Wow, what a day! We watched a movie on the laptop then lights out about 10pm. We actually had a great nights sleep until lights on at 7am. We took a long time deliberating on the best plan for today as we could either find a hostel in Kunming and do laundry and chill or jump straight onto a sleeper bus for 11hrs to Tiger Leaping Gorge. With our head telling us one thing and our hearts telling us another we went with our heads and went for the bus station.
Feeling rested we got off the train said our fairwells to Martin and Jacob and walked to the long distance bus station. We again found a lovely English speaking lady who booked us on a sleeper bus to the tiger leaping gorge. Well after much confusion we hope that’s where we are going!
We found a left luggage service in the bus station where we hoped it would be safe enough to leave our big bags while we went exploring around Kunming City. The main sight to see was the twin Pagodas both of which have recreational areas below them. We walked to the West Pagoda and while sitting beneath it basking in our first sight of sunshine we asked a couple of students to confirm that our bus ticket was in fact for the gorge. We finally found a couple of positive responses and were therefore relaxed enough to enjoy the rest of the day until the bus leaving at 7.30pm.
We walked to the East Pagoda and sat in the park beneath, which was like an oasis in amongst the busy, noisy and dirty city. While chilling in the gardens and watching the older generation all gathered playing mahjong, we attracted the attention of 5 children all wanting to practice their English with us which was a real joy.
As the sun started to set we returned to the bus station to wait for our departure. As we sat for several hours we became sick of the habits of the Chinese people. Between people finishing with their rubbish and throwing it on the floor next to you and dragging skank out of their throats and spitting it on the floor with the most awful sound affects we had had enough.
While I mention the dirty habits we witnessed someone have a wee in the rubbish bin next to us and I suppose I don’t blame them as the toilets are so gross. There is a single channel in the floor with several cubicles built over it. There are no cubicle doors so no privacy. Both number one and twos are in this channel so as you can imagine the smell is horrific and you are not allowed to put paper in there so that’s nicely all spilling over in the bin very close to your face as you crouch. Lovely.
Anyway, we eventually found our bus in amongst hundreds. We were approached by a man who said he was the bus manager and showed us some ID. He picked up our bags and attempted to humanly weigh them. We said they were 6kg each but they were in fact 22kg in total. He charged us £1 per kg of which we were highly suspicious as nobody else was paying up. We attempted to imply he was a fraud and he just started ranting and shouting that he was the bus manager and we had to pay so we did. Later we realised for sure that this was rubbish and we had been done. We were hugely peeved but decided to build a bridge and get over it.
The beds on the bus were approx 60cm wide and we had top bunks. As the bus took a corner we had to hold on so as not to topple put. The only safe position was horizontal which became very uncomfortable after a while. We laid in our beds dreaming about the moment we could get off.
Feeling rested we got off the train said our fairwells to Martin and Jacob and walked to the long distance bus station. We again found a lovely English speaking lady who booked us on a sleeper bus to the tiger leaping gorge. Well after much confusion we hope that’s where we are going!
We found a left luggage service in the bus station where we hoped it would be safe enough to leave our big bags while we went exploring around Kunming City. The main sight to see was the twin Pagodas both of which have recreational areas below them. We walked to the West Pagoda and while sitting beneath it basking in our first sight of sunshine we asked a couple of students to confirm that our bus ticket was in fact for the gorge. We finally found a couple of positive responses and were therefore relaxed enough to enjoy the rest of the day until the bus leaving at 7.30pm.
We walked to the East Pagoda and sat in the park beneath, which was like an oasis in amongst the busy, noisy and dirty city. While chilling in the gardens and watching the older generation all gathered playing mahjong, we attracted the attention of 5 children all wanting to practice their English with us which was a real joy.
As the sun started to set we returned to the bus station to wait for our departure. As we sat for several hours we became sick of the habits of the Chinese people. Between people finishing with their rubbish and throwing it on the floor next to you and dragging skank out of their throats and spitting it on the floor with the most awful sound affects we had had enough.
While I mention the dirty habits we witnessed someone have a wee in the rubbish bin next to us and I suppose I don’t blame them as the toilets are so gross. There is a single channel in the floor with several cubicles built over it. There are no cubicle doors so no privacy. Both number one and twos are in this channel so as you can imagine the smell is horrific and you are not allowed to put paper in there so that’s nicely all spilling over in the bin very close to your face as you crouch. Lovely.
Anyway, we eventually found our bus in amongst hundreds. We were approached by a man who said he was the bus manager and showed us some ID. He picked up our bags and attempted to humanly weigh them. We said they were 6kg each but they were in fact 22kg in total. He charged us £1 per kg of which we were highly suspicious as nobody else was paying up. We attempted to imply he was a fraud and he just started ranting and shouting that he was the bus manager and we had to pay so we did. Later we realised for sure that this was rubbish and we had been done. We were hugely peeved but decided to build a bridge and get over it.
The beds on the bus were approx 60cm wide and we had top bunks. As the bus took a corner we had to hold on so as not to topple put. The only safe position was horizontal which became very uncomfortable after a while. We laid in our beds dreaming about the moment we could get off.
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