DAY 322: Wuhan, the capital city of the Hubei province, is another big "generic" modern Chinese metropolis, an inevitable stopping point for anyone traveling through the region; it is not only a place of industry but a major transportation hub. Although it has historical significance of being one of the meeting points of Sun Yatsen's anti-Imperialist society of the early 20th century, generally speaking, it is not a particularly attractive city to tour around; Blogreader F. Levente once called it the "Detroit of China," and I'm sure he meant that in a negative way with no intended offense to you readers out there from Detroit. (Then again, I don't know, maybe he hates your Detroitian guts and wishes both cities a plague of rabid beavers.) In any case, I found myself in this "Detroit of China" with others from the Yangzi River cruise when our bus arrived at a confusing bus station around eight in the morning.

Before arriving to Wuhan, everyone had a different plan of attack: Wayne would take a pre-booked train to Xi'an, Mandy and Sean would try to get to Shanghai, Nicole and Sabine would find a place to stay for the night, and I would try and get a train to Guilin. Executing the plan was the hard part because Wuhan wasn't exactly a foreign tourist-friendly place; no one spoke English and everything was written in Chinese with no Pinyin backup -- we couldn't even figure out the name of the bus station we were in so that we could locate it on a map.

Fortunately for us, Nicole and Sabine had been approached by the one woman in the entire area that knew some English when they decided that Wuhan wasn't nice enough to spend even a night and would take a bus to Guilin instead, en route to Nanning. The woman, whose Western name was Shaninan was a godsend; she got Wayne on a bus to Xi'an after he found out his pre-booked train ticket had been botched. She directed the Aussies to a bus that would take them to the train station with departures to Shanghai. I was still undecided on what to do -- take a train soft sleeper to Guilin or join the Swiss to go to Guilin via bus. In the end, I figured it was just easier (and cheaper) to take the bus, since I'd probably be confused all to hell if I tried to get a train ticket without Shaninan's help.

My time with my Yangzi ship cabinmates Nicole and Sabine was extended another day since we were all booked on the same bus to depart that evening. We had the whole day to explore the "Detroit of China," which wasn't exactly on the top of our lists when arriving in China, but Shaninan suggested it might not be all that bad; she directed us to the No. 10 bus that would take us to one of the few nice-looking cultural places in town, the Yellow Crane Tower.

YELLOW CRANE TOWER, "the greatest of the Yangzi's many riverside pavilions" (according to Rough Guide), was just that. Its center point was the actual Yellow Crane Tower building itself (picture above), built in the Qing dynasty-style to replace the destroyed original that burned down in 1884. Although surrounded by the smog of air pollution generated by industry, the pretty tower atop She Shan (Snake Hill) flanked a pretty scenic park below with little pavilions, gardens, shops and swan ponds -- all of which paid homage to the legend of a Taoist Immortal who would summon a giant yellow crane to fly over and bring good fortune to the villagers (and perhaps to keep away any rabid beavers wished upon them since I didn't see any).

Nicole, Sabine and I wandered the tower and its surrounding grounds, from the big bell repurposed for Chinese tourists to ring (for a fee) to the "Street in Ancient Style," also repurposed for the sake of tourism -- and why not if the whole pavilion was the only thing really tour-worthy in a city like Wuhan? The three of us made the best of the rainy day afterwards -- despite the begging children grabbing our shirts and not letting go until other guys would yell at them to leave us alone -- and grabbed lunch at a non-foreigner-friendly restaurant after being "saved" by another godsend: a lone Chinese guy at a nearby table who helped us order.

THE CITY OF WUHAN CONFUSED US AGAIN when we tried to find an internet cafe back near the bus station. We went on foot but I got us lost, not knowing that the bus station on my map wasn't the same one in my book. In the end we just took a cab and found out that we were way off, but we had the time to spare though, so it didn't really matter. We even had time to sit in a coffeehouse and chill out before the upcoming overnight bus journey ahead.

We stocked up on supplies for the night trip -- I bought the mini-river crabs-in-a-bag snack which were actually quite spicy -- and then boarded the bus, thinking it'd be another uncomfortable night like the one before. However, the bus was a "sleeper bus," a big double decker bus where every "seat" was actually a bed with a fluffy comforters and video monitors at every vantage point. Playing was a VCD of the music videos of Chinese dance/pop Sony recording artist Coco Lee, who sang catchy upbeat tracks that filled the bus with music.

"This is the party bus!" I said, excited that we wouldn't have to sleep in chairs that may or may not recline.

"Yeah!" Sabine said. The two of them were pretty excited as well and couldn't stop smiling either.

And so, with my packs of peanut butter and chocolate-filled Oreos and my little crab snacks (not a recommended combination), we rode southbound to Guilin in our little bus beds to the groovy tunes of Coco Lee (4.2 MB MP3 file). Our day in the "Detroit of China" had ended, thankfully before the sight of any of those rabid beavers.