Hanna's Travels

Ahhhh, this is nice... I got here yesterday after two rather exhausting trips, even though they were by far not the longest journeys I had on this vacation. After a funny last night in Yangshuo, I bade farewell to my travelmates and went off in the early morning to catch a bus back to Guilin. No problem in Yangshuo, since the bus drivers and their conductors look out for westerners with backpacks and keep asking anyone if they want to go to Guilin, Guilin, Guilin (no question, it's just the other way around in Guilin, where they shout at you from the passing bus and ask you (demand?) to come to Yangshuo, Yangshuo, Yangshuo). So once there, I had to get to the long distance bus station and catch my bus to Guangzhou, which, ironically, passed through Yangshuo once again. Friends, I have to say that I SAW this coming, but I couldn't a) book a ticket leaving from Yangshuo when I had to arrange this trip and b) couldn't trade the Guilin ticket for one leaving from Yangshuo. So that's what I was going with. I did find the bus station quite easily and spent a good while in the waiting area, reading away in the third book since I started my vacation (note to myself: I seem to be quite the fast reader when I have nothing else on my mind). When the departure time for my bus was nearing, I started to look around for the appropriate departure gate... and that was quite something. First, I was told that I should wait at Gate 2. There, the attendant shook her head, pointing me towards the other end of the gates and gesturing gate 20. Ok, I trodded there... not that I had a heavy backpack, a small onboard bag
and some food in my hands. You know, what comes now... Correct, gate 20 was not it either! It had to be gate 12, the women on duty told, ugh, signed me. From gate 12 I once again was sent to gate 2, then on to gate 8. Everyone just refused to let me wait there for the correct bus to pull up (my destination would have been displayed in the front window anyways, so if time were not scarce, I should have found it).
However, at one point I just tried my luck at the information corner, who sent me out to gate 11 AND accompanied me there to discuss with the attendants in presence. And lo and behold, THAT was the actual
departure gate of my bus. Easy one, huh? Anyways, I apparently hit the jackpot with the bus - it must've been the luxury kind of overland bus, since there were only 3 seats in a row, all of them very wide and the bus itself was quite a nice one. So the drive was also pretty ok and even the bathroom stops differed greatly from the ones on previous trips (no details here). However, I got to Guangzhou quite late and as luck would have it, the youth hostel was full, so I had to get a hotel room in the hotel next to the hostel. This was ok, but I didn't really care that much since I would have to leave very early anyways. And that trip? Was somewhat also not too easy in the beginning. I figured that a solid 3 hours would be enough time to get me to the local airport in time for the check-in and boarding for that domestic flight. Well, for starters, the metro was somehow not working, so I had to get a slower bus to get to the bus terminal for the airport express bus. Then, I waited for about 30 minutes before the express bus finally turned up - at that point, I was almost settling for a taxi to get me to the airport in time. To top things off, the bus itself took a solid hour to drive out to the airport - and it had only stopped once on the way to pick up a few more passengers at another stop in the city. Apparently, I had underestimated the time to get to the airport. ;-) Once there, I had only 15 minutes left to complete check-in. Oh my, and now I truly love self check-in - with the help of a Chinese assistant who was helping travelers operating the machines. So in the end, it all went well and I made it onto the plane and safely to Shanghai (with some delay, but still). There, Dora picked me up and I had a great stay at her place so far.
Today I went to see the EXPO (more later) and tomorrow it's time to leave again. Time seems to be passing faster and faster each day, so let's see when I will get to post the next update. ;-)
Till then, have a good one!
P.S.: Das naechste deutsche Update kommt bald, versprochen!