From The Boat, To A Bus, To A Train, To a Bus, To a Van
Whew! We’ve just spent the last day and a bit traveling like crazy and now we are in Huang shan (Yellow Mountain)… but I’ll let you in on everything that happened in between.
When I left off last time, we were sailing through the last gorge, Xiling Gorge. This gorge also used to be known as the gateway to hell because of the dangerous, rough waters but now, due to the river rising, the waters are mostly calm here now. And Ed, yes, there is a dam… hence the flooding. This gorge is also the location of a huge landslide which burried a whole city or something like that and a sign stands as a reminder of that on a hillside. In contrast to the beautiful nature on the mountain sides, there are many coal pits used to store coal which is mined here… it surprised me how much coal they use here for electricity so I guess it’s a good thing they will be using the damn for at least some of their electricity.
So, as we pulled out of the last gorge, it was almost dinner time. We had our last spectacular dinner before heading up to see the Cabaret Show! Yeah, the people on this boat really do earn their keep… they can serve, they can clean, they can sing, they can dance, and they can even play instruments! They show itself was quite fun… all the staff were involved and even our river guides had their own little part. And near the end, a young Danish girl, who is a tour guide for a Danish group, did some hip hop dancing… she was pretty good too. And of course, we ended our night with a group dance of “YMCA”. All in all, it was pretty fun. I think John wanted to go back to check out the Danish girl afterwards or as he put it “Ummm, I’m just going to go back to see what song they are playing now”… hehe. I don’t blame him though, she’s 18 years old, fit, and wore some pretty tight clothes…hehe…for the first time on this trip, I saw John check himself out in the mirror and fix his hair a little! haha… looks like he was out to impress her. Props to him though, he did get her email address before we left.
Anyway, on the last day, we headed out early in the morning to see the actual 3 Gorges Dam project. The dam was HUGE… but it was still very foggy/smoggy in the morning so we couldn’t see very much of it. In all honesty though, it’s a big chunk of cement that will cost many people their family homes… but on the upside it is a MUCH more environmentally friendly way to produce electricity for the area.
After touring the 3 Gorges Dam, we headed back to the boat for our farewell buffet… we said goodbye to everyone we met, to our river guides, and to the staff. The days flew by very quickly but the trip must go on. We were transported into Yichang, where we boarded a bus to go to Wuhan. In Wuhan, we headed for the train station where we had to buy tickets for Hefei… now, normally, we can find the one person that speaks a little bit of english somewhere… but this time, nobody was around… so, we had to wing everything on our own. Unfortunately, there were no more sleeper spots on the train so John and I had to buy hard seats for the 8 hour train ride! God, I never want to do that again…. not only were the seats hard, there were many people on the train car… and of these many people, there are of course the loud hoarkers and the seed eaters/spitters. Of course, I happened to be sitting across from a lady who loved her sunflower seeds… so as she spit out the shells, they always found a way to come towards me… even when the window was open, when she turned her head to spit them out, they would just come flying back in at my face! Not to mention, since there was a little bit of spit on it, it would stick to my face….ewww. Yeah, so I had to put up with that for most of the ride.
But, we made it to Hefei in one piece… although there was a wicked thunderstorm when we arrived. In Hefei, we couldn’t even find one person that spoke even a speck of english… the taxi drivers pointed us in some random direction, the train station staff ran us in a circle before showing us the bus station, and the bus station people pointed us to another bus station… it was pretty frustrating. If you come to this area of China… know your Mandarin. Regardless, we were able to find the bus to Huangshan (but it dropped us off like an hour away from where our hostel is). We had to end up hiring a guy to drive us an hour to our hostel… I think we almost died like 5 times because the people here drive like maniacs. But we are NOW here at the hostel alive… it is very, very nice. John and I decided to splurge and get a nice room with it’s own bathroom, and a tv (About $18/night). I think we will sit and do nothing for a couple days before going out to check things out.
Tags: China
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