60 ¥ and neither the room nor the food while there cost much. It was a intense course in Chinese culture and the problems you have to face as a tourist, but a one that left us with a lot of knowledge and backbone indeed.
Now, as Carl and Ellie would say, adventure is out there.
____________________________________
Pss!
Keep your eyes open for our upcoming guide on Zhangjiajie National Forest Park and our visit to Baofeng Lake!
Click the pictures to read more
Inga kommentarer :
Skicka en kommentar