Adventures in Guangzhou!

Deciding to stay dry for as long as possible, we packed up our stuff and hopped in a cab to the xinglong cable car, one of about eight different cable cars encompassing the mountain. Driving to the drop off point, the mountain was quite misty. By the time we got out of the cab, the entire mountain was engulfed in fog. It was really cool! As such, the cable car ride was slightly eerie but a one of kind ride. We could have been taking the gondola right into the side of a cliff and we wouldn't have known--you couldn't see more than three feet outside the windows.

We were let off at a suspension bridge that also looked like it led into the abyss. The fog was so thick that the sides of the bridge disappeared into nothingness. So cool! There were two people ahead of us who just disappeared out of view, just like the players in "Field of Dreams" disappearing into the corn. It was great.

We hiked up to a point called "Dragon's Head Precipice" and were rewarded with a view of more fog. Oh well. It seemed like it must have been amazing on a clear day. We kept hiking along and eventually made the turn back towards the main path. Right as we were walking through a confluence of two different paths, we were startled to see a huge monkey on the path. Kelly and Nick both screamed and I started laughing. Suddenly a Chinese guy showed up and said we had to feed it in order to have it move out of way and wouldja know it--he was selling some food! Though it appears this monkey was trained by the guy, we looked up into the trees and saw about three more wild monkeys just swinging around which was pretty cool. Only in China--this was the 2nd time now that I encountered wild monkeys on a hike.

Wet but invigorated, we finished the hike and hopped a cab back to town. We ate a feast and then got a bus back to Nanchang. The bus ride itself was fine, except for two things: first, the fact that the bus was driving through thick fog. We were driving down a rather windy path and I know I couldn't see more than ten meters ahead. I prayed that the driver had done this before. Second, and possibly related to the first, is that there were four or five people out of twenty who were vomiting for most of the two hour ride. Some made it into plastic bags, but a choice few decided that the bus floor was their best option. I don't know what the deal was, but I was unimpressed.

Back in Nanchang we got Nick some coffee and found a restaurant for dinner. We finished just in time to get on the 7pm sleeper bus back to Guangzhou. Now, I've been on sleeper buses before and they are not fun. Basically, you lay down in a little area with a metal box, of sorts, where you put your feet. This "box" then becomes the pillow of the person in front of you. Though they should be a perfectly fine way to travel, they never are. They're built for people about 5'5" and always include old sheets and people smoking up a storm.

This ride was no exception. Actually, it was quite a bit worse than normal. About fifteen minutes outside of the city, we stopped at a gas station and picked up another ten passengers or so. Now, keep in mind that the bus was already full. This being the beginning of the national holiday, people will do anything for transportation and the bus/train companies know it. They had people laying down in aisles which meant that instead of three across with a bit of space between each person, we were five across, basically all spooning each other.

There were some friendly people around me that were nice to chat with for a while, but there was simply no escaping. There was one lawyer in particular that was LOVING the opportunity to chat in both English and Chinese and once he got going there was no stopping him. Comparatively, though, I had it much better than Kelly and Nick. Kelly had four university-aged guys all staring at her, blown away by her Chinese. Nick won the prize, though, for being right next to a father with a screaming baby who seemed to enjoy kicking Nick just as he was about to fall asleep.

Due to traffic, we were bumper to bumper for about three hours around midnight and could barely move. This, of course, meant that we were delayed in arriving back to GZ and a sleepless night slowly became a miserable morning. At some point around 6am I realized that there was a strange wet spot developing on my "bed" from some unknown source. Ummm, cool. We were supposed to get in around 6:30am but we didn't make it until 10am. We all decided that we had reached our breaking point and that we were never (by choice) get on one of those traveling torture machines ever again. It's funny when you get to the point that you'd rather be on a 40 hour train ride than a 15 hour sleeper bus experience.

To see some pics from the trip, check out http://www.flickr.com/photos/awolfe03/sets/72157600190983671/